The best advice a person could give.

[brhm]

I was born in the Middle East. I'm six years old, I wake up happy and go to school like every kid did. I go back home and the enforcement of a powerful father starts. He's rich. He thinks he's responsible, but his delusions have taken control over every single aspect of his life. Me and my brother were best friends. He was born 1 year and 2 days after myself. We really thought we were going to own this world one day, we never thought that our parents would shatter every dream they helped us build. He never reasoned with us, never asked for our opinion, not even my mother's. He ruled a kingdom, not a house. This made me pull back from the world. The only thing that never said no to me was the computer, so I chose that like many children did. Me and my friends played soccer on the street of our house, it was only a matter of time before I realized that I had to pick the goal keeper to stay close to the house door and run inside when I see his car approaching from the end of the street. Today I don't even know the rules of soccer. He always beat me, but not my brother. Every time he gets us in trouble, I would get the beating back home, he would tell me that I'm the older brother and I am the one responsible. I didn't really care, I just wanted to be left alone after to go play my video games. Even that I didn't get, he picked on me when I was out of the room. He would tell my mother "Let me introduce you to your son, that you haven't seen in hours.". He would break my computer when he feels like it, then buys me a new one after a month or two. a couple of years pass by, war happens in Iraq, we leave to Jordan. One of the worst things about having to leave your home is leaving all your friends behind. Well after another couple of years half of them join me, my father wouldn't let us be in one school. He has always hated our friends and was very disrespectful to them even when we were only children, they would fear coming to our house. He's always been such a disappointment. I always tried to reason with him. I tried and tried and tried to be friends with him, it would work but not for too long. He either beats me, or disrespect me. I decided that my father was nothing but a wallet to me. I was tired and I gave up after playing all my cards for years. At this stage I was planning on how I was going to graduate fast and study and leave eventually, it was again nothing but delusions. He was planning a Canada Immigration thing. He made us apply to colleges, well for me it was, for my brother it was every single university I had ever wished to enter. After a couple of years of studying Mech Eng, I had to let it all go and leave to Canada. You see, my father is not smart, he just has a ton of money and time to think. He knew that every person we love would be left behind, including my mother's friends, he treats her like honeysuckle too. Well we go to Canada and I love it, I was 250 pounds 5'6'. Coming from a third world country, the first thing you notice is the women. I started losing weight thinking that I would get all of the women after getting ripped, find a girlfriend, graduate and live life finally. A year goes by, it my 23th day of being smoke free. My parents are in Jordan for summer, I stay here when they go because I like my so called "space". They call me to tell me that my brother was in coma, for 23 days. He was driving drunk. I flew there and he died while my plane was landing. Well I buried him and flew back. After a year things got better. I started school again. I got introduced to the most famous treat in the west, drugs. I stated doing weed, and that was my perfect escape for a year or so, until three weeks ago. It started to kick in. I started to notice how I can't make any friends, how I wait for the weekend to come, then spend it all alone smoking weed in the garage and thinking about how to solve the zero friends dilemma. I got so hyper and the recklessness is through the roof today. I'm typing all this because today my mother kept on telling me that she loves me before leaving, I couldn't answer back, I wanted to, but I couldn't. She would say it again and I cry harder. I'm in tears right now because of the mistreat that happens all around us everyday. They destroyed me and today they call me names like ADHD or Bipolar and ask me to go to the psychiatrist. I want something but I just don't know what it is. I'd hold the book and nothing is processed. I keep playing it back but I don't want it now, something else inside of me wants my attention. I dove deep in my memories to try to find out why I'm such a social failure. It is because a child should be given some recognition in order for them to process confidence and use it to gain social skills. My expectations were never met and all I wanted was love and recognition. Today I want that so bad and I've been craving it my whole life. I have come to realize that I was always in doubt because of the fear I had from my father. I have come to realize that my brother was always more successful than I am because he got the recognition and all the validation he wanted from my parents, they always shamed me for my bad marks. I feel so behind, no experience on life at all. I will really feel better if all parents recognize this gap that they are forgetting in their children's lives, please take your time with your kid and respect their emotions and stop turning them down. I will feel so much better if governments put a bit more emphasis on social studies and found a way to approach a child with it so that they gain experience, science alone is not enough. I will feel so much better if every gamer gets this message and stops, you people have no idea how overwhelming reality is.

 

[FreedomFromLiberty]

Your dad sounds like a real jerk, and your mom probably could have done better in defending you so that your dad didn't so ruthlessly crush your self-esteem. That's very sad about your brother's death, but hopefully you can move on from it. The way your father has treated you sounds very unfair and I would suggest that you continue on the path you're on of trying to take care of yourself, so that you can be independent of your parents' negative influence on your life.

I think you'll have to learn to accept the fact that your parents will never be able to emotionally support you in the way that you need to be. That's something that I have had to learn myself as well.

Everybody has unique emotional and social needs, and one thing that I have found to be very helpful in understanding my own needs has been figuring out my MBTI personality type and the types of people in my life as well. You really need to feel okay being yourself because you are the only person that you will ever be able to be, ya know? A large part of the reason that I'm lonely is because of my in-born personality type. You'll find that people who share your personality type also share many similar experiences and problems in life.

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/