Hmmmm....I don't get it?....um....a....OoooooKkkkkkkkk......now I got it....er, um..get it. Cat or a um kitten or feline something or another playing with something? ..... no, ohhhhhh, dear my a umm..is that a ....a ... nah. Family site. Not here. No sir. Not here. Giggle. Wait a minute. Now I see.....its a ....cat hammock.

LOL

One still is. I have a watch notice when the msgb changes. You my dear are in what is considered to be a...pickle. What legal recourse do you have? Many free legal sources should be available. Or a religious order that helps folks like you. Trouble is that family in Malyasia usual trump individuals and have a pecking order. Young people unfortunately are usually at the bottom. Hang in there, and don't do anything rash.

Helloween Fuzzy. Trouble is brewing all over. My dear folks took off on a long journy to Virgina State. Three days out my Mother left her purse with Visa, Master Charge, Checks, (Cheque in British),   and a brand new Sony LCD camera in a restroom stall. 50 miles down the way she found her purse was missing so they went back and it had disappeared. It is unusual but I've always thought that women had some sort of attachment to their purses! Like an umbilical cord or something.   I've been trying all weekend in to get their cards and checks canceled, but as I've found out its not wise to tangle with these Evil Corporations on the weekend. It's tough out there so beware! Yusef Islam (Cat Stevens) Yes I still listen to him and have his latest CD.

Oye! that's an awful situation.  Sorry I missed you think weekend, Elfkura.  IM me when you get a chance.

What doesn't kill me will only make me stronger, right?

That's how I'm viewing this. Sure, everything is crap right now, and I hate my parents. I have nothing I can do for myself and all my time is eaten up by all their demands because it is their house. I can pass a day feeling depressed that I'm stuck here, or I can pass a day thinking my own thoughts and be happy. I'll pass it thinking of my friends (you guys) and my boyfriend and be happy.

When I started out on online communities, I was in this exact situation. I had to rely on people I don't know and will probably never meet to keep me rooted to the world. I had to rely on friendship that I have to form outside of the normal means to help me go through the troubles I find myself in. The sad part is that my parents never helped me through any of it. My mother's reply to my telling her that I'm being bullied in school was: "If you don't go bother others, they won't bully you." Nice huh? I bring this up now, and all she'll say to me is: "Don't you feel confident in knowing that you can resolve your own situation without help?" I was 13 then. Shouldn't it have been her duty to protect me? This is why when I'm hit now, I hit back. They dropped me in this well of isolation. I'll dig myself out again. My parents always hated that about me. They think I never learn. What they do to me is for my own good.

I don't hold a grudge, not now, not in the past, not ever. I don't see a point to it. I do however point to all the things that have happened to explain to others why I don't feel safe with my parents, that I don't trust them, and why I'm stubborn and snobbish to a point past no return. In a place where I have to fight for my own sanity because my home isn't a sanctuary and school is just as brutal when I was growing up, I had no other choice but to turn to people and communities like this to give me a small road of communication and activity - insanity (look at this thread!) that serves to retain sanity.

I fought through school for my parents because that's where they wanted me to be. All I got was emotional maltreatment and partial physical abuse that has nothing to do with physical pain but emotional. I'm done trying to do things for them. I have myself 2 degrees, one of which I never wanted, and now a job I never asked to take but was forced to.

I perform well, I can get out, do what it is I want to do. I get transferred to the US and do well for a couple of years, who knows, Frogboy might like a good marketing person specializing in international communications... or not .

Along the way I plan on learning some technical stuff that I've always wanted. It's unfair of my parents to rip me away from one of the best sources I've got concerning that area - my boyfriend. He lives and breathes anything dealing with network engineering and security. I might have had a future following my parents, but I would have a brighter one with my boyfriend. My parents couldn't wrap that idea around their brains. That's how snobbish and egotistical they've become through their quest of obtaining money, and with it, status.

Money was never a determining factor. Happiness is, and my parents equate one with the other where I don't. That's why I will never see eye-to-eye with them and they will never bring themselves down to my level and understand where it is I came from.

My parents are forcing me down a road that they've fought to achieve. The thing is I've never seen my parents been happy all my life. I don't know the true reason as to why. They say it's because they're fighting to give me a bright future. I think it's simply because they've got personal problems and instead of dealing with it, turn to work to ignore it. That way, they can use the excuse that it is to give me a better future. I never see my father because he's at work 24/7 when I was growing up and still is to this day. My mother and I don't talk much. The last thing I want to become is them. If there's a life lesson in here somewhere, then it's this: Money is important. It just isn't worth your entire life, especially not the lives of your spouse and your children. Maybe some day my parents will wake up and realize that.

My parents can buy me anything I might want that has a monetary value. Everything else that didn't have that, I will never see any part of it.

Priceless.

Just and FYI, I have skype. If you wish to look me up and chat (MSN doesn't work here at my parents' office, but skype does) my handle you can search by is elfkura. If Yi-Tzu pops up with some character your computer can't recognize, that's my Chinese name with the characters written in for family and friends who know me not as Mary or Elffie.

I'm going to need some help getting back into this place, that's for sure.

Oops, didn't read above last post. I'm doing that now.

Greetings Weaksid,

First off, to answer your inquiry about my dual degrees, I have graduated from the University of Houston with a BBA in Management and a BA in English-Creative Writing. My business degree was something my parents "wanted" me to have, and the Creative Writing is what I've had as a hobby all my life that served, many times, as a life line to my depression (most of all through college). Needless to say, my English degree means a lot more to me on a personal level, and it inspires me to be more on a professional level. I was hoping to get involved in publishing, which my father humored me with but never really gave me a green light on.

