#because im definitely going to fail my math test next week because I understand NOTHING on the review

[phantom-does-a-thing]

No one talk to me or I'm gonna start biting and hissing like a feral animal

[reesebird]

New Post has been published on https://reesebird.com/2019/02/13/im-debating-burning-bridges-with-blood-family-any-advice/

I’m debating burning bridges with blood family. Any advice?

So, this is a little hard to talk about but I’ll try. I grew up in a fairly “average” household. Mom, dad, 1 sibling, 1-2 dogs, for a total of 4 humans and a pet or two at any one time. Before the ‘08 recession, my mom was a stay-at-home mom, and my dad worked. Following the recession, my mom went back to work, and my dad went from working 40 hours a week to 90+ hours a week. Not the healthiest, but not exactly abusive or anything like that. I’m starting with this, because I want to establish a baseline – my family wasn’t a “classically abusive family” like some of my friends and peers.

When I was in elementary school, there were 3 things that stood out. First, I was bullied incessantly by everyone (save literally one student I became friends with, but have since fallen out of touch). This began with verbal bullying, then in middle school escalated to being beaten up on four separate occasions, and finally, being punched in the face right in front of the teacher, who refused to do anything. Second, I wasn’t ever challenged academically. After kindergarten (which I completed at the local public school), I stopped being really taught. I attended a private religious school whose standards were so garbage that aside from handwriting, I learned next to nothing in my 8 years in attendance. Most of the teachers were lazy, and they cared only about turning in the homework. You could have every answer wrong on every piece of homework, and every answer wrong on every test, but by virtue of having turned something in, you were considered a “good student”. Meanwhile, anyone who had a “reputation for being smart” would be berated and belittled by the teachers for being ahead of the lesson plan. I was even handed a failing grade on a science project because the teacher hated me. And my grades slowly suffered. Not being challenged like I would’ve been at a public school, I slowly gave up. I went from a straight-A+ student to a student barely making C’s between 3rd & 8th grade. Not because I didn’t get the material (though I definitely didn’t get Spanish, and I thought religion made no logical, scientific sense), but because the homework just bored me to tears. My mom would yell at me every report card I didn’t get an A+, too. My first B, I was grounded for a month. When I started getting C’s, she told me I was worthless. And, when I failed Spanish my last quarter in 8th grade, she threatened to disown me. The third thing that stood out was that in spite of all of this, I tried to keep learning. I read constantly. Between 6th and 8th grade, I kept a spreadsheet of all the books I read, and what genre they were, and in total, read just shy of 1,000 books between my first day of 6th grade and my last day of 8th grade. I tried out Khan Academy, and did independent research. I even learned how to use the library’s database on my own so I could read engineering journals for free. And, all in all, I still loved academia.

In high school though, things began really breaking. I’d wanted to attend this fairly prestigious public school that had an actual engineering program (that included shop time!). But, my mom, not wanting me to risk getting involved with drugs and alcohol and gangs and underage sex and shit like that, very intentionally didn’t wake me on the day for testing to go to that school (we had 1 alarm clock in the house at the time, which was my parents’). So I missed the test. And couldn’t go. So, desperate for a chance to not fuck everything up, I tested at one of the 2 most rigorous private schools in the area. I got in, and was immediately made aware that I’d not learned anywhere near enough in grade school. I didn’t know enough to pass algebra 1 in math, I only passed English because my teacher gave me extended deadlines for everything, and in Chinese, despite doing extremely well at first, the original teacher left (family emergency) and I failed because the new teacher made no sense to me. And I struggled. And failed. And my mom would berate and belittle me for it. Finally, I was told I had failed out my freshman year. I hated myself. Everything I was taught to value – what I was taught was my only value – had just been demonstrated to me to be nonexistent. And therefore, I had no value.

