Sunday, 2 April 2017

I Have A Lot of Problems That Are More or Less Related to My Family

First of all, I want to thank you for having created such an amazing and helpful website. Now, I’m going to try to be as precise as possible in describing my issues, and I hope that it will be enough so that if you ever reply to me you can help me.

I don’t know where to start because there are so many things to say, and I wonder if perhaps I should consider sending you a message for each issue but since they are all more or less related to my family or people in general I guess I’ll just write them down in a go.

First of all, I have come to hate my father 50% of the time because he is verbally abusive to my mum, my sister and I and because he likes to touch me (not sexually, but I still don’t feel comfortable with it) and still treats me like a five-year-old, and I feel like it shouldn’t be that way.

Second of all, I can’t talk about myself. I have the right to, but I just can’t. I can’t talk about what I like or dislike or what I want or not or who I am and how I feel and what I think without feeling like I’m talking too much, annoying people and opening myself up way too much and like I should just keep myself to myself. Especially with my family. I’ve tried to tell them multiple times about everything that I can’t tell other people about, and sometimes I succeeded and sometimes I didn’t, and when I did they didn’t understand and still don’t. The main things I can’t tell them are who I am ( between genderfluid and bigender, 80% of the time attracted by males when I feel more male and 80% of the time attracted by females when I feel female ), how I feel ( desperate to leave the country, down ), what I like and what I would like to do later on ( be an actress/actor and a singer ). This isn’t normal, is it ?

Third of all, I hate school. I feel like throwing up everytime I think about it. I’m not bullied or anything (well, two of my friends do tend to bully me a little bit but it’s who they are), I just don’t feel comfortable there, not insecure, just not comfortable, like I don’t belong there (I don’t belong here at all), and I hate the french way of teaching and the french curriculum because it doesn’t suit me at all. I’d rather leave the country and attend a boarding school in England or America (because I adore these two countries) than stay in a place that I hate attending a school that I hate. And although I have told my parents that I hate french schools I can’t bring myself to tell them that I wish for them to just send me off to a boarding school in another country because they couldn’t afford it and when we talk about me moving in in England for my studies (which I’m definitely going to do) they say that it hurts to let me go.

Fourth of all, I hate my parents. I mean, I’ve already mentioned that I hate my father 50% of the time, but this time I’m talking about the both of them. They keep trying to make me like who they want me to be, keep patronizing me, keep protecting me when I don’t need protection, forbid me from expressing myself (my mother literally told me just an hour or so ago ‘You are not allowed to say what you think here !’ and by ‘here’ she meant ‘with us’), never leave me alone, don’t allow me to do things on my own except walk to and from school (which is only 5 to 10 minutes away by foot), never let me to do everyday things like cooking or cleaning because they always do it. To put it short, they don’t allow me to live. I can’t stand living with them anymore and I wish that they would kick me out of the house or decide to emancipate me because I don’t have the courage to leave of my own will or ask for emancipation (I keep telling myself that it will make them sad and hurt). Is it normal to feel that way ?

Finally, I find myself wishing that I had no friends at school so I could be on my own and there are some people whom I don’t want to speak with even though they’ve always been kind to me and I hate calling people. It’s really weird because I have social anxiety and at the same time I like to be with people and I prefer to be with adults rather than kids or teens ( even though I love kids and babies ). Also, I’ve lost interest in a lot of things that I used to enjoy, like reading books, something that my mother has disgusted me of because when I was little I loved to read books and people thought that I was a literary person ( and still do ) and they kept buying me books and now I’m growing tired of reading books and she keeps ordering me to read more books and finding me books that she wants me to read because she says that I will love them when just by hearing the overall storyarch I know I won’t, adding that since I am in the literary section of the french high school curriculum I must be a literary person. In fact, regarding the books problem, I feel a little bit like the singer MIKA: he says that he has dyslexia because he got bullied at school by some kids and by his french teacher, who also humiliated him and others in front of the whole class, and I can’t open and/or read a book or ebook anymore even though I like the story because I have been forced to read even when I used to enjoy reading a little bit everyday and am still being ordered by my mother to read and am forced to read books for school purposes (which I don’t do, I just look up chapter-by-chapter summaries) (I can still read stories though, like fanfictions or summaries or biographies of people that I like).

I’m sorry that I couldn’t respect the 400 words limit and that I’ve mentioned multiple issues instead of just one but I really needed to put it all down (and there are so many more things that I could have said). I hope it’s okay with you. I’m sorry if some sentences are hard to understand because of their length, this is something that I need to work on.

PS: I am already seeing a neuropsychologist for some of these issues as well as other ones.

A. You are maturing and trying to become the person you are meant to be, and it’s causing a bit of friction between you and your parents. You are exploring new ideas about yourself and trying to find your place in the world. That is a normal part of human growth and development. In that way, there’s nothing “wrong” with you. There is an old American song by Neil Sedaka, called “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.” A more relevant song title would be “Growing Up Is Hard To Do.” And it is. In fact it is very hard to do.

Erik Erickson, a psychosocial theorist, referred to this developmental stage of life as identity versus identity confusion. During adolescence, is very common for there to be a discrepancy between who your parents want you to be and who you want to be. Sometimes misguided parents want their children to be extensions of themselves. Teenagers, faced with those circumstances, often rebel because what their parents want them to do doesn’t match their own personal interests and goals. It can cause a great deal of tension between them and their parents.

The fact that you are already in treatment is great news. Counseling is the ideal place for learning to navigate the types of problems teenagers commonly have with their parents. You should also consider temporarily including your parents in your therapy. Family therapy might be the perfect resolution to this problem. It’s better to address these problems directly than to ignore them and to allow them to fester. Good luck and please take care.

Dr. Kristina Randle



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