teen asks: I’m quite heavily tired. I’m clueless, I even wanted to attempt suicide and if I die within these days, you don’t have any idea how much happy and peaceful I would feel. But I don’t know now what can I do, I tried everything, but nothing works anymore. It’s a long story: In short, I was in love with a sociopath for two years. I was depressed, my results study life degraded, but recently I got over that depression and I don’t miss him much anymore. I had never had the urge to understand my mother, I was rough, selfish, underestimating her all the time, but after my love life I understood her, I understood her feelings, emotions, her worries, her sufferings. Her love made me feel I need nothing as long as she is there with me and I wanted to love her back. I tried to help and chat with her, but in the middle of that my father died last November from kidney disease. I wanted to be with her all the time, I wanted to talk with her, be there for her, but I wasn’t stable myself for my father’s death. I didn’t give admission exams of universities but I did one exam 3 days after his death, and the result came that I failed. But after his death, my mother’s siblings started to treat her like nobody and hurt her in many ways; one of them even almost cursed her. So in that way mom was totally shattered into pieces. But it has been 3 years, and still she continuously despises me, and thinks I’m trying to get something out of her by acting loving in front of her. If I share something with her, she uses that as a time bomb, and hurts me by my sad past. She accused me of stealing money; she thinks I’m a devil. At first I used to curse her, then secondly I used slangs and thirdly I spoke back. But then my friends asked me to remain silent, and when I did she started to misunderstand me more! And as for remaining silent she beat me bad, she stopped giving me food. So I started to talk with her logically, I requested her to be nice with me but she doesn’t listen or believe. I always pray to God and say that from tomorrow I’ll be nice, but when the morning comes she always says something so harsh that I just go nuts. If I talk with her nicely she says I’m tricking her, if I give her proof that she is wrong she says I’m a liar. I ended up throwing a Jesus statue out of the window crying, and yelling to him why does he always ruin my plan to be a good person. I tore up my favorite things so that I can attempt suicide and there will be nothing left of my personal taste. I can’t fix it anyway. Look I know I’m bad, I’m not good, but why is this happening? Why can’t I change anything? The more I try the more she destroys me. She loves me I know, so then when I stop being nice or stop trying she pulls me back to her and talks with me and asks me to try, so then when I try she still scolds me like a mad dog without understanding anything. The main problem is that I try, but it never works. I’m tired of always crying everywhere. There are more things that went wrong but this will take a week if I start! Listen I know I have done wrong, but I have tried talking, working, being nice, everything I could but nothing works. Can you please please help me? I’m a little Internet-obsessed, every teen is now, but she always thinks I talk with men, she thinks I search for boyfriends; it hurts so much I don’t even use my fb account, never upload or take selfies of me, but she still calls me prostitute or something, My phone got stolen twice and she said she wouldn’t give me a new one, so I bought a 2nd-hand phone out of my savings from a guy, and she is mad at me for that. She says I want to convince a guy to have sex. I’m so speechless that I stopped talking with her; it has been 3 days. My sister came from her in-laws to stay at home for a few hours but I didn’t go to see of her, I was so scared of mom. Can you tell me what should I do?
Hi teen –
I do have a few things to suggest, but I think the most important thing for me to say is I Am SO Sorry! I am sorry you’ve had to live with all this, I’m sorry about you losing your father, I’m sorry about your bad romantic relationship, and I’m especially sorry about your mother.
If there is one thing I’d love, it would be to see you guys go into family therapy. This is such a difficult situation, and there is no way that you aren’t being wounded constantly by this treatment from your mom – who I’m sure feels victimized as well (and of course, just by the nature of losing her husband and then being treated that way by her siblings, she is!).
So if that’s possible, that’d be my favorite idea. But if that can’t happen, then I really wonder if it’s not time for you to try to find another place to live. It’s always hard for teens and parents to live together – you’re always going to get on each other’s nerves – but your case is far worse than most. And if there’s a way for you to move out (maybe you could live with one of your sisters?), I think it would give both you and your mother a much-needed break from each other. I’m not saying to cut off contact with her – in fact I think that would be a terrible idea right now – but if you could just see each other a few times a week instead of being on top of each other all the time, that would help a lot.
But I need to add something else here. Everyone gets upset, everyone gets frustrated, everyone goes through grief and heartbreak. I’m sorry you’ve had to suffer those things – you and your mother – but what scares me the most is your talk about suicide.
teen, your name tells me you’re still young. You don’t realize how great a life waits in front of you. You have never experienced feeling in control of yourself and what you do. You don’t know what it’s like to spend a day without someone berating you, to spend your time with friends or a romance instead (a romance who’s not a sociopath!).
I understand that you feel trapped, and that taking your life would be a good way out of that trap. But the opposite’s true. You’re NOT trapped, you can walk out of that home any time you like, you can talk to your mother in ways you never have before, you can even write a letter to a doggy on the other side of the world. The possibilities are endless!
In fact, do you know what I think would happen if you did take your life? The first thing you’d see would be your dad. And he’d be so sad, and so angry. Because he’d say “I did everything in my power to give you the best life I could, and you just threw it away?”
I like to believe you’ll meet with your dad again. But how about that happening decades from now, when you’ve lived the life he wanted you to have, and he can greet you with open proud loving arms.
Please feel free to write me anytime. Don’t worry if your stories are too long – that’s okay! But please, trust this puppy on this one – flowers will bloom tomorrow, birds will sing, and there will be so many reasons to live! With all its problems, this world is still amazing. Grab it!
Lots of love,
Shirelle