Quote:
Originally Posted by NowhereUSA
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.
|
This sounds SO much like me. When I was in college, I wanted to major in something intensive, but I started out of nowhere having intense dizzy spells and really, really excruciating headaches. I can't even describe how badly my head hurt half the time. In true hypochondriac fashion, I convinced myself I had a brain tumor, and it was only a matter of time before I died. After about a year of the symptoms not going anywhere, I gave up hope that they would go away one day and just sank into a deep depression. I had convinced myself my life was over before I ever got a chance to do anything with it. There was no way I could take an intensive major any longer. I was too preoccupied with thoughts of my impending death and just with being in pain and dizzy off and on in general to concentrate. I told my dad I wanted to drop out because I couldn't handle college anymore. He told me if I dropped out, I couldn't live in his house anymore. So I switched to an "easy" major, which wasn't easy given the circumstances, but it was more doable.
I hate my stupid degree. It's useless, and I want to set it on fire. I've tried going back to school to "fix" the situation, but life is a lot more complicated now. I no longer have a scholarship to fund any classes, nor am I entitled to any grant money as a second-degree student. I have a lot more obligations now too, and it just seems impossible to add school into the mix. This is a topic I would like to bring up in therapy, but I don't even know how because I have too many things going on at once lol. Someday.