I need help and I don't know how to phrase it.

hi i need some help and i don't know how to exactly phrase it. i will start in the beginning.
i am a girl in early 20s from south India. i finished my graduation. my family is kind of closed and traditional. but me...i am very very different from my family. i know my folks love me a lot but what they expect from me is obedience...that is what they consider as love. i do obey them but when it comes to my mom deciding wawt kind of underwear what i should wear...it becomes terrible...my brother is very very over protecting...drastically limiting my social life...which is almost non exsistant.

i am not very good with studies..and i made really low marks with my graduation...its not because i don't wanna study..its because i just cant concentrate..i just cant..i honestly cant...i tell my family this but they think i am just lazy...i tried talking to my mom...she took me to a psychologist...that stopped when my dad called me "crazy n should be locked up" when he was drunk.

I have always wanted to do masters but cant cause of my low marks. i still keep hope though. i had a boy friend,..but he kinda broke up with me about 10 months back because he wants to keep his "friendship" with this other girl...we were together for 4 years...i wasted the best of my years for him. and i still think about him even though i stopped crying some 3 or 4 months back.
i work now at a stupid place doing a dead end job that i hate. There are so many things i wanna do but cant cause my family says so. they really don't understand how much freedom mean to me. they sees me as someone who is incapable of everything. i feel as if they see me like a pet dog...one that is love and protected and provided for..but always on a leash...
and sometimes i feel like their dog..wagging my tail to get their attention..i hate it

i had some friends...but when i found out most of the boys sees me in the wrong way i just pushed them away...so much that i even lost my good friends. now i have one friend that i don't even trust. i am so desperate.
i cant tell anyone what i m going through...i m scared that they will think i am whining.
i hate my dad...he has been an alcoholic all his life...always verbally abused my mom n me. i had some terrible fights with him. now he has cancer and i don't feel any remorse for him...and that scares me more, the fact that i don't feel sorry for my own father...i rarely feel anything anymore...but still i cried at the flood that happened in Pakistan...and when there was a news about an old man being publicly abused.
also i do say a prayer when i hear an ambulance...i know i am a good person...
but i don't understand why everything goes wrong with me...every one of my dreams and ambitions go down the drain
now i just cry at night...it feels good...but i m scared if i get too depressed. i am a person who
respects life...never thought about suicide but now i am and it scares me.

i just want someone to tell me what i should do...i know there are people who suffers more than me...but misery in different forms is still misery right?

first i just cry at night...cause u see i cant cry in front of my family...i cant let them know...but now my eyes fill up without any reason at all...sometime when i am travelling or in the office or when being with my family....
i used to be so happy...had a beautiful smile...i used to laugh so much...i used to love movies and books and ice cream...now i spend my time in front of TV flicking channels or lying in my bed...i even stopped taking care of my self...i am so scared and i don't know what to do...

i feel as if my life is slipping away without doing all those things i dreamed about...my family is a talking about marrying me off..and i know once that happens i will be trapped for ever...and now a days i m loosing my temper more.

i just don't know what to do...feel as if i cant control any thing anymore, not my life or my future...
please help if you can
i want to save my self.

Post Edited By Moderator (stkitt) : 9/27/2010 8:25:47 AM (GMT-6)

Yes you are right...the cultures are very different. In my country usually...according to tradition...a girl child is allowed to leave the house permanently only after getting married. She is not allowed to live all by herself...even the society says no to that. She is not usually allowed to take decisions on her own...should listen to her parents n brothers before marriage and husband after that and kids after that...i am saying this so that you can help someone else from my country that comes along. How restricting lives is for the women.

i have finished my school and my college and i am working now as i have mentioned in my post.

And i do try to count my blessings..but i just cant find that much.
Thank you for your kind reply.

You're in a pretty tuff place. I think it would be miserable to be so controlled. You have a lot of emotional stuff to deal with. I was not too broken up when my father died, he was an alcoholic too. They are not such good fathers. And you and your mom were abused. Very painful. You are a smart and well-educated girl. Be proud of that. And you are working when many are unable to find a job. Someday you will be able to move out. Are you able to save money for yourself? Perhaps you should find a counselor who understand your family culture. Maybe your family doctor will prescribe some antidepressants. Those 2 things would be a good start.

And you know what you can't hang in between ! If you want to be what our culture wants us to be be it completely or just kick it on it's butt n start working on your education and work. You can move out and have your life only if you stop trying to be in good books of everyone. You are unhappy caz you are losing yourself to become what everyone wants you to be.
Stop it ! You are on your own and are going to be so. What did you do your graduation in? Once you earn and have your own finances you would start gaining respect in eyes of your parents. They would know that you are independent. As for the society don't think of it, when you are independent and successful they would grovel at your feet.

Ahaha that's one thing I have hardly seen ! Equality between men and women ! Guys treat women either as prized possessions or as their personal slave. Im not going to try and potray things that aren't true ! Be it my father or the men I have dated they pamper you etc but when it comes down to the core we remain mere objects they posses.
The reason why families move out is to run away from their society and parents but they in the wake of keeping their culture alive too become worse .... Caz they try to handle the lifestyle in another country with their own culture.
I know men across the globe will be different but what the girl here is suffering is a classic culturally bound,paralysed person who has to get up or is going to be consumed and yet another girl would have lost herself to living life first on her parents rules, than her boyfriend and than her husband and in laws.

Well its just things have been so messy for be since I remember that it's made me hate any restrictions made me want to change things but the very thing I want to change is what my people are proud of.
I hope the post starter is fine she hasn't replied.