A wishful endeavor — Moving back with parents during a pandemic — Mistakes and regrets.

Just like many young adults in India, I moved in with my parents as the lockdown began. I came in like a hot mess, running from a failed live-in relationship. Mentally exhausted and almost ready to reinstate my broken relationship with my parents as they showered me with love that I wasn't used to. I don't know if it was my crying on the phone, or my very public breakup, or my unemployment, or their limited knowledge of my mental illness, but they welcomed me with open arms. After 3 months of moving in the random bursts of crying came to halt as I began moving on from my failed, and I got a well-paying new job. Things were looking better for me, I was elated to know that after 8 years of living apart, I had never experienced this awesome parent and adult-child relationship. There is a bit of maturity, mutual respect, and value of time/efforts. I was much more considerate of all the things my parents have done for me. There was also a sign of approval from them, that I might not have completely ruined my life. And the facade came off as soon as it was apparent that I will be staying for a while.

My parents are not bad people but horrible parents. I often tell myself that one should not have such strong words for something one has never experienced firsthand. I don't know the hardships of being a parent. I have learned the hard way that there are many many perspectives of a story and many faces of a person. Everyone responds to their environment and parents are human beings too. They were put in a position that changed them and demanded from them to behave in a certain way, and they did their best. However after almost a year, I can say, I understand but I also need to preserve my sanity.

I have read somewhere that it is important for people to play the role of a simple boring parent, which creates a place of comfort and a sanctuary of unconditional love for their children. By boring, I don't mean ‘not exciting and fun’ but rather boring in terms of predictable behavior. It is important that parents keep to themselves how they feel about their spouse and other family members, their professional, personal, and political beliefs, quirks and pet peeves, and mental health issues. A child is born defenseless and dependent on the parent's unconditional love for their life, so they would literally do anything to be in their parent's good books. A basic behavior we often call ‘love’ for parents or attachment. When parents share these experiences unfiltered they create strong unjustified and biased emotions for things that are multidimensional. Feelings about people, places, and things are formed with experiences and changes with new experiences but when the feeling is born out of how it affected your parents, they are too strong and are difficult to change without strong counter experience.

On Reddit I saw a chain on ex-racists tell stories of how they changed, and all the stories started with the same experience — my family (parents, grandparents) were racist and so I was racist, and then when I experienced life outside the home, I changed. This shows how profoundly parents' values impact a child, such that they would hate an entire race of people they have never interacted with, simply because their parents do.

And it makes sense, just like genetically we inherit antibodies, we also socially inherit these values, formed out of experiences that once saved a life, values that are time tested, and prejudices that were formed from a long witnessed behavior. Just like you’d not skip out on giving your child the life-saving antibodies, you’d also not skip on these social antibodies. However, we need to understand that diseases are also transferred with genes. And that's why we don’t reproduce with siblings because it increases the chances of diseases in recessive genes becoming dominant. This is specifically why we should allow intercaste and inter-faith marriages because it allows for a bigger value pool. People born and brought up in the same social setting with similar behavior have the same experiences and then they pass on the same thing to their children. It would have made sense a decade ago, but in present times we need more global social antibodies from our parents. If not global then at least contradicting so that the child can learn that people with varied experiences can have varied values and beliefs. and hence creating a space to see perspectives.

What my parents and many others have done is exactly the opposite of it. They have given me 3 basic understandings — a) My father is always right because he is has seen more of this world than me, questioning him is equal to insulting him, b) My father was a bad man from a repulsively orthodox family that tortured my poor mother, and c) I am insignificant and undesirable.

My father being the alpha male was always right — this has directly translated into me finding it so much more difficult to accept mistakes. I see mistakes, not as learnings but failures. He will till today fight his way to prove he knows best. They had to drill this idea in me because they were aware I would not respect them if I knew what my father really was — an excessively overconfident but the failure of a man.

My mom told me all the nasty things her inlaws did to her when I was young and how she endured it all and hence being a woman for her is being able to endure pain and insult. Till today she has no voice of her but the situation has changed and now she uses other people to advance her agenda. This causes many fights in my family because she has no spine and she will ask people to do what she wants by saying this other person in the family asked for this. This has led to an atmosphere of constant hate and disagreement in my family. Everyone hates everyone because everyone loves my mother and takes her words to be true and of hidden benevolence. When confronted she plays the victim saying she did that to avoid that. But it always backfires. Now I resent her, she gave me trust issues and uncontainable hate for my father and the rest of his side of family members. There are bridges that I have burned because of her words, words that left my mouth, so mean I could never swallow them back.

