I ain't no rich kid. Realistically speaking, my parents own very little property and yet my sister and I are studying at some of the top schools in the country with our tuitions paid in full directly from my parents' pockets. I also attended an international high school abroad. We travel every few years. And I go out dressed in clothes that may have been bought during a sale but from brands not everyone could afford. . . I feel like a spoiled child. . . Do I feel guilty? Yes. I overheard a conversation my mom had today with a bank over the phone. Turns out that her debt is much larger than we estimated and my immediate reaction to it was a sickening feeling in the stomach that I was part of the reason my parents' debts have blown to proportions like that. In 2016, I had the same realisation. And my reaction? I wanted to kill myself. I felt like a burden. Another mouth to feed and a brain to send to school but I didn't feel like I deserved it. I wanted to die to save my parents from spending money on something so... useless. . . I've talked about this before and I no longer think that but the concept of being a "burden" has not left me. on being a "burden"... My parents would never admit it. I expressed these thoughts to them before. I told them, "I don't want to be a burden." And in staying true to that, I don't ask them for anything. I rarely ask for my wants, just what I need. But nonetheless, my parents get me things that I would want without me saying anything. And I've since then realised that my fault in the situation is not because I ask too much but because I don't reject enough.
My parents are supportive of me in anything and everything. When I was making my final decisions about which university to attend and I was down to the final two choices, I picked the more expensive option. It wasn't to make my parents pay more as an act of spite or something. To me, at that time, it was an act of personal accountability and personal choice-- I thought I was doing something good for myself by choosing the place that attracted me more and plus, was offering me a course I really wanted as opposed to the university who was offering me a course I was only mildly interested in but offered way cheaper tuition fees. I thought at that time, "Well, they did give me the power to decide. So this time, I'll do something for myself." It's a decision that I don't regret for multiple reasons except one, one that just resurfaced at the top of my mind after I heard that phone call. Perhaps, what I've done was make a selfish choice that is continually pushing my parents back into greater debt. And it reminded me of one thing: that I'm still a burden. . . . I don't ask my parents for much. I don't ask often for what I don't need. I give them a very realistic budget plan for my sister and I's independent living back in Manila. I don't exaggerate any price but report it back to them down to the very last cent. I don't know what else I could do to help them. I could cinch mine and my sister's personal expenses more to save more money but apart from that, I have nothing to give back to them. I am currently a freshman in college with three years left under my undergraduate course, granted that everything goes well from here. And then after that, what? I expressed to my parents that I would like to attend med school or graduate school-- whichever-- but I'd like to do it directly after I've collected my bachelor's degree. They nod and they agree. They smile and they encourage me. But that phone call... it reminded me of the reality that that dream and that plan may just be asking for too much. At this point and with the debt my parents have, will they still be able to send me to grad/med school and send my sister to university at the same time? They tell me it's possible. They tell me to study and do as I must and they will take care of the finances but can they really? I feel pretty, fucking useless. To top it all off, my mom's job has been threatened just this past year and her job's current status is not as stable as it had been. I'm almost 20 years old. And yet I feel incapable of being any useful help. . . . But no, I've worked this hard to try and live again. I don't want to kill myself. Don't take me there.
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