I burned all my correspondence, letters, notes and journals years ago at the advice of a psychologist I was seeing at the time. I also wrote a letter to all the people who wronged me and then we burned it together in a symbolic gesture of moving on. But that obviously didn't work. Now I wish I had that paperwork to look through sometimes.
Your shrink is an idiot. Fire him. Fuck moving on. Do the kids in program have that option?
I think something that is pervasive is the attitude that perception is reality. Program parents are an extreme version of this. They desperately need to control the perception of what they are doing, both in public and their own minds.
It seems like a lot of people are doing that. I do it to all the time. Trying to build up an impressive exterior (good job, a house, car) to make the perception that I am doing fine and have my shit together, when the truth is much different than what people are seeing. So why are we all so obsessed with keeping up this perception in our society?
Because our society is (as it always has been) filled with greedy, materialistic little pricks who think happiness is a luxury car. Look at the uber-rich celebreties... are they happy?
The only perception of
yourself that matters is
your own (and possibly those of your partner/close friends
if it affects them.)
When you stop caring about keeping up your own perception, other people get angry. They don't want to see what really is there and so they try and change it. But I get to a point where I feel like building a paper castle has no point. Looking out from the inside I know it's all an illusion, so who is it really for. Not me. Time to burn this paper castle down.
Bingo. Program taught you to be a generic model of the perfect citizen, a trained puppy for your parents to show off ("oh look how much you've changed, now that you have no trace of individuality left, i'm no longer ashamed to show you off to my friends.").
Be yourself, good luck finding that though, with what program did to your head. I would suggest a "backtrace" through your program journals/diary but your
idiot shrink told you to burn them.
