Are your parents remarkably, even blissfully unaware? In therapy, this topic, a common discussion.. still, how best, tamping down your emotions, with an elderly parent? What does your therapist advise, in cases such as this?

I told my father once that I was in therapy, and even a little bit about it.

My mother was the one who initially turned me off to therapy. Starting about the time I turned fifteen, she would at regular intervals disdainfully say that I should go into counseling. The message I got was “so that I could be fixed and not be such a problem to her.” Needless to say, I was not interested.

Now I’m half convinced that was her way of ensuring I would never go to therapy, certainly not on my own terms. And it worked… for years.

I have not told her anything about my therapy or that I’m even in it. So she has no idea that it was through being in therapy that I finally found the courage to walk away from her and all the poison.

I do wonder about how I would go about caring for my parents in their old age… when I don’t even talk to them now… but I’m not ready to delve into that too deeply. Hopefully it all works out OK.