While the student was taking the exam, he got frustrated with something and rested his forehead on his hand, thus putting his hand (the one with the writing) directly in front of the camera on his computer.

Ahahahahahaha, that's amazing.

The stuff that therapy is dredging up (because apparently there's always a deeper layer of shit and there is no bottom when it comes to parentally installed dysfunction) is dovetailing really badly with banning P-C, primarily w/r/t the issues of gaslighting.

I don't need to have a discussion about it (and it's not about P-C; I didn't even want to bring him up, except the whole issue with him and the discussion and the voting did drag gaslighting back into the front of my brain, so there's that), but I just needed to say it out loud somewhere. I feel so beaten down and fragile, you guys. I didn't expect this. I thought therapy was about dealing with this stupid year and all my stress, but Jesus, I'm pulling out stuff I thought was long behind me, and DAMN.

It is a really good thing I work from home, is all I can say. And I feel like I should put "edits well while crying" on my resume under the skills section.

Yeah girl I get you. I feel sort of vaguely pissed at what I actually have to work on in therapy. But it's clear that those actually are the underlying issues and that all my surface stuff is really just me papering over that in various ways. But it's hard work, yo.

I was definitely irritated by therapy in the same way. I think as I've matured from, say, when I was married at 22 to now, when I'm 40, I've learned a lot about my behavior, what motivates it, and so on. And yet therapy was kind of like, "I have to do MORE work? So unfair."

I feel sort of vaguely pissed at what I actually have to work on in therapy.

Oh, I'm pissed, too. I thought it was behind me. And -- I said this before -- I *did* do useful, good work in therapy in my 30s that helped a lot. But I was super misguided in thinking that was all there was to deal with. Like, I knew back then that my Mom's method of parenting was to gaslight the shit out of us and recruit other family members to help (the less said about the Peach Ice Cream Incident, the better, but fuck you entire family, just fuck you). I discussed it with my therapist at the time. I acknowledged that damn, that is horrific, and we came up with ways to set boundaries with my Mom.

But apparently it's the gift that keep on giving and I have to deal with it again.

But it's hard work, yo.

Yeah, damn it.

Lately I've been delving into just how much I blame myself for my dad's abuse of me. It gets really dark, really fast, up to the point where I realize I wanted my dad to scream at me, just because I was so starved for attention.

I just wanna ignore it all so much.

I just wanna ignore it all so much.

Co-signed SO HARD.

I hug you guys. I wish you could share whatever members of my family that you wanted.

I know I should go to therapy, but I can't. The idea of facing the rest of what I need to deal with terrifies me. I've worked on a lot of stuff, especially since Rob's death, but I know I could do better. Except doing better probably requires a therapist, and the idea of bringing all of my shit into the open for someone else to judge makes me run for the hills.

I have to do work for work; I don't want to do work for this. I fully realize how stupid that sounds, but there it is, in all of its nasty glory.

To those of you who took the leap (even though it's hard), you are much braver than I. I wish I had half of your courage. I'm stuck at "nope, not gonna."

~ma for y'all that are doing the work.

Steph (and Tom, and everyone else), the recent unpleasantness has also dredged up a lot of crap for me that I thought I'd dealt with. I'm sorry you're going through this. (And I join in with the others who are like, "MORE work? So unfair".