SINGAPORE: A 30-year-old man who was not able to complete specialist training and had to settle and become a General Practitioner (GP) of medicine instead, felt that his toxic family environment was to blame.
He wrote that he was in his mid-30s and currently resided overseas. He added that he came from a poor background and while he felt he was lucky to be in his current position, he resented his parents.
The man wrote that when he was “training as a specialist few years ago, there was alot of pressure for me to earn more money to support the family because my mother wants to retire. So I had to quit my specialist training and become a gp. Essentially my dad does nothing for us and is quite lazy when he was young”. The man added that at the age of 75, his father had no retirement fund, only had less than $1000 in his bank account and was “constantly manipulating my mother to get money from me and my sis”.
“And he has never taught me anything as a child and feels like a house mate kind of father. He would still ask my mum for allowance after spending all his salary. My mother is fantastic for being able to provide for me and my sis. However she is constantly negative on the phone whenever I call her. She would either complain about her life or compare her life with other people whom she thinks are doing better”, the man wrote. He added that his mother would also make him speak to disrespectful relatives on her behalf, sucking him into an “endless spiral of arguments whenever I am back from overseas”.
The man added that his family added more stress to his already difficult work-life. “I really love her as my mother but I can’t help feel that I am in a toxic environment which is not positive for me. And somehow it is constantly weighing on me that I am a failed doctor because I didn’t complete my specialist training because of them. I can’t help but compare myself with colleagues that come from richer backgrounds and are able to do what they are passionate in medicine. Sometimes I have the feeling of not speaking to them anymore but still provide them with a monthly allowance. It sucks because I feel like I am not a filial son”, he wrote.
Netizens said that even though he was not a specialist, he was still performing a valuable role as a GP. Others also urged him to take on his specialist training in spite of his family.
Here’s what they said:
A woman facing conflicts with her family asked other netizens if it was worth spending a significant portion of her salary to get away from them.
In an anonymous post to popular confessions page, the single woman in her late 20s wrote that she was looking to move out because of circumstances and conflicts with her parents.
She added that she also took more than an hour to travel to work while staying at her parents’ place, so by moving out and renting, she would be able to stay nearer to work.
The woman asked other netizens: “Just wondering though would it be practical to spend $400-700 on rental when I earn a monthly take home salary of $2k”.
Netizens who commented on her post had mixed views, but a number of them advised her to lose her ego and try to manage at her parents’ place instead of moving out and having to fork out a large portion of her salary.