I am the daughter of south asian immigrants in my early thirties and work full time as a physician. Despite the money, health, and the freedom I have, I still think about suicide because of all the pain and betrayal I have lived through.
I was born into an abusive home, my father was narcissistic and emotionally abusive. I still loved him and feared him and respected him all at once. He emotionally and verbally abused my mother and me and my two brothers throughout my childhood (and occasionally would hit me too). Some of my earliest childhood memories as a 3 or 4 year old are of my father yelling at me in anger while I was frozen in fear. My mother is an emotionally immature (imagine the emotional capacity of a teenage girl) woman who parentified her kids in order to get her needs met, often heaping guilt and shame on us for all the suffering she endured as a woman who wanted to have a career but was stuck being a stay-at-home mom. I reacted to the situation by overachieving. I worked hard at everything I did, was the team captain of a varsity sport and became a high school valedictorian. I thought if I achieved enough maybe I would not hate myself and think I am worthy of happiness. I slipped into a long and severe depression during my college years after a breakup, would walk home every day crying for a whole year. I felt like I didn't fit into the world, no matter how hard I tried and pretended to be normal I felt worthless and shameful and afraid that everyone is going to find out. Still I kept working hard in school, did lots of research and extracurriculars, and got a scholarship to attend a great medical school. Even though I was so scared, depressed, and broken at this time, I continued to be my parents' golden child. They bragged about me to friends and relatives all over the world. At this time was still emotionally dependent on my parents, cared deeply about their opinion of my because I knew no other way, and I was financially dependent on them for living expenses. Most of all, I trusted them. In my culture, there's a lot of emphasis on parents knowing best, and if a parent thinks something is the best decision that means it is.
When I got to med school, I realized I hated the medical field. I didn't like being around sick, sad people all the time and I hated how physicians are basically cogs in a machine to make profits in a morally corrupt healthcare industry. I started dating an older med student while I was in medical school and because of my cultural background/religion, I wasn't allowed to date him unless I quickly married him. I changed my whole career trajectory for him basically, including which specialty I did and where I did residency. We moved to another city to do our residency. After two years in residency, I found out that that my husband had been hiring prostitutes and cheating on me. I felt so betrayed, not just by him but by my mom and dad whose opinion I had trusted so deeply in making the decision to get married to this guy.
I started the divorce process feeling so hopeless, like my whole life I had tried so hard to do the right thing and had not gotten any happiness or satisfaction. I felt unworthy, unlovable, and full of shame. I was so angry particularly at my father; by then I had learned enough to know my issues with self esteem started with the early childhood abuse that came from him. I unleashed years of anger, cursed at him, and went no contact with him; this was a monumental event in my family because nobody ever talked back to my dad. Soon afterward I stopped speaking to my older brother as well because he didn't even bother to call and check in on how I was doing after my divorce. Almost a year went by, I was numb, broken, depressed, and all I could focus on was finishing my last year of residency. In the mean time, my father separated from my mother, saying that part of the reason he was leaving her because he was so upset that she had continued to speak to me after I had cut him off. He filed for divorce all the while telling my mother that he needed some space and that maybe they would get back together in the future.
I moved back to my home city after residency and got my first real job. My younger brother, who I was close with, cut me out of his life, because he said I was so full of anger that I had caused our family to fall apart. My mother would often have angry outbursts and scream at me stating that I ruined her life. I finally had enough of being the scapegoat and for almost a year I didn't speak to my mother. I had no family in my life, I felt alone in the world except for my boyfriend at the time. Since my divorce 3 years ago, I have had two 8 month relationships which have ended because I felt like my partner is inevitably going to blindside me and betray me. I broke up with my last boyfriend a week ago and feel again like I have nobody.
I have done three years now of weekly therapy, I am in perfect health, good at my job, have some strong female friendships, have ample time and money to travel, change jobs, live wherever I want. But inside I am broken, unable to trust anyone, and feel hopeless that I will be able to live a normal happy life. I have developed a strong distrust and deep hatred of men and I realized I'm not going to have a successful relationship. I have no hope that my family will ever be healthy or loving to me. I feel like I was born to be abused and discarded by evil men.
I have never written about my personal life like this for strangers on the internet and I am not sure what I am hoping to get. Mainly I just want to not feel so alone. I can't talk keeping talking about my suicidal thoughts with my friends because its not fair to keep burdening them with this. Last night I couldn't sleep so I drove out at 2 am to a dark park by myself with my gun and cartridges. I wasn't really planning on putting a bullet in my head, it was more just an exercise to feel like I can make a big change in my life. I have had a loaded gun in my mouth in the past and have been unable to pull the trigger because the truth is I feel scared to make a big change. I have also seen many failed suicide attempts in my line of work, included a guy who blew off half is face with a self-inflicted gunshot wound; the thought of failing badly is also holding me back.
