Today I read a post by the late Ashraf's Sinclair's father which warmed my heart (I am probably tired after my first long journey in months too). I quoted his words on my Twitter: "...to be able to offer myself in exchange for his life, as any parent would do..." I think this is beautiful.
To recap, the late Ashraf passed away at age 40 suddenly. He is from the famous Sinclairs family in Malaysia. The family is also married to Yuna Zarai and Ashraf was married to Indonesian Bunga Citra Lestari (I love her songs).
This is in stark contrast to Abam's family who also passed away suddenly at age 32. The widow immediately moved out due to disagreement with Abam's family.
Now, we all probably did not know the details of these two families. Are they really kind or cruel as the media or they themselves portray? God knows.
But on the surface, I will be using the two stories as an example of how we can have two families that are completely different. Yet they live together and function as a family unit despite how hard for us to comprehend or accept.
Some people cannot accept that there exists a happy and loving family because they never had one and vice versa.
I think Asian people especially Malaysian will find it difficult to brain the people who are estranged from their families. In our culture, we need to tolerate our life with our family no matter how bad and difficult it is. Most of us will immediately judge the person who is thus estranged as the bad apple.
This is why I almost never write about my family. I stopped being in contact with my family about four years ago. However, in reality, I had walked out of the house when I was 18 (packed everything up and out of the house) and never came back. It was possible to have nothing left in the family home when I was 18 because I had planned to leave ever since I was 9. But I kept in touch and came visiting every weekend or passing by. Until I stopped for good four years ago.
Now, I will put on record that if I could reverse time, I will not change anything. I believe everything that has happened to me shaped me into who I am now. I am probably not someone who makes it into history. But I am proud of myself and happy with who I am. I have always accepted that I have this kind of family. Not proud or happy with it, but accepted it I did.
But I am dying and I foresee that I might die alone (and struggle alone before that). At the moment, I am fine with the fact of dying alone (technically, we all die alone and answer to God alone). The struggling part, well, it has started and I still manage to do it without them. Hoping against all odds this will not change. What I am not so fine with is being dead and perceived as the bad apple or deserve what is happening to me because I am anak derhaka.
Technically, what is happening to me now is due to my parents. The genes that I inherited caused me to have multiple autoimmune diseases i.e Psoriasis and Mixed Connective Tissue Disease (just this two at the moment). If this is paying a price, I'd like to think that this is not paying the price for being anak derhaka. This is paying the price for being born to my parents in the first place. Thus, I am still being haunted by my parents to my last dying breath. But, I am a Muslim, therefore, I do not blame my parents because I had asked God to be born no matter what.
As I am writing this, I am seeing my stubborn streak surfacing again. Stubborn to prove that I am not wrong for choosing to be alone. Anyway, tiring as it is to write about this I am going to try and continue.
My family is not perfect like the Sinclairs. However, they are not publicly bad like the Abam's. Nevertheless, they are not normal. About 1 year after I left, I read about Narcissistic Parents in a health magazine. I believe this closely resemble my parents:
After reading about Narcissistic Parents, I am not surprised that one of the solutions is to create a boundary and if that is not possible, to cease all contacts. However, setting up the boundary is not easy. It took me about 20 years. It was a plan since I was 9 years old. How can I make people understand that wanting to leave your family when you are 9 years old means there is something wrong with your family and not you?
If this is not enough to convince anyone so be it, I am too adult to be airing dirty laundry. But I can only say that it was torture compared to having Mixed Connective Tissue Disease and being alone. That I still fear of going back and suffer unhappiness more than of being sick and dying alone.
I feel mentally healthier after I settle down and not having contact with my family. I feel at peace and like a load of boulder had been removed from my heart. Yes, I am concerned that God may not agree with me. Some folks even say I will be unhappy and hidup tak berkat sepanjang hayat. But I can only pray for salvation and I believe that there is no other way. It made it easier for me to accept MCTD because as I was busy dealing with problems due to my parents, I have not achieved or contributed anything significant as a human or a Muslim in this world. Therefore, if I have a lot of sins and not many good deeds, I hope MCTD will even it out.