I am engaged (just without the official ring because I can't find one I like) to a man I've known for the better part of a decade (7 years). He told me that after my graduation, I am welcome to move up to his place and take a couple of months off for myself. College had been brutal and my parents caused 70% of it. Since I'm not allowed to work in the US, not many employers would hire me. He asked if I would mind getting married. I said no, because I've been waiting for it for over a year. I went up to visit my fiance right after my graduation without my parents knowing. My parents never let me go anywhere, and if I had asked, I knew what the answer would be. All my friends who knew my fiance told me to go and have fun. I deserved it, regardless of what my parents think.

The short version of this story is that my parents found out about the trip. My mother threatened to sue my fiance for ruining my honor after I've informed her that I've been intimate as well. They said they'll post everything about him all over the internet so the world can know what a he is.

The threat for me is disownment, which I thought was completely unfair to me because they wouldn't even talk about anything first. They won't even let me go to the US anymore unless I give them my word that I would break it off with my fiance, which I told them I wouldn't. I told my fiance everything that happened. When he said he'll be on a flight over as soon as he gets his things in order, I told him to hold down his fort. I wasn't going to send my fiance into a lion's den, and if my parents want to chew on him, they'll have to dig out my beating heart first.

My parents kept telling me how worthless my fiance is because he didn't bother to call or come to apologize and see how he can make up for the bad things that he had done. I told my fiance he doesn't owe my parents an apology nor does he have to make up for anything. My parents will learn, sooner or later, that they're not gods.

Then my mother came up with the dumbest demand I've heard in my life: She wanted my fiance to pay US$300,000 for my freedom to marry me. What was it that my mother said? "That was all the money you spent getting those 2 degrees in the 6.5 years you were in the US. It was a lost investment. He can pay me back and have you all at once."

Right, degrees where one was forced on me and the other I had to fight to get. By the way, the business degree took up 2/3rds of the expenses.

These last 4 months I still talk to him as much as I can although our time together is scarce. I'm still set on marrying him, and he's even more set on marrying me just to get me away from this place and this sort of treatment. I don't think I'll ever find another man quite like this. I'll be stupid to give all this up.


I'm sure many people truly wish they could help. While there are days where I wished I had some friend who could fly in and give my parents a good piece of his/her mind, this isn't anyone's fight but my own. I will never put anyone in my parents' path. The best thing I've ever done in my life was to keep most of my life private from my parents. They don't know who I talk to online, who my friends are, what their names are, and vice verse. I don't want my friends being hunted just because I disappeared, and I plan to, if they keep this treatment up.

I'm working on a blog that will cover all this in more detail where I document what happens. I think this will make a great fiction book some day because I don't think anyone would believe this is real. When it is done, I'll distribute it out to those who would wish to be kept up-to-date. I don't wish to keep returning with what seems like rants and complaints, especially when most of the people here don't know who I am and could probably do without my drama all over the discussion area.

I miss my fiance. I just wish there was a way for me to talk to him more often. I cry about all this every night. I really didn't think that last night I spent with him in May was truly going to be the last. No one here (my family) seems to understand just how much this hurts and how bleak my life is.

How do I keep living from one day to the next knowing that I'll never get to see him, hear him, or hold him until many more months have passed?

That's also what I'm thinking you should do. And $300,000, who has that type of money other than the really wealthy people? Hell, I only make $30,000 a year and I have a decent job. I'm at Computer Technician at a school. However I live in Altoona, PA and work in Hollidaysburg, PA. If you really want to know the value of the area, you can look up the demographics.

It's been a while since anybody has responded to this thread. I hope things have or are better with you Elfura.

Chocolate World just seems to be dead. Must be hibernation time or everybody is just busy.

Hi guys,

Exactly a month dating from the last post, I got involved in a world wide conference at work that took place here. I was one of the many people who helped out, and I enjoyed myself immensely. Unfortunately, the conference turned out to be my undoing.

I was actually asked to leave my job posting, so I've got time back again. It's all a rather weird story, really. The conference I spoke of above was from Nov. 14 - 16, and I was out and about on 17th with our international members from Europe and the United States. On Monday, Nov. 19, my boss disappeared from the office to talk to my parents. Apparently my performance before and during the conference (especially during) had vastly surpassed his expectations - which got a lot of people talking and noticing (on a very large scale). While that was good, it was also rather bad.

Someone, or group of someones, started spreading rumors about where I'm from and questioning my merit (whether I was there by merit or by connection and in general everything attached to me). While this was through connection, apparently my merit spoke well of me, so it is by no means something I should be punished for. Unfortunately, that's not how these people think, whoever they are. It would be one thing if these people were attacking me straight on. I could've dealt with that.

They went after my boss instead. That royally pissed me off, but there is nothing I can do about it.

My boss was more worried about me than worried about what's happening to him. He talked to my parents and suggested that I resign. His words were "You've got more potential than most people will think you have. What I have to offer isn't enough for you. You can do a lot better somewhere else. Let me look around and see where I can push you. There are bigger and more exciting opportunities than here."

So I resigned the very next day and left, but happy that I made a very good friend in the progress here and a few actually situated in Europe. While no one except the friend here knows what's going on, I feel I'll rather keep it that way until the events have passed and died down and if anyone was to bring it up again in question.

I have to say... what a ride. I'm just disappointed that it had to end this way.

Am I the only one that can get to this thread?