My Life

Birth - 7 years old

From birth until age 6, we moved countries frequently. There was no stability in my life. We moved from Pakistan to Bangladesh, back to Pakistan, then spent a month in a hotel in Oklahoma City, back to Pakistan, and then would shuttle between Saudi Arabia (SA) and Pakistan. The moving back and forth between SA and Pakistan was because Dad couldn’t/wouldn’t get a family visa. So we would go to Saudi for 3 weeks, and would then have to be in Pakistan for at least 3 months. Each time we came back, I’d go to a new school because I’d lost my placement in the last school.

1981

It started when I was 4 or so and realized that my parents weren’t going to be helping me through life. I’d have to figure things out if I was going to make it. This is a terrifying realization for a little kid, and I think I spent the rest of my childhood and early adulthood trying to disprove it. I gave my parents chance after chance to show up for me, and they never really did.

1983-84

Dad was traveling the entire year, so we didn’t see him except when he came to Pakistan on his way to or from Europe. That was about 2 or times. During this period, there was some stability. We moved back to Pakistan and lived with my aunt and grandfather.
- Mom would fight with her siblings over land they were selling. I’m pretty sure it was over how much each sibling would get. Things got pretty acrimonious. To the point that when we’d have family get-togethers, there were factions that would stay in different areas of the apartment and talk badly about the others. It was uncomfortable.
- My school at the time also shut down for a month because there were too many bombings in the city. I remember the teacher telling us to get out our notebooks and write down the assignments for the next month. It was the middle of the day, and the buses were waiting for us downstairs.
- I stayed inside the apartment for the entire month. I can picture sitting on the balcony and looking outside, wondering when I could leave again. This was good practice for the early days of the Covid lockdown in 2020.
- As a result of the frequency of us traveling, I never actually finished the first grade. When we got to SA, the school figured I’d been in 1st grade on and off for the previous 2 years, so I could be put into 2nd grade.

I can’t form attachments to places. I don’t have a sense of home.

7-11

We were in Saudi Arabia during this period. I mostly remember being very anxious all the time.

1986

I fell behind on homework in science class. I remember feeling more and more overwhelmed as the quarter went on. I can’t remember how the situation was resolved, but it must have been.

1987

I got a sewing needle stuck in my foot. I tried to tell Mom and Dad that my foot really hurt. They wouldn’t believe me and told me to stop pretending.
- It got to the point that I began dragging my foot behind me and sort of hopping to get around because it hurt to put weight on it
- When I finally got taken to the hospital, the needle came up on an x-ray.
- I was scheduled for surgery. I can remember Mom coming to my hospital room and making a big show of how concerned she was. She even hugged me, which was odd, because I had never really been shown any type of physical affection prior to this that I can remember.
During a visit to Bangladesh, Mom accused me of stealing money from her purse and hit me when I wouldn’t admit it. I hadn’t stolen it. Turned out that the money was in a different bag.
- When I brought the fact that I was innocent up, I was met with defiance and a refusal to apologize from my mom.

1988 or 1989

The one memory I do have is my mom and dad fighting once. I ran from the room because I knew my dad was about to hit my mom. He did.

12-13: The First Abandonment

1990-91

We got here and I went to 6th grade. During 6th and 7th grade, I was bullied heavily.
- The summer after 7th grade, we 3 kids got my mom a purse from KMart for Mother’s Day. We put the purse on her table and told her to go check it out. Mom saw the purse and then called us up to the room and screamed at us about how the purse was so terrible and that it had to be a plot by Dad to insult her.
- When I was 12, Mom told me about how Dad was trying to marry someone else and the only reason they stayed together was because I was being born. I was also told that after giving birth to me, she couldn’t sleep with Dad, so he’d gone to Thailand and gotten women there.

1991-92

In the summer between 7th and 8th grade, I thought about what I could possibly do to lessen the bullying. I made a plan to become a bully myself and executed it pretty well.
- I spent quite a bit of time serving various punishments.
- This was at odds with my nature, which was to help people and try to get along with them. But desperate times called for desperate measures. I started with the lower social status kids, bullied them and worked my way up the hierarchy.
- By the end of the year, I felt like I’d reached a decent equilibrium where I wasn’t being bullied too much, and people weren’t looking at me as a target.

1992-93

My uncle and his family moved in with us for almost 9 months. It was a horrible time. There was a tension in the house at all times. It finally boiled over one day when my mom and aunt began screaming at each other. My cousin and I were in the next room, playing video games, and pretended not to notice. Mom then lost it totally and was throwing pots and pans against some rocks in the back yard while screaming.
- After this, there were a couple of upsetting incidents I remember.
- Mom telling my female cousin that she was illegitimate while we were all having pizza for one of the kids’ birthdays. I remember seeing the look of confusion and sadness on my cousin’s face.
- Mom showing me a bruise from where Dad hit her after she’d fought with my aunt. She had a smirk on her face and said she was going to tell everyone my aunt had done it.

