When I was growing up, my father would find reasons every day to call me stupid or dumb. Daily he would order me around like a dog. For instance, he would tell me, "Get that for me," and point the general direction. I asked, "What?" He responded, "That!" The general direction he pointed to was a shelf and it had at least a couple of dozen different things on it. I get to the shelf and asked, "Which one?" I started getting angry and yelled, "The red one." I asked, "red what?" He got even angrier and yelled, "The red one!" This would go on for a long time and call me stupid and dumb in the process. "You're so dumb! It's right there" He would be sitting in his recliner relaxing while he ordered me to get something from a shelf less than 10 feet away. He would do this daily and call me stupid when I couldn't read his mind. He would often tell his friends, right in front of our faces, that he didn't know why he had such stupid children.
When I was growing up, I had to do many chores around the house. My younger brother, he would let go outside and play. Me, he would make me work constantly around the house doing whatever he thought needed to be done while he sat on his recliner and talked to his friends loudly proclaiming that his son was stupid.
I saw much favoritism. He would discipline me for no reason at all most of the time while my younger brother (the youngest), he would rarely discipline. My father constantly taught me to respect my elder siblings and obey their commands, yet when my younger brother didn't do what I asked, he would yell at me. He taught me one thing while he let my younger brother get away scott free with many things.
He would often show favoritism in front of my face. He would give my brother gifts and favors, and do things for him. While for me, he would not lift a hand and ordered me around.
I had to change the oil (and do engine tune-ups as well) in the family cars growing up. He would tell me to change the oil using only a cheap roadside jack for prop. This was very dangerous and I told him so. He ordered me to do it anyway. He said it was safe. I wouldn't be surprised if he bought life insurance on me. When I left the household, he finally made my younger brother change the oil. My younger brother complained that it was dangerous, and he finally bought quality jacks for him.
He would tell me to siphon gas from the family car. I told him it was dangerous and that there was a diagram showing not to do that. He said, "It's safe. Don't listen to that." So I asked my dad to do it, since it was safe. He refused.
My mother, who only had a second grade education, would find reasons to call me stupid once a week, which was much less than my dad. :) She would find all these things wrong with me and the main thing, of course, was that I was dumb. :) She kept on telling us how wise and smart she is. She didn't socialize much or hardly had any friends. She learned most of her "wisdom" from watching Chinese soap operas translated into Vietnamese. After watching these soap operas, she thought she knew about how the world operated and proclaimed herself a "genius" on life. From there, she proceeded to teach us how to live life. Fortunately for us, most of her male children did not listen to her advice. Her other wisdom, came from her "stories" told to her by the few people she talks to occasionally. These "tales" lacked any verification and important details that would even make it plausible. These stories violated gross laws of science, and the U.S. legal system. Yet somehow, she claimed with 100% certainty, that that's exactly how it happened, almost as if she was there herself. She gets very pedantic about this and then wonders why her male children do not listen to her advice.
Even nowadays my mom always tries to get into my personal business and give me advice starting off with a nice compliment, "You're so dumb. This is what you should do." Now that I don't live there anymore, I tell her, "Mom, if you are so smart about the law, why don't you go make $300-$400 dollars as an attorney?" She can't even read English. Most of her "knowledge" of the law comes from her acquaintances unverified stories. Nowadays, I often have to tell her, "Stay out of my business." Usually five or more times in a row before she'll drop the topic. She will often stay out of my business for a few weeks and then getting into my business again.
I had grew up being very confident around women. Yet due to the undermining of my mother, and sometimes my older sisters calling me all sorts of names like "loser", "geek", "dork", I had lost much of it. I got home having gotten a phone number from a very cute girl. I would be smiling. My mother would walk up to me, look at me up and down like there was something wrong and point about everything about me she didn't like and say, "You need plastic surgery to fix all of that. You can't get a woman until you do that." This kind of undermining would happen constantly. Suffice to stay, I never got plastic surgery and personally don't believe in that.
I would spend a lot of time on the computer, still pre-internet days, in the early to late 80's. Most of the time I would be learning how to do all sorts of cool stuff, like teaching myself machine language, then assembly language, and then writing video games for fun. Of course my family treated me pretty poorly and did not allow me to go out and have fun, so I retreated to this world where I could have fun. I taught myself all kinds of cool things on the computer. I would leave my room to get a break, and then my sister would give me a dirty look and say, "You're such a loser." Of course, I would go back into my computer and play with the computer some more and have my fun.
