Seeking My Freedom

I am hyperventilating right now. My cell phone had just stopped ringing leaving the wording "1 missed call" on the screen. One of my crazy relatives had just tried calling. Today it has been officially one month of me successfully evading my relatives. One month of glorious freedom from screaming nightmares and cruel and mocking words. My relatives want me to be under their control and only do what they say, study what they say, and live my life according to their agenda. I am not the innocent 16 year old, the naive 17 year old or the ever trusting 18 year old shadow of myself anymore.

Years have passed and thanks to my interaction with these "caring" relatives, the greatest education I have so far received is understanding human character and how twisted people are capable of being.

Ever since my father passed away in my teens, I had been subjected to these people's emotional blackmail.

Huddled in a corner crying had been a large part of my routine in my teens.

When my father died, he made sure I had been financially independent. However, the fear of the unknown and uncertainty of life that constantly cropped up in my young heart amidst the sorrow of losing the only person who ever cared about me... saw my young self becoming trapped under my relatives' "mercy". They wanted to control whatever I did, thought and felt. They even controlled every word I spoke and it came to a point that I became so afraid to even utter a word each passing word. They found fault with everything I spoke.
"You are being disrespectful! Go and apologize to Uncle Tim and until he accepts ur apologizes I would not help you. You think you would have survived without us. You would have ended up in the streets. Uncle Tim rang me just now and told me you were very rude!" Uncle Nick will begun each of his Sunday evening phone calls to my teenage self then.
The fear of speaking enveloped me so much that I found it terribly excruciating to speak more than 2 sentences to anyone. I became fearful that they will judge me on every word I spoke.
That fear is still kinda with me today and I gather all my will power to initiate conversations with college counsellors, admin offices, scholarship places, etc (every place that is crucial to me right now). That is why I am more comfortable interacting with them or anyone for that matter through e-mails and the written word.

One of my personal freedom from my relatives that I am thankful for is when I finally transferred the ownership of the house that my late father left me to under my name. It had been one my most celebrated freedom and the most time and energy consuming battles.
When my father died leaving the house, Uncle Nick and Uncle Tim started nagging me to transfer the house deed to Uncle Tim's name. First they gave me the reason that I was under aged at that time. Then they gave the reason that my dad had left a lot of debts and the creditors had contacted them looking for my dad's heir. So my uncles told me that since I am responsible for my dad's debts, if the house is under my name, the banks would come and seize the house. My uncles started pestering me to transfer the Letter of Authority to Uncle Tim's name. Then, Uncle Nick started screaming at me beginning all of his conversations saying "The house your father left, its value is equal to the money he borrowed from me!"

They made me so afraid, that I began to think debt collectors will come knocking my door any second and I began to hide inside my room. Such were the days of my wasted teenage years.

When I started applying for the Letter of Authority finally, it became a long drawn process. Without the help of lawyers or any prior knowledge of law, I begun to climb every government and court stairs filling forms and asking 100 of questions. I seemed to many just a pesky kid, my diminutive height making me to appear even younger.

It was one of the hardest and the most difficult decisions I ever done, defying my relatives for the first time and applying for the the Letter of Authority to be under my name. For the first time, I did not know care about the consequences. When I finally got that Letter after years of bureaucratic red tapes of government departments, I cringed waiting for those creditors from banks that my uncles warned me. The fear they instilled within me almost crippled my every action. After months of fearful forbearance and I finally started asking around, I found out there are no creditors coming after me! I got a shock. I trusted my uncles so much. Why did they instill such a fear within me? I became confused. So did Uncle Tim had his share of confusion when he found out I did get the Letter of Authority to be under his name.

My dad's house.... It is an old and sturdy building today. I am not the neatest person so it is always in a mess since I moved in. Each of these walls were painted by my dad and sometimes I pitched in during the school holidays. The school holidays before he died, we spent the holidays painting these walls. I helped paint the lime colored walls in the study. I don't go in that study anymore. Everytime I go in there, I get overwhelmed.

Well, back to the present. It has been month of me avoiding my relatives. They know I purposely switch off my cell phone or let it ring it ears off. I ran away last month when I heard of them coming and stayed away from my house the whole day.
I just cannot stand the mental and emotional torture they subject me to.
Should I stop running and face the music now? A wise friend once told me people only keep on chasing the dogs that keep on running scared. So Should I stop running and face my relatives? I keep asking myself this. My only problem is I become tongue tied and start stuttering in front of them. I never stutter anywhere else. They have such an effect on me. Well I have to get back to my worrying. Figures, yesterday I finally started to get back on track and get some work done and put my drowsiness behind, and now I have to deal with this.