This is an interesting topic for me right now. As a side note, it's interesting to me that I always come to this site and find something posted that is exactly what I'm working on at the moment.

My childhood appears on the outside to have been rather idyllic. Both parents around, didn't lack for anything, not abused or anything. But there was also no real direction, nothing expected or encouraged of me. I don't know about my brothers as much, but I have always just felt like I float around and get petted on the head. And rescued when I screw up yet another job or whatever. It's taken me 38 years to decide I don't need to be 'saved' and I don't need fixed. Something I beat myself up for years over was if my life was so normal and nothing ever really happened to me, what right do I have to be so messed up?

My mother is a social butterfly in some ways, has tons of friends and likes to put on all the fancy parties and that sort of thing. My dad is very quiet, keeps to himself and has few friends of his own. I tend to be very shy myself and am nothing like the socialite my mother tries to be. I hate that sort of thing actually. I'm only just recently discovering how superficial they can be, have the big house, the fancy stuff the rest of their generation doesn't have. I don't care about that stuff, I just want to live my little life and at some point, find someone to share it with.

But one of the things I was talking about with my therapist last week was about their low expectations of me and how that's carried through my life. A lot of the worst low spots were when I gave up and figued look there's another thing I screwed up, see I never will be any good. I don't know that I blame them for that attitude but when they swoop in and pick up the pieces with their attitiude of 'we knew it would happen again', it just perpetuates the cycle of my ups and downs. I'm at the point now where I want to break that cycle.

That's what I'm working on now, a total life change and going back to school. That involves a large relocation and a lot of angst on their part because the folks assume I will come crawling home like they knew I would. I want to be strong and be my own person finally.