Five Times My Family Taught Me Lessons I Didn't Want To Learn (Expressive Writing)

 

#1 My family taught me to not expect help 

I remember the anxiety setting in that night, blooming in my chest like an ominous flower. I remember running into my room trying to hide the tears slipping down my cheeks, but my mother didn’t hide her anger even for a second. She slammed her fists on the door over and over again. But I only cramped myself into a corner, trying to ease the pressure in my chest, the shaking of my arms, or even the inability to breathe. Anything to calm down. Eventually, after a series of screams at me to stop crying, she gave up trying to understand why I couldn’t bring myself to form words. The next day though, I told her why, only to receive a flat stare and doubt but not help.  

#2 They taught me that men are entitled to their ignorance 

My mom did repeatedly tell me to hide a lot of things about myself simply because it may cause discomfort to the men in the house to hear about them. So, I was used to hiding things like my bra strap or my sanitary pads. On a day I had terrible cramps from my periods, some of our family friends decided to that they missed us oh so much, so they would visit us. They were sitting in the living room when I walked past them clutching my waist. They asked me what was wrong, but before I could even begin a sentence, my mother rushed in from the kitchen to tell them it was just acidity so I could spend the rest of the day listening to all the little ideas they had to help my acidity while my insides screamed in pain of a period. 

#3 They taught me to hate my body 

I had a lot of people tell me to hate my body before, so-called friends, teachers, even family friends. But the most significant part of my insecurities comes from my family. One day I finally gathered the courage to wear something other than my usual baggy clothes, I wore instead an outfit that accented my curves. When I walked out of my room, my mother laughed and asked me if I was about to go out looking like that. When I said yes, she snapped her eyes to the bulge of my stomach and simply told me to go change into something else because I looked too fat to be confident.  

#4 They taught me that I’ll always be inferior to men 

Being the first child on both my paternal and maternal sides came with a lot of expectations. The biggest of them was for me to be a boy. So, over the years I got used to summers of awkward smiles and pointed disdain. When it really hit me was the summer my cousin stole the vintage camera I finally managed to get from my grandfather and when his parents caught us fighting over it, they said I should let him have it because he was a guy. They said that he would eventually know how to use it better and that I could have grandma’s jewelry instead. I remember looking over to where the rest of my family sat. Everyone including my parents simply nodded and laughed. 

#5 They taught me to listen and accept

My uncle who I now hate dearly, made a streak of homophobic, Islamophobic, and misogynistic statements all one after the other. When I finally decided to confront him on strike three about women deserving lesser pay, it broke out into an argument. Halfway into it, my father walked and said with an annoyed look on his face that I should learn to listen and accept things like this, simply because he was older and he knew better.