My Father, The Professor, My Abuser

Even though I achieved success early in my life, in my younger days, I was plagued with a constant undercurrent of anxiety and dread.

I also rarely slept well. Most nights, I needed sleeping pills to sleep, so much so that I have come to depend on them over the years. I woke up tired and groggy, but without the meds, I wasn’t sure I knew how to fall asleep anymore.

“Why can I never go back to bed? Who’s is the voice ringing in my head? Where is the sense in these desperate dreams? Why should I wake when I’m half past dead?” ― Emilie Autumn

The cycle for me usually starts with something that happens that provokes anxiety, and after a period of stress and lack of sleep, life begins to feel hopeless and out of control. Eventually, I would sink into a depressive state — I would stay in bed for as long as I could, fantasizing about a button I could press that would vaporize me silently, so I didn’t have to be there to suffer.

“I didn’t want to wake up. I was having a much better time asleep. And that’s really sad. It was almost like a reverse nightmare, like when you wake up from a nightmare you’re so relieved. I woke up into a nightmare.” — Ned Vizzini

The world felt unsafe for me. Things that pained others could crush me, and so many things triggered me that I often lived with a deep sense of dread.

How it all started

I wasn’t always like this. Until about age four, my younger sister and I were raised by loving maternal grandparents in the countryside. My father was doing his Ph.D. studies overseas in the US, and my mother was working full time in the cities. It was too much for my mother to work while caring for two young kids, so she had her parents take care of us instead.

If anything, my grandparents probably spoiled me a bit much. I was a very naughty kid, but I always knew that I was loved. Their love for me was unconditional, and they were patient, even when I misbehaved. Being rebellious by nature, I would often do the exact thing they asked me not to do, to see how far I could push the boundaries.

Those were good days. I remember as a little kid, spending hours in my grandparents’ garden playing with snails and digging up ants. Time was irrelevant — I could do this activity all day, every day, and be happy. I had no stress. I slept well and dreamt happy dreams.

During the day, we’d spend time with grandma and play with our puppy. When my grandfather came home, he would take my sister and me for a walk along the rice fields or to the park where we played with other kids. Every day was full of delight.

When things took a turn for the worst

Then things changed when I was four. My mom quit her job and took my sister and me to the US to be with my father. The two of them didn’t get along, and they fought physically too. It was incredibly stressful and scary to see your parents fight, being too little to do anything about it.

After my father got his Ph.D., he decided to return to his home country to teach as an associate professor. My father, a brilliant but emotionally unstable man, had a hard time handling the stress of trying to become a tenured professor. He would come home frustrated by work or fights with colleagues, and to release this stress, he would take it out on his family.

The conflicts with my father are too numerous to count; violent incidents happen almost weekly, and the worst part of it is a ridiculously small thing can set him off. He is a live bomb, and there is no predicting when something terrible will happen. The house was a constant warzone, and nowhere was safe.

“It is regarded as axiomatic that parents have more power than children. This is an inescapable biological fact; young children are completely dependent on their parents or other caring adults for survival.” ― Judith Lewis Herman

My father also seemed to take delight in harming us. Often he would beat us to punish our mother. Other times he would wake us up violently in the middle of the night — if he’s having trouble sleeping, no one else should be able to sleep either.

Sometimes, I had to run for my life in underwear only because there was no time to get dressed. I would hide outside for hours on end, often in cold weather and heavy rain, to wait for my father to cool down while hoping that no one saw me.

The cone of silence

When I was in college, my father struck me on the forehead with such force I had to be taken to the emergency room to get sewn up. At the ER, the doctor asked if I had had a cycling accident. When I replied that it was from my father’s fists, the doctor gave an awkward expression and pretended that he had never asked the question.

My classmates, teachers, neighbors, and the police all knew my father was hurting his family, but they all turned a blind eye to our plight.

“My mom asked me to tell you that you shouldn’t tell anyone about what’s going on in your family.” My best and only friend in elementary school pulled me aside to relay this message from her mom, the principal of a neighboring school.

Unfortunately, such is the state of the world around me. In Asia, there’s a saying that ” Ugly things that happen in a family should stay in the family.”

We were completely isolated.

The mother who enabled the abuse

At this point, my mother was entirely financially dependent on my father. Years of beating and being put down by my father wore down her self-esteem, and she was often depressed.

My mother never reported my father to the authorities or tried to look for a job. Instead, in her mid-thirties, eight years after I was born, she chose to have my baby brother, and my father abused him too.

During my mother’s depressive episodes, she would tell my sister and me that we should all commit suicide.

“Why, mom,” I asked, “I don’t want to die.”

“If I kill myself,” she said, “your father will remarry, and your stepmother will abuse you.”

On other days, she would tell us that she is going to run away to be a nun, and when we come looking for her, she would deny us. Feeling unloved by our father, in a twisted way, she needed to see that she mattered to us, even if it was at the expense of her own children.

I was only six when this type of rhetoric started. I knew I had no one to count on for protection.

Locus of control

Being both stubborn and rebellious, I got beaten a lot, but I never kowtowed, even when my life was in danger. I did not know this then, but my strong will was also my saving grace. It made me a survivor. I may get beaten, but I will keep fighting and never give up.

“Some of us learn control, more or less by accident. The rest of us go all our lives not even understanding how it is possible, and blaming our failure on being born the wrong way.”
― B.F. Skinner

At an early age, I told myself that I must do everything I can to become independent. The best way to do this in my little kid’s mind is to be a good student, so one day, I can study in the US and move far, far away.

