Lost at 25

About halfway through your post, I was able to virtually write the rest of what you had to say because I've been through all of the same weights and expectations you have been through...only add my dad was a part time Sunday School teacher and guest pastor when needed. How would you like that on your dad's mantel? If Christ sat on the right hand side of God, my dad surely felt he had the other side reserved. So I know all of the heady expectation placed upon you with the Bible used as his shield of shame.

Here's the good news. You don't have to drink from that cup of "sin" anymore. I have two rules that govern my life each and every day - 1) I only control myself and 2) I never let others define me. I'll explain shortly how I got to those two rules, but first I want to give you some additional insight into the life I grew in as a boy and a young man. Much of the shaming my father placed upon me growing up catered greatly to my low self-esteem and need to somehow "earn" his approval. If I did something well, he would give me praise. But if I found something challenging or something I simply wasn't very good at, he would layer the disappointment on me thick.

He use to have a line he fed me from the time I was roughly five or six until I was a teenager. If he got really frustrated, he would say, " I wish you were never born." Being I'm both a parent and a grandparent now it's inconceivable for me to think a parent would say that to their child with such venom, but my dad did. And my mother unfortunately was not much better than one of the kids herself in terms of standing up to my dad. She came from that era in the 30's and 40's where the man was the head and that was it.

Now as adults we can all look at that and find that action really awful to say to a child. But when you're the child, you don't have that context. You wear it. You own it. And you think if your dad is saying it, there must be a very good reason.So when my dad would holler at me and say things like that , I would go numb and feel literally like a worthless human being. I figured if my dad was saying it, then the whole world must really know it. But here's the part that did the most damage. He would calm down after a while and come back in and say, " Son I am really sorry I said that." Unfortunately he had to qualify it by adding, " But you knew you had that coming." ....?????... Ouch.

So what he did in actuality is give his conscience a pass by saying he was "sorry", but needed to make sure his thumb was still firmly pressed down on my self-esteem so I understood he was still the judge and jury That made me grow up VERY ambiguous about myself and whether I did anything good. And that includes times when i won trophies for football or even awards for good grades. I always doubted myself because somewhere in my mind I kept thinking, " What if they don't mean it?" So what I would find out much later in life is that it wasn't a standard I couldn't reach, but rather an insecurity my father was covering up. And I paid the price for it.

So how did I overcome it? Well I was VERY fortunate to have good friends with healthy families whose parents never talked to them like that. This was my first clue I was not in a ideal setting at home. The other part was I was extremely hardheaded about wanting to do something with myself. I played sports, applied myself in school and slowly began to see I had my own vision of myself. I've always said confidence is built from demonstrated ability. There's probably nothing more true in life. You enjoy doing something that you have a craft for? Do it.

But the other thing was my dad could just never accept me as my own person and it finally came to a head after I had moved out. I bought a condo and after about a year, this girl I had been seeing moved in with me. My parents eventually caught wind of it and even though they really liked her, they would have no association with her if she lived in the same space with me. In fact they disowned me over it. Literally disowned me. They illustrated this by saying I wasn't allowed over to house even for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I sad, "Why?" They said because to welcome my company would be to condone my life choices. Wow. The real truth was my dad didn't want to risk being seen in a light he thought others would not approve. So his image as a "devote christian" was more important than the company of his son. Tons of irony in that if you think about it for ten seconds.

So we got through those holidays but my girlfriend was understandably upset over the level of rejection they had delivered. We ended up breaking up around the Fall of the following year. I went through a lean period soon after because she had left me with bills to pay and I was just a kid barely making ends meet as it were. I paid all of my bills but it left little for me and my dog. It was not uncommon for me to go through the house looking for change. Many weeks I lived off of $7 to $10 eating out of cans of food. Here's where it gets really good. My mother FINALLY checks in on me as the holidays roll back around and I inform her my girlfriend is gone. I don't tell her I'm having a hard time. I jokingly say, " Well I guess it will be okay to have a meal with the family for Thanksgiving, right?"

To my unbelieving ears, I hear this statement - " Well, your father and I don't know if we're ready to have you back yet. Having that girl live with you was really a terrible thing to do and we're not sure if you have learned your lesson or not." I was outraged. I calmly said, " That's fine" and hung up the phone. It was at THAT moment that I curled up in one corner of the condo dining room and just let all that rejection course through me one last time. I was done. DONE!! I knew I was at a cross roads. I could either be consumed by all of this horrible shame my parents had spent my entire life draping on me in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, or I could stand up, tell my father what he could do with that ghost and walk my own path in life. That was it. I was done catering to my folks. Letting them take cheap shots and wearing this ridiculous shame which they felt I "deserved".

