My mother recently reminded me of something I had forgotten. My parents divorced when I was quite young, and even though my father stayed in my life, I took it very hard. I was always a sensitive kid, and because my parents didn't fight in front of me, I had absolutely no warning it was coming. I remember that part.

What I had forgotten was that on several occasions shortly after they divorced, when I was about seven years old, I would decide I didn't feel good during class and ask to go to the school guidance counselor's office. I didn't know this, but the counselor told my mother that I was "severely emotionally disturbed."

Mom apparently flipped her shiz and went off on the counselor because she immediately decided there was NO WAY anything was wrong with me. She still believes that, and has denied my bipolar diagnosis from the start, and has been viciously opposed to and extremely nasty about me getting treatment.

I have very little memory of it, and my early memories are not very reliable, but I seem to recall sometimes I just wanted to get out of class and asking to see the counselor seemed like a good way to do it. But I can't swear to that, or explain what was going on with me. Maybe I really felt bad, maybe I was just a sneaky little cuss who felt like being lazy sometimes and figured out how to get away with it.

I just never realized that a professional thought I was emotionally disturbed when I was young, and I don't know what that means. I never thought I displayed any bipolar symptoms until I turned 30, but maybe I did when I was young and that counselor picked up on it? Or was it just my honest reaction to my parents' divorce?

My unreliable mother was in la-la land about it and for most of my childhood and young adulthood. It makes me mad at her. She had it hard as a single mom with a lot of chronic health problems, but there's just something legit wrong with her brain and behavior, and she knows it but won't get help. Looking back on it, a lot of stuff she did or failed to do borders on neglectful, and this just adds to the list. What kind of parent hears their kid's emotionally disturbed and doesn't do anything about it?

Anyway. I'm not sure what I'm asking for, here. Maybe just any thoughts you guys have, if you got something like that said about you when you were young. I'm so surprised that a counselor said that about me.