Ask Lemmy

Don't be. Last year I was forced to be with relatives in NYC, I hated it even more. Too much people, I think I have sensory issues, NYC was filled with graffiti, streets were kinda dirty (no offense to New Yorkers, it's just facts, I used to live there btw) and I'm kinda germophobic, so that really made me anxious af. My interversion kicked in and my heartrate went up, conversation drains my energy, i never really connected with any of them.

We went to some Chinese restaurant in Brooklyn.

One of the relative had a kid that was eating with their hands and OMFG god damn drooling over their plate, then grabbed the food in the middle of the table with their hands and like probably contaminated it. And it had the glass thingy where you can rotate the center of the table so I felt like the contamination has infected everything.

Like my anxiety just went from 50 to 110.

I didn't say anything out lous but kinda whispered it to my parents.

I felt kinda sick, not sure if its placebo/nocebo effect

I felt even more depressed being there, everyone just talking and being happy, and me just being sad.

Also most of the cousins are American-born, so they had English at the start. I was born in China, didn't really know English until I was like 10, and didn't speak it fluently enough until I was probably 12 at the time. And one of the cousins bullied me. I think its one of these American-born Chinese and China-born Chinese have like conflicts or something. I get alienated from the start, so that's probably why I never feel belonging. Even in school, US-born Chinese kids still bullied me, only those who spoke Cantonese or on rare occasions there's a Mandarin speaker. I only got along with those. Language tribalism I guess.

By the time I learned English to a conversational level, that I feel confident in, I no longer feel connected to those cousins.

As for adults, that's a generation divide, even if I know the language.

The Adults were all born in China or HK so they get along well.

The like 5 cousins all were born in the US, spoke English at the start, so they go along well.

Me and my older brother were born in China, so we got isolated from the rest of our extended family.

My older brother and I had fights, so we no longer talk.

So yea... there is discrimination even when you are from the same ancestry and bloodlines, just because of the language barrier (the language barrier that no longer exist anymore, but now it became an emotional barrier, now its too late and its too awkward, and we don't even live in New York anymore