I grew up thinking I had a pretty decent idea of who was just stupid and did a mistake (My mother's side) and who is evil and wanted me to suffer (my father's side family) and I felt ready to take on the world. But coming back home as a woman in the late ’20s with barely any close friends and 3 failed relationships, I feel so lost. I can never tell whether my mom is genuinely a ‘not so smart person, who did one too many mistakes because she is not educated and she wasn't given enough exposure to the world and had a tough life. Or she is just pure evil manipulating everyone and enjoying her newfound status in the family. This reminds me every day of people I have lost because of my poor judgment of character. What is good and what is bad was cemented in me such that the moment I saw someone with the same set of characteristics as my dad or his family I rejected them. They were probably nice people but id never know. One such example of how shallow this was — my mom and her side of the family has two common characters — fair skin and tall height. On the other hand, on my father's side, I had two barren aunts. And my entire childhood I learned that — Dark and short people are evil. Women who cannot birth are evil. And I feel like I had a bias towards short dark people. It's a miracle my best childhood friend is a short darl woman, and truth be told I have never seen a more pure divine woman in my life. If I could say there is one person who can do no wrong it would be her. It's no shocker my mom hates her. I inherited her fair skin and tall body, and every time I did something good she quickly reminded me, I was after all acting on these good characteristics from her side of the family. You can imagine her words when I did something bad.

But just because my mom went out of her way to make sure I hate my father's side, doesn't mean they were nice. They are more, if not equally as toxic than my mother. I sometimes wonder if my dad is the way he is today because my mom filled his children with this much hate for him. I can see why he hates my mom so much. I would be mad too. I understand how he must be feeling. But then his arrogance stops him from finding a solution, confronting and mending relationships, changing, and apologizing. Rather all he does is radiate hate. I don't know whether to pity him or help him.

I am not blaming my loneliness and failed relationship on my parents. I am blaming them for my low self-esteem and distrust. I am blaming them for not giving me a family I can rely on in difficult times. For asking me to change but never changing for me. For reminding me that the loneliness that made me come back to them, followed me into their home. For not giving me unconditional love and a safe space. I blame them for not being able to protect me from my cousins' sexual preventions, in their own house, which not only affected my sex life as an adult and my sexual preference but also my idea of a safe place. A safe place for me is no more a house with locked doors, rather having no idea of shame and no value of my body. No one can take what doesn't exist.

I wish my mom had protested or showed some sign of disgust, when I told her what they did, I would have been 10% ok. You cannot completely heal from things like this, you can only salvage what is left of your self-worth.

I blame my mother for making me hate myself — I am born in the image of my parents and share many common physical and behavioral traits. My mom filled me with so much hate for my father and then every time I did something wrong she didn't hesitate to remind me that the tainted blood of my father flows in my veins. I often find myself unconsciously biting my lower lip while applying force like my dad or moving my fingers in a certain way when I am lost in thoughts. I cannot tell you the disgust I feel when I realize how much I am like my father and how much I hate him and myself. I do all the things I hate him for and then I hate myself.

They say we seek partners like our parents in their image. Not because that's what is best for us but because that's what feels comfortable. If your parents are toxic you’d find yourself getting attracted to the same toxic behavior because we learn what is love and how to love as a child from them. My parents are not the cause of my failed relationship but the cause of what I find attractive. For what seems familiar and comfortable. There are men in my life that would make amazing partners — but I do not find them attractive. How do I spend my life with someone like that? And those I find attractive have shown all the signs of my toxic parents. Uncontrolled lying, manipulating, narcissistic self-worth, and a mold of a perfect woman that I could never fit in.

My mother never hugged me, I don't remember ever being kissed on the forehead by her. It's not to say she never showed love. But it was only when I was sick or when she needed something. Looking back, none of my exes ever introduced me as their lover in public. And I accepted it because I told myself ‘I don't need public affiliation to know he loves me’, truth is, deep down, I knew, if I were in their position I would do the same. why would I showcase being attracted to such a repulsive-looking woman? And honestly, I blame my mother because this self-deprecating thought didn't affect me. I accepted it. Because as a child I also accepted her twisted idea of love for me. Her idea of love was blatant truth that I was not lovable and she only loves me because it's her duty. Don’t get me wrong. I know she was probably bound by her own reality. And I will never be able to understand that. She wanted to leave my father because he and his family were abusive. she didn't want a third child and even threatened to abord. There was no one to support her and she was cornered by her fate. She even took abortion pills but I was destined to be born. I can understand the hate for a child born out of fallen marriage. But did I derve to bear the burden of truth at such a young age? I still remember when my aunt would come to pick up my mom for a picnic and my mom would tell me I can't come along. As a child that picnic was heaven and I would cry. She made many excuses but I clearly remember one time she told me my aunt didn't like having me around. Looking at it now, my mother just wanted some ‘me-time’. And may be my aunt really did not want me around. As an adult, I have a great disdain for children and I do not like their company and probably my aunt was just like me. They just wanted to spend some child-free time. Now I understand it and I feel both my aunt and my mom deserved it. I wish she kept my aunt's feelings to herself and found something else to tell me. Because what I witnessed was, someone didn't like me and my mom was unphased by that, probably because they were right to not like me, I was after all, so undesirable.