#the bit about signing up for unemployment too pings that very delicate spot about my dad being relatively well off

[slippery-minghus]

that comic about the monster lady not being monster enough for the support group got me thinking, and i think i have the answer to my shrink's homework for me this week. after i was sick last week, we spent the sesh talking about my pathological independence (my term not theirs) and how not only do i never ask for help, i don't know what help i would need.

we managed to narrow it down to pinpoint the conditions i would ask for help in, and what i would ask, and basically i would have to be at a breaking point combined with not knowing what to do. the only kind of help i would ask for is to be taught how to cope on my own/solve the issue on my own. to be given the tools, not have someone else do the work. i never want people to solve my problems (or even offer me comfort while i solve them myself)

which actually leads me to something i didn't expect. i often see a lot of my reactions to my mother in my neuroses/traumas like this, but i think the icing on this one is actually from my dad. my dad, who never taught me how to do anything, and would berate me for not being able to do it on my own. it sounds so obvious now, but i'm not surprised it didn't click. i understand now why the memory of getting my first bank card has been rattling around in my head this week. because it was such a blunt example of him refusing to teach me, to give me the tools to figure things out on my own, then humiliating me (literally in public) for not understanding. i remember nearly crying in that bank. because no one would explain to me how atm cards worked—not that i would have been in any sort of position to learn prior to that— and therefore i couldn't be trusted to be mature enough to handle the responsibility. i had to beg him to let me have that much.

and then i think to the start of the pandemic, when i was 26 not 17, and how he took the reins from the back seat to control getting me enrolled in unemployment payments. he guilted me for not being able to do it on my own, saying how he wouldn't always be there to do these things for me. i didn't have the guts to stand up to him, but i know i spent a lot of time talking to my therapist about how all he really needed to do was teach me.

i'm sure a lot of my independence comes from my mom. her paradoxically neglectful helicoptering created the perfect storm for that. nothing could be done on my own, and i could never be trusted to be able to learn (because i was so delicate and infantile), but i was also always left alone in my most vulnerable moments. and then dad would come home and blame me for scraping by alone instead of innately knowing how to thrive.

my parents wanted a child they only had to parent and raise when it was convenient, when it made them feel good, when it made other people like them. the rest of the time it was up to me to maintain the image. the rest of the time it was up to me to figure things out on my own. that i did a damn good job raising myself goes without saying, but it's left me not knowing how not to know what to do. and i don't know how to ask for help about that.

#the bit about signing up for unemployment too pings that very delicate spot about my dad being relatively well off #but using every cent to abuse #i know these days it's kinda shameful to have been raised middle class so it's hard to talk about but financial abuse is my dad's favorite #it's why he sent me a $150 gift card for xmas like it was nothing #because if he never allowed me to learn actual independence he could keep me financially dependent #and afford to do so at that #and thinking about how with my mom it was impossible for her to not see me as an overgrown infant #she would cut meat for me until i was like 12. and every steak fry was cut in half so i wouldn't choke like i did when i was 3 #i couldn't choose my own clothes for the day until i was 12 #and i fought tooth and nail to prove i knew how to take care of myself #i took pride in being 10 and knowing how to run a house (cook clean laundry etc) #my trademark reason for disliking things was that 'it was for babies' #yet when i wasn't being overprotected i was just... alone #i wasn't allowed outside so i sat and played videogames #i wasn't allowed to go places with friends so i sat alone at home #always always alone. unsupervised but always with the helicopter right around the corner ready to keep me in line #and then on the rare occasion i spent time with my dad he would guilt me for things my mom would make me do #mom wouldn't let me go on a walk without a water bottle and inhaler and dad would humiliate me for taking them #there was no way to win #abuse #personal #*sigh* i'm so glad i got out. so glad that shit is over and only in my nightmares #(and hoo boy is it in my nightmares)