[Tristan H.]

I have never identified with the Oedipus complex as long as I have known it. Perhaps there was a time when I was younger (10 or 11) when I had developed deeper feelings for my mother, but that's all. Today, some 12-13 years later I don't have very deep feelings for her. Yet everyone else seems to have this overpowering affection for their mothers, and I suppose the same goes for fathers if you are a female.
It's not just that we keep our emotions inside in our family, but if I were to leave for a long time or return from many months away I just wouldn't have that kind of emotion that leaves people distraught and in tears. I don't feel the need to talk to her on Skype every 5 minutes like all my friends seem to do with their family. In fact I have only spoken to my parents 3 times in the past 2 months for probably less than 1 hour all combined. That's not for lack of availability or connectivity. I just don't feel the need.

You see, I don't hate my parents, I mostly see the resentment I have for them as a reflection of my disillusionment and self-loathing. I have long harboured negative feelings for my mother, have subconsciously given her less than flattering attributes, but I do know better. All her professional success, however modest it might appear in the eyes of someone like me who only deals in ideals and dreams of grandiose things, is still an achievement for someone who had to work her way up as a female without the financial or moral support of her traditionalist father (her father who never worked a day in his life, the bastard). That's more than can be said of myself. She had a career (retired now), was more ambitious and more successful than my father, yet somehow I seem to have more respect for him because he has a more pleasant nature and is in a number of ways less neurotic.

Do I truly hate them in disguise? Is it a projection of my own problems? To what extent are they to blame?