Family Issues Support Group

I don't know what to do. I just can't shake the feeling that things are always my fault somehow. My family is falling apart, everyone keeps arguing and being angry, and it's focused on me somehow. I want to put things right, but I don't know where the problems and rooting from.

I am the first generation, first-born of my family. My only sibling is nine years younger, so my parents had high expectations and hopes for me. It's because of me that they made the move to the States, in hopes I'd have a great future here.

I'm going into my last semester of college and have a GPA of 2.3.

WHAT HAPPENED?
The most accurate way I can describe it it that I lost it. I wasn't sleeping well. I had periods of week-long insomnia only to crash and wake up three days later. I forgot to eat and forgot to feel hungry. I ate one meal a day on average. I thought too much and worried about the smallest things. Leaving my dorm room made me nauseous and want to cry and hide. I later had periods of finding is physically difficult to breathe while distressed. On one occasion, it felt like I was having a heart attack. My right arm went numb, my chest hurt, and I could get enough air. The hospital tests said I was perfectly healthy. It was all just me.

I did well in high school, so this wasn't normal for me. I even was in a few honors classes. My SAT score was 1970 and I got perfect in writing. My high school GPA was 3.4, and would have been a 3.6 but I showed signs of depressive behavior in junior year. I would have random episodes of hysterical crying that was completely unrelated to whatever was then happening. At those moments, I felt utterly miserable and worthless. I was not suicidal or made attempts for it, but felt undeserving to have the life I did.

SITUATION WITH PARENTS
My mother talks at me a lot.
She says what did I do that I ruined myself this badly; that she's read forums and they all say that I will never get a job; what has she done to be cursed with a cursed daughter; that she wants to love me but is disgusted by me; that when things are over, I should leave and she never wants to see me again; that I don't have a future; do I think I have a future?; that I should have a daughter just as bad as me to understand her pain.

This talk lasts for around 2 hours, and happens almost daily since 2004 whenever I am home. I have been home every holiday break and summer.

The thing with my mother is that she speaks with her anger. She doesn't filter her words, and their meanings don't last much longer than the mood during which she says them. I've known this always. I've learned to take her words and filter them to a lighter tone. Otherwise, we get along okay. Not great, but okay. We can share jokes together and go shopping together. There was no shortage of hugs as I grew up. There are many baby pictures of me dressed in lovely clothes, despite being camera shy. There were many compliments of me being a beautiful baby. I was lovingly raised.

My father loves me very much as well, and quietly agrees with my mother. He is the only working member of the family and always looks tired and stressed when speaking with me. He avoids speaking with me.

They both tell me that they cannot mention me to their friends because there's nothing they can say when their friends mention their happier, more successful children. They've asked me what was wrong, and I replied truthfully the best I could and they still do not understand.

I attend a private liberal arts college, and so I feel horrible about the money I've put to waste with my bad grades. I'd always made promises to get better and didn't, until I had to took a semester off in the middle of junior year because all my professors were concerned. It helped, but I still feel anxious often.

ME TODAY, RIGHT NOW
I am less anxious than I was before, but even I can tell that I'm still messed up.

I am constantly scared that all my friends, even the ones I've had for over five years, will hate me. That they don't know the real me, and the real me is a liar and failure. I have trouble accepting compliments as genuine. I find it easier to respond and defend myself from insults, or to stand up for someone else.

I am scared about my future. I have no illusions about the state of my grades and don't believe I'll be able to get a good job despite intern experience showing me that I didn't have the same problems in school that I did while in a company. I have a wish to attend to grad school and am confident in taking the GRE, but again. My grades.
Posted on 07/29/12, 10:20 am