How It Continues to Go

I had coffee with S. yesterday. She said some wise things. Made me assure her I’d talk to my therapist about other things.

I told my therapist that I am mildly sympathetic to my parents’ perspective on my life–that I have no one and nothing and my life is small and boring and I am unhappy–because that’s what I show them.

I don’t want them to meet my friends. I don’t want them to be here for things that are important to me if they can’t be supportive. I’m convinced that there’s nothing good of mine they won’t ruin and I don’t want them to have access to my good things. To people I care about.

But also, a thing I said to S. that I hadn’t quite articulated to myself is that it really pisses me off that I’m broken right along lines they put in me–the belief that I’m unlovable because I’m fat, that no one will ever love me for various reasons, that people must just pity me and not really like me, etc. etc. etc. And then they’re pissed at me that I’m broken RIGHT WHERE THEY BROKE ME.

The things I’m responsible for? They work okay. I have good friends and an interesting life I like. I like my job. I feel very, very lucky in so many ways. I have built myself this good thing.

The stress fractures in my foundation aren’t because I’m “too” anything–too smart, too ambitious, too weird. They’re there from them.

And I feel like they’re angry both that I couldn’t survive them in one piece and that I’m surviving them.