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I hope you will keep up and get better at some point. At least you are still going to university. It might not look like much but under the conditions you are facing and how your parents treat you it's quite something you can be proud of. I know it might sound shallow but if it helps you are not alone in this. I skipped university often and I am not proud of it. I would bet there are many more who have a hard time to handle going there for various reasons. You are having a rough time but you are still there and giving your best. It might not look like much at the first glance but it is quite something.

Yes we are big and tendy now. We will all soon be herded in a plain and tour Milan and Paris harhar 
Get the prosecco ready and grab your baguettes mates!

Cool  you scored on there! Congrats!

The lady from the psychiatric home assistance service came over today.
She found me shaken and the flat in a total mess too. For some unknown reason complete strangers recently kept shouting at me. Some for having a psychiatric condition, some for poverty. Most of them people working in administration (so couldn't avoid them).
I told her what happened. She said that she found it hard to belief. I could see the anger in her face. At some point she stopped me. "That's not the truth, don't say that ever again!" I feared the worst. "You are not psychiatrically ill, not one bit". [iOh God that tune again. Yes yes I know I am a fake and a liar because I don't look like your usual standard depressive or hypersensitive anxiety patient. Got that one at the clinic. Thank you very much. She gave me a stern look.

"You do not have a mental illness. Don't let anyone tell you that. You have a trauma. The very thing  this ignorants would have developed if they had gone through the same! How dare they judge if it is a completely natural reaction that any sane person would have under this circumstances?"

   

Seriously I could have kissed her. 

I think I will write that down and put it on the fridge. That's the first time I heard someone around me speaks about what it truly is: the normal reaction of a otherwise sane individual. If we were mentally ill we would be Narcs or Borderliners not people with C-PTSD. I wasn't very comfortable about having someone walking in to my flat to check up on me but I am impressed. I definitely like the style. That lovely lady has quite a fighter in her.
And it even got better: it tuned out that she is currently attending a class in C-PTSD in a rather renown clinic. Evidently it is a rather new diagnosis and she secured herself a place in to one of the first practical training classes for nurses -as she told me cheerfully. New diagnosis? Das ist des Pudels Kern! According to her the clinic also decided to specialise on C-PTSD as they believe it will be become the next big thing in psychiatry. So they are investing in to the trauma station in order to get a head start when the rat race kicks off. Needless to say that this is music to my ears. I might go and check that new trauma station out as it is a state owned clinic. I really want to be just done with that bull..it and get a real life.

So much too my usual whining that luck only happens to other people.
Well, if I am not one * of a lucky bunny -pardon- street rat! 

I know what you are going trough. I have been there too some years back. Pointless grinding in WoW for 16h a day.
Yes games can be addictive, no doubt about this.
But more than often it is rather the mental state you are in and what you are playing.

Games are not alcohol. They are more like Netflix or Youtube. It's like the difference of hanging on Youtube for stupid prank videos or do something healthy and watch the Spartanlifecoach: not the same thing at all. So I agree with the statements above. This guys explain why:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T39kYzzv_3Q

By the way, if you love gaming but you are afraid of addiction, how about doing table top or pen and paper (online or RL)? Have fun playing with some strangers with little obligations or strings attached. Also, a rather indirect way to interact with people but personal enough to discourage the annoying trolls that populate MMO's

I do live in a country that is very diplomatic and usually frowns individualistic behaviour that is shown too openly. It is still in Western Europe but has a long history of different ethnic, linguistic and religiously different groups "collaborating". Meaning to dislike on another but not showing it too openly as we depend on each other (the large national states surrounding us used to be the bigger threat). It is rather important not to stick too much out compared to more outgoing people such as Germans or Italians.
We are not living in large thigh knitted family groups and the collaboration level certainly differs from rural India. In the alpine village I lived for several years collaboration was a huge thing as you had a good chance to be cut off for a week and in the neighbouring village you could easily be stuck for a month or so during winter (so you better want your neighbours to like you). In the larger cities at the other hand foreigners often complain that we are cold and distant what is certainly true. Yet we have high levels of community activities especially social clubs for sports, music or social volunteering compared to other countries. So it's individualistic but too a more limited extent.

Yet, the behaviour of my parents doesn't seam to differ from what people in the US or Australia experience with their parents. It is even frighteningly similar. That goes down even to very specific behaviour like the ways we were punished or the ridiculous children's clothes my mother forced me to wear as a teenager. My father was an open narc and behaved like one. Big cars, big sunglasses, lots of bragging about money (often falsely) despite the fact that in my country speaking (or beware bragging!) about money is possibly one of the biggest taboos there is. He couldn't care less.
I would rather assume that they only use culture as an advantage if it suits them. My brother and I like to watch Korean and Japanese crime movies and thrillers. It's horrifying how Narcs and Psychopaths are depicted. It seems they are every bit the same as in our culture while everybody else around them differs much more in their behaviour.

Regarding the cultural reaction of everyone else. Well,  here they don't thrive as directly but they have other advantages: the community has a strong sense of how things are supposed to be in order for the community to thrive. Nobody wants that shared dream shattered. So it's not a Narc's haven regarding bragging but definitely for abuse behind closed doors as everyone assumes that bad things only happen in other countries. Be diplomatic in every situation and don't point at others (at last not directly, passive aggression is fine). We are not one of the worlds best known tax havens for nothing, We are good with skeletons in the closet.

