i (17m) am moving out to italy in september for college, but i don’t know how i’m going to make it through the next four months with my sanity intact. i am twice-exceptional (gifted/adhd), and for the last fourteen months, my home in turkey has been a constant conflict zone. we recently had a brief three-month window where things actually felt okay—i really thought the cycle had finally stopped and we were moving toward something better—but today everything exploded again. it’s clear now that the peace was just a temporary truce and the systemic problems in this house haven't changed at all.
i dont know where the problem begins, but i do know that there are tons of problems here. the house is on fire, im holding the extinguisher, and everyone in the house thinks i am the reason for the smoke. since i was a little kid, i never had a stable and emotionally proper conflict-free family that is loving and caring, my parents divorced when i was 5 and my father moved to a different city when i was 10. the dynamic here is that i am treated as the cause of the family’s unhappiness whenever the systemic rot bubbles over. i am not "seeing" problems that aren't there—the problems are real, from debt to a total lack of boundaries. because of my 2e profile, i am hyper-aware of how unstable the environment is, and my brain short-circuits when i’m forced to live in chaos. but when i react to the tension or try to bring logic to a situation that has none, the adults turn it back on me. i am being blamed for the smoke while the house is actively burning down around us.
the painful part is the gaslighting regarding my character and my mental health. i was prescribed aripiprazole years ago as a child, but my parents didn't make me take it then. now, it has been prescribed again and i am taking it, and they are using that as a weapon. they point at my meds and my adhd and tell me i have a "weak character" and that i am "unstable" and "furious." it’s a way for them to avoid looking at the structural failures of the household by framing me as the "broken" one. today, my sister—who has completely checked out—actually kicked me, yet i was the one labeled as the problem. I am so used to being told I am the problem that i cannot get out of that mentality.
i’ve reached a point where i’ve had to ask my friends if i ever used any bad words. to describe my parents when i vented to them about the conflicts we have been having for over a year and they all said no.m y self-esteem is so eroded that I’ve had to ask external sources to verify my own character because I no longer trust my family’s version of me. it’s clear that the person my family sees is just a version of me that is being cornered and pushed to a breaking point. i’m a high-achiever who has secured a future in another country, yet inside these walls, i am treated like a patient who needs to be managed.
i feel a heavy sense of guilt, and a heavy sense of injustice like the whole system will collapse the moment i leave for italy, but i can’t keep being the load-bearing pillar for a house that refused to fix its own foundation. i am red-lining in neutral every single day.
how do you handle being the "identified patient" in a house where the adults refuse to take responsibility for the problems they make? how do i survive these last four months without letting them destroy my identity or convince me that i am the reason for their unhappiness? i need to know how to detach and survive until september. i want to be a better version of myself next year.