Unsound Voices

6

[Flashback]

My father always said that I'm their only way out of misery. As a kid, I never understood that.

I have vague memories of my earliest childhood but I know my mother went abroad when I was around 2 yrs old. So she really isn't present as I grow up.

But that's okay, my father said. Mother went there so that she can provide for us, for me. He emphasized that she's sacrificing a lot for me. And constantly inscribed in my mind that I should be giving it back, because everything is for me.

For me.

Me.

I don't recall how it started as I was still very young, but I'm always forced to excel at everything I do.

As a young kid, I don't understand why I should be the greatest, all I know is that Mother will be happy and her burdens will be lessened if I did great.

So without question, I just try my best to study hard. Afterall, I have no objections, I love studying.

But that passion slowly started to fall apart when the pressure sets in.

When the supposed place where I enhance my learning process became a battlefield.

When what was thought to be a way to make Mother satisfied became a gripping expectation on my neck.

When everything I did should be pleasing and the room for mistakes got locked up, sealed, and blocked.

I remember when I was in the first grade, we had an english quiz of 10 items about the subject-verb agreement. I only got 6 points. My father got so angry he lectured me during lunch break and called me along the lines of stupid, dumb, idiot, and whatever synonyms you can think of. He forced me to study my mistakes there and then while still spitting vile words a young kid shouldn't hear.

I was crying, I remember that quite vividly. I was crouching against the wall of my classroom, holding the wet pages of my notebook on my lap and my pencil in my shivering hand. Staring at the big red circle where my score 6/10 is written.

I'm not crying because I'm disappointed with my score. I know I did my best, the best of a 6-yr-old trying to live her childhood.

I'm crying because I'm scared. I'm scared to make mistakes again. I'm scared to be called stupid. I'm scared to be shout at in the hallways of the school. I'm scared to be seen by my classmates and make fun of, or worse, taken pity of.

I'm scared that I will live my whole life like this. I'm scared that I'll grow up scared. I'm scared that I have disappointed my father, and my mother, that is far away and suffering because of me.

I'm fucking scared of being scared.

That child is the beginning of fright, anxiety, and doubts. Her memory still resides hauntingly in my heart. And the fear I developed that day became a constant feeling crawling up into my skin.

That created the coward that I am today.

That kid is a reminder that failing is not an option, I learned that progressively.

They say don't be afraid to fail, but how can you do that when you're treated like a failure?

It's so easy to say that failure is a step to success. Like the idea of being a failure is just as easy to comprehend. Like it's easy to admit. Like it's so easy to accept and move forward.

Because moving forward takes guts, courage. And that's something failure takes away from you, courage.

They don't discuss how to overcome the misery of being treated like a fucking fiasco.