I know I should’ve put this on Reddit but I cannot currently log in for some reason:
Am I the asshole for slapping my step-dad?
WARNING: Substance use, Abuse and Self Harm etc
My entire life I’ve had to deal with mental illness, specifically Bipolar disorder. And when you’re not diagnosed as a child everyone treats you like it’s all your fault. I don’t completely blame me, I was a total little shit and had many breakdowns in which I would be physically violent, but you have to remember, I WAS a child. I had reason to act this way, I didn’t understand my brain and no one else did either.
I was in special ed classes when I was in elementary school and I didn’t even have autism. But I was still very neurodivergent. I’ve had to go through a lot of emotional abuse and gaslighting from my mother and alcoholism from both of my dads. And I don’t blame my dads because my stepdad also deals with depression and my bio dad has a LOT of trauma and is in the Navy.
I finally got diagnosed when I was 11 and started the search for a right therapist and the right meds. I cycled through a few until highschool when I just used the schools therapist. Which I was lucky they had. I learned that mood stabilizers make me feel extremely numb and not to take a very high dose of them. But even after getting diagnosed I was still treated like I was the problem.
I progressed a lot through out the years but I was still struggling with suicidal thoughts and tendencies including hurting myself frequently. It got so bad that during middleschool I literally BEGGED my parents to take me to a mental hospital and they consulted my therapist which said I was fine when I obviously wasn’t.
This isn’t mentioning that I was a very busy child with a lot of extracurriculars that I was forced to continue in even when I asked to be taken out since they were taking a toll on me.
Fast-forwarding to present day:
Last year at the end of the school year I had to stop my at the time boyfriend from killing himself which was a MAJOR strain on my mental and physical health. I began spiraling mentally, btw MORE than I was before when I was dealing with a lot of existential dread even when I was in active therapy and on meds.
So I started using a LOT to cope and hurting myself. I was using mostly edibles and couldn’t even count on my friends to stay with me all of the time bc it was finals week, so I was mostly alone in this state. At one point I went to an older friends’ house and they gave me a bong which I’ve never had before and it led me to nosedive into psychosis.
After which I ended up being taken to an in town psych ward of sorts which was an awful experience given I had to educate them even when I was in psychosis bc none of their methods were up to date. Because of friends influence and my state I at the time thought I had DID and talked to myself in a messy notebook. I ended up leaving that place against medical advice and had a friend drive me back to campus.
I did this because I wanted to be with friends which was an awful idea since they were very unreliable and all around didn’t spend much time with me when I needed it most.
I was MIA for a bit bc i didn’t have a phone charger and couldn’t contact my family. Eventually I got a wellness check on me and I got escorted to the actual hospital by the police, I was in and out of consciousness and paranoid as hell. When the cop asked what I was on I cried and told her edibles, she was very calm and said that that wasn’t illegal so I was fine.
I went into the mental ward of the hospital and was a fucking ray of sunshine bc I wasn’t medicated and very out of my head. I was even doing pushups in my room. I didn’t have any cloths with me that I could wear until my parents brought me some. While I was there my parents moved me out of my dorm even though I really didn’t want them to. I don’t blame them, they didn’t know when I was going to be out of the hospital and it was the last week of school.
When I got out I was more depressed because I was coming off of a high and on a LOT of antipsychotics and mood stabilizer so I was sleeping all the time.
Eventually I ended up going to ANOTHER institution after IOP wasn’t working for me. I won’t go into much detail for the others but I ended up going to 5-6 different mental hospitals/institutions after many relapses and attempts. When I finally finished IOP I tried to kms again this time with something more lethal:bleach and a Dremel. That was the final straw and I ended up going to a rehab in Florida which btw I ended up having to spend my life savings on.
Soooo ever since I got back my parents have been threatening to kick me out (party bc I relapsed, yes ik that’s bad but I’ve been clean for over a month now from using and self harm) And they’ve been acting like nothing has changed which is a fucking lie. The only excuse they have is that when I lost my job my sleep schedule was fucked up bc I didn’t have anything else to do.
Last week I was manic asf bc of stress and coming off of rexulti bc my insurance wouldn’t approve it and trintellix bc it ended up being 400$. So I was awake for 2 days straight and wasn’t even doing anything wrong, I was CLEANING and my mom came in and told me to leave.
So during last week I’ve been getting my things from my house and not a single time would they help me take it back to my dorm, I always had to have a friend or family do it. Last night I got most of my things packed up except for some clothes I forgot and they started yelling at me bc apparently I was taking too long.
I was having an argument with my mom and my stepdad stepped in and started yelling at me too and tried grabbing my things including my suitcase which was OPEN. So obviously I tried to get it back from him and my mom was trying to separate us and he just kept throwing insults at me and I threatened to slap him if he didn’t stop and he said “do it”. So I fucking did.
I ended up breaking his glasses which left my hand with a few cuts and my mom had to hold him back from going after me. I was told to gather my things and I tried to as quickly as I could but I’ve been living there my whole life so obviously it took me a while. During which I was calling out my mother and step-father.
One thing I recalled repeating my mother saying was “We don’t owe you shit and you owe us everything” and ofc she denied it. She’s also many times said that she’s done so much for me and I should be thankful when most of it was the bare minimum except for extracurricular activities which I am grateful for and I’ve expressed such many times.
I also called out to my stepdad which idk if he heard or not, “remember when you were drunk and you punched me in my stomach when I was a CHILD?!”
I feel so bad for my 10 year old sister to have to experience this. Next month I plan to transfer the title of my car; which btw was only in my moms name for insurance reasons, and get the rest of my things and then I don’t plan to talk to them ever again if I can help it. Thank GOD my sister has messenger kids on her tablet so I’m not completely cut off from her.