1993

After my uncle’s family left, the chaos got worse. A few incidents I remember:
- Mom being on the phone with people in Pakistan or other cities. This was when those calls cost money. She’d spend hours on the phone.
- Spending wildly. She’d buy almost $200 worth of food from a Schwan’s truck that came to the neighborhood. My dad and her would then fight after he got home. The shouting was so loud that there was nowhere in the house to escape from it. I would sit in my room and try to read. When that didn’t work, I’d either dissociate or sleep.
- Mom invited a couple who were selling leather jackets. The couple had me trying them on when Dad came home. My Dad was very frosty towards the couple and when they left, he screamed at Mom. I remember burying my face in my pillow and thinking that this wouldn’t happen if I were a better son.
- Mom chased my youngest sister, Sana, with a knife while me and my other sister, Naz, chased her trying to stop her from hurting Sana.
- Mom told me she was going to murder Dad in a graveyard.

1994

I started to do badly in school in 10th grade.
- Since my report cards weren’t as good as my sisters and I had to be driven to school by my Dad, this time was spent screaming at me for all my various failures.
- I would often consciously dissociate while this was happening.
- I even had a mental exercise that would allow me to power down like I was a robot.
I decided to switch schools after 10th grade. I needed a fresh start. As part of this move, I decided that I needed to get good grades to help get me away from my parents, instead of trying to make them feel proud of me.
- This is also when I realized that I would have to figure out my own value system because my parents had no idea how to be good people.
  - I would spend a lot of time in my room reading. I realize now that while reading, I was trying to work through all of the situations I was being presented with on continuously that were being handled in ways that were at odds with what I was being told.
- Mom and Dad would tell us to live like good Muslims, but did not live that way themselves.
  - They hired a teacher to come over on the weekend and teach us Quran. But they never really did anything else to encourage us.
- The summer after 10th grade, the house was in constant upheaval. Mom had once again lost her marbles and Dad was screaming at her all the time.
- She again began calling a lot of people. What she started to do at this point was to make sure to reveal details about my Dad’s various infidelities and other transgressions to the person on the other line while I was sure to be in earshot to hear it. I felt shame at this, because outsiders were being told all these intimate details and they would be sure to judge me for it.
- At the end of the summer, she went back to Pakistan. That fall, I took care of a lot of the house upkeep.
  - Things were going well at my new school. I was getting better grades too.
- When I was told that Mom was coming back, I asked Dad why she couldn’t just stay over there for at least a year. No answer was provided and she returned in October or November.
One day, we were told my mom was going back to Pakistan for a little while. I was fine with it because of all the chaos the past year.
- However, while she was gone, we had to pay the phone bill off. That meant that we had to spend a few weeks eating only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or deli meat. We couldn’t afford anything else while the bill was being paid down. During this time, I was the one who would heat up food and generally try to keep the house running.
- Mom came back and took over the household stuff again. There was no real acknowledgement of what I’d done while she was gone.

16-17

1994

I was able to get my driver’s license. This meant that I could now become the driver for my sisters instead of Dad. A lot of those duties were offloaded on to me.

1995:

Right before the summer after 11th grade, Dad told us he was going to go work in China over the summer.
- That summer, I was responsible for driving Naz to a summer program at UMKC at 7am. I then returned home and dropped Sana off at summer school. I had to pick up Sana at around 2 and then go get Naz at 3.
- I had a sundown curfew, but there really wasn’t any time to hang out with friends.
- At the end of the summer, my dad came back and informed us that he was going to be working in China from then on.
  - When he left, I was forced to take on the adult responsibilities that Mom flat out refused to do. Stuff like driving Sana and Mom around or paying bills.
  - Naz and I were forced to pick up the slack. Naz paid the bills while I did all the driving. I remember the year being stressful, but there were also some fun parts to it.
  - We did confront Mom and force her to learn how to drive. She did so kicking and screaming. At this point, me and Naz were parenting Mom because she had regressed.
  - She would yell at all of us and tell us we were the reason that Dad had to go to China. Since me and Naz were going to college soon, he needed to make more money.

