Posted by Christ_empowered on October 24, 2011, at 6:01:43
So, today I told my mother I wanted to go back and get an online degree. The program struck me as kinda shady at first--Christian and online, what?--but they're accredited, people have apparently been able to put their degrees to use, and--here's the real benefit, for me--no proctored exams. Its like a dream come true.
Anyway, I get a chilly reception. She pretended to be distracted by housework and upset about her dye job (she quit her colorist and tried to do her own roots. Didn't work). For once, I saw through the act. I even told her my psychiatrist had suggested I finish my degree, knowing that she would have to acknowledge the wisdom of someone who sees me for 5 minutes every 6 weeks and knows me better than anyone. Still, nothing.
I hung around my parents for a while, watching some football or something. I mentioned the program to my dad. This time I started out by saying my shrink had suggested it, thinking that if they perceive this as therapeutic, then they might be more willing to back me. I even mentioned the Pell Grant and the relatively low tuition and student loans and how I'd be able to finish in 1.5-2 years w/ all my previous credits. Nothing.
I'm so frustrated. My parents seem to want me to live in this little apartment they bought me (which I GREATLY appreciated), get disability, and stay in a dopamine-deprived, Abilify-ied haze for the rest of my days. My mother, a hardcore Calvinist, even suggested I join a Pentecostal Church. So, that's my parents' vision of my life: noxious drugs, government assistance, and My Own Personal Jesus.
Last year, they got me a small apartment in an even smaller, even more Southern town in another state so I could "heal" from...whatever. Whatever it is you heal from by taking high doses of neuroleptics and living away from anyone who knows you. The few people who knew about the arrangement said that I must not have the best parents if that's how they wanted to handle me.
I don't actually need their financial backing for school--between a Pell Grant and small student loans I can do it--but it'd be nice. Nicer still would be some sort of indication that they think I can, in fact, accomplish something with my life. They're both well-educated (1 PhD, 1 Masters). I get the sense that, at 27, with no degree and "bipolar disorder," I'm expected to give up these foolish dreams of education and a real life and accept poverty and isolation with a drugged out smile on my face and a Bible in my hand.
This makes me doubt myself. My parents have never been terribly supportive. I was in all the gifted classes, honors classes, but still...not enough. When I earned relatively high SAT scores, the response I got was "not bad for a white kid from a well-educated, middle-class background." My dad told me I "wasn't very smart," "couldn't think," and that I "need to get a desk job with benefits."
I thought all this was behind us. I'm beginning to think that they never believed I could do a damn thing, and then when I failed in life it was just proof that they'd been right all along, no matter what those pesky tests and teachers had to say.
Please advise.
poster:Christ_empowered
thread:1000677
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20111012/msgs/1000677.html