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I've finally put two and two together about my mother and why she acted the way she did with me my whole life.

Since four years old, she told me again and again that I will be a programmer and "earn as much as Bill Gates". Then, in fifth grade, without asking me, she made me take regular programming classes I was really bad at. Then, again without asking me, she sent me to an experimental, highly intensive CS learning program in my uni that accepted kids two years before they finish the high school to throw a metric ton of math, C and hardware design at them. After a year there, I completely lost the ability to enjoy videogames (at 15 years old). By the end of the program (four years), I started experiencing bipolar symptoms.

Then, at the age of 19, she insisted that I take the first draft order and join the army. The military service in russia is mandatory, and it's notorious for breaking people no worse than russian prison does. Knowing that I'm weird and autistic (I was stacking things as a kid), and knowing that the army _loves_ breaking weird people to keep them in line, she just wanted to break me. For context, draft orders are sent out en masse, and everybody dodges them with no repercussions. When they're 28, they just pay a small "fee" (a bribe) to get the military id. You can't be conscripted after you're 28.

I don't know my father. I have a stepdad though. My mother and my stepdad had a kid, nine years younger than me, and of course he was loved by my stepdad way more than I was.

I can recount a lot of instances where she was cruel to me, but oh how subtle and passive-aggressive she made it to be. Also, when I was bullied at school, she insisted on not changing schools, but rather for me to man up.

Her plan was to make a highly paid but mentally broken drone that would be a strong, steady stream of money while she enjoys a "proper" family with her husband and a "proper" child.

It's so unfortunate that the bastard kid turned out to be bipolar, and that bipolar disorder resets one's entire worldview from time to time, nullifying two decades of conditioning, isn't it?

Dear woman I crawled out of, I'm either wrong or right. If I'm wrong, and you did all this (and waaay more of cruel and fucked up shit) to me without any strategy in mind, because you wanted to, then congrats, you're a psychopath. If I'm right, and it was all a strategy, then you knew what you did was wrong, and every single time you did it took a bit of your soul away from you, because that's what evil does. Given that your scheme failed, was it worth it in the end?