14. Goodbye

I hadn’t realized how long I had been denying myself of my true feelings, because I felt the need to protect my caregivers from the outside world scrutinizing the way they were raising me. I resorted to magical thinking to deal with the sheer amount of cognitive dissonance running rampant in my psyche. I had confused longing for love, since despite my caregivers’ pervasive presence in my life, I don’t know how long I have longed for them to truly see me beyond being a mere extension for their lost dreams. The brain can be such a creative, compassionate organ, filling in gaps for bottomless psychological wounds.

I know my caregivers had many regrets regarding how their lives turned out, and that was why they pushed me so hard, attempting to give me the world they wished they had growing up. But even the best of intentions can send someone on a pathway to hell.

That’s why I’ve decided to come here to share my life and my vulnerabilities. For so long, I’ve been living in fear that I would be exposed as a fraud. My double life created fissures in my identity, and I feel that the way forward for me is to authentically reveal what I’ve been hiding in order to finally integrate myself. I disown myself. I am extremely grateful towards the people who have held me in my vulnerability when I’ve finally started opening my past up to them. Thank you, Emerson, especially, for supporting me when I asked if it was okay to reveal my story, our story.

And to you, dear reader, thank you for bearing witness to my life and holding my pain with me. I hope that my life can be a case study for how helicopter parenting, though well-intentioned, should be considered extremely detrimental to a child’s emotional and cognitive well-being, and thus should require more immediate intervention when witnessed. Even though I certainly hold many privileges in my life that others may dream to have, I am learning to acknowledge that my wounds are also legitimate. Suffering doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. I look forward to a future where more resources for victims of helicopter parenting are accessible so that they can sooner be on their way to becoming autonomous, resilient individuals. And I also pray that caregivers who still hold regret in their hearts find a way to hold inner peace for themselves, so that it doesn’t have to affect the people around them.

When I first embarked on this journey of writing my life into a little document on my screen, I wishfully thought that writing all of my traumas would be the magic pill that erased every self-deprecating thought, every self-sabotaging behavior that I would ever commit again. But now at the finish line, I see how that is simply not true. The finish line was just another arbitrary goal post my mind had constructed to give myself a deadline for recollecting my past. In the present, I still have days where I want to disappear from the world for a little bit, and I am sure that there will be many days in the future I will dread having to live through. No matter where I go, there I’ll always be. There is no escaping the impacts of the past, but there are ways of living with it. Writing this piece has certainly helped me gain a self-awareness I previously lacked, and as long as I am still here, I will continue embarking on this journey. As long as I am still breathing, I will still be confronted with the joys and sufferings of the human condition. A wise professor once told me that once they stopped chasing a unicorn, that was when they knew they were truly content. I hope that one day, I will get there too.

I don’t know if these ramblings will ever reach your eyes Drew. Though I am dreadfully afraid of how you may react to my candid thoughts, deep down, I really want to be seen by you. I hope that we get the chance to do that while we’re both still here. If the day comes, maybe after a lot of arguing and crying, we can come together closer than before, and simply love each other for the remainder of our time on this earth. You’ll always be my caregiver, and I’ll always be your child. No matter how much time passes, that is a fact that will never be undone as time marches on. I love you.

– Your Little Girl

13. Are You Satisfied?

End