i-wish-i-could-tell-you

[i-wish-i-could-tell-you]

You’re both ticking time bombs and I wonder if I’m the only one who can hear the countdown.

[i-wish-i-could-tell-you]

I’m so tired of treading on eggshells around your anger.

You are a ticking time bomb and gods help anyone who’s too close when the countdown hits zero.

[i-wish-i-could-tell-you]

I should have killed myself when I was 15, maybe then you would be happier...

[i-wish-i-could-tell-you]

I want to be able to talk to people without feeling bile form in the back of my throat and my stomach churning because the stress it’s causing me makes me almost throw up

I can’t maintain friendships because I never talk to anyone because I’m so scared of being boring or losing them or saying the wrong thing and then the friends end up leaving anyway because !! No one wants that !!

I can’t even call the fucking accommodations office something I NEED to do otherwise I don’t know what will happen to all my things at uni because everytime I go to my head feels faint and I think I’m about to pass out

It’s like starving myself again only this time I don’t even get the benefit of weight loss I just lose friends instead

(what makes it worse is that I have the exact same principle of You don’t deserve it towards me having friendships as I did towards me having food it’s all so familiar only this time there are absolutely no upsides and I’m just going to be alone forever so yay fun)

[i-wish-i-could-tell-you]

Why do you shout like that?

Why is it that you can’t see that what you are doing is wrong?

Is it because we’ve endlessly absolved your guilt with forgiveness?

Or are you just incapable of seeing your own culpability?

Why are we protecting you over ourselves?

Is this what you taught us?

Or did we teach ourselves to keep you happy?

I’m not sure I can forgive you this time.

But I know I will.

Because that’s all I know.

[i-wish-i-could-tell-you]

To my family:

Please stop groaning when I correct you on my pronouns. It’s exhausting and it makes me feel like I’m burdening you by asking you to respect me. It’s okay if you make mistakes, and I don’t mind correcting you if you forget, but it hurts when you don’t try, and it hurts when you get annoyed about it.

[i-wish-i-could-tell-you]

To all the teachers who knocked down my confidence:

I cried this morning. I cried because I don’t know how to ask for help with something I was really struggling with. Because you taught me that in asking for help, I was seeking attention and that I was wrong for it.

To the teacher who told my mum in front of me that I was terrible at English and I didn’t even try and I’d never get into any schools with my comprehension skills or lack thereof: I now lack the confidence to write a book that gives me so much joy and that I have so many ideas for.

To the teacher whom I trusted to tell about the difficulties I had with homework who then turned around to my parents at Parents’ Evening and said that I wasn’t even trying to get my homework done: I have no confidence in nice teachers anymore.

To the teacher whom I asked to slow down so I could keep up with the excessive amounts of note-taking you insisted we had to do only for you to call me attention-seeking: I have extreme anxiety speaking up in class and now struggle even if all I’m trying to do is offer a teacher a board pen because theirs has run out.

To the teacher who, behind my back, told my class I was faking my panic attacks and caused them to doubt me: I don’t know how to tell anyone about what’s wrong with me anymore because I worry they’ll think I’m faking it to make them sympathise with me.

But most importantly:

To the teachers who were endlessly kind to me and tried to support me with everything: Thank You, and I’m sorry I have difficulty trusting you and believing that you cared about me and wanted to help me.

[i-wish-i-could-tell-you]

I shouldn’t need to say this, but your children should not be afraid of you.

If your 11-year-old and 13-year-old are having a conversation in the kitchen when you get home drunk about how they shouldn’t initiate a conversation with you because they are afraid of what will happen if they do, but they respond to you because they’re afraid of what would happen if they don’t, you are a bad parent.

If, at 13, your youngest starts having panic attacks because you screamed at them over nothing, you are a bad parent.

If, instead of picking up your youngest from a school trip at 11:00pm, you go to the pub for “just one drink” leaving your spouse to pick the 14-year-old up on the way to visit their mum in the hospital, you are a bad parent.

If your elder child lives in fear of you getting involved in arguments that are none of your business because you scream at them without caring about how it will affect them, you are a bad parent.

If your youngest has to threaten to call social services on you to get you to leave their older sibling alone, you are a bad parent.

If your children flinch when you use That Tone, you are a bad parent.

If your children are so afraid of ending up with someone like you that they fear relationships, you are a bad parent.

If your children have bad trust issues because of the way you act around other people which is so different from how you act around them, you are a bad parent.

If your children don’t know how to act around you because you go from calm and joking to harsh and scary in the blink of an eye and they feel like they have to tiptoe around you, you are a bad parent.

You may think you are a good parent and you may not see the impact your actions have on your children, but fear is not a parenting tactic. And if your children are afraid of you, then you’re doing something wrong. So change.