One of the craziest, most outlandish, most out-of-character things I've ever done happened two weeks ago. I went to therapy. I saw through my helplessness - this time as an issue. 

Mitigation was required; I needed help. 

Needing help is something so against the grain of the culture fostered in my time with my family. My grandmother on my father's side was a single mother, a widow. From what I've heard, there was never a time that she asked for help from others. Grandma would never be in a position of defeat, after all. My father sells himself as somone who is self built, his policy was consistently hardline on never asking for help from his family. He framed it this way: he never "needed" help. There were undertones of superiority. Was it mere innocent luck to never need help? Was it pride? I think it's pride. He celebrates his suffering as hardship all the time. 

To be the bearer of the tool that breaks this cycle, has a disproportionate and ceremonial silliness to it. The emotional weight was big. Intending to redeem your first therapy session is very, very silly. 

How do you ask for it? I definitely didn't know how to handle such a question and its execution. "Can I have therapy?", I cluelessly asked the receptionist. What is the unit of measurement for therapy? But you should really know what happened prior. I walked into the clinic. I got stopped. I needed a mask. That makes sense. I grab and wear one, happily obliging. I approach the front desk and get stopped again. This time I needed to sanitize my hands. Gladly! The commute had me touching sketchy surfaces anyway. I sanitize. It's a ceremony, after all.

Therapy is measured by session. Oh, but of course it was. I wanted a session of therapy. I filled out the forms for new clients and we checked insurance, then we checked the next availability. The next availability was in 15 minutes, or at the end of the month. When shall I intend to commence the cycle-breaking ceremony?

I've never prepared for a session and I had one in 15 minutes. I frantically checked WebMD, Healthline, even GQ magazine. The advice needed too much time and space I could not accommodate for. Notes for the therapist?? I didn't know where to start with materializing into paper what I needed from therapy. I could only maintain composure to prepare. And breathing exercises - those helped a lot. I head back towards the clinic to check in.

My therapist for the day finally calls me up and we walk towards the office.

I unpack to my therapist, laying out the groundwork to present my current issues. I wanted something out of this, but I wasn't sure what. I improvised my presentation of my circumstances, and my issues. I'm overwhelmed by overwhelming circumstances. I didn't have an exact grasp of my issues. But something was up with me. That's why I was in the room after all. Maybe improvising made it all the more authentic, in contrast to orchestrating my details. No time to manipulate and weave a narrative. How exactly do you prepare what you've known by heart, anyway?

The presentation is well received. In return, the obvious. I am mourning the loss of a parent. I left my father and by association a majority of my family. I am mourning the loss of family. And I am asking for a solution to mitigate my qualms all at once. The "something" I wanted out of the session was nonsensical. What needed to happen was a restructuring of problem solving. I am trying to solve my problems all at once. (This was all said in a dignified manner by the way. It's not as upfront as I describe.)

I had to take on my issues one by one. By consequence, it becomes an important lesson on prioritization. At this moment in time, I have to prioritize building my life.

Breaking a cycle does not always include mass destruction. There isn't a big overhaul in store for me this time. For me, I needed to acknowledge the heirloom for what it was - a broken clock. Generations upon generations taught to reproduce results of success by looking at the clock at the correct time, fostering an ignorance to the times they were wrong. My father would never recollect the times of his failings, and neither did his parents, nor did their parents as well. Fixing the clock this time entails approaching problems differently, implementing prioritization, and setting criteria for help. It's miserable to only be successful by chance of luck, and to be a failure through defective strategy.

asfrcin --- January 26, 2024

How I portrayed myself when I remember those moments points to a sense of villainization. I felt the need to break something to the disgust of the people I used to look up to. I was a monster. I felt inferior. Looking back at it, the times of my childhood most prominent in my memory were times where I was the villain. I terrorized my siblings. My parents have always drilled into my head that I was crazy and defective.

I internalized the mean things the people in my life have said to me. I loved being crazy. I was a monster, callous, stupid, and I was always just short of being satisfactory. All the more stupid for even putting in the effort to be a good person. Why bother? Why couldn't I just embrace the image? I was the villain in the roles that I played and in the duties I fulfilled. I'm the villain in my siblings' lives. I'm a deadbeat brother. I have not seen them in almost six months at this point. I have missed all of their birthdays and with my current trajectory I'm about to miss them again. Every choice I make points to villainy.

But sometimes I feel like being portrayed as a villain doesn't fully capture the nuance of my circumstance.

