Getting Better All The Time

Parents

I hate the way they make me feel.

Always belittling, never listening to my side, twisting my words around so it fits their purpose.

Why can't they ever just listen?

They put me down at every turn and say that it's for me. If it was for me then they'd be telling me how I can do better instead of just pointing out that everything I'm doing is wrong.

I'm trying my best and it's never enough.

She tells me I'm slipping, that I used to be the perfect child. Good grades, clean room, sweet personality, never talked back, never complained, never stood up for myself.

I'm still me. I'm still getting passing grades, the teachers are just sterner. My room is still clean, I just have more things. I would still be your sweet little girl if you didn't make me otherwise. I talk back because I finally know otherwise. I complain in order to point out how unfair they're being. I stand up for myself because someone needs to, because they sure as hell won't.

They say I'm not even trying, but they don't see the breakdowns behind the letters, they don't see me clawing at my own skin in frustration, they don't see me bending over backwards to try and meet their all-too-high expectations.

I am trying. I'm trying so hard that I can never relax. My mind is filled with their words of disappointment, and they don't even seem to care.

You say you love me, then why are you doing this to me?

Now, I go to therapy. Why? I know exactly why: their pressure has resulted in anxiety and depression.

I'm doing my best, and anything other than my best is blasphemy.

I worry more about their reactions to my grades than my actual grades.

She had straight A's in school and I don't think she understands how hard that is for me to live up too. School is harder, more expectations are shoved in our faces and they never listen when we protest.

They tell me stories of fights they got into, and times they skipped school; things they did that would probably get me in trouble for life and they brush it off like nothing.
Hypocrites.

Why are they all like this?