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Originally Posted by Lrad123
My T generally isn’t the type to tell me what to do or how to feel, but he clearly keeps sending me the message that he thinks I perceive my childhood as normal when he believes it wasn’t. I guess you could say we sort of argue about this. This feels like such a stereotype of therapy to me - going to therapy to blame everything on your parents, and I’m not sure of the benefit of playing that game. I’m high functioning and have a generally good life. I’m aware that my parents had issues of their own, but they weren’t cruel or abusive and they loved me. Through talking about my childhood I’m aware that my parents weren’t completely in tune with my emotional needs, and perhaps made choices that I would not have made, especially now that I’m a parent and can think about how I’d do things differently. Last week I admitted that “maybe there was an element of neglect,” and he cut me off saying, “it wasn’t just an element. It was neglect.” He also has started to occasionally bring up a particularly difficult year in my childhood where I coped by watching a certain inspiring movie several times per week and bonding with my dog. I’m conflicted because when he says things a certain way, I can see his point that I was largely emotionally alone as a kid. My parents did not see me. I’m just not sure what I’m supposed to do with this now. As an adult, at this point in my life, how is this useful? Am I supposed to cry about it and be sad about it? Am I supposed to be angry? Because I just don’t feel like it. My father took his life when I was a teen and I feel like I’ve mourned that already. A few years ago I chose to have no contact with my mother for reasons that are complicated and this breaks my heart, but I felt like I had no choice and it’s honestly made my life easier in a way. What good does it do to go back now and pick apart my not-so-extraordinary childhood? Wondering if anyone has had a similar experience?
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In my very first session with R, when he asked me to talk about my relationship with my father, and i was going on about some of the stuff he said to me. He actually said "oh my G-d" at one point. I thought all of what I went through was normal. Your T may be been too direct, but abuse at the end of the day is STILL abuse whether we're ready to hear it or not.
I believe our childhoods shape us as adults and it would be useful to talk about when your ready. Or not if you don't want to.