Thinking for yourself and choosing yourself is a thankless act. I needed to leave everything behind for normalcy. Some people are born with our bar for normalcy. To my parents, granting another breath was enough compensation. Maybe it's cultural, I'm not sure, but everything about the life I left behind felt transactional. Every word we let go, every punch, every act enacted was never personal. It's a phrase at home; "Walang personalan", which means the things we did at home were not personal. It's (family) business, after all. Because it was never personal, we all felt like objects. I felt like a tool. My father felt like an ATM. My stepmother felt like cutlery, probably. She had to stay at home and feed the kids. I wouldn't be one to know how my siblings felt, out of respect for them. But I'm sure it isn't always pleasant. But it's functional. Neither nature nor nurture in our lives. All purpose. We lived purposeful lives.

But why was I the villain? I loved schadenfreude. Like a lot. I was looking for empathy and couldn't find it. I remember in fifth grade, I just moved to a new school around February. I slacked on homework, but hear me out. After school I was tasked with cleaning the building we lived in (my parents were building maintenance at the time) and tutoring my sister. I had to do my rounds on each floor, the lobby, the parking lot, and the laundry. And the stairwells, those were the worst. I'm sure it wasn't all that, but I was  tired after completing home tasks. Then we had homework, of course. I just pretended it didn't exist. Partially because I am lazy. But I'm not gonna let mopping stairs and cleaning surfaces run away from responsibility for incomplete homework. I'm sure it contributed.

"Shouldn't that take, like, 20 minutes?" asked my guidance counsellor regarding building maintenance, who, with my teacher, set up an intervention at the office after failing to complete any assignment. "Is there something going on at home?" I couldn't tell them. Oh, but I wish I could. But I really couldn't tell them, there was too much conflict of interest akin to an NDA from a mob. Children have lots to lose. I wasn't one to break a beautiful family. There was a chance of getting worse fosters If I told them.

If only people felt what I felt, I thought to myself. So I did everything in my control to make people feel what I felt. I felt like an old geezer, fists in the air, the children today have it too good! I was in the fifth grade. This also happened in the fourth grade, but I'm a little hazy on remembering the details. I wanted my parents to see what people thought of me, which by in part should have been a reflection of themselves. But they could care less, obviously. I wanted something to destroy. I wanted to be self-destructive. My worst was all me. But my best was because I was guided and nurtured and cared for by my parents. It always felt like nobody cared. But I'm not gonna be a hypocrite. Their worst was not all them.

It was a cycle, after all. To suffer something that isn't their fault is a toll no one wants to go through. But it's imposed on you, so suck it up right? Right. That was their reality, and naturally they are guided to replicate what has happened to them on their children. You’re only successful because of your parents’ successful rearing. And in the times you were wrong, it was only you. Only you could be wrong. And thus a cycle initiates. 

I remember my last fight with my Dad before severing ties with him for good. He let go of many hurtful things, but the one that hit the most was this:

“You’re nothing without me” 

At least he’s truthful about his feelings for once. Let’s break it down. According to his rationale,  I’m good and all my good was because of him. All my successes were because of him. Without him (“...nothing without me”) I am nothing (“You’re nothing”). I am a different person from my successes, according to him. My successes are his. Me? I’m my failures and wrongdoing. 

I was the villain because the identity left behind for me was my failures and wrongs, which is the “nothing” he was talking about. “[N]othing” because he takes all the successes for him and leaves nothing left. Whatever was left was all failure. But to clear things up, he most definitely did facilitate my successes, but he has no reason to deny facilitating my wrongs as well. The reality is my father and I have claims to both successes and wrongs in my life. A child is a team effort.

I really wanted to make an example out of him. I wanted the worst for him in a vacuum. Of course I understood that my siblings would be collateral if I were to wish such a thing. And that’s why I can’t. I have siblings. I have siblings and the fact that I also left them puts me on edge all the time. He’s a great father to my siblings. My conflict needs to stay separated from them. I can't conclude on a stance regarding what I feel about my father. I'd love to let it go. But I wan't him to feel like he's wrong. I want him to drill his wrongs and his failures into his head. I want it to repeat again and again and again. If only

And thus, a goodbye to villainy. I really am not two dimensional. Just like him, I too am multifaceted. We are all human after all. It’s what transcends us from being tools. He’s not just Dad, he’s also his issues, qualities, successes, and failures too.

I'm gonna need to head to camh at some point huh? Ah well. I couldn’t avert this crisis. Hopefully I’m a better person after this.

asfrcin --- February 25, 2024