Dear uni therapist/mentor,

Whenever you tell me that if it were your daughter who was struggling the way I am whilst living abroad, you would be absolutely desperate, it breaks my heart because it just reminds me of the fact that I do not have a mother like that. My mum isn't nurturing, or loving, and she doesn't want to hear about how I'm depressed and how I would like to die. She wouldn't offer me any sympathy if I did tell her. In fact, she most likely wouldn't know how to respond at all.

My parents are supportive to a certain extent, but they just don't have any love or nurture to give, probably because they never received it themselves. I feel so pathetic for wanting these things at my age, but at the same time I don't know what to do with it. You try so hard to give it to me, but I don't know how to accept it, and I'm also terrified by my own feelings because you are my mentor, not my mother. It pains me so much that I will never have a mum like you. How messed up is that?

Why do you have to say things like, "If you were my daughter I would be so proud of you"? Just… why? It feels like some sort of emotional torture, because I will never get that from my mum. So it hurts when you say it. And yet, a part of me wants to hear it, because it makes me feel validated. It makes me feel cared for, despite the negative part of me telling me that it's not real, that it's just an act, and that you probably say stuff like that to all of your students (and other clients).

I can't tell you any of this. I don't know how. It's tearing me apart.