Old Sepia Pages

6. family

17th july, wednesday, 2019

dear diary,

I think after living with such irritable parents who get agitated and scream at me even when the tone of my voice isn't right, I'm going to choose a husband who is extremely patient, forgiving and soft-spoken. I just CAN'T tolerate people screaming. It makes my blood boil.  I need a calm person in my life who can tolerate my mood swings.

Everyone in this house is snappy and ready to explode at any moment and these days I am picking up on this behavior. We are all so irritated with each other that it keeps piling up and every other thing feels like the last straw. We don't even clear it out. We laugh and that's that, it's forgotten, but not sorted.

The thing is, my way of dealing with anger is to withdraw and sit quietly or cry or write or plan something or let it out by using the energy to complete a task and get satisfaction, because I know if I don't do all these things, I will scream or use abusive language or hit someone.

I know, if we ever fight, what my future boyfriend might say. "I don't care, you can shout at me and hit me but I will not leave you." These are the kind of things we see in teen romance, right? But I know these things are what cause the end of a relationship. 

Besides, it's not about the other person getting or not getting hurt. I feel deeply hurt and guilty when I treat someone like that. So to prevent that, I need some "me time" when I am angry not so that the other person doesn't get hurt, but so that I don't get hurt. Or maybe both.

This violent streak is something I have tried to subdue, and quite successfully did for some time, until Kush went away and there wasn't any calm influence in my life and my parents' behavior started influencing mine again.

They don't even allow me to sit and let it wear itself out. They poke and prod at me and demand that I say sorry even when the only fault of mine is that I shouted because THEY were being unreasonable, especially my mother who is dumb sometimes and attacks my tone when she doesn't have a logical answer. Mom talks a lot, doesn't know how to filter out what's important and tends to repeat herself, which drives me nuts.

My parents still haven't let go of my life. I still need permission and money for music classes. Today I missed the ice-skating plan that my friends made because my parents said 'no' for no fucking reason. I should have just sneaked out of the house.

You know how I once wrote that I was letting my temper make decisions for me and that I'm not going to cut off contact with father and that I was being silly etc? Well, I've changed my mind. My hatred for him runs deeper than that. And no matter how good his intentions for me are, 2 months of support cannot undo a lifetime of damage.

I don't care about how much they love me or have helped me and saved me when I was failing in class 12 and fed me and given me things. I am not grateful and I hate everyone in this whole world and I only need them because I'm financially dependent on them. They are an obstacle stopping me from living the kind of life I want. In romance, when people say they don't want a person, they NEED them, it's assumed that needing someone is a greater degree of expressing love than wanting someone. I disagree.

Why is it that I'm a very forgiving person but when it comes to him, all my morals and spirituality go out the window? Even the tiniest things that he does make me angry. I'm sick of him. Maybe I'm not able to resolve this because it's not about forgiving. It's just that so many things have accumulated over the years that every little thing sets me off.

I can feel myself losing control of my moods again. I worked so hard to contain them, to be mature about them, but now I just want to scream at everyone. I need my time with anger and grief and frustration. I need it to consume me and then die down slowly. I don't want people to lift my mood when I'm not ready for it. What is this stupid concept of faking a smile and facing the world? I don't fucking want to. I don't like being jerked out of my emotions.