Fucking hell, my parents... Gotta vent.
So I made stupid decisions over the past three years. Too many to list, but I'm sure people can remember some of them. So I hit a wall earlier this year and found a boatload of emotional issues I had been hiding from myself and decided to tackle them. It wasn't easy, and there was some fallout, but I've gotten way better. I'm happier than I've ever been in my life. I still feel shitty sometimes, but it's nothing a little journaling doesn't fix. I've gotten a job, done pretty damn well in a couple classes, and it's because I realized something fucking obvious: I don't want to live with my parents forever. I want to earn money and get a degree and move the fuck on with my life.
Of course, my parents acknowledge that, but only in words. They'll say they're proud of me, but they've had me doing this therapy shit for people with ADHD for the past four months or so. But it's been fucking useless. The group therapy is basically just rehashing what I already cover in journaling. The "insights" of the therapists are shit I get already. I really don't need them. The shit I have been working on is so complicated and goes back to when I was a little kid, so describing it is a fucking hassle. I've just gotten sick of going to the useless groups. I'm really starting to hate it. There's not nearly enough time for me to explain everything that's going on, and even so, the therapist isn't necessarily going to get it, and even if they do, they tell me what I already figured out. What's the fucking point?
I'll be having an awesome day, but then going into a place where I have to talk about problems I already know I have that I deal with on my own just brings me down. It's really not good for me. My main issue is believing anyone can genuinely like me, but that's not something a therapy environment can fix. What can fix it is non-therapeutic social interaction in which I genuinely get positive feedback, and I get that from time to time but it would have trouble sticking because of neurotic shit, but I've gotten better at it. People paid to care about me that point out qualities in me that people can like isn't going to do shit.
And then there's also other shit, like family therapy and someone who helps me budget my time. Like I need that shit. I'm not a fucking little kid. I know when I have work and class and I get my shit done because it's important to me. And the family therapy is just me getting ignored. Nothing I say matters. I'm this problem child that needs to be fixed and everything I say is just hot air that doesn't matter. I know less about my own life than my parents do.
I tell my parents about this and they just disagree because of dumb shit I did months ago, or even two years ago, as if I hadn't thought about my own actions and changed myself, as if there isn't a fuckload more to my life than those few things. They don't believe I'm competent. The same shit they've told me since I was a little kid is I have "potential." Fuck the potential. I'm doing useful things now. I'm happy! I don't need them wasting their money and my time on something useless. But my parents are never wrong. They've never admitted they made a shitty decision. They only say they were trying their best. Well, duh, but the decision was still shitty. If they love me, it's pretty twisted. When you love a person and you have power over them, you question the way you make decisions and take their words and feelings into account.
Periodically they'll bitch about how much money I've cost them. I wasn't asking for the fucking therapy. I was saying I didn't want it, and they're bitching at me because they're too intransigent to change their minds about how they waste their own money when I'm telling them it's a waste? Please. They shouldn't bitch at me for doing something I don't want them to do that they won't give up doing!
But they're not controlling me. They're not forcing me to go to the useless groups. They're just giving me the choice between wasting my time and being homeless.