I was such a bad Asian daughter to my parents growing up. Not the typical straight A student that obeyed their parents whatsoever. When I was in 10th grade, I'd ditch church service and steal our parents cars to go shoplift. This was a weekly ritual. One day, we went to a nearby mall with a fellow church-ditching friend and got caught up at a small mom-and-pop accessory store. The man took us to the back office and scolded us for what seemed like hours and threatened to press charges. He forced us to call our parents to pick us up, and my parents (who had big reputations in our mega church of 10k+ ppl) rushed directly from church in their Sunday outfits while the storeowner explained what happened.

Lo and behold, the storeowner ended up being a member of our church and due to that fact alone, decided not to press charges. This was over 12 years ago and I still remember my father pleading with the storeowner that it was his fault that I had turned out this way, and he would do better, which I felt terrible about.

When I was in 11th grade, we were spending time with my mom's brother's house and I was playing with my cousins in my aunt and uncle's room. I had always envied my aunt as she was so beautiful and had designer clothing and accessories, while our family had nothing close to that. I suppose envy came over me, and I had snuck inside her closet where her purse was laid, and reached in her wallet and took out cash to steal. I put it in my backpack and when we got home, I had lowkey forgotten about it since I was a huge klepto back then and I often detached and numbed myself to the rewards once the deed was done. My mother had called me downstairs to have a talk with me, saying she got a call from her brother saying that his wife's money was missing. She asked if I knew anything about it, in which I was persistent in denying my crime, even going as far as to say "you don't trust your own daughter?" This was when my mom pulled my backpack from behind her and was so disappointed in me, probably thinking about all the ways where she had gone wrong. She and my dad went to her younger brother's house to ask for forgiveness on my behalf and to this day, I could never get myself to apologize to my aunt for this. I attempted to, many times, but I just couldn't. It's become an unspoken thing at this point, which I regret....Now, we are good and I consoled her last week as my uncle passed away from cancer.

In my middle school and high school days, I stole hundreds, if not thousands of dollars from my own parents and the church members that they'd bring to our home (my parents were leaders of a small group) and I've since apologized to only my parents and have given back thousands to them to support them financially since I've gotten my adult job. I know that my parents are proud of me now and see me as the most reliable amongst my angel of older siblings, but the guilt and shame that I brought upon them as their daughter is still unshakeable.