Imagine growing with parents who do everything for you to give you a wonderful life, and to match, you do well at school and have big goals for the future.

How would you react if you suddenly realized it wasn’t possible for you to be perfect forever, if school got too hard and life got too stressful?

In this story, one college student vents about her childhood, her teen years and her dad. Life started out so easy for her, but it has since become pretty stressful, and she blames herself and her dad quite a bit.

Keep reading to see if you think she’s being too hard on herself and her dad, or if she’s actually not overreacting at all.

AIO For Telling My Dad I Avoid Him Because He Always Criticises Me

I (22F) have good parents. Let’s start off with that, just in case of misunderstandings.

They were never strict, always supported me, loving and caring and not conservative either.

I’m always greatful to have them as my parents.

But I also hate the fact that they’re this perfect. Because in the end I became someone who doesn’t deserve all that.

She was a good kid.

Growing up I was the perfect kid. Silent, content with what she has, smart, respondible and hardworking if you can call only doing your homework and passing every test with above %90 is harworking.

My teachers and basically everyone were expecting me to be a doctor in preschool. And I wanted that too, because in my eyes that was the best thing a person could be.

Maybe they didn’t mean it literally, maybe they just expected me to be something big and important. But as a kid I believed it was doctor or failure.

Growing up, I realized I could make my parents proud by being something else as well. There were many other good jobs I was worth for after all.

But she had a weight problem.

I was also a fat kid so I grew up with this ‘not like other girls’ mentality which was mainstream at some poiny of my childhood.

I grew out of it, of course. To me it didn’t matter if I weren’t pretty, I was smart and successful.

Two things are the problem here:

Number 1: I genuinely believed I wasn’t pretty. It’s a bad thing to feel especially for a child whose whole world view and view about herself is building in those years.

She didn’t care if she was pretty as long as she was perfect in other ways.

My cousins who were teenagers back then were trying to encourage me to lose weight by telling me no one would love me if I were fat.

It didn’t work the way they wanted and I said “Forget it, then.” I decided if anyone wouldn’t want me for my looks in the future, I wasn’t going to care for them either. I decided to wait for that one person who would love me for who I am inside, even if I’m ugly.

And number 2: I had tied all my value as a human being to being the perfect child/person who is successful at everything they do, even at being a good person.

Everything changed in high school.

That view on life was shattered in high school when I didn’t pass every test without trying too hard. And even when I tried hard I failed some.

It didn’t make sense to me.

After that, I slowly started to become a person my parents loved, but didn’t like.

It wasn’t only about school, I had a bad sleep schedule, I had social anxiety which made me miss opportunities (I always did but I guess the pride I took on being a successful student made me care less) I was glued to my phone, didn’t read books like I used to and I wasn’t grateful for the life I had according to them.

There were other issues.

This had been an issue since I was a little kid. Some nights I would be scared or sad, I couldn’t figure out what that feeling was back then, and I’d say “Mom, I’m sad.” This usually happened at night and at first mom would ask what’s wrong, try to soothe me etc.

When it kept happening mom snapped and told me I was never happy, that they did everything for me and I couldn’t be greatful for it and go on about it.

Because of that I think I learned to keep my negative feelings from them.

Also I was confused. What did they mean “Never happy”? I was happy. I was happy during the day as well, it was at night that feeling happened.

Being happy was complicated.

At 17 I got diagnosed with OCD and I kinda figured those late night fears/waves of sadness could be because of that.

But to my parents still, I have never been happy, I was always a sad little witch (they don’t call me that, they just say I’m being sad and pathetic) when I was not.

This made me fake my happiness to them. I would try to seem a ‘normal amount’ of excited when something made me happy because otherwise they wouldn’t believe I was happy or greatful.

Things that made me happy started to stress me out because I had to make sure my parents knew I was happy and the stress of it shadowed the real happiness I felt at those moments which made it harder to smile and cheer. Like, can’t I be happy without acting like Charlotthe from The Princess and The Frog?

She didn’t feel like it was okay to be anything except happy.

This whole experience thought me that I didn’t have the right to be upset about things. No negative emotions because my life is perfect. I have great parents who do everything I want.

But I had OCD all along, I had anxiety and overall, surprise surprise, I was human and I got sad sometimes.

I don’t even remember what made me upset at that time and I wouldn’t even remember being upset if it weren’t for my parents invalidating my negative feelings and making me feel selfish for having them. In the and I would cry because of their behaviour instead of whatever had made me sad in the first place.

She found it hard to actually do what she wanted to do.

I told them I chose the math and science oriented class instead of the literature and math oriented class because I felt like my life would be over if I didn’t. I said I knew they told me to choose whatever I wanted but that toxic idea of success already was in my mind.

I tried talking to them about it, said “You wanted to help, you didn’t mean to make me feel this way but you did anyway.”

but they felt attacked and offended, saying I was blaming them for my mistakes.

For that, anytime I have to make a big decision they say “Oh, you should do whatever you want. Then don’t say it was our fault.”

Her parents don’t understand.

I expressed my feelings about how I felt my entire life, what my brain developed as the idea of success and how it effected my choices, and they made it a bout themselves.

They took a story where nobody was the bad guy and put me in that role.

