I hate you, Dr. Freud
Session Two
I talked to my therapist again today. When she said "what do you want to talk about?" I started to go off about my mini-breakdown this morning concerning study abroad but it all ended up coming down to my parents. Again. I hate talking about them because it's SO OBVIOUS that most of my issues stem from my family. I recognize this and I understand that my parents were a source of conflict in my life for many years. I also recognize that now, the relationship (or lack thereof) that I have with them does a lot to contribute to my confusion of identity. Yet I get affirmation from so many other sources. I am loved and I am nurtured. When it comes down to it, my family is just another group of people that I should be able to feel indifferently about if I try.

Yes, I'm grateful for all the energy that was invested to raise me into who I am... but what good does it do for me to try and make a return on that investment if I never gain anything but more criticism from it? No friendship, no pride, no kind words... just business as usual. I'd like to move on and separate my life from the difficulty my family and I cause each other but that's not socially possible or acceptable, not to mention the GUILT it would cause me.

Most of all, I'd like to just be able to get over it and not care. But the truth is that I do care. I am envious of every friend I have who has a wonderful relationship with their parents and who can honestly say they are loved and praised. I know I care because it reduces me to tears just to say the sentence "I wish my parents were proud of me." I almost went there today. But I stop myself from becoming a blubbering mess because I remember that I have family elsewhere. Somehow, though, it just doesn't seem the same. I'm no one elses' daughter, no matter how hard I try.

I don't even know what that means... "daughter." It's an empty, confused role to me. It means blood and obligation. It does not mean love, comfort and trust. I've never been abused, physically, and I've only been moderately neglected. I don't have a truckload of trailer-trash problems to complain about. But I am damaged, as I imagine is anyone whose mother shies away from their touch and can't form an emotional connection. It's a wonder I'm a functionally emotional human being at all.

And I HATE talking about my family. Because it's so cliche. And I'm above all that textbook crap. I hate feeling like I can blame them for my problems. I feel as if I should just be able to say, "ok, moving on!" and become a functional, complete person. But the cracks that formed in me when I was a child are the very reason that I feel I have to be superhuman today, the reason I can never make decisions, the reason I never feel validated, the reason I can't tell reality from fantasy, the reason I can't tell whether my emotions are false. I hate blaming someone else for my problems. Because, after all, they ARE my problems.

She asked me, "does it make you angry?" and I said no, that it made me frustrated, detached, and sad. But after the rant tonight at Prince Pucklers and how I feel right now, I can say that yes, it does make me angry. Livid. But also very, very sad. My mom called me today for the first time in forever, just to chat (of course, with the pretext of confirming that I wasn't coming to my sister's graduation, which is mid-week). I was trying to catch a few minutes' nap before homework and so I was completely out of it. That woman can rant about anything, ANYTHING mundane for HOURS as long as it doesn't involve emotion. And I just sit there and pray to get off the phone, saying "mHMM" while she tells me about how the washer connection broke... but god forbid she'd want to hear about MY day without disapproving of something. Shit. Mom, I'm sorry you don't have any friends... but unless you really want to be mine, don't half-assed try every 6 months. I gave up a long time ago.

And there's the other half of it; pity. I pity my parents for their frustrating, sad lives. I can see that they are empty, angry, and damaged. I can see that they are struggling to be happy but maybe that they have forgotten how. I wish I could show them but I pity myself because they can't seem me as a thinking, feeling human being, a friend, a girl, a woman, a daughter, as WORTHY and what it would take for me to be able to help. That's what it would take for me to feel whole at all. That's all it would take. That's all.