2019年的时候，从封神离职之后，我回家了。虽然我一直都躁郁，但当时的抑郁周期已经持续了快大半年，完全没有好转。我每天基本醒不来，起来头疼欲裂，醒来之后脑海里反复的负面情绪和语言的黑洞，它不是幻听，因为我清晰的知道，声音不是来自外面，是来自我脑海里。她说我一无是处、恶心、低贱、无能、甚至谄媚、虚伪、想要世界毁灭。

我觉得她说的基本对，除了最后一个。我并不想世界毁灭，只是想自我毁灭。虽然并不想承认，但直到我离职、我已经有一段时间做出一些很奇怪的选择了。可能脑pu当时已经烧坏了，好像每个决定都把我拉的离目的地越来越远。我意识到这可能不是正常的状况，所以我离职了，打算回家休息休息再看。但我并没有好转，反而变得更加恶劣。

在家，我妈觉得我在无病呻吟，每天早上大声在家说话、吸尘、叫我赶紧起床。很奇怪，我爸去上班了，她在放暑假。我不跟她说话，她还需要跟谁打电话？家里的保洁之前她也从来不做，房间经常各种书、衣服、大包小包摊满桌面、床头柜、床。我爸经常嘲笑她房间乱，虽然我觉得可能只是她内心杂乱无序的外放。

我想自己做菜。我妈从未学会过做饭，声称是因为她喜欢原汁原味。清蒸、水煮、少盐少油、无糖无其他调味。我的胃口从小到大都一直不太好，尤其是当时。我需要些什么味觉刺激才能让我勉强想吃一些。

我不知道是因为我真的太难相处了，还是她太容易放弃。我很清楚她早就不愿意为我做任何事，她说，她总是在为我好，但我总是在抗拒她。我不理解，什么叫为我好。我只知道我讨厌、我愤怒、我窒息、我讨厌她的虚伪、虚荣、和根本藏不住的恶意。

我只能自己做饭。自从我回家，我爸每天监管着我的一天三餐。偶尔出去一次，回来也会被他批评很长一段时间，他会贬低所有我的选择：餐厅、食物、价格、品味。我没精力跟他理论，虽然后来我发现他不在我的理论，他在乎我的服从。我应该服从，他的决定。

等我发现的时候，锅里不记得在煮的什么的液体已经被烧干。锅底黑了，只剩下一些不知道什么的固体。我立刻非常焦虑。

I was immediately nervous. I tried my best to clean so she wouldn’t have to find out. I couldn’t get all of it. I hid the pot in the back of the cupboard, hoping she wouldn’t find out. But of course she finds out as soon as she gets home, turns out, it’s a very important item of hers, and she’d apparently reminded me to not burn it. I said I’m really sorry, I was having a headache, and still am. 

She said that’s no excuse, do you have any idea how protective I was with this pot? I was like, really a pot?  Then comes a two-hour long verbal abuse session. I went back to my room and she kept shouting from the living room. In retrospect, I wonder if this was just my mom taking out her anger toward me, because he did the same to her, except in that case, I was the pot.  It was not a very mental-illness-friendly environment. I heard that with every negative comment people make on you, you need ten positive ones to counter.  I wonder if it’s true. 

That’s just how she is, my dad says. She grew up tougher than you did, he says. Tougher than me? It’s hard for me to imagine that she did, despite two decades of me being manic depressive, she seemed to always have been emotionally stable in front of my dad. Yet, the way she treated me stayed the same. My dad would say, we are just verbally fighting, even if we break things, at least it’s not physical. Have you heard of so-and-so’s parents? They are worse. I don’t understand:  why do so-and-so’s parents do that, and why does that have anything to do with me? And no, it did not make me feel better. 

Is this just how it is? Because we are Chinese? Because this  is our ‘culture’? They told me, over and over, it’s not because of them, it’s because how everyone, literally how everyone looks like me and sounds like me do this, agree with this, think this, is all, completely normal. “But you can’t tell this to anyone else, you can’t or you will see. “ For a long time, I never talked to anyone about it. I  hated being Chinese, I hated everyone in it, every adult, everyone they knew,  or worked with, saw, and agreed with.  I wanted nothing to do with it.

But that doesn’t mean I have to follow expectations, or so-called conventions which in reality are more like my dad’s authoritative ways of stripping me of my basic wants and needs, but instead showered me with things that didn’t interest me. He thought that was the right way to go, the right thing to do, not what I want, but what he decides to give me, and what his generous heart decides to bestow upon me. 

I hated it so much that I tried to cut out as many people as I could after leaving home, and basically tried doing everything the exact opposite of how I used to do things. I decided to say no to things I'd say yes to, embraced things I’d normally reject.

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