You are my shadow, strangling me, and I have taken on my own struggle for you.

For all the reasons I’ve been told, “I did this because I love you, you’re my child,” this is the reason I hate the most.

Throughout my life, I’ve never been praised or told I’m doing well. Instead, I’ve been labeled as disrespectful, ungrateful child, and made to feel like a burden. They told me that they shouldn’t have given birth to me, is it my fault? I didn’t choose to be born, yet I am accountable for not living up their expectations. They had the choice to have me, but I had no choice to be their child.

Their struggles and traumas feel like they’ve been passed on to me, and it’s incredibly difficult to bear. I’m the trash of their traumas in life, I’m their savior but who’s gonna save me?

I was their child by choice, and I have no choice but to live with that idea.

I’ve been independent all my life, I don’t ask for help because I’m used to doing it all alone. Even if I’m struggling, I won’t ask for help or anything. I will struggle alone.

But after all these years, they’ve become the parents that I would never get and I’ve become the parents I needed. I’ve learned to support and care for myself when they couldn’t. While they’ve grown to understand my siblings better, I’ve been left to understand myself. Sometimes I’m jealous that my siblings are treated the way I wished I had been, but I’m glad that they won’t live questioning their worth like I did.

Am I supposed to be thankful for having them as my parents?

My parents used to be the ones holding me back, drowning me. Now, they say some things that they don’t say to me before like “I’m proud of you”.

They are still pressuring me, but they are always saying that all I need to do is do my best but I know that they are in fact disappointed with my best. I know that they are still expecting, and that’s why even if they don’t pressure me by saying it directly, I’ll end up pressuring myself. I carry their past expectations and disappointment, and it’s exhausting to keep striving under that weight.

Was anything I ever did was good enough for them? Is it really that hard to love me? I deserve your love too, i’m just a kid…