Regarding my own C-PTSD. I don't know if it is just me behaving strangely. I grew up as a scapegoat. So I am aggressive and rebellious. I am behaving completely contrary to the stereotypes and social norms of my country. Rebels and overly individualistic behaviour is very rare here. To put that in to perspective: a recent study found out that people from my country would much more often uncontentiously play dumber to make themselves appear to be more average than anyone else in the Western Hemisphere.
So predictions of how I would turn out as a child of a narcissist are more accurate than what one would guess from my passport. Mute and diplomatic? Not a bit.

Also I suppose there is a reason why people in this forum seem to understand one another so well. We have all kinds of cultural and social backgrounds. There should be much more bickering and misunderstandings. Yet things are almost suspiciously smooth. Technically Narcs and Psychopaths lack empathy. They have their set of tricks but they don't have a high EQ. So they are strangers in our society and I suspect they behave as such no matter the cultural make up. But I admit that this is just my own conclusion.

I have to say it gives me the creeps when I read about a Narc from the US or Mexico behaving according to the exact same text book as my parents despite the huge cultural gap in between. That sort of shouldn't be possible.

Books as a way to self-educate:

I can so much relate to that. My family only had one bookshelf so it was the library too. Although I am with woodsgnome there, it was mostly nonfiction. I never really thought of it but it was possibly the same reasons. It never crossed my mind that I might have avoided fiction deliberately. That's an interesting imput, so thank you for the thought!

Speaking about German words that are hard to translate: Sachbuch is another one. It is pretty much that odd German love for boring documentaries. Only that someone wraps the same content with a book cover rather than filming it. Popular science but served just as dry as any German science book (and they are good with that since they believe that it is not good science if the reader enjoys reading it). As the years passed my picks got more and more academic and at some point I decided I had to go to university no matter what. (imagine all the books they must have!). Much to the horror of teachers and parents I was stubborn enough to make it happen.
My little library was my most priced possession. As a teenager I even managed to run away from home with my own weight in books on me so mother couldn't take revenge: 3 months of just me, my tent and my books...
At university I first got ridiculed by more posh students for not having all the expensive books I needed. But I got incredibly lucky. An antiquarian took pity in me. He possibly sensed that the love for my field was genuine and that I couldn't afford the better books. So he started collecting books for me. When I entered his shop he always had a whole bag of books waiting for me. It was much later when I realised that he sold me very rare and expensive books for 1-2$ each. I  knew they were worth much more than what he charged but it was a shock to learned how much more. He was indeed a rare example of a true altruist who crossed my path.
So all in all: yes a library is a safe space in a chaotic world. I know why I wish to become a historian: me, my archive, my cup of tea and one meter of nuclear proof concrete  between me and the rest of mankind -if that doesn't sound like a real plan...

It would make sense that they usually pick the smarter, more empathic and hence more dangerous child.
I think in our family at least it was much simpler:
My father (an open narcissist) wanted a child to show his brothers that he is capable of fathering a child. His brothers have been teasing him for years that he was impotent. So when he met my mother he impregnated her immediately and they married in a hurry. Once my mothers pregnancy was visible he lost any interest. My mother (who has a personality disorder herself) decided she wanted a child of her own. "One that was truly hers" as she always loved to say. My dad didn't want another one as he had already proven his virility. So this time she tricked him in to getting another child.
Since my father never showed any interest in us it was my mother who made the rules. So I ended up as the scapegoat and my brother as the golden child.

Like many golden ones he ended up without  a distinct character. He is pretty much a blank slate personality wise and hence got diagnosed as an Asperger autistic. I don't buy that for a second.
He took me in to his flat when I was at the brink of getting homeless. We have only argued once in two years despite the heavy fighting that my mother usually incinerated when we were kids. He is very patient with me when I am depressed or anxious. He doesn't talk much and would never take me in his arms. But he notices very fast when I am upset.  Then he would usually take one of his rats out of the cage and put it on my belly so I would have someone to cuddle. He has also paid some of my debts behind my back and never spoken a word about it. There is no doubt that he is very empathic underneath that seemingly blank surface. Also he is possibly the smarter of the two of us EQ wise. Since his teenager years he straight out refuses to tell our parents anything personal while I still let myself be tricked when our parents show "concern". He has a high intelligence and I believe he is well aware of what is going on even if he can't really point a finger on it.
I am really lucky to have him. Two parents with a personality disorder might have made it harsher when we were children. There was simply no save haven anywhere. But in the end it made it more obvious how dysfunctional our family was. I had the luck of ending up with at least a bit of family and a normal family life and that is possibly more than most others get.
How ever, I would postulate that in our case it was rather random who would be picked for a specific role. It was decided before we were even born.

Hi Sceal, it makes me sad to hear that. A tutor can make quite a difference. I got lucky to get one but I remember other people who didn't got the help they needed. Have you spoken to your student representative about this? I used to be a representative for a while when I was more stable and I remember that disability cases are a rather common issue. Sometimes the unions have creative ways to help. Our organisation used to have a staff of about 30 volunteers who didn't wanted to take the burden of office but loved to assist. We used them for all sorts of things. So if you are lucky your student officer might know a good soul who is willing to help. People volunteer for all kind of causes so perhaps there is someone out there who is just looking to make a difference without the hassles of politics. If you are courageous you might even hang up a note on the blackboard and see if someone responds. Might be worth a try. Wish you the very best !