Not fulfilling my own expectations (P.1) — but still disappointing everyone else

I have this same mindset as Kat Stratford from the film, '10 Things I Hate About You," since everyone has always place undue pressure on me and expectations that I never could quite fulfill. 

Be thin. Be smart. Be perfect.

I was raised by a self-loathing mother that had a superiority complex where she thought bullying was okay because she was victim too. No one was good enough or had a more morally sense of right and wrong than you. She was right and you were wrong. Religion was not used to uplift, it was a weapon; a tool to prove you were unfit and wrong. 

Which was ironic and cruel especially growing up in poverty with lack of financial and emotional stability, it is a wonder how my siblings and I didn't end up worse. But — while my mom believed she was better than everyone else, we were on the bottom rung of society. I hated every second of it. 

Parents don't acknowledge the burden of being their child. Go to college, get an education. Make good grades, get a job. Have a career, get married. These were the principles my parents raised us (me and my 4 siblings) on. 

However, there's a catch. 

Don't go to an university too far away and if you do we will guilt trip you. "You will be just like your siblings!" 

Don't marry someone we don't like and make sure they ask for our blessings and if they don't, we will never forget the disrespect.

Don't get a job that's too far away and if you do we won't make an effort to visit and we will claim you are ashamed of us to guilt trip you. "Could we have some money?"

These are patterns I have seen with my parents, their children can't do better than them but that is what they taught us to do. "Don't be poor like us." "Don't settle for a man like me."

How does this relate to fulfilling my own expectations and failing to do so & disappointing others?

In my futile attempt to rebel*, I still had to minimize myself to make Mom happy. So, I got good grades, didn't do drugs or drank alcohol underage like my siblings, I participated in activities that would make Mom proud, such as band, art, sports; etc. 

And – none of it worked.

I still manage to upset her. "I wish I would just die," was an empty threat. But it was seared into my eardrums at six years old. Because I didn't wash the dishes. 

When I decided on what college to attend, I went to an university 5 hours away and I met with disappointment instead of elation.

 ***My form of rebellion was getting a good education to get out from under their thumb and now I still live in their house at 22. 

Even though, I graduated top of my class, I was still behind socially. I didn't have a job post-college and almost a year later; I'm still unemployed. While, my siblings have moved on with careers, higher education, kids, getting married and buying houses, I'm stuck at home feeling like a burden.

Don't get me wrong, I pay my own way with the limited savings I have but it's beginning to run out and I have no backups. 

I thought by now I would have a job, an place of my own but I still live with my parents in my childhood home that is a rundown trailer.

In my attempts to get hired, my online footprint has only grew while rejection emails fill my email. I am just really hopeless, tired, and anxiously depressed. 

Despite having almost a year of potential improvement, I failed at everything I wanted to do because I was too busy waiting for the perfect time and limiting myself to make other's happy which is a losing battle that just leads to disappointment.

***This is the end of part one (P.1) and continue in part two entitled "What are my expectations — and how I fail to fulfill them"