I said ‘it just feels familiar, I can understand you wanting to talk about problems with me in this way, by telling a story instead of saying directly.’ Dad did ‘methinks the lady doth protest too much’ things again. He said ‘I would never do that, I’m not up to anything, I don’t see any similarities between you and Ted at all and I’m truly shocked you would think that about me, I think it’s bad when people don’t say what they mean and I want to only say what I mean and not go around saying parables, I am not up to anything at all. I am really just so shocked you would ever think I thought anything was similar about you and Ted.’ I said ‘but there are similarities. I don’t think it’s bad, you’re the one giving it bad connotations like ‘up to something.’ It makes sense to me that you or anyone would want to talk about something indirectly at first, I relate to that. There are similarities about Ted and me: I don’t always return phone calls, I’m depressed and don’t like therapy, you keep saying about the thing about him not feeling loved and that was an argument we had this spring that seemed to impact you. I understand why you’d think there are similarities, you’re repeating all the similar things in a way like you want me to notice and it feels fake that you’re denying all of this to the extent you are.’

3:05AM: it turned into another thing with mom. the thing with mom ended with me saying ‘please can i just go away, i can’t talk like this anymore’ and crying. at some point i said ‘when people tell me how much i mean to them i don’t feel anything, there is just something wrong with me, i don’t feel things when people say stuff like that, i feel like i’m in an empty room all the time but the room is me and i don’t know how to get out.’

sounds crazy now.

mom said ‘i just read this book [‘taipei’] where you’re doing a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a LOT of drugs and i worry that a person i liked is gone and not coming back.’

i said ‘it’s too late, i already did everything, i’m already different and i can tell, i’m sorry to be disappointing.’

the thing i was trying to ‘drive home’ was that i didn’t want to say everything was okay about dinner because it didn’t feel okay and mom was (she does this a lot/i understand/it’s a nice thing to do) trying to comfort me and get me to say how it could be better.

the first thing she said when i walked inside was ‘i talked to dad and i want you to know that everything. is. ohhh-kay’ in overly calm voice, but i hadn’t even said anything.