Desi Family. My Life Journal (Pt.5)

My family. I don’t know how it’s possible to feel this much at once. How I can hate them and love them in the same breath. How I can resent every rule, every expectation, every word that’s caged me in, yet still crave their approval like a starving child. I hate that they wouldn’t accept me. I hate that they never want to listen to me. I hate the way they so easily body shame me. That they see me as a burden, as something to be controlled. That they see me as something to be molded into their image, never truly mine. And yet, if they called my name, I’d still turn. If they needed me, I’d still run. It’s like being trapped in a house fire, suffocating, but still clutching the walls because you built them.

Being Desi, you grow up hating your parents because they never trust you. Your every decision questioned, every step monitored. But at the same time, I kind of understand them. I mean, I understand why they are the way they are. Why fear is woven into their love. Why control is mistaken for care. Like, we all know they were raised in a world that taught them survival comes from obedience, that love is discipline, that freedom is dangerous. That making mistakes is not at all fine. And yet, knowing this doesn’t make it easier. It doesn’t stop the resentment from simmering, doesn’t soften the ache of never being fully seen.

This woman I know. I hear you when you talk about your trauma, and I respect that. But when I share my feelings, why do I feel like they’re dismissed? It hurts when my pain is treated as ‘nothing’ while yours is acknowledged. For once, I just want the same understanding I give you. 

I want to feel seen. Truly seen, not just looked at, but understood.

I want to feel heard. Not just listened to out of politeness, not just tolerated, but really heard: like my words hold weight, like my emotions aren’t something to be brushed aside.

Most of all, I want to feel cared for. Not conditionally. Not when it’s convenient. But in a way that feels real, that doesn’t make me question if I’m asking for too much.

Because I don’t think I am. I just want what I give to others.

But then again.. In a desi family, being elder comes before being kind. Their authority comes before our autonomy. Their struggles matter more than ours, because "we had it easier." But did we?

What about me? What about the youngest ones, the ones crushed under the weight of expectations we never agreed to carry? 

"Your elder sibling suffered, so you have to make it worth it." 

“Your elders didn’t do well, so you need to do everything to make us proud.”

It’s always about them. Their validation, their pride, their regrets being fixed through us. If those before us failed, we must redeem the family name. If they succeed, we must live up to it. Either way, we are never just ourselves.

What about what I want? What about my happiness? Why am I just a vessel for their dreams, their unfulfilled wishes, their proof to the world that they raised me right?

Why must I contort myself to fit their expectations when all I want is to exist as me?

What if I’m suffering too? What if I don’t want to live as a wish-fulfiller, as proof that their sacrifices weren’t in vain?

Why is my life not mine? 

They’ll spend lakhs on a wedding, but when it comes to investing in their child’s future? Suddenly, there’s no money. If it’s about giving the daughter financial independence? Absolutely not.

She can’t go abroad: What will society say? How will society accept it? Because deep down, they don’t trust her. They don’t trust the child they raised. And somehow, that’s her fault.

It’s exhausting. Infuriating. The hypocrisy, the control, the way love comes with conditions. It’s like they’d rather see her trapped in a gilded cage than free in an open sky.

But then again, what can we do?

We scream, we argue, we try to reason. 

But in the end, it’s like shouting into a void. 

The walls don’t listen. The rules don’t bend. 

The love stays, but so do the chains.

So we swallow our dreams. We shrink ourselves to fit their mold. And maybe one day, we’ll convince ourselves that this is enough. That this is just how it is. That fighting is pointless.

Or maybe… maybe one day, we too will end up like them.