I was born into an abusive home, my father was narcissistic and emotionally abusive. I still loved him and feared him and respected him all at once. He emotionally and verbally abused my mother and me and my two brothers throughout my childhood (and occasionally would hit me too). Some of my earliest childhood memories as a 3 or 4 year old are of my father yelling at me in anger while I was frozen in fear. My mother is an emotionally immature (imagine the emotional capacity of a teenage girl) woman who parentified her kids in order to get her needs met, often heaping guilt and shame on us for all the suffering she endured as a woman who wanted to have a career but was stuck being a stay-at-home mom. I reacted to the situation by overachieving. I worked hard at everything I did, was the team captain of a varsity sport and became a high school valedictorian. I thought if I achieved enough maybe I would not hate myself and think I am worthy of happiness. I slipped into a long and severe depression during my college years after a breakup, would walk home every day crying for a whole year. I felt like I didn't fit into the world, no matter how hard I tried and pretended to be normal I felt worthless and shameful and afraid that everyone is going to find out. Still I kept working hard in school, did lots of research and extracurriculars, and got a scholarship to attend a great medical school. Even though I was so scared, depressed, and broken at this time, I continued to be my parents' golden child. They bragged about me to friends and relatives all over the world. At this time was still emotionally dependent on my parents, cared deeply about their opinion of my because I knew no other way, and I was financially dependent on them for living expenses. Most of all, I trusted them. In my culture, there's a lot of emphasis on parents knowing best, and if a parent thinks something is the best decision that means it is.
When I got to med school, I realized I hated the medical field. I didn't like being around sick, sad people all the time and I hated how physicians are basically cogs in a machine to make profits in a morally corrupt healthcare industry. I started dating an older med student while I was in medical school and because of my cultural background/religion, I wasn't allowed to date him unless I quickly married him. I changed my whole career trajectory for him basically, including which specialty I did and where I did residency. We moved to another city to do our residency. After two years in residency, I found out that that my husband had been hiring prostitutes and cheating on me. I felt so betrayed, not just by him but by my mom and dad whose opinion I had trusted so deeply in making the decision to get married to this guy.
I started the divorce process feeling so hopeless, like my whole life I had tried so hard to do the right thing and had not gotten any happiness or satisfaction. I felt unworthy, unlovable, and full of shame. I was so angry particularly at my father; by then I had learned enough to know my issues with self esteem started with the early childhood abuse that came from him. I unleashed years of anger, cursed at him, and went no contact with him; this was a monumental event in my family because nobody ever talked back to my dad. Soon afterward I stopped speaking to my older brother as well because he didn't even bother to call and check in on how I was doing after my divorce. Almost a year went by, I was numb, broken, depressed, and all I could focus on was finishing my last year of residency. In the mean time, my father separated from my mother, saying that part of the reason he was leaving her because he was so upset that she had continued to speak to me after I had cut him off. He filed for divorce all the while telling my mother that he needed some space and that maybe they would get back together in the future.
I moved back to my home city after residency and got my first real job. My younger brother, who I was close with, cut me out of his life, because he said I was so full of anger that I had caused our family to fall apart. My mother would often have angry outbursts and scream at me stating that I ruined her life. I finally had enough of being the scapegoat and for almost a year I didn't speak to my mother. I had no family in my life, I felt alone in the world except for my boyfriend at the time. Since my divorce 3 years ago, I have had two 8 month relationships which have ended because I felt like my partner is inevitably going to blindside me and betray me. I broke up with my last boyfriend a week ago and feel again like I have nobody.
I have done three years now of weekly therapy, I am in perfect health, good at my job, have some strong female friendships, have ample time and money to travel, change jobs, live wherever I want. But inside I am broken, unable to trust anyone, and feel hopeless that I will be able to live a normal happy life. I have developed a strong distrust and deep hatred of men and I realized I'm not going to have a successful relationship. I have no hope that my family will ever be healthy or loving to me. I feel like I was born to be abused and discarded by evil men.
I have never written about my personal life like this for strangers on the internet and I am not sure what I am hoping to get. Mainly I just want to not feel so alone. I can't talk keeping talking about my suicidal thoughts with my friends because its not fair to keep burdening them with this. Last night I couldn't sleep so I drove out at 2 am to a dark park by myself with my gun and cartridges. I wasn't really planning on putting a bullet in my head, it was more just an exercise to feel like I can make a big change in my life. I have had a loaded gun in my mouth in the past and have been unable to pull the trigger because the truth is I feel scared to make a big change. I have also seen many failed suicide attempts in my line of work, included a guy who blew off half is face with a self-inflicted gunshot wound; the thought of failing badly is also holding me back.
