My dad, brother, and I have had rocky relationships with each other.My dad is a little toxic. He’s dismissive, aggressive, is prone to intense mood swings, uses power/money/fear to gain control over a situation, sticks his nose in people’s businesses, has a really fragile ego, has a superiority complex, and avoids confrontation about his behavior.In a lot of way, my brother and I inherited his traits. I realized I was a lot like my dad early in life and become very self-aware and intentional about fixing those aspects about myself. I’m still working on it, of course, but I’d like to think that I’m in a better place than my dad because I was able to learn about myself by watching him.I can’t really speak for my brother. We’re not super close. But what I do know is that he can make me feel miserable. When I was a kid, I was an overachiever while my brother struggled in school. He had behavioral issues that caused him to get in trouble with authority figures, constantly. I think he might’ve compared himself to me a lot, and so developed a kind of inferiority complex.I noticed that he constantly tries to one-up me, in a way, even when it’s something as simple as cooking. Or, when I’m going through a fight with my parents, he’ll be extra nice to them and call me out on my bad behavior although he’ll do the exact same thing later.It’s not just his inferiority complex that confuses and bothers me. It’s also the fact that he is very dismissive, even more so than my dad. Whenever I try to start an honest conversation with him, he’ll either mock me or speak over me while saying “You know what’s funny, I actually don’t care” or “Can you help me look for the fucks I give about this?”. He’s practically done that my entire life, something which I’ve never done to him. I think he thinks it’s funny? Or that maybe I think it’s funny, too? But it actually really infuriates me and makes me feel small.Because of COVID, my relationships with my dad and brother have been worse than ever, and I’m really struggling to want them in my life at this point. I’m not sure how to deal with such close-proximity toxicity without losing my relationships with these people forever.It’s not like we don’t have good times. I can make my dad laugh with no effort, and we traveled to Korea together and had a great time. My brother drove all the way to my college when I was having a bad time and also texted me reassuring things. So I want to preserve my relationship with them, I just think it’s not possible when I live with them 24/7.Anyway, that’s the update on my familial situation. RIP. I would love to move out but I don’t have a job and apartment prices in LA are... ridiculous. I’m really just looking forward to the day when I can get out of here for good. via /r/offmychest https://ift.tt/2Gl1HHx
No comments:
Post a Comment