18: The Final Abandonment

1996:

I left for my freshman year at KU a few months before my 18th birthday.
Mom had another breakdown. During this time, Mom was always wild eyed and in a manic phase.
- She was spending tons of money, and when she talked, it was obvious she had lost control of her mind.
- Once, I was home for the weekend from college. I was expected to be home every weekend. Mom stole my car while I was sleeping, drove it to a store and then had a mental breakdown while there. The store called me and asked when I could come get her. I said she had the car, so we’d have to wait until Naz got back from her school activity.
Birthday party: For some reason, Mom decided to throw me an 18th birthday party.
- As part of this, I wasn’t allowed to leave the house after I’d come home from the dorm that weekend. Mom invited my friend Russ over to spend the night on Friday and Saturday. I suggested that Russ and I go to a bookstore. I’d often leave and go to a bookstore on Friday night to get away from the chaos at the house. I heard Mom screaming at Russ that she’d told him it was his job to keep me in the house. I had no idea why.
- On Sunday, the day of the party came. Mom invited a bunch of her friends who I’d never met before. I didn’t want any of my friends to come because she was acting so wild.
  - I was forced to help set up the house for this party I had no idea was even happening. Mom kept screaming at us that the house wasn’t near ready and that we needed to work quicker.
- Right before the party was to start, I was told to go to my room and wait. My Mom then brought in Dad’s wedding outfit and told me to wear it. I outweigh my Dad by at least 50 lbs, so it wasn’t a good fit. She said this was going to be like a mini-wedding. I wasn’t getting married to anyone, but apparently, I was to come down the stairs like a groom in a South Asian movie.
- I’ve blocked out the rest of the party, but there’s a photo of me looking very angry and she’s holding on to my arm like she’s about to faint. This is a very traumatic memory for me. I remember driving back to KU thinking that this was going to scar me for life.
- I texted Sana what she remembered about the party since she was in the house at the time. She was 14 at the time. She said she was so embarrassed after I came down in the wedding outfit that she went to her room to hide.
After this terrible party, Dad called me and asked if he needed to come back to the US from China. I said yes.
After a week or so of him getting back, I was asked to sit when I came home for the weekend. Dad then began talking about how terrible everything was.
- The situation was framed in a way that the only resolution was for Mom to go to Pakistan, for him to go back to China and work, and for me to look after Naz and Sana.
- I remember getting teary because I was scared. But I agreed.
Mom left right after Thanksgiving in 1996. They were supposed to return over the Xmas holiday, but I then got a call. Dad said there were visa issues and they couldn’t actually make it back when they promised.
- The 1 month we agreed to became 6. I remember the anxiety I felt that entire time.
- I had no idea how to take care of 2 teenage girls on my own. I remember being so worried all the time that I began getting major heartburn. I was going through at least one bottle of Pepcid AC every 7-10 days.
But they came back and things resumed. Years later, when I was going through some family photos, I saw pictures of them sightseeing in the country where my dad was working. Instead of coming home ASAP once Mom arrived in China, they decided to have some me time.

1997:

For the remainder of my freshman year, I refused to come home on the weekends.
- My grades had really suffered because it was tough to keep my focus when I was in high anxiety all the time.
- Dad asked me about my grades and when I told him that they weren’t good, he began yelling at me. I told him that if he wanted me to focus on my studies, maybe leaving me to take care of 2 kids wasn’t the best idea.
- I stayed in the KU dorms and took summer classes as well. I’d come home on Saturdays, but made it clear I was very unhappy doing so.
- Before the school year started, I was told that I had to be home every weekend to take care of things around the house.

1998

Over winter break of 1997, Dad came back from China. He took all of us to a restaurant where he told us he was going to quit his job and move back to the US again.
- I took this opportunity to spend more time at the dorm.
- But I was never truly free.
  - One weekday afternoon, I’d just gotten home from class and got a call from Dad. We’d begun the process of applying for our permanent residence and he needed me to sign some paperwork.
  - I drove back to Lenexa, signed the papers, and then got back to the dorm. Just 10 minutes later, I get a call saying he’d forgotten about a document and that I needed to drive back over.
  - When I got back to Lenexa, I was very angry. I said that this better be all the documentation I had to sign. Dad told me that he would call me back over as many times as needed. When I said maybe this process wasn’t worth it out of frustration, he told me not to be a stupid fool and that I’d come back as often as needed. It was said in a very withering tone.

1999

I found out Dad was having an affair with his secretary from China. Sana had apparently heard him in his room’s closet talking to someone on his cellphone late at night. She told Mom about it, and things went nuclear.
- I was able to be at my apartment more by this time, so I avoided the house as much as possible. I’d also gotten my work permit, so I was able to use work as an excuse to not come home.

