Not Believable

 If I ever want to be in the mood to write again, I need to spill here about the two things that the therapist didn’t believe me about. 

One of them was regarding the pressure from my extended family when I was younger. I basically started working with kids when I was very young, because the pressure on me at the time was to NOT get married or have kids of my own and to pursue only career and education only. This was in contradiction to their mantras that no one would ever hire me, but the pressure was still there. I have 20 first cousins, and ten of them never married or had kids.  That’s evidence that I’m telling it accurately  

The problem that the therapist had with this is that most other women get pressured from society TO get married and have kids. In her eyes, someone experiencing the opposite is probably either lying or delusional. But, I stand by my past. The only thing that I can probably agree with now that I didn’t see at the time was that maybe it was because of my young age at the time?  However, age was rarely brought up. The pressure on me was “don’t”. Not, “maybe someday” 

 

The other thing had to do with the year I graduated from college. When I explained that I could not find a job upon finishing my degree, she assumed it was during the pandemic. This would fit her political narrative probably. I said no, it was before the pandemic. She gave me this face: 🤨 and said “huh!”

I can’t remember if I told her that 2020 was my highest earning year ever, but if I did, that probably pissed her off too. I must not have, because she would have attributed that to my degree when it had nothing to do with it. It was all the apps that I do on the side now. They paid hella good in 2020. Anyone can sign up for that, and no one cares about your degree. 

Therapists not believing my story doesn’t mean that I can’t write it down. Some of the best writing that I’ve consumed in the last few years have been about subcultures that have nothing to do with any of the subcultures I have lived in. For instance, the HBO series “Big Love” with Bill Paxton. I loved the job they did on that writing. But I have only come across a polygamist family in real life once before, when I attended high school with the youngest daughter of one. I did not get angry at the show and write them a letter saying, “I’ve never been expected to marry a man with two wives already and seven kids, therefore it isn’t realistic!”  

It’s realistic in some parts of the country. It shows a lot of strength and maturity when one is able to understand that their experiences don’t apply to EVERYONE.