i know i shouldn't hold onto my anger, but sometimes i think i don't hate you enough. sometimes it feels like i'm betraying myself -- sitting here with you, laughing with you, thanking you as you wish me good luck and tell me to have fun. a few days later and i'm sitting in her office, laughing awkwardly as i say, "you know, it happens."
a defense mechanism, or something along those lines. i can't move out yet. too mentally unstable to even start to have my own life. i'm stuck with you, and you're stuck with me, but these days it's a little easier to pretend that's not the case. it's easier to stay quiet and keep my head down. it's easier to believe i don't deserve respect than it is to accept that you just didn't care.
i lull myself into a false sense of security, sometimes. i still think highly enough of you to believe you'll hear me out for more than a sentence. i don't know why, really, since every time i try you react the exact same way and i always hate myself for it, at least for a few days until i realize i can't hide from you forever and i forget everything all over again.
do you know how children will try to make sense of being abused or neglected by their caretakers? (one of you should. i mean, you have a doctorate in psychology.) they blame themselves. a classic case of just-world fallacy -- if the child was mistreated, it's only because they deserved it.
i'd like to be more charitable than i was in the past, more charitable than i've ever been with myself. i know it can't be easy, attention divvied up between a full-time job and your spouse and four other children. i know i didn't make it easy.
and yet all i'd wanted was for you to hear what i was saying. an apology would've been nice, but of course, of course that's too much. i won't ask for that. you just had to acknowledge it -- tell me you know i'm upset, you didn't want to hurt me, but you had no other choice. tell me you never wanted to hurt me. tell me you won't hurt me.
i started crying again. i hated you. i couldn't stand to be there, you were nothing but an image on a screen and i had to leave, i had to leave, and my therapist looked to me with a wry smile and he said: "what else did you expect?"