Family Therapy - Advice and Commentary Wanted

It feels sketchy because it is sketchy. I mean, first of all, they're straight-up going "oh, I don't want to humiliate you in public" - which, why does there need to be any amount of humiliation involved? Getting corrected does not need to inherently be humiliating! And that they don't want there to be any witnesses or any sort of record that provides proof of what actually happened....yeah, that's sketchy too. Because that means that they want for it to just be your word against theirs. Not even doing it via text means they just straight-up don't want there to be any receipts, and that's not the behaviour of someone who's going to look good if receipts exist.

Ehhh. I mean, yes, you don't have receipts? But that's because you've been prevented from getting receipts. On the one hand, yes, we're only getting your version of events and yes, we're more likely to go "huh, okay, that doesn't sound normal or okay behaviour", but on the other hand, we've seen people who told their version of events and it still came off making them look bad.

If you were trying to make your parents look bad, it'd be pretty easy for you to do that. You're right. But you're not trying to make them look bad; you're being pretty generous and trying to be fair and kind in your portrayal of them and what's happened. And you keep doubting yourself and wondering if maybe you're the one who's wrong; I'm pretty sure that if either of your parents were here to defend themselves, they wouldn't be questioning themselves at all.

 

Would that ... make me a bad person? I really want to do that but I worry that that violates their privacy.

I guess as long as I keep the recordings to myself?

But yeah, I wish so badly that I'd had a recording of what my dad said to me, so. That seems desirable.

 

I agree that this could be a good thing except not at all for family therapy. You don't know these people so it's perfectly reasonable that you would maybe not think this, but trust me, using that in family therapy sessions would result in such unbridled aggression that I would literally be worried for xir physical safety at that point. Private therapy use though? Or just holding onto it to know what's real? Excellent.

 

My parents .... aren't that bad.

It would be absolutely terrifying to confront them over though

 

Your mother literally threatened to strangle me for comforting you.

 

You know, I realize that my parents have created a situation where I could be afraid of physical harm, and yet, if I ever told them that I was afraid of them hurting me at all (physically or not, lol, but let's focus on physically) they would be. so angry. Enraged.

 

And when it comes to non-physical harm, it's all stuff I did to myself, according to them.

 

Well, that's...a whole parade of red flags right there. Like - if I told my parents, or anyone I'm close to, that I were afraid of them hurting me? The reaction wouldn't be anger, it would be horror because what did they do wrong, that I would have such a fear?

Ah, gaslighting at its finest.

 

i feel? like that?? should be the normal response??? like if someone told me they were afraid of me, and i cared about them, i would be concerned! what can i do to stop scaring you!!

i don't understand why my parents have decided that my fear is a mark of my poor character

 

Because they know it's a weapon to use against you.

 

"your mother broke down crying after you left and i've never seen her cry before, not in the thirty years i've known her. she just kept saying that she didn't know how to fix this, and wishes so much that you didn't hate her."

thank you, grandma. also fuck. you.

how do i explain my side of the story?

 

no, really, i am tired of my family pressuring me to just "make up" with my parents when like
i think i have been really clear about what i need to improve our relationship
and i am just sick and tired of this fucking emotional manipulation that because my parents feel bad i need to stop doing things like having boundaries

 

like, it's incredible to me that my parents side of the story basically amounts to "catherine hates us for no reason and we don't know why!!!"

you! know! why!

also, i don't hate you! i have been very clear about that! i am angry and hurting and distancing myself because you are hurting me but i love you! that is why i want family therapy! do you have any idea how many fights i have had with my partners because i want you guys to be in contact with our children????

which! you're not getting if we can't make our relationship work because, newsflash, you're transphobic bigots who are not allowed around my trans partners, so, since you don't get unlimited access to my babies, i'm going to present! and i'm not putting myself through that until being around you doesn't make me want to die!

 

Also if I may "we don't know how to fix this!! DDDD:" yes the fuck you do. You have been told explicitly what you need to do. You just don't WANT to do those things.

 

like, a list of reasons why i might be angry at you:

- in high school, when i was at my most depressed, i nearly failed all of my classes. their response was to ground me
- in high school, when you took me to therapy, my mother made home life so horrible (picking fights, yelling at me, punishing me; also, apparently she could hear what was being said over the white noise generator and was listening in, and would spend every. fucking. ride back. berating me for "lying" to the therapist)
- in high school, one of the most hurtful things my parents did: i went to girl's state, my parents picked me up, i was excitedly telling them about it, my mother said "i wish we hadn't let you go because you're too happy" because she was pissed at me
- related to above: i have said that this was an incredibly hurtful experience that i'm still not over (wow, why do you think i don't tell you when i'm excited about shit), and my father justified this because "well we thought you were being lazy, so she thought you deserved it"
- in high school, my mother used to sit me down and berate me for not having grades that were "good enough" and demand that i explain myself; what this really turned into was me parroting back that i was lazy and not trying hard enough and that i didn't care enough about my grades, ad nauseum, until i was hysterical; the first time i recall dissociating was during one of these
- i AM SO FUCKED UP OVER THE SHIT THEY HAVE SAID ABOUT MENTAL HEALTH. can we stop saying that intellectual disabilites that don't make you retarded aren't real. can we stop saying that illnesses like eating disorders or anxiety disorders are just something that people choose to have

and they have never apologized for any of this, or even really acknowledged that they might have handled this poorly. when i have told them about these incidents, their response has been either "that didn't happen," "you're making it sound worse than it was" (i'm not.), or "there's nothing wrong with that."

 

listen, if i wanted to sit down and record stuff, i have a laundry list of complaints and grievances. i don't really care to. my point is, you hurt me, and your response to hurting me was to say that either: 1) you didn't; 2) i'm overreacting/shouldn't be hurt; 3) i deserved it

i would just like you to consider that, maybe, there is a fourth option: you hurt me

and like, fine, i have honestly resigned myself to never getting an actual apology. but if they want us to have a relationship going forward? this shit has to stop

 

So, witnesses are nice and I'm not trying to be rude, but my family pressuring me to make nice with my parents is a real problem I have (and it's going to get worse, tbh, because i'm moving in with my grandmother for the next 3-5 months at minimum) and I really would like advice for explaining to my family what's going on.

ETA: i didn't finish my sentence?? it's finished now.

 

And actually, a related question: Is it worth it at all to explain things?

 

http://smbc-comics.com/comic/honest-discussion

this comic is basically my parents tbh