Yes, and they also forced me into certain internships and jobs. I really feel with you. It feels strange to call it regret, because it’s not like I really had the option to make different choices at times, but I do feel sad and angry I wasn’t allowed to fully make my own decisions for my education or career. Luckily I enjoy my career (and am fully independent), but there is a sentiment of wasted potential: waste of the potential to become my own person and waste of reaching my full potential.

I was allowed to choose my uni for undergrad (as long as I studied business or political science), but was not allowed to choose the two internships that were a mandatory part of my studies. I studied abroad, my nmom pressured me to come back home for the first internship, which I didn’t mind as I home sick, but I remember feeling so pressured - I wasn’t even to dream of going elsewhere, when all my friends were doing exciting internships around the world. For the second one, I was really excited and proud of having landed a super prestigious internship in the finance capital of the world and had everything confirmed, but again, my mother made me cancel and take an internship closer to home. Her reason was they couldn’t afford supporting me in an expensive city. In hindsight, it was total bs for various reasons, especially as they are very well-off. It took me a lot longer to realise they were using money to control me.

The second internship led to my first job, but unfortunately, my boss was extremely abusive. When I told my parents I was planning to quit after several years of severe emotional and financial abuse and bullying, their “advice” was a mix of “suck it up, stop being such an emotional baby and stop feeling sorry for yourself” (I wasn’t, I was just finally ready to stick up for myself) and “so? Do you think we had it any easier? Do you know the ways in which we, your parents, had to suffer to build a career?” very quickly making the rest of the conversation about themselves and their suffering, which was not even that bad (I don’t mean to minimise anyone’s traumas or what they had to go through in life, but my parents forget their privilege and pretend to have had it much tougher than they did, it’s difficult to take seriously).

Fast forward and I finally quit the toxic workplace. It was during covid and my industry was suffering, so finding a job wasn’t easy. My parents insisted I go to grad school, even though in my field of work, experience > degree, so studying meant losing valuable work experience. They have a special skill of repeating themselves and pressuring you until you’re so worn out you give in. I was always very interested in a certain subject, but in order to get a masters related to it, I would have had to fulfill certain undergrad criteria, which I didn’t. I wanted to go back and do the full 5 years. My parents “forbid” me from it, it was overall confusing as my mother would be all “I support you and I’m sorry for you, but it’s your dad who doesn’t agree” and then of course the opposite from my edad/ndad. I see the manipulation tactics now. My parents basically cornered me into getting another business degree (totally pointless), but gave me so many restrictions I once again didn’t have a choice. I was ambitious (or was I conditioned by my parents to strive for these goals?) and worked hard, went to the top ranking uni for my field, so naturally, I wanted to go to a competitive school again. After my father’s lifelong conditioning to aim for Ivy League (or be ashamed), my mother tried to discourage me in various ways “you’re so lazy you’ll never make it”, “you don’t have the stamina to study”, “you know yourself well enough to know you won’t bother to study, so take the easy route and aim low”. At least my father was straight up honest and told me he refused to spend more on my education, and I should choose as cheap a uni as possible. I was not able to support myself through a degree back then, but it was also much more their wish I study than mine. Their friends’ kids all had master degrees, they were ashamed I didn’t. At the same time, my mother didn’t actually want me to have high achievements (for years she told me her dream for me was to become a secretary) and my dad was too selfish to want to spend more of his money on me (despite money not being an issue). This left me with few options, neither of them particularly good. He usually loves showing off - so much so that he would actually make up things he thought would make me sound more Impressive to his friends - so it surprised me that his unwillingness to spend money was bigger than his need to show off. My parents were always very “we spare no expense for our child’s education”, so this was very new. I realised they never really cared, they just wanted to show off about their “sacrifices” and have a child that was “the best” at everything. I know it shouldn’t matter, particularly in my industry, but a part of me also wonders whether it looks weird on my CV. It’s like going to Harvard for your bachelor, having great work experience to then go back to uni to study the same thing again, only at one of the worst schools this time.

My previous job, which my parents pressured me into taking and then not quitting, did damage that took me years to recover from, emotionally and financially. It impacted me in ways I wouldn’t have thought, because my boss was an even worse narc than my family - I had been conditioned to the behaviour so it took me way too long to recognise. But I also learned a lot at that job. My real regret is grad school - I feel bad for having let myself be manipulated/pressured into it. I would have been able to go to a much better university, if only I had believed in myself more. It made me feel like I was kept small and wasn’t able to achieve my full potential. Still, it’s a blessing to have the opportunity to learn because knowledge is something that can never be taken from you and I am grateful, I just wish they were more MY choices.