Nowhere to go, I stayed at home that summer. I was brought to a crackpot psychiatrist by my mom, and diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. He recommended heavy, regulated, and monitored medication, but my mom wouldn’t hear any of it. She finally caved when told about the weakest medication that had the most marginal chance of helping me, but made me figure it out on my own, and with no supervision. She made me enroll in online classes so that I wouldn’t “waste my life being worthless”. I can’t learn online – it’s too detached, with nothing tactile, and no accountability. And it sucked. My depression got worse, and my medication did nothing, and finally, after a massive argument with my mom, I attempted suicide. My mom got home, and found me right before I would’ve died. She called 911, and I was taken to the hospital. My dad rushed home when he heard what had happened. He brought me my childhood stuffed animal, and fresh clothing, and made sure I was given food the moment I was cleared to. He even slept on the floor of the hospital room so he’d be with me. My mom? She didn’t spend time with me. She went, and told everyone she knew about what had happened, even though I explicitly told her that I wanted privacy on the matter. She continuously violated my trust, and refused to own up to it.

Fast forward to the summer I turned 16. I was slowly recovering from depression (and, as had been discovered by the actual psychiatrists I saw in the hospital, PTSD). I’d just gotten out of a relationship where I’d been gaslighted (though at the time, I didn’t know the word for it), and was questioning my gender identity and sexual orientation. I went to the library every day I could, and spoke with the librarians there all the time. They became more family to me than the family I’d been born with. They provided me resources, and helped me understand what I was going through. And when I finally came out, they were the first ones I came out to. When I was 17, I was walking the dogs with my dad one day, when he asked me when I was going to get my driver’s license (I’d not been in a brick-and-mortar school since my freshman year of high school, and I never really did research into driver’s ed). I told him I wanted to wait. He asked me until when. I then, in probably the dumbest move possible, said “until I can transition and change my gender marker.” His reaction was about what was fair, given that I’d never mentioned gender identity in the past to my parents. However, 6 months later, when in a family therapy session, I told my parents I was trans and wanted to medically transition, my dad responded with “let me look into insurance first, please.” My mom? She nearly made me homeless, and were it not for my dad putting his foot down and demanding she treat me with the dignity of a human being, I think that was what she wanted to do.

Over the course of the next year, I was constantly arguing with my mom, who thought my being trans was me trying to “get back at her” for the argument we’d had when I was 15 that led to my suicide attempt. Finally, exhausted, I gave up. I couldn’t take her anymore. I took the GED, got my high school equivalency certificate, and enrolled in community college. I began taking classes right away, hoping that my natural love for learning would be enough. Unfortunately it wasn’t, and I struggled. I took remedials though, and I eventually learned everything I needed. I recently got everything in line to train as a Honda-certified dealership mechanic. This past year, I dipped into my personal savings and began paying for medical transition through my local Planned Parenthood clinic, and got a psych evaluation done that led to a definitive diagnosis of being on the autism spectrum (a psych eval my mom refused to pay for when I was in the hospital)

I’m now 4 months into transition, and have a stable job & classes to take. I have a small network of close friends, and a couple of people who are basically unofficial surrogate family for me. I’m dating a wonderful woman who I’m absolutely in love with. And, I finally have enough money together to move out and burn bridges. Which brings us back to that question. My mom, I have learned, uses gaslighting tactics, is manipulative, and, had I known at a time that I could report it to DCFS, *clearly* qualifies as emotionally and psychologically abusive. My dad, while not a bad person, has this giant extended family (60+ total) that I hate (minus my grandpa & 1 cousin), but that he refuses to cut ties with. My younger brother isn’t terrible, but he’s a bit of an ass at times – standard sibling stuff. When I spent New Years with my girlfriend, I’d never felt safer, calmer, or more happy. Sure, part of that is that the relationship is still relatively young, but the safety? I don’t feel safe with anyone, even with the librarians I’m still in touch with, who I trust enough that I’d be confident in making them authorized medical decision makers in the event of my incapacitation (if not for state regulations making it impossible for that to happen). Is the potential damage worth it, in the end?

tl;dr – should I start fresh, even if I regret potentially hurting my dad?