Conflicted. I ended up sending a long email to T (some condensed gripes about childhood, including things I wrote further up. No lies or exaggerations and I did leave some stuff out, but made no attempt to balance it out with good stuff either! Of course it’s never been 100% awful at home, and some things I probably could have taken more responsibility for when I was older, but for whatever reason, didn’t). She said from what I’d written, I was entitled to feel really angry and no wonder I was having the problems I am.
I don’t want to see my mum as a bad person; I know she’s not, and that I was slipping into all or nothing type thinking while writing the email (I did let it sit several hours before sending, felt better later, but T emailed me about rearranging my appointment due to something more urgent that was coming up for her - she could only fit me in for 45 minutes or I could go the week after instead. I said it was fine, and mentioned the email I’d been debating sending. I sent it anyway, because I thought it warranted further discussion, which we will next session. It is stuff I’ve carried around for a long time that hasn’t been addressed properly).
Part of me just feels like I’m being ungrateful and like I’m focusing too much on myself/my own feelings. I’m finding it hard to “give” true love to my mum, even right now while my dad’s in hospital after another fall. There’s talk of him potentially going into a home (it was a bad fall, but we’ve felt for years that something like this would happen eventually). It would be a relief for all of us, I know mum would feel torn though. Is it bad that I don’t feel much for dad? Mum wrote a get well soon card yesterday for brother to take and got me to sign it, too. She thought I was going to write “love from RT”, but I just squeezed my name in between hers and the dog’s!
How to refill my empathy meter?