At twenty, I got accepted to a top Masters's Program in the US. Though I had no coding background, I hustled hard to get teaching assistant jobs and paid for my studies, room, and board with a stipend.

Grad school life was great — I made a lot of friends in the engineering dorm, most of whom were international students like me. I loved the freedom — it was the first time in a long time my life wasn’t in constant danger.

Still, I often had nightmares where I would wake up in a panic, drenched in sweat. In these dreams, my father was hurting me, but I was too weak to defend myself.

In some dreams, I failed to make it in the US and had to return to my home country. I woke from these nightmares drenched in a cold sweat. I was determined to do everything I could to make sure I could safely stay in the US.

“Strange, I thought, how you can be living your dreams and your nightmares at the very same time.” ― Ransom Riggs

After graduation, step by step, I systematically and methodically accomplished things to secure my stay in the US. I got a job working for a Silicon Valley software company, became a permanent resident through work visa sponsorship, bought a house, and got married. I started a sports events business while working full time, and grew the business 300% per year until I sold it a few years later.

I was “rocking it,” and people looking at me from the outside thought I was living the dream.

“I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.” — Jim Carrey

I thought I should be living the dream too. With the Pacific Ocean wedged between my parents and me, I thought I’d feel safe and relaxed now, but I was still just as anxious as ever.

Any sense of relief I got from accomplishing specific things lasted only briefly. Soon enough, the barrage of internal voices that tell me that I’m falling behind and that I’d better “get on doing the next thing” returns as strong as ever.

This voice was like a 24×7 drill sergeant that I carried with me, and I was powerless to fight back.

“Oh how stupid I am, he said to himself, using words which he had used ever so often since he was a child. At that moment it seemed to him that his life had consisted of one blunder after another, and now aged thirty-one he was well on into the stupidest of all.” ― Iris Murdoch

I also had trouble soothing myself. Things that probably made most people a little upset would send me down a worry spiral. The constant stress caused severe insomnia and persistent stomach issues.

The stress got so bad that I had to go on medical leave to take care of gastric ulcers so severe that I was bleeding internally.

The ulcer wakeup call

I suppose the benefit of things not working is that it killed the fantasy that doing more could fix what is not working on the inside.

They say that when the student is ready, the teacher appears, and during the leave, I came across a copy of Eckhart Tolle’s book “The Power of Now.”

Before this book, I only had a surface understanding of the teachings of Buddhism or meditation. After reading the book, I was more than a little curious about both. I was fascinated by Tolle’s description of how he transformed himself from someone who suffered debilitating depressions to living in a state of uninterrupted bliss.

I wanted that too.

It was also at this time that someone recommended Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County, CA as an excellent place to learn mindfulness meditation.

I decided to go big or go bust and signed up for a five-day silent meditation retreat.

Being gregarious and outgoing by nature, I had doubts whether a retreat like this would work for me, but something about being around people all quietly sitting made it easier for me to be still too.

I remember like it was yesterday that towards the end of the retreat, I felt a steady sense of peace and joy, unlike anything I’ve felt before. I seriously considered quitting my job to work for Spirit Rock, so I can live in this amazing place all the time.

The sense of peace and oneness lasted another month or so after I left. I remember feeling totally at ease and content standing in an endless meandering line at the post office. My old self would have immediately listened to a podcast, read a book, or tried toning my legs by doing small movement exercises to squeeze utility out of every moment. However, my post-retreat self didn’t feel the need to do any of this.

I was simply enjoying being with myself.

I have since lost this steady state of peace — unfortunately, I didn’t keep up with the meditation practice. Still, knowing what peace feels like is invaluable. The last time I felt it, I was still a little child, and I thought it had forever left me.

Now I know that this peace is always inside of me. It is my natural state of being when my mind isn’t filled with negative thoughts.

I do not have to sit here and believe everything my brain is telling me.

“The way you choose to think and speak about yourself (to yourself and others), IS A CHOICE! You may have spent your whole life talking about yourself in a negative way, but that doesn’t mean you have to continue that path.”
― Miya Yamanouchi

This knowledge took me out of the resignation that my childhood experience permanently damaged me. I know that mindfulness works. Now I am eager to find out what else might help.

In the following years, in addition to meditation, I did various therapies, from CBT to DBT to EMDR to hypnosis. I also made lifestyle changes — regular exercises, eating a balanced diet, journaling, and doing “non-productive” things just because it made me happy.

It took a lot of trial and error, falling and getting back up again, but little by little, I rebuilt myself from the inside. I still feel the full spectrum of emotions, but I am no longer at their mercy like a raft adrift in a torrential sea. I learned how to love myself, manage difficult emotions, communicate skilfully, set healthy boundaries, and maintain an internal locus of control regardless of what happens in life.

These changes didn’t all come at once, but cumulatively, they made me a new person. Fear no longer ruled my day, and I felt content and happy in my own company for the first time.

If you ever felt hopeless, or that past trauma permanently broke you, I hope my story lends you hope.

The good news is, your brain is plastic and you can reshape it by changing the way you think. You can unlearn outdated coping mechanisms that are holding you back and learn new skills that bring you the results you want in life.

With the right strategy and effort, anything is possible.

My best wishes for your healing journey.

PS: Want to get a jump start on your self-love journey? Signup for Life Is Love School’s Newsletter and get the free “3 Simple Habits to Grow Self-Love” PDF delivered right to your inbox!

Originally published at https://www.lifeisloveschool.com/.