10/21/21 Deciding to quit drinking?

Therapy works in a strange process of ruminating over past thoughts and behaviors and applying what sessions teach you. Beginning to see the larger picture of my family dynamic contributing to these behaviors. On paper I know “children model their parents” but it’s strange to see my parents’ behaviors and how that influenced mine.

Even thinking about my paternal side and realizing every single one of them has an addiction in one form or another. Most of them enjoy/ed alcohol, tobacco, affairs and general promiscuity, etc. But a few dabble in gambling as well. This type of behavior is present in every single person. Ironically enough my maternal side which encompasses my mother, who is mentally ill, is actually quite healthy and well-adjusted. I infer if she’s still “fucked up” that means it is biological and not something I can keep resenting her about. But it’s difficult when you keep hoping she’ll come around any day now and apparently that’s also a sign of childhood trauma when you cope by having a constant optimism about things working out. At least I’m not dead in a gutter and a drug addict according to my therapist.

Sessions didn’t teach me to think about the issues directly but when someone professional and emotionally stable can tell you what behaviors are unhealthy it validates my feelings about my childhood and adolescence. Things I’ve taken as a small setback sometimes are more traumatic than what I’ll admit. I thought everyone’s mom went beserk and trashed the house or even being hungry and almost shitting yourself at school because you ate weird things since there were no adults around. :”)

Getting used to accepting my feelings and thinking through them makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Confronting my family about business, family issues gives me anxiety. It’s sad my norm is dysfunction and having to juxtapose that with keeping up appearances as an Asian minority. Margaret Cho said, “we have to process the trauma from our parents’ generation” and that resounded with me.