sdcjournal

“All the happiness” -D

“Saying this does not make it true. Things need to change. This is an unhealthy relationship. I don’t want it to get worse.” -J

– Emptiness = lack of comfort, nurturing, affection
– lost childhood
– pride vs. nurturing
-projection of need
– the pointa t which i would feel pride in myself is always matched by my internal expectations for myself
– feeling very zero sum

D”i hit you once and it was to stop you from breaking your arm again”
D”i’m sorry you remember me as such an ogre”
D”i remember things very differently”
D”it was not meant to hurt you”
M”i need to be treated as an adult, and all i know is your behavior makes me feel like you want me to be 15 forever, and it’s not fair”
D”i never have people sleep over”
D”its my house because of parental responsiblity, because of property”
D”i dont know what your mother told you about paying rent but it’s not valid”
M”i’m not a child i’m 26. me having somebody stay over at my house is a lot different than it is for you”
M”all those people that used to come over here dont anymore because they’re scared of you and because they felt bad that whenever they came over i would get yelled at”
M”I’m willing to discuss setting some ground rules about having people stay over. I understand your fears about having a house filled with people, but thats not what I need to be able to do.”
D”If you dont’ like it then maybe you should find another place to live, or i can sell the house to your mother and you can live with her”
M”So what, i’m 26 and i’m just never going to have any kind of social life because its inconvenient for you?”
D”I dont want to see strangers sleeping in my house”
M”What, do you think I just pick people off of the street and invite them to sleep at my house?”
D”I hear you talking about letting people stay who are flying in”
D”i need to think about it”
D”i’m sorry you see me as such a villain in your life, it was all done out of love, i see it very differently”

– What is my block against really connectiong
– Can people connect to me only (i.e. one way street)
– Am i just not feeling the connection
– Running theme: I’m more “myself” (genuine) than other people
– Crushing repression of connection
-Other people feel connected to me, I feel nothing
– Would i be nearly as lonely if I actually felt connected toall the people who feel connected to me.
– Maybe i have a different definition
– Feel like I’m on autopilot still
– Fear of connection vs. Never learning how to connect
– What is the risk?
– Setting boundaries of intimacy (how much to share)
– Helping vs. Doing for someone

What If
—-
-What if there isn’t someone to help me not be so lonely anymore, and I will be stuck feeling lonely forever
-what if i miss my opportunity to have someone like that
-what if people really are just out for themselves and all my attempts to connect will just lead to more people using me and giving nothing back
– whether my hangups about people are legitimate or totally unfounded, it feels like i’m destined not to have that real connection
-what if the people i need affection from the most are the same people that i cannot open myself up to. And what if the time for that affection to be meaningful has passed. Am I just going to be stuck feeling empty because I’m lacking something I can never have, doomed to find myself in one-way relationships while the will to continue is drained?
– what if knowing that you deserve to be loved doesn’t mean anything to anyone, and the only people who pick up on it are the same sociopaths i’ve populated my life with for years
– what if i wont be able to accept being really loved back

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Have been spending time identifying and eliminating behaviours that assume or perpetrate unimportance
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Plateau
Nebulous
Now What
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Dad-

It should not come as a surprise to you that our relationship over the past years has been strained at best. I feel like I’m at a place in my life where, in order to continue to improve myself, this needs to be addressed.

You need to know that I feel the way you treated me growing up was horrendous and has drastically affected my ability to grow and mature.

There is no excusing physical abuse. Not for any reason. Not a chaotic home or anger management issues. Hitting someone whose arm is in a cast is beyond inexcusable, especially if that person is your son. My entire teenage life was spent trying to avoid the yelling, fighting and hitting. Part of this avoidance was a long bout with depression my freshman year. You may remember that once I was able to return to school, I spent long hours at Urban. This was not because I liked it there, though certainly it was better than previous school situations. It was because I was afraid to come home and wanted to delay it as long as possible. I think I would have slept there if I could.

It didn’t help that once I was home, bringing any friends over was basically an invitation for you to humiliate me in front of them by yelling at me about the noise (even when it was within reasonable levels) or anything else. It got to the point where my friends didn’t want to spend time with me at my house because they were afraid of you, and I was ashamed to invite them over and so my isolation continued, and continues. I understand that you were tolerant of having Sue and Meri stay for extended periods. This, however, does not make how you treated me in front of my other friends okay.

I certainly don’t feel like I can comfortably have someone sleep over or even come over at night, be it a friend or a potential girlfriend or anything, because of the fear of having you humiliate me or them or making the situation so uncomfortable that any relationship I could be having with them is sabotaged and I continue to be alone. I should not have to ask your permission to have Sue stay in my guest room if she is in town. It is not your call, I am just as much a part of the household as you are, and I am not a child asking a parent for a playdate.

I don�t even feel free to exist in the house because the energy between us is so strained, so I confine myself to my computer or my TV or my bedroom. When you were away, there was a tangible difference in how I felt about my freedom to move about the house without having to be concerned with either avoiding or interacting with you.

I am not a child anymore. This is why it is important to me to be able to do my own laundry and take out the garbage and why it makes me so frustrated when you do it for me. I know you don’t see it as a big deal, but I do. I need to know that you’re at least trying to deal with me in an adult fashion. I’m old enough to be responsible for my own life. The fact that I’m living at home is mostly because of the location and the space. If we had been living in a small studio apartment, I would have found another living situation by now.

Now, I know that some of these fears and behaviors are based on a situation that has changed somewhat, and I can appreciate that you don’t seem to be the same kind of person that you were 10 years ago, but that doesn’t make my feelings any less valid.

I continue to stop myself from doing things that would make me happy because I feel like if I was then somehow it would put how I was treated in an “ends justify the means” kind of situation, and I can’t let that happen, so I continue to isolate myself from other people, and it takes a lot for me to treat myself to something that would make me feel good.

I need to be able to move on. I can’t keep living in my house, where I pay rent feeling like any time I have to interact with you I have to restrain myself from just being angry. I have so much built up that I feel like I need to swallow it down not to start screaming and never stop, and so it feeds itself over and over.

I’m not sure how I expect you to respond to this. I would like you to take some responsibility for how you treated me. I would like to be able to get past this so that we can have at least a civil relationship, like adults, rather than feeling like I am still 15 and afraid of being hit if I speak up or show my feelings.

There are other things that I’d like to discuss with you that I haven’t included in this letter, but I’d like you to really read this and try to understand it before you respond.

I just can’t continue to keep myself from being happy.

Your Son,

Jeremy