[Update/Progress] Year of therapy, alcoholic father/family dysfunction

I'm Korean/have a Korean family. I live in America. The majority of my family's dysfunction all comes from my alcoholic father. I've only now fully realized how much the dysfunction of one man has trickled down and negatively impacted everyone around him. Besides my father being the cause of so much dysfunction, I feel that Korean culture enables a lot of abuse and neglect. However, I'll talk about the bigger picture of the effects of Korean culture after explaining what was done to me and my family by my father.

I'm 23 years old, but I feel like a child or teen trapped in a man's body most of the time. I've been seeing a psychologist for therapy for around a year now. I decided to see her one day to get treatment for anxiety and depression. The past year I've spent uncovering a lot of repressed memories and emotions. Even though I feel so much anger now, I think I've gotten better in terms of my depression. I feel more motivated to talk about my memories/feeling/emotions and I think I could write a mini-novel/journal about my feelings/where they come from now. A year ago, that wouldn't have been possible.

From the workplace, to the family - mother, son, and dog - my father doesn't realize how his drinking and general assholeness that comes with it has affected everyone around him negatively.

My father owns a Korean karaoke/bar that serves alcohol. For a while in my teens I helped out there on a few days when it was very busy during the year (holidays/weekends). I remember a coworker there telling me that my father would threw a water bottle at him when he was drunk and was just generally a nuisance (he would sometimes stop by there as they were cleaning up late at night and be drunk). The manager of the place drove me home one day when he knew my father would be coming by drunk.

When my grandmother from my father's side was gradually getting worse from Alzheimer's she would claim that my grandfather was hitting her somedays. We know that never happened at the time, so I thought it was just crazy ramblings, but looking back at my family history as an adult, I think she did used to get hit by my grandfather. I'm assuming my father learned how to treat people the way he does when he's drunk from my grandfather.

I remember my father gave my mother a black eye at least twice during my childhood when he was drunk. I never really understood how abnormal that was, and looking at my reaction back then it's even weirder that I didn't react at all. Most kids would act out or do something, but I guess that was my way of coping.

When I was a kid my family had two dogs that were brother and sister, they fought each other sometimes. I remember my grandfather disciplining the dogs by hitting them with a newspaper. We had to give the sister dog away because the two kept fighting another. Related to this, my dog got in a fight with a husky who lives on our block (random note - the owner of the Husky was a Vietnam veteran) and we had to pay the husky's vet bills. My grandfather was walking my dog on a retractable leash and he managed to pull the leash out of my grandfathers hand. The aggression, likely came from shitty beatings my grandfather gave my dog.

As a teenager I don't remember too much. It's all a blur really. Middle school and high school just seems a blur. I remember once I got pissed at my father and asked him why he drinks so much. My neighbor overheard this fight and my brother and I went to our backyard to cool down. She asked us if we were okay.

As a little kid I remember I tip toed down the stairs because my Dad would be hungover or drunk so often. I remember playing with legos alone in my room making up fake stories of adventure and my Dad yelling at me to stop making so much noise since he was hungover and trying to sleep. I remember eating dinner with my family and my drunk Dad yelling at me to stop shaking my leg so much as I was eating (I was moving it back and forth like a hyper kid or something). I don't remember when we stopped eating together as a family, but it happened very early in my life, probably around 1st or 2nd grade. I remember my father would come home drunk so many times and wake me up from my sleep to have conversations with me and brag about how much money he was making. My father throughout my childhood/teens/entire life was/is either working or acting like a drunken asshole.

As for myself, the earliest childhood memory I have that I shared with my psychologist was my kindergarten teacher calling my mom for a parent teacher conference. I drew a picture of my dad breaking a window and other things while drunk. It must have affected me, but I remember my mom telling me after the parent teacher conference ended that I shouldn't have shared that with my kindergarten teacher because that was a "family secret". My mother never really acknowledged or explained or validated my feelings. She just told me to keep it to myself and never share that with anyone, that it was important to not let that out or talk about it. If that's the earliest memory I have and the pattern of abuse continues endlessly into the future, then it's likely this shitty environment and behavior was around me when I was a wee lad as a baby as well (no idea how that affected me, my memory doesn't go any further).

I think that Korean culture enables the sort of abuse and neglect that I received. 1) "Family secret". I was taught from a VERY young age of 5 to not talk about emotions. My parents were more afraid of the shame of letting their neglect and abuse go out into public than my own welfare. They can't just HIDE my emotions under the bed or throw it in the garbage like trash. What my parents did to me as a 5 year old, my EARLIEST memory of childhood coming back to me during therapy PISSES me off to no end. 2) Physically throughout the years of growing up my conditions improved. I remember we used to live in an apartment with rats, then we moved into a house with just us and a old car that broke down often. Things progressed, my family added a new truck, a luxury SUV, now even a jetski. My family was considered lower class, then middle class, then upper class. But emotionally, there was no growth from me or my family. I feel like I'm part of the whole growth of Korea being physically so enriched, but so emotionally deprived.

To close things off, my psychologist said that depression and anxiety is usually a symptom of not being able to let your emotions out normally. I think that for me, that is exactly why I get so depressed and anxious at times. Where it feels like I can't leave my room or go outside, where I am afraid of meeting others and expressing myself.

Writing this long ass post was helpful for me, I'll probably add it to a journal for my self progress or something. I find that reading stories here helps me sometimes to just know I'm not alone, hopefully my detailed little story helped someone. Knowing you are not alone helps so much for me to deal with these newly uncovered feelings.