2000:

Things continued in the same terrible way.
- What I do remember is one night, I woke up to Mom screaming throughout the house. The 3 of us kids went downstairs. Mom was hysterical and screaming about Dad betraying her and said a lot of things I’ve blocked out.
  - We had an interview with immigration the next day, and I was still shell shocked because I’d found out about the affair.
- Dad began either driving or flying to Detroit and then driving into Windsor, Ontario, where his mistress had moved to. This would happen every 2-3 months.
- One Sunday, we went for a prayer service for Eid, one of the major Muslim holidays. On the way back, Mom was very upset and yelling because Dad suddenly told her that he was flying to Detroit that day. We dropped Mom, Naz, and Sana home and then I drove Dad to the airport to fly to his mistress.
  - I was angry about this because it was a violation of my personal code of ethics. I felt that flying to see a mistress on the same day as one of the holy days was the height of hypocrisy. I haven’t been back to a large prayer service since then.
- That summer, Mom visited my uncle in Arizona. While she was gone, Dad decided to go see Mistress. I was asked to come home and look after the cat and Sana. Dad called me after I got home and said that if Mom called, that I should tell her was in Chicago on business. She called around 6pm and I told her the lie. I wasn’t happy about it. She then called back at 10pm and asked if Dad was really in Chicago. I said no and remember her screaming and crying on the other end.
There was also an incident that showed how little Dad values me or my time.
- Dad was flying back from NYC, where Mistress was living by this time.
- I had to take the day off work because his flight was getting in at 4pm. I got to the airport at around 3.45.
- 4pm comes around, and he wasn’t one of the passengers who got off the flight.
- I call Mom and she said Dad called her and missed his flight. He was now going to come in on a 8.30 flight. I didn’t have any money to buy food, so I just sat around.
- He wasn’t on the 8.30 flight either.
- I call back again and this time, she said he’d also missed the 8.30 flight and that he’d be on a 11pm flight. He did come in on that flight.
- But there was no apology or anything. He acted as if it were an expectation that I be there when he finally got there.
I began getting financial aid. My dad saw me as a new revenue stream and asked me to hand over the extra money I had left after paying tuition. He would then give it back to me as an allowance.

2001

I graduated from KU and moved back home. I had a lot of anxiety and found it impossible to follow through on job interviews. Mostly, I sat at home, drove Mom places, and then went back and stayed at my friends’ apartment over the weekends.
We traveled to Baltimore for Naz’s graduation. The entire trip, I was treated more like a servant and told to bring things to Mom and Dad.
I decided to take the LSAT solely because going back to school seemed like the only alternative.
That summer, I went to live with Naz in San Francisco. She had an internship.

2003

I was pressured into giving Dad close to $11,000 because he needed to make house repairs in anticipation of relatives coming to town for Naz’s wedding.
- While we were looking for a ring for my now ex- brother in law, Dad told me to go to the mall and go to one of the jewelry stores there and to call him when I was there.
  - Once I got there, he told me to give the phone to whoever was helping me.
  - It was at this point I realized that I drove to the mall because he didn’t feel like looking up the phone number and thought it was acceptable to send me down there so he could make the most of his time.
    - Over my life, Dad made it clear that his time is the most valuable thing and he has no problems having someone else go way out of their way if it makes things even one minute quicker for him.
- I was also treated like a servant during the wedding. - The week started with Dad telling me, as I was getting myself into bed for the night, that they’d forgotten that my aunt was flying in that night. So, I got to wake up and go to the airport to get.
- That week, I woke up at 7 or 8am and was running errands until midnight.
- After the first night of wedding functions, I was so tired that I went to a nightclub with Sana and some cousins and sat in the corner and just rested. Anytime they saw me sitting, Mom or Dad told me another thing that had to be done.

24-39

2004: pick it back up here

2008

After I graduated and began working, my parents moved overseas because of my dad’s job. Without consulting me, they tell me to look after their house. I end up moving back to their house. I was asked to pay all the bills for their house and they’d pay me back. They owed me close to $6000, but every time I asked my dad where my money was, he’d bellyache about how tough it was to get to the bank over there. I told him that if I didn’t get my money ASAP, I was going to stop paying on all the bills and would allow the house to go into foreclosure. He sent the money the next day.When I try to personalize the house a bit, since I’m the one who lives there alone for 9 months out of the year, all of my things are thrown into a box and I’m told to “get my own house if I want to set things up the way I want them.” When I tell them I’m moving out, they offer me a room that I can set up however I want.

In 2017, I finally said enough. Things really gelled for me when I went to my mom’s house the day after she claimed my youngest sister had called and screamed at her. Mom was disheveled and wild eyed. When I asked whether she was on her meds, she said she was going to use prayer to heal herself. At that moment, I was transported back to when I was 13, watching her throw pots and pans against the house. I was just done. It all flashed before my eyes, and things just came into a sharp focus like they never had before.

Even with this evidence, it took me until I was 39 to figure out that they’re intrinsically bad people.

Written on July 10, 2024