How to stop feeling guilty/like a "bad daughter"?

[lerenard]

Hey there,

I was wondering if someone feels the same way sometimes.

I am 23, and since I can remember myself I have these outbursts of guilt, because I feel I failed somehow, as a member of my family.

In my personal life I am happy, I am getting closer to who I want to be, I have a nice job, I live independently since I am 16, I lived abroad, I know languages, I am with the man I love, haven't asked my parents for any money for the longest time and I am much more caring then my older sister, because somehow she is always in a bad bit*hy mood.

But when I think about myself as a part of my family, I feel like a loser. My sister (almost 29) has two children, her second husband now, has an education while I still struggle to find the field I want to be in, and I don't want to study in the country I live now, I don't have children to take to my parents and say "here, take your grandchildren, you wanted them so bad", I can`t support them with much needed money and it is a very important thing for me to achieve in life - to be able to give my parents a good life and to be able to invite them to my home at some point, take them on vacation and other things like that. It feels like I need their approval very much, and I never had it from my family. Don`t get me wrong, I always had great connection to my family, but I feel like when I was a child - my parents weren't there for me, and when I grew older - I wasn't there for them, you know. Just like they neglected me when I was a child (not in a sadistic way or something, just because they had more important stuff to do) I neglected them when I was 14-19. Just like "normal" teenagers do. I feel like a joke for them sometimes, like I am not mature enough, or I don't know, and sometimes one phone call with them can make me feel so down I want to run away. Is this normal? Do we all feel like this sometimes? I know that the feeling of guilt is the hardest to shake off, and I am struggling now, because I want to get rid of it, along with other negative feelings/emotions. In reality I never hurt my parents with the real deal sh*t, never said a bad word to them, for sure I was a bit cold when I was a teenager, but nothing like my sister was and is till now. But still i think like I "abandoned" them somehow, especially because I don't see myself in my home country, raising my children here and so on.

Any opinion will be helpful!

[Kendahke]

I struggled with some of what you're talking about when I was in my 20's. I felt my sibings were more successful than I was; that I was determined to find my way on my own, not by how someone else said I should have done it. Well, I now feel I should have listened, but that's water under the bridge. It bothered me that I didn't live up to their expectations until I went through a lot of therapy in my late 20's/early 30s' about it and learned that nothing I can do will change the past. It is what it is. What is important is now. My intereactions with my family now. What I will and wont' own as far as their expectations, judgments, etc.

 

Now that you're grown, you can have a grown relationship/friendship with your parents. They're done raising you. That might be a good place to start.

[lerenard]

Thank you!

Funny thing is - when I left my home country and was away for two years, they were so proud of me, my sister became my friend, we talk all the time, my parents told everybody how their daughter is abroad, even though I was just travelling, studying a new language and making my money by house-holding and baby-sitting jobs. Now, that I am back, and I live only 3 hours away from them, I work in a company as a manger, I live with my men and have plans for the future - they stopped being proud, my sister treats me just like she always did - like a piece of sh*t, and my father keeps talking about how I should have stayed abroad. At the same time they tell me how they miss me, how they want to see kids that I don't even have now, how i should come home more often and so on. Its just confusing! I don't think my sister is more successful is I am, we are just totally different, she would never want my life-style, and I would never in my life want to be her. I love them to bits, but sometimes I feel like they gave up on life so to say, they grew old very fast over these last 3-5 years, especially after I left their house, and my sister was already out for some years living with her BF back then. I guess it is normal, and I should just accept it, but its so hard! I feel like I owe them, they made me who I am, and I know how much they sacrificed at some point of their life for me and my sister. Maybe I am the one that should stop being a child and just treat them like I treat any other person in my life, which is very hard for me because I don't have (and never really had) a lot of friends and people that are close to me, it is mostly my family, my BF and a couple of people I see once a month if I am lucky.

I had a lot of struggles, but I somehow managed to let it all go - my abusive ex/first love gone bad, the loss of my friends, the death of one of them, but not this issue with guilt and my family. damn.

[ParisPaulette]

Yes to one degree or another, we all do. My guilt didn't hit until recently when I found my mother ill and in dire straights and realized I hadn't seen/ignored warning signs that all was right.

 

The fact is you are only 23 and you can't compare yourself to your siblings, or anyone else for that matter. You are you. Right now at this stage of your life it's still way too early to be concerned with helping your parents out. They are grown people who need to do that for themselves. You need to grow and live your life as an adult independent of them. That is the natural order of things. Later when they are elderly and in need of assistance then you, who by that time have had some life under your belt, can step in and assist if need be. Although you can't really predict right now what that help may be or if they'll even need it. And as you get older you will start your own family and they'll be your priority, so try to relax. It sounds like normal growing pains and you holding yourself up in comparison to your siblings and that's never a good thing. I used to fret over how my brother got to have these amazing adventures and travel around the world and he never had to fear doing so, because he's a big husky guy. I was so envious of him and my parents, well everybody really were all kind of wowed by him--a real Indiana Jones type. And then I found out he always envied me for being the baby of the family and having everyone not demand so much of me. LOL We got over envying or comparing ourselves to each other and it's all good now.

 

You'll get there, just relax and focus on learning what it is you want out of life and your accomplishments. Family is important, but it's only one component of a life.

 

And the confusing messages of proud one moment, upset with you the next, those I would just ignore. That does all smooth away over the years, but you need to maintain in a loving way, "This is what I do, like it or don't. I'll see on the holidays" attitude rather than rise to the bait or let it get to you. I've seen that and experienced it with my grandmother and to this day I have no idea where that kind of behavior comes from. It's just something I finally decided wouldn't bother me, because really there was no rational explanation for it.

[lerenard]

Thank you!

My problem - as I said before - is not that I compare myself to my sister and somehow feel less then she is, because I don't think my parents are happy with her either haha)

I know I am ONLY 23, but I had my growing up apart from them, I lived on my own since I was 16, I was barely visiting them even when I lived in the same city.

I also had problems with my sister when I was small, and then when we got older she always told me that I am our fathers favorite, and she doesn't have a father. Back then she was THAT moody only with him, now she is rude with both of them most of the time. And I am not there to show them a bit of contrast, you know...

I show them often that this is my life, and they know it now since 7 years that I will do what I want, the trick is - I just don't want to hurt them, I want to make them happy.