Quote:
Originally Posted by Perna
I believe we only have one responsibility when we are born, to become ourselves. When we get old enough to see more clearly, have some experience under our belt, we can choose what to keep of what we have "learned". Just because it comes from our family does not make it right or something of value to us! The real advantage families have is that we're a captive audience for more years than we are to most other things.
Being "Southern" in the way you are now, is a choice. It's a little like being an "artist" or "writer" or identifying with anything else and calling it "mine". Because you have been ingrained to be super close does not mean you necessarily have to stay super close. Your brother is your parents' and his own problem, not yours. You can choose to make him yours or you can choose to walk away or your can choose something in-between, etc.
We pick up good and bad habits from our childhood and those we are raised by/with. But the bulk of what makes them "good" or "bad" is our deciding they do/do not fit with what we want and need, ourselves, in our individual lives.
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Hey--thanks Perna. I think you and MKAC and others who pointed out that "culture" can be a smokescreen for
control are probably right. I feel a lot of guilt for not respecting my "culture" and for embracing values that my family hates, and fights me on, but part of me is willing to consider the idea that this is just another justification for family secrecy and false uniqueness....like, we're not screwed up, we're just
Southern!
LolaCabanna, (and anyone else offended by my use of "yankee") I didn't intend anything insulting or pejorative by it--I use it descriptively and with my tongue firmly in my cheek. Nothing insulting was intended and I'm sorry about that. My therapist is also a "damn Yankee," having lived in the south longer than I've been alive, and I think he's awesome. (I'm certainly happy that he's here!)
I also wasn't making a value judgment about therapy with therapists who are different from you. I don't think my therapist being different from me means he isn't providing "good" therapy or that good therapy isn't possible in the context of difference.
My question was not about the quality of therapy but about whether the perception of cultural difference complicates things for people and in what ways. For me, I think the idea of A. being different from me allows me to think exactly what I've been thinking: maybe he's just wrong about me and my family because he doesn't quite get where I'm coming from.
And I think that because it's scary to think he might be right and comforting to hold on to this, as a lot of you pointed out.