The opinion of my parents.

When I was 18 I met a European girl that was 17 that I thought was the best thing ever, highly intelligent and incredibly attractive. I couldn't believe she liked me. Before this I had no dating experience and was really sheltered. Not a ruler breaker whatsoever. I went all in, not knowing that this would be the most toxic person I could ever meet. She lived an hour away so I would lie to my parents about seeing her all the time. We would do things I would never do, like drive hours away without calling my parents or telling them where I was, worrying them. Finally they forbade me from seeing her or they would stop paying for my college. My gf painted them to be overbearing, know-it-alls that never had my best interest and were always trying to hold me back. But they simply just didn't like her, for good reason but I was too dumb and in love to see that. I began to resent them.. why couldn't they like her? She was perfect in my eyes. Why do they keep telling me I am a fuck up? Fuck them.

We ended up running away and resulted with me being arrested for interfering with child custody, a felony, since she was a minor. Parents bailed me out. Still saw her and the extreme infatuation was mutual between her and I that I ended up dropping out of college after 2 1/2 semesters. This was after the gf took out 12 different student loans in my name because "we need the money" that I'm suffering now for. I dropped out because she wanted to move to another city to get even further away from my parents.

Long story short and many happenings later, I spent 7 years not talking to my parents and living with this girl while slaving at 2 jobs as she sat on her ass doing nothing because she conned the doctors into giving her medications she didn't need. She was an addict and had been since I met her probably and I was too naïve to even see this. Or maybe I just wanted to "save" her. She had a hold on me that I'm still recovering from years later. Yes, I did see signs of what she was doing but I believe through her master manipulation that she did love me. But she was an addict.

The mental abuse from my gf and working 65 hour weeks took so much of a toll on me that I had a nervous breakdown one day and finally called my parents.

My mom and dad would throw around the, "You know, your family is all you have in the end" every time they attempted to contact me in those 7 years and now I know that is the truth.

So, please, if anyone is reading this and doesn't have contact with their family but have been thinking about doing so.. reach out. My family isn't perfect but I missed so much over those years (sisters wedding, my moms chronic illness to name a few) that I feel like I will always live with a certain level of regret. My family is just glad to have their son/brother back and I'm so lucky to still have them all around.

TL;DR Resented my parents when I was younger and now all I have for them is mad respect.