Non-Fiction
Traumatic Family and Hustle Culture
Trigger Warning: Mentions of Suicide
Between the ages of two and four, my parents sent me back to my maternal grandparents to take care of me because they were buried in work. Growing up in a family where my parents were under pressure to put food on the table taught me not to disturb them. More horribly, there was a time when I saw my mother attempting to commit suicide in front of me and my father in her battle with depression over work.
I adopted all the social norms and cultural expectations at school to meet my survival needs. They could have ranged from refraining from speaking out, nagging, or expressing certain ‘disturbing’ emotions — anything that annoyed people. I hoped I could be comforted in exchange for my submission. Even worse, the standardized education and the ranking system were built to demand a ‘perfect 10’ performance to guarantee my sense of security.
For a long time, I was used to seeing myself full of weaknesses. I didn’t know what my advantages were, all I could see were my mistakes pointed out by my father. However, one of the most painful words from my father was “I’m going through distress because of you” when he saw I didn’t fit in the gender norms. I felt ashamed of being my true self. Indeed, what’s the point of being proud when society, especially your close ones, sees you as a defective product?
Growing up, I learned and adopted the necessary strategies and working skills to cover up my vulnerabilities. Not having empathy and tolerance for making mistakes made it hard to admit them and say sorry to others. To avoid feeling shameful and receiving enough attention and support, I strived for perfectionism and refrained from showing flaws in front of people. Hence, this mindset made me susceptible to letting others determine my self-worth.
Surprisingly, modern economics jumped in as a one-size-fits-all solution. It was conditioned to give rewards and recognition for people to strive for ‘success’ in professional work, which were the things I longed for to make up for my insufficiency of acknowledgment.
At work, I experienced imposter syndrome when facing the absence of consistently positive feedback in my code reviews from a senior. Therefore, I kept working harder to cope with my inadequacy when comparing myself to anyone. I became a covert narcissist as I felt bad whenever I tried to establish my borderline. I tortured myself whenever I said no to people’s wills as I projected my emotions onto the rejected ones in the name of empathy.
Feeling full of despair, I indulged myself in any means of entertainment and materialism to boost my dopamine and feel content. Paradoxically, does materialism want me to feel sufficient? Regardless of how often the hustle culture wore me out and made me feel ‘not enough’, I also took pride in overcoming those obstacles by refusing to stay stagnant. I fell into the trap of overt narcissism where I constantly tried to stand out as a pick-me in any scope as if it was never enough to be praised in only one field when I could become multi-talented.
In the modern world, such narcissistic traits are pretty much welcomed and praised by most organizations to establish customer relationships and maintain the retention rate, while simultaneously converting them into revenues. Driven by a chronic fear of being rejected, people numb all their present emotions while living in shame, making us suffer for being just ordinary humans and finding life isn’t worth living.
Nevertheless, It hit the hardest when I ruined some of my relationships by picking up that attitude at work and invalidating other team members’ feelings due to the strenuous workload. Finally, I became a piece of the puzzle named Hustle and Bustle.
Between the ages of two and four, my parents sent me back to my maternal grandparents to take care of me because they were buried in work. Growing up in a family where my parents were under pressure to put food on the table taught me not to disturb them. More horribly, there was a time when I saw my mother attempting to commit suicide in front of me and my father in her battle with depression over work.
I adopted all the social norms and cultural expectations at school to meet my survival needs. They could have ranged from refraining from speaking out, nagging, or expressing certain ‘disturbing’ emotions — anything that annoyed people. I hoped I could be comforted in exchange for my submission. Even worse, the standardized education and the ranking system were built to demand a ‘perfect 10’ performance to guarantee my sense of security.
For a long time, I was used to seeing myself full of weaknesses. I didn’t know what my advantages were, all I could see were my mistakes pointed out by my father. However, one of the most painful words from my father was “I’m going through distress because of you” when he saw I didn’t fit in the gender norms. I felt ashamed of being my true self. Indeed, what’s the point of being proud when society, especially your close ones, sees you as a defective product?
Growing up, I learned and adopted the necessary strategies and working skills to cover up my vulnerabilities. Not having empathy and tolerance for making mistakes made it hard to admit them and say sorry to others. To avoid feeling shameful and receiving enough attention and support, I strived for perfectionism and refrained from showing flaws in front of people. Hence, this mindset made me susceptible to letting others determine my self-worth.
Surprisingly, modern economics jumped in as a one-size-fits-all solution. It was conditioned to give rewards and recognition for people to strive for ‘success’ in professional work, which were the things I longed for to make up for my insufficiency of acknowledgment.
At work, I experienced imposter syndrome when facing the absence of consistently positive feedback in my code reviews from a senior. Therefore, I kept working harder to cope with my inadequacy when comparing myself to anyone. I became a covert narcissist as I felt bad whenever I tried to establish my borderline. I tortured myself whenever I said no to people’s wills as I projected my emotions onto the rejected ones in the name of empathy.
Feeling full of despair, I indulged myself in any means of entertainment and materialism to boost my dopamine and feel content. Paradoxically, does materialism want me to feel sufficient? Regardless of how often the hustle culture wore me out and made me feel ‘not enough’, I also took pride in overcoming those obstacles by refusing to stay stagnant. I fell into the trap of overt narcissism where I constantly tried to stand out as a pick-me in any scope as if it was never enough to be praised in only one field when I could become multi-talented.
In the modern world, such narcissistic traits are pretty much welcomed and praised by most organizations to establish customer relationships and maintain the retention rate, while simultaneously converting them into revenues. Driven by a chronic fear of being rejected, people numb all their present emotions while living in shame, making us suffer for being just ordinary humans and finding life isn’t worth living.
Nevertheless, It hit the hardest when I ruined some of my relationships by picking up that attitude at work and invalidating other team members’ feelings due to the strenuous workload. Finally, I became a piece of the puzzle named Hustle and Bustle.