it sounds like you deal with hurt and shame over it. maybe like a residual hurt, if that makes sense.

for me, it looks something like this (to try to help make it clearer). i have a degree i hate. i was so depressed and suicidal i couldn't handle the coursework for the degree i had wanted since i was in the 8th grade. my parents ignored my depression, my mother in fact shamed me for it. in college, when i thought i was going to break, i tried to tell my mother that i wanted to take time off. she'd already been confronted with my depression a second time.

i got a lecture about how if i quit college i'd never go back.

so i picked a degree i knew i could do the work for, that wasn't intensive, and sounded useful to my parents.

it has taken me a long time to say that it hurts. not merely because i gave up my dream but because *my mother* pushed me that way. she shamed me once again and so now my degree is a reminder of what my mother did to me.

and it hurts.

it sounds like this is kind of like that.

and, if it helps, it sounds like you've done amazingly well for yourself. you have your GED and you're on your way to a BA. sometimes we drive different cars on our way to a similar destination.

i hope you can talk to your t about it. it's okay to hurt. and you don't sound like the kind of person who'll get stuck there. you sound resilient and determined. don't let the pain fester anymore. cleaning the wound hurts, but then you can heal.

okay. i'm done being rambly.