Expansion
To follow up on what I wrote last night. I was kind of perfect as a kid. Top of my class... Top of the grade ahead of me's class. In kindergarten I was doing 1st grade work. In first grade I was doing 3rd grade work. Etc etc. star of the choir(hard to believe huh?) I wasn't the best athlete but I was definitely good. But that shit is normal for over achieving Asian kids.
Your average kid doesn't grow up alone, especially in a family of 8. I was kind of allowed to grow up by myself. My siblings were all in college, my bro was is 6 yr older. I was home alone... A lot. After kindergarten I was never left with a babysitter. I knew how to get into my house through the back without a key on days my brother would go out with friends after school. My mom and dad didn't get home from work until around 5:30. And if they had something to do, far later than that. Most families don't leave a 5 yr old home alone. I took care of twelfth though. If I got hungry I made a sandwich or microwaved food. There was soda or juice in the fridge if I got thirsty. I had my nes or cartoons on tv.
Here's how much I was trusted. Our microwave was wall mounted. About 6 feet off the ground. I would get a microwaveable dinner poke holes with a knife climb on to the counter, microwave it, climb back down and eat while watching tv. I liked to watch the food cook so I would watch through the microwave window(look I was 5 I didn't know about radiation and shit back then) until one day my bro yelled at me when he saw me.
I showered on my own, I went to bed on my own regard. I lived without being told what to do, not because I was free to, but because I was capable of doing it without making mistakes.
Eventually though when I did start making mistakes I had it ingrained I couldn't go to other people for help. I was supposed to be independent and know how to so everything I was afraid of going to other people because I made a mistake. In example, one day i was playing on a tree near a fence. My friend through a styrofoam plane he bought from the ice cream man and it hit me in the eye, knocked me off balance and I fell into the fence. The top of the fence owned the fuck out of my back. There was a huge gash and I was scared as fuck, not to mention any diseases I could have gotten from a dirty fence slashing up my back. My friend was going to tell his mom and I stopped him(ps I was 6). I told him its ok and I barely got cut.
I went home, jumped into the shower washed it all up, which I guess hurt but my pain tolerance has always been insane. I took out like 30 band aids and did my best to patch it all up. Threw away the bloody shirt and pretended it never happened.
2 days later my dad noticed all the band aids missing coincidentally. 3 days later my mom saw a band aid on my back that barely showed. Short of it, I got bitched at. Not for hiding it, but for playing and hurting myself. There was no "are you okay"? There was no worry that I got hurt, just bitching that I hurt myself.
The only time I got punished was when it had to do with religious stuff. I hated church and the viet church shit we had to do. It was my only really rebellious shit when I was young.
I don't even know where I'm going with this anymore. But there was a lack of compassion and love when I was a kid. It's part of the reason I thought the way I did about myself. "I'm not doing a good job, I'm doing what's expected of me. I'm not good or special, anything less than this is failure." But even if I did all of this, I never got recognition from the people around me. Peers feared me more than they liked me. My parents and family weren't really there and when they were it wasn't praise I got it was expectation.
So like most kids, I eventually started lashing out for attention. Stopped caring about expectations. It was pointless. I didn't get shit from being the best except people fearing me. At least when I stopped caring people paid attention to me.
That wavered too. Just as quickly as my people noticed my decline, they stopped caring and treated me like I wasn't worth the effort.
That was the idea of worthlessness began. If I am perfect no one cares and it's expected. If I fall short I'm worthless and not worth the effort. Things escalated from there when I tried to prove myself wrong, but the next chain events completely broke me down, of which I won't talk about. Those are my memories still that I'm not willing to talk about.
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