My fear of not amounting to anything and the trauma Ive through. My experience being a 20 year old Gay man in an asian household.

Im taking a gap year right now from school, from an early age my parents instilled the values of a career and education, being in an asian family this mindset is very common.

The pressure and expectations to do well in whatever you set your feet onto, I wasn’t the perfect student but I maintained good grades all throughout my education, finished with honors and ending high-school on top of my class. For most students that would be a great achievement and achieving that would definitely make their parents proud. But for my family it was nothing special. It was common and was seen as an expectation.

Comparisons are also very common, my brother finished university with honors and recently my cousin is finishing as a valedictorian in college. The pressure to do better is definitely higher than ever. Im taking a gap year and I was hoping to pursue a degree that Im happy and passionate about.

To be fair I don’t hate my parents, I think they’re a product of their generation and I view their wants and aspirations for us as a way for them to make sure we’re going to be alright when they’re not around anymore to be there for us, that’s what my Mom usually says when I question their standards and their views.

I haven’t even managed to get through the quarter of my gap year but my Mom was already mentioning the future possibilities of me entering graduate school on either becoming a doctor or a lawyer just like my older brother and cousin, I said let’s not think that far ahead mom, I want to tread the water first and see where the river brings me.

Everyday I think about what my life would be like in the future, I overthink and often end up in a panic attack trying to grasp whatever is happening, looking back now there were a lot of toxicity in our family, from the dysfunction and domestic violence and the guilt tripping, the constant feeling of not being enough is surely there all the time, from winning second place is considered not good enough because you’re often asked why weren’t you first?

I don’t want to study dentistry anymore, I want to shift my efforts and time to something that I really want. Im tired of the depression that it brings me, after all we’re all going to die eventually so why should I continue living my life for other people. I want to have control and autonomy about what I want as a career. I want to be in love, I want to do more foolish things. I want to be me.

Im an openly gay asian man, and I want to break free from the asian mindset that if you’re not this your nothing, I go to therapy secretly to deal with the dysfunction going on in my family, I sometimes just don’t want to exist because I feel like nobody loves me nor cares about me enough for being me.

Ive went through so much in life from being bullied because of being gay, I was sexually abused by my former classmates, I was verbally abused, there was cyber bullying too and violence against me when I was young to the point that I had to file legal complaints against them.

Im sick of feeling defeated by life in general because I often think I’ll never be good enough. No matter what I do nor how much kindness I give and show to people it often ends up in deaf ears or people are blind towards me.

I think I will end up alone in this world and will probably commit suicide when I reach 40 unless a miracle happens. We are all alone, life does not have a meaning, we give it meaning, but what are we going to do when we don’t or can’t find the meaning to keep on going further?