I didn't have anything to do with them over the holidays and that was with them deciding it was "okay" for me to come over so we could "talk". I told them I didn't want to talk to them because I decided they were not okay in MY BOOK. I was 25 and I had taken all the crap I was going to take from that lot of self-righteous pricks. From that day forward I invested in how I felt about me devoid of any other comments except my own. I decided what I liked and cleaned house of any people in my life that that were not serving my interests.

Through the course of doing that I discovered a greater truth that I see in most everyone's lives. We subordinate accountability according to the labels we give people in our life. We often defer to others because of the title they have. Be it your dad, mom, brother, pastor, brother, girlfriend, soul mate, best friend, counselor...you name it. Because we give them such unconscious latitude to be right or less fallible than others, we tend to lose ourselves in those relationships and forget we too have a voice and a right to express our identity which should be respected by those whom we offer the same consideration.

But you know what? I can't control what others say or do. My wife could get up tomorrow and leave me. My brother could tell me he no longer cares for me. My employer can tell me they have to make cuts, so the job I thought I would always have is being eliminated. My doctor could tell me I have a terminal illness and all the plans I had made will be wiped out. All I have as an anchor on in my life is what I SAY AND DO. People can love me, hate me, deplore me, reject me, enrich me or try and steal from me. But none of that means anything if I don't first know how I feel about me.

If I have to trust the opinions of people outside of me, no matter who they are, then I'm in trouble, because my worth is only as strong as how they know me, what they chose to know about me, and how it relates with how they see themselves. So I better have a good anchor on ME.

You say you feel exhausted and tired of being an underachiever in the eyes of your father. Well quit looking at your life through the eyes of your father. He's not you. He doesn't live your life. And he doesn't have a right to judge you since he doesn't walk in your shoes. Find YOUR voice. Find the things you like to do. Ignore the critics. That Bible doesn't make your dad right or better than you. He's Linus and that Bible is his security blanket because he can't speak for himself. Let him have it. You have your whole life in front of you.

So how did I do after 25? I eventually made peace with my dad when he discovered if he cared about me he would have to meet me on my terms. We learned to avoid the subjects we disagreed on and talk about the issues we found common ground with. Most importantly I forgave him for the things he use to say, because I found out before he was my dad he was a person with his own demons and his own issues that came out in ways he did not always understand. In 2005 I raised a glass and celebrated my parents 50th wedding anniversary and told all of their family and friends in attendance I loved them both dearly. I got to say everything publicly I ever wanted to say with the deepest of expression. In 2007 my father unexpectedly died of a massive heart attack. I was the closest of his three sons. I lost my oldest brother in 2013 and my mother passed away in 2014. All I have left from my original family is one brother five years older than me.

I'm 53, married over 25 years, with three kids and a grand son. I thank God every day for the decision I made that fateful day when I hung up that phone with my mother. I quit carrying the weight of others as my standard and learned to love myself. I started listening to my heart, my dreams, and what I thought was right and wrong. It didn't take me away from everyone for a long period of time, but it did teach me to come back with my own identity and my own sense of dignity that I would never let anyone ever take from me again. Believe in yourself. Trust only yourself and quit worrying about what others think. You only control yourself. Go take control. I wish you all the best.

You should know what to expect from oneself : when you know what to expect from self you are not botherd too much why someone else believe you are not doing good, its just when you are unsure what to expect from oneself that you may easy bother why someone criticize you which is normal when you are a kid, but when you become an adult you should know what to expect from oneself

What you focus on most of the times; that is who we become,; example if someone starts to play chess game just for fun even if he is not talented but plays every day he will learn it every day better and better; and even if he doesnt become a world champion still he may find oneself a place in a chess world like a coach for beginners or whatsoever but even that takes effort you got to be searching

Who you become depends on decisions


It seems like there are some kind of disagreements between you and your parents and im unsure about that, maybe if you simply distance oneself from them may be for your own good


Work, rest, play

Working is good;; even if someone has billions of dollars he shouldnt stop working; because happiness comes out of work

Rest, relax; you are a human and sometimes you get tired so you dont always need to work sometimes you need a rest

Play, life is not cool if we never joke, celebrate, dance ,

I am 27 and lost.