u/FlimsyWaltz149

Hi, I’m a 18yo (almost 19yo) Turk from Belgium. I was born and raised there so I immediately had to learn 2 languages the minute I could speak. My parents spoke to me in Turkish (my mom combining it with Dutch) but I grew up to be fluent in Dutch rather than in Turkish. My story is not uncommon here, it’s very common but I still feel like the only one. All the people I know at least were enrolled in a Turkish school while I never went there. My siblings even went there, but for some reason I never did. Then my parents get mad at me or wonder why I sometimes don’t understand or say something in Turkish because I only speak Dutch.

It’s not that I can’t speak the language, I understand it, I can write in Turkish but I have difficulty speaking it or use the grammar. When I do speak I have this lisp I can’t seem to get rid of. I have difficulty when it comes to the “ğ” or “s”. I struggle sometimes to say “sessiz”, such an easy word but heavy on my tongue. I have always been deeply ashamed of it especially if I go to Türkiye where they ask me “why do you speak like that” or “why aren’t you talking to us?” I don’t know what to say, I know I shouldn’t listen but I feel like I should be ashamed. Maybe it’s because I’m young and that it hits me quite hard but I have been treated like this throughout my whole life. I don’t understand why people are so invested or worried why a person can’t speak it so well. I barely use it, at school/university I speak continuously Dutch or English if I’m with other foreigners but Turkish probably at home only to my dad. It makes up like 5% of my daily vocabulary.

Because of all of this, I always wondered what my actual mother tongue is then.

Hi, I’m a 18F and I have a sibling which is 22F. I’m youngest while she is the middle child. As I get older, I get in more and more arguments with her. We do get along well in humor as we have 2 older siblings in their end 20s but these past 2 years we’ve been driving apart. For context, her character doesn’t complement with mine. She gets angry quickly, has thin patience, often has stress and often puts it all on me. My sister has been doing this since my childhood.

She thinks it’s disgusting if we wear the same underwear, bras… I typically like sharing my items as I’m used to it with our oldest sister. For my entire life I have shared 1 bedroom with both of my sisters. Ever since our big sister left the house 3 years ago, we share the room together but our situation has been getting worse since then.

We argue a lot, mainly her starting to comment or complain about basically anything like the room, how I’m in bed all the time, that I do nothing in this house, that I need to do hobbies but then says she doesn’t wanna force me although she took my phone to search for a hobby, yells at me or curses me out or even threatens to hurt me. What I do like about her is that she apologizes of course but it’s still damaging.

I admit I’m also not some angel and I understand her crash-outs at me sometimes. I take her stuff without her asking, telling me multiple times that I should not take it which I understand that I’m a complete asshole for that. I allow her to curse at me or get mad because I understand. But often I think she doesn’t mind her business when it comes to my life. For example, I stay at home for 2 days in my bed which I see no problem with nor my parents. Okay, I get it I don’t do any chores or keep the home clean. That’s a bad habit of mine which I do try to get out from. When I cry or when she decides for herself without me I say something about it but brushes is off or says I’m being dramatic.

Yet she gets mad at me for it that I’m lazy, that she hates seeing me that way, that I should go outside, get a life, that I will regret my life and waste my teenage years. But in an authoritarian manner that I should do what she says than actually caring about what I think. I tell her that I like being in bed, that I don’t really want to go out with anybody, that I relax, that I can make my own choices and am comfortable in such state. She ignores what I say saying that I shouldn’t be and should be doing at least every single day something productive. It’s not like I’m bed rotting all day, I do some chores but “not enough” in her eyes. I don’t get why she stresses about my life.

I might not be a full grown adult yet, but I’m also not a little child to discipline. After all, I’m a teen so obviously I don’t like it when I get rules put onto me as if I’m still 8 years old. I do talk back or curse back at her when she does it first. Although I’m not the only one she behaves like this to. Also to my entire family, she has this controlling attitude and not backing off when you tell her to shut up. Whenever she is sleeping in my cousins house, I can’t express the amount of happiness I feel and freedom when I’m without her. As I said before, she comments about anything she sees which I think is toxic. I see her energy as toxic with that behavior and some of her ideologies. Anyways, that’s all I wanted to say. I want to confront her about her behavior to me. I might be exaggerating with it so I’m sorry. What should I do with her?