Thoughts on parents

Most parents haven’t lived 40 years, not even 20.

They’re perspective monsters, and not because they’re unable to understand different perspectives, but because they don’t want to, and that’s the problem with millions, if not billions, of parents these days. They don’t try to understand. They don’t stop. They don’t ask. They never wonder what it feels like to be someone who’s not them. They never even try.

For a lot of teenagers now, home isn’t home. It’s noise. It’s doors slamming. It’s breath held too long. It’s waiting for the mood in the room to shift. It’s counting how many times you’ve swallowed your own words before they turn into something worse. It’s pretending your stomach doesn’t twist every time you hear footsteps down the hall. It’s a place you’re supposed to feel safe in, but it feels more like a place you survive in.

I don’t think they see it. I don’t think they care to. They say they love you and then crush you with the same mouth. They say they’re doing their best and maybe they are, but it still feels like shit. It still bruises. Love shouldn’t make you scared to breathe too loud.

You walk around the house like a ghost with skin. Eat fast. Leave fast. Eye contact feels like a trap. Everything you do is either not enough or too much. Speak softer. Speak louder. Smile more. Why are you smiling. Why are you like this. Why aren’t you like them.

And when you finally say something, when something breaks in you and slips out, they don’t listen. They twist it. Make it about them. You’re the bad guy again. You’re always the bad guy. Even when you’re hurting. Even when all you did was feel something too much.

They act like they know you. They don’t. They know what they want from you. They know the idea they built in their heads. That’s all. You could scream and they’d still hear silence. You could cry and they’d call it drama. You could sit there and say nothing and somehow that’s wrong too. They’ve already made up their mind about who you are, and every move you make is just proof to them, no matter what it is.

And it’s not even about wanting perfect parents. It’s about wanting to be seen. Just seen. Not as a disappointment. Not as an extension of them. Just seen.

It’s weird. You live with people who brought you into this world and somehow you still have to explain why you’re hurting. And even then they won’t get it. They’ll just say you’re too sensitive. Too modern. Too weak. Too different.

So you start shrinking. Stop showing. Start hiding things, not because you’re trying to be rebellious or mysterious or whatever, but because it’s safer. Because every version of yourself that you gave them, they turned into a weapon. So you stop handing them the pieces.

And now you’re just trying to make it out without turning into them. Without becoming cold. Without losing the parts of you they keep stomping on.

And as soon as even a tiny shred of you starts feeling for them, they go and ruin everything. They say something that stings, even when you’re already bleeding.

Some parents might just be normal humans,but without any sense of sensitivity or empathy. And that alone can break many. And by break, I mean it crushes teenagers. It completely destroys kids inside out,and the worst part is these kids often have no one to go,no one to talk to,no one to vent to,no one to cry to.It Breaks them through and through silently.

That’s all.