I am an Indian. I know to keep it anonymous but revealing my nationality brings me no harm.

A day ago, I was writing my in-progress novel. It was nearing 11 PM. I went to get my night dress from the room in which I sleep (it's not mine, I don't exactly have my own room in this house, but that's no worry), and went to the washroom to change. My brother was watching TV. I told him to turn it off by the time I return. He always dismisses everything I say, because I'm the useless sort in the house. So of course he dismissed this.

I returned from the bathroom and pushed against the door to the room in which my brother was, and it didn't open. I went to the balcony to try the other spare entrance, but that door was locked too. My uncle and grandmother were asleep. They heard me bang the door, and my uncle appeared out of his room. I told him what was wrong and he tried several bizarre methods of unlocking a door, calling out my brother's name, turning the door handle over and over.

Truth was that my brother had fallen asleep while watching TV. It was late night, wasn't it? The fucker locked the door from the inside for a reason even I don't know. He was in a deep slumber, that my uncle's or my voice didn't reach him loudly enough to wake him.

My grandmother can't walk without her cane. She has fat legs, and lung problems, so she kept saying how him (brother) locking the door rattled her and how her body was shaking. I tried to calm her down.

Mother and father had gone to dinner, so grandmother phoned them to return home ASAP, because father keeps a bunch of keys with him, one of which would fit the door's lock and unlock it. We just had to wait. I waited patiently and calmly through the tension, because panic would have been fuel to the fire.

Even amidst all this, grandmother and uncle kept saying how I was the one who went to the washroom, I was the one who left him alone, and henceforth I'm the irresponsible one. I tried to tell them I am no prophet, I wouldn't have in any case known that the idiot would lock the door while I'm away, much less fall asleep. It wasn't my fault, no matter how one saw it.

Father returned with mother in a few more moments, grabbed the keys and unlocked the room's door. Brother lay sleeping. I slapped him awake (literally) and then uncle and mother entered the room. Uncle didn't say much to him, since he is a little better than controlling his anger than the other two.

Father hit him and slapped him and kept asking him to why he locked the damn door, and mother stopped him by saying that he was still groggy and shit and hugged him. Father kept shouting. All was going well for me until...

Petty grandmother mentioned how I went to the washroom and left the little fucker alone for 15 MINUTES. Hear that? 15 MINUTES. Not even 20. I sometimes sing or think out some plots for my books in the bathroom, so I sometimes lose track of time, but that night I was more than a 100% certain I was gone for only and only 15 minutes.

I had tried all the ways and techniques I could to convince the old woman otherwise but noooo, I'm the one at fault. Always.

I shouted in frustration, that IT WASN'T ME. And guess what? Father got mad. Grabbed me. Slapped me once. Shouted in my ears. Gripped me by the arm and told me not to "look that way at him" because I wasn't meeting his eyes. My mother just stood there. My uncle told him to not hurt me. So he just yelled. Grandmother said nothing.

And then the next day my mother, the woman I despise for so many reasons, comes to "talk" with me (translation: scold and control me). I have not spoken to father since that night, it's been only one day. I wanted him to apologize. He had no reason to hit me. Why can't adults just hit their heads somewhere and understand that they are NOT the wise owls they think they are, that they glorify themselves as?

The woman told me that it was wrong of me to treat father that way, and because the two humans gave birth to me, they "have every right to hit me". NO YOU FUCKING DON'T. I AM NOT YOUR PROPERTY. Child or not, I am my own person who believes that hitting does nothing but give a child trauma for life, make them fear adults, FEAR THE MERE SENSE OF TOUCH, feel like they are at the adult's mercy, or worse, teach them hitting = making the child realize what's right.

That's where the title comes in. Ego and self-respect. Often....Most of the time,... okay nevermind, always, these two words are confused and used synonymously in this blasted Indian parenting universe. ..Fuck I hate this country (ps: I am not patriotic at all).

Mother told me to "lower my ego", as she put it. What I have isn't ego. I simply respect myself enough to know that I don't stand with the wrong. I don't care who does it. Wrong stays wrong. And I feel sorry for those who have no idea of self-respect. I feel sorry for their self-esteem.

Mother told me that children must apologize, that adults never do so because.... they're adults. Okay. I get that they are older than me. They have been on this planet longer than I have. They have seen things I haven't. BUT SIMILARLY, I have seen things they haven't. We're equal. We're also equal on the fact that at the end, we're all humans with a load of emotions.

Mother justified father hitting me because he was terrified for my brother and did it in a fit of rage. So if I yell in a fit of rage, that is not justified? Then you will hit me for raising my voice? He's lucky I'm not 18 yet, and that I don't have any malicious intent. Hitting a woman is assault, ain't it?

Mother told me that father works and wonders day and night for me and my education... But have they ever thought for my inner well-being? NO. BECAUSE THAT IS JUST A HALLUCINATION. IT'S NOT EVEN THERE. I get to hear that money buys no happiness, and no they contradict their own statement, implying that technically, money DOES buy happiness.

I'm not happy. I'm depressed, angry, broken, neglected, sad, hurt and hopeless. And if I tell them this, I'll get hit by the "you're only 17" reply. Because apparently they are stuck in their own angsty life to help me with mine.

They tell me I'm rude. Well, sent me to a fucking therapist then! I want help but can't they get the hint that I'm not able to express it to them because they are all daft shitheads? Why can't I express? They've given me no reason to bestow them with my trust. I trust my friends more. For me, water is thicker than blood. I don't even know who wrote the stupid saying anyways.

Mother told me to make him a sorry card and buy him a chocolate. Okay, I'll do it. Not because I want to, but because I'm genuinely tired of this woman's idiocy. First she neglects me and constantly fawns over brother ("he's younger than you) and now she tries to give me lessons in lowering my "ego"? I have ego, I won't deny. But this, this isn't ego. It's a strong sense of respect for my own being. Every time I try to cultivate it, they kill it in one way or another.

Please treat your children better. They don't deserve this. They are not your puppets. Not your property. They are yours to take care of, so stop doing things that make them grow distant.

It's amazing to know that a 17-yo has a better sense of parenting than two parents combined.

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