Today was this all over again but like this conversation had never happened.
More "your feelings are valid because you feel them" BS

I tried to tell him what I needed to hear. After it was clear I was frustrated and having a hard time talking about it and I stopped talking he asked what I was thinking, and finally like thirty seconds later I told him about a friend (who we've talked about before), and that this friend will tell me about certain things from his childhood and I'll say "dude, you know how ****ed up that is, right?" and it'll turn into him half joking, "you mean that isn't normal?" and I'll be like "um, no, I'm pretty sure that most parents don't [do this super ****ed up thing] and that that would **** up any child." And my therapist asked about my friend blaming himself and I said yes. He and I make the same kinds of self deprecating jokes about just having been weak, needing to suck it up, etc.
Then my therapist acknowledged how ****ed up the stuff my friend's parents did was (objectively super ****ed up, I described it to my therapist as "a list of red flags") and basically told me that just because my parents weren't that bad didn't mean I didn't have the right to be hurt

Cool, but that's not what I was asking for. The point was that I validate my friend's struggles when I tell him that what his parents did was definitely not okay and that it would have been detrimental to any child, it's not just that he was sensitive or weak or whatever. I don't just tell him that his feelings are valid because he feels them.
I don't know if my therapist understood that that was my point and chose not to acknowledge it because he knew he couldn't give me the answer I wanted to hear.

He also objected to my use of "****ed up" earlier in the session to describe how I turned out. I didn't think it was derogatory in the same way he seemed to. It seemed to actually bother him, but to me it's just easier than listing all the issues I have. I didn't say "completely ****ed up in every way and doomed to be ****ed up forever," but I think it's pretty fair to call myself "****ed up" based on the number of disorders and hospitalizations.

The session started with me bringing up that some things he'd said last time had bothered me. I had my journal and he asked me to read from it because he knew that meant I'd written about it. I told him about how the whole "find meaning" thing had upset me and that telling me that I was "empathetic and kind" felt like it was more about what I could do for other people. He asked if I thought that's what he meant and I said no.

At the end, with like a minute left he seemed to remember how the session started and asked if the part I'd read was everything I'd written/been upset about and I said nope.
There wasn't much he could say or do about it at that point. He made it clear that he wanted me to be able to talk about all the things I was upset about or whatever.
I left feeling somewhat bitter and hoping it would bother him a bit, because it's going to be bothering me all weekend.