I can’t get over it and I don’t know if I will unless they finally, FINALLY understand what I meant. I just don’t have the energy to explain them that anymore.

We’re back to the weight issue.

Also I am fat. I had always been fat except for when I was born and the first 2 years that followed I guess.

They noticed when I was like 9 and they took me to the doctors, who gave me a very unrealistic list of foods to eat and not to eat.

Of course I didn’t do it so they tried again and again and again, always going to the hospital to check my blood levels and insulin.

I wasn’t scared of the needle like a normal child I was scared of the results, the doctors and my parents who’d tell me to lose weight.

Her parents took the fun out of fun activities.

Then they made every fun activity, or just any activity a child could do that required their physical effort about losing weight.

Playing on the streets with other kids? Sure do hope we played a lotta catch because then it worked.

Then suddenly so many things I liked to do or could like when I started were half torture.

Playing outside? About my weight. Riding a bicycle? Exercise to lose weight. Walking anywhere for anything? Good, your butt melted a little. Swimming? Don’t stop in the water to chat or anything burn those calories.

Her parents thoughts are stuck in her brain even when they’re not around.

It’s still the same but now that I’m an adult I don’t play outside or ride a bike. So it’s the other things.

Can’t relax at the beach because why am I not swimming to lose weight right now?

That’s not what I think, that’s what I think that my parents think every time they look at me.

College has been good for her.

My dad’s comments started to be frequent in the past few years. He calls me an imbecile, a loser who’s life is snacks and the internet. He thinks I live like a stereotypical Discord mod or something, no offense to actual Discord mods or users I’m just talking about the stereotype.

Little does he know that after I went to university my life got better. I’m more outgoing, confident, like to go out, meet friends, do crafting and joining the community events.

And it also became worse in other ways but this time there wasn’t them to criticise every mistake I make because of my bed sleep schedule or my grades going down. I was on my own and it thought me to be responsible for myself and not to avoid mom and dad’s disapproval.

Not living in the same house together has been a bliss for me, but for them, it meant I could only throw my life away more freely.

She doesn’t like being around her dad.

Whenever dad’s home I feel scared he’s going to make a comment about whatever is wrong with me. What’s he going to chose to start with today, my obesity, my “lack of” (according to him) social life, my ‘carelessness’ about school and my future? Which one?

And I wonder what I am going to say, or do to trigger his urge to give me this degrading talk he gave a thousand times before.

I understand he’s worried about me and he does this for my well being, but I’m walking on eggshells around the man.

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So I finally told him that I was staying away from him because I was afraid every day he’d complain about what’s wrong with me.

This definitely doesn’t sound like quality time.

I told him he never talked to me about anything else and then blamed me for being on my laptop doing my own thing when all they do is watch a movie on Netflix like that’s the quaility time that would fix us.

And by every day I mean every day they watch something, binge the series they like and I’m the bad one for not participating in their action movie madness.

Oh, so you’re communicating with family when you’re talking to us while Masterchef is on and shush me when I have something to say because it’s apparently an importanr moment but when I do it by pausing Minecraft or telling them I’m in the middle of something it is I who never talks.

Honestly I don’t know how much of this I can take.

This sounds frustrating.

Mom’s on his side until he does something to tick her off. Then we both agree we walk on eggshells.

Only when she has something going on with him she validates my feeling about his behaviour.

I’m so mad at them.

They act like I’m this incompetent, silly, childish, snowflake gooner loser who has no purpose in life, especially dad. Mom is only silent about it.

She definitely doesn’t feel perfect anymore.

I know I have to do better but whenever I start a diet or do anything productive they praise me and cheer me up but when I get tired of it and maybe, maybe take a little break they say I give up so easily.

For years I didn’t even realize I could start over, or maybe I didn’t even stopped when I was doing when they blamed me for ‘giving up’ so fast.

I don’t want them to be proud of me because it feels fake.

Dad never says it anyway. He even went as far as calling my affection for him fake, that he didn’t think I loved him.

It’s not that she doesn’t love them.

Apparently me saying I love you to both of them before going to my room to hang out by myself is me knowing I’m doing wrong and trying to feel less guilty and fooling them into thinking I care about them.

I know I’m in the wrong in the most things he says and I don’t think he understands some things are harder for me than for him or others.

And he doesn’t understand we don’t have any other conversations then him criticising me because he doesn’t talk to me about other things and I’m too scared to open my mouth at this point.

So am I overreacting? Is he right to make me feel this way for my own sake or this something more because it makes me feel this way.

Starting out her life feeling and being perfect really messed her up later on when she discovered she couldn’t be perfect forever. It’s too bad her dad makes her feel bad about herself. I don’t think that’s his intention.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman’s family who is trying to stop her from moving away for her husband’s job.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Here’s a vote for going no contact.

Another person recommends a book.

Here’s a vote for therapy.

Another young adult wishes her well.

It sounds like her parents’ expectations have really made her life more difficult for her, and I’m sure her OCD doesn’t help. It’s good that she feels like she’s finding her place and enjoying life in college. That bodes well for her future.

Therapy definitely sounds like a good idea. She has a lot to unpack. It would be good if her parents could go to therapy too so maybe they (or at least her dad) could understand how she’s internalizing his criticism.

Nobody should feel this stressed out.