Chickenshit memoirs

In fact, it's not that bad. Today, for example, I boldly went to Svante the Librarian and boldly asked where the lecture on medieval bestiaries takes place. He didn't bite me and went to show me where the auditorium is. There were days when only the idea of possibly going to a library would make me shiver.

I'm firmly decided to find some professional help. I'm not sure how long will my resolve last, I've seen way too many professionals in the field to harbour rather a deep mistrust and, frankly, I think that shrinks are idiots and I have a reason.

There's one particular thing about boring family holidays. People have nothing better to do so they rant.
For reasons I don't remember, my mother started digging up things she didn't want to talk about. It's no secret that I was depressed, had a nervous breakdown and all that stuff. Or, at least, I don't make it a secret. It's not my fault that I have mental problems and that at a certain point, they were severe. But that's another story. Well, mom started with that.
To put things short, I had social phobia to an extent that complicated my life at least since I was 14 or 15. I don't really know when I started to be depressed, I was diagnosed when I was 18, based on things that were going on for at least two or three years. I was drinking. Not that I'd be an alcoholic but I needed something to get me in a state that I wouldn't be scared dead to go out of the house and walk ten minutes to go to school. I did make it home somehow, though. And, I literally spent not one afternoon sitting under my writing table, being scared. At a certain point, I was around 17, I stopped thinking. My brain wouldn't work, my attention span was a few seconds so when finally a few molecules of noradrenaline made their way through the synapses, I thought to myself something like Oopsie, I'm at school, I somehow forgot, before falling into obliviousness. And there was a paralyzing fear, almost all the time.
Nobody was really aware of all this.
I was seeing a counsellor. It was my mom's former colleague so I took the liberty to be very wary. That was one of the good points of social phobia, I was too scared to share the real stuff. Anyhow, when I admitted to drinking from time to time, the counsellor promptly sent me to a real shrink since he interpreted it as alcoholism (1). The shrink had more of a brain to see that I was depressed, gave me a prescription... and after several years, I slept something like normally.

I knew that my mom somehow got to know that I was seeing a shrink and that she had access to my files or the information from them. At that time, I was of age and I didn't give any consent to the shrink to spread the material around, nor to anyone to go and see it. Which meant that someone somewhere commited a felony. When my mom proudly announced that to me, to see how powerful or how caring or what the fucking hell she is, I did a bit of shouting and thought something about arseholes.

However, we had a discussion, mom started digging up how I was a normal teenager, how there were no problems and that I had to be lying to the counsellor and to the shrinks and how everything was made up etc. It didn't make too much sense to me, I never understood the depths of mom's delusion about her little sweet princess (2).
Mom continued on the theme of how she got to know what was going on between me and my counsellor and psychiatrist. That, well, the counsellor knew her and that he found it important to inform my parents. Erm. Let's admit that at least until a certain point I was a minor so legally it would be borderline okay, ethically, however, totally off anything. It's simply not done. But, at a certain point, I turned 18, got the right to vote and to get bank loans and simply became a citizen with all civil rights applicable... and apparently, nobody cared. Not my counsellor, not my shrink, nor my mother. The counsellor told her stories about my alcoholism (3). Either him, or mother when telling me, omitted the fact that I drank not to get high but to overcome my anxiety. The shrink, as I learned, felt compelled 'to hear the other side of the story' (4) and invited my mother for a chitchat. Despite knowing that I didn't wish my parents to know, explaining the reasons. Despite the fact that it was simply illegal. Both had to be aware that it wasn't in any perfect order.
Mom also gave a long rant, how the shrinks are studip because I apparently lied to them that I was an alcoholic and that it's not true. Because, behold, she never noticed that I'd be coming home drunk. I didn't comment it because I had hard time not to giggle or, in fact, to fall under the table laughing my ass off.
The other thing that almost made me explode was when my mom claimed that I told her that I didn't want to kill myself, that I was sick and may have taken more meds than it was healthy. Sure, a whole pack of benzos. Even if I had said it in some weird state of mind, it's around as believable as pink unicorns.
The legal debate was nutritious, too. The Righteous One said that there's nothing wrong at all when a concerned doc contacts a family member and blabbers everything out. And that there's no reason to be angry because it was only with the bestest intentions towards yours truly. And that there's no reason to be angry because it was long time ago.
I couldn't reply that well, it was against the docs' own code of ethic conduct, that it was totally illegal and that, in this light, Hitler was a nice guy who did so much good things for the workers and built nice highways and who cares about those few mishaps that happened to the Jews and Commies and whoever else.
Mother started to sulk and kept it for quite a while

Gotta love delusions.

Not that I would be absolutely against messing into people's lives for their own good, it needs to be done sometimes, legal, illegal, nice or mean. The same rule as for using coconut-rich perfumes or brain surgery applies, though: Proceed with extreme caution.

If I ever show such a level of self-delusion, please, euthanise me before it's too late.


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(1) Shrinks are stupid
(2)namely Cinderella. The shoe stories will follow someday.
(3)see note (1)
(4) because everybody knows that there are the good teenagers which are good and the rest is problematic young delinquents and generally bastards that are not to be trusted evah, regardless of objective facts, developmental psychology and such nonsense. For more explanation, see note (1).