Set Me Free

The other day I caught up with an acquaintance of mine over coffee. At one point he shared about how he felt misunderstood and embarrassed by his Asian parents. He said that his parents do not know certain specific details about his life, like his specific graduate degree program. While I tried my best to display empathy to this person in the moment, on the inside I felt annoyance bubbling up in my chest. At the end of the chat he stated with such an earnest tone that he appreciated our conversation, though I walked back to my apartment more perturbed than before.

I think I felt annoyed because this person did not display much understanding or compassion toward his parents’ circumstances. I’m not saying he has to love his parents or feel any particular way about them.

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The Success Frame

Growing up, my mother expected perfection from me. As a child, I found her constant evaluation hurtful and invalidating, especially when combined with her general emotional abuse. Even though I considered academics more as a ticket to escape my mother than as a metric of my self-worth, I think I internalized my mother’s voice a bit, like when I cried after getting a 4 instead of a perfect 5 on the AP Biology exam, even though I didn’t really care about biology at all.

A little while ago I read about the success frame, a concept created by sociologists Dr. Jennifer Lee and Dr. Min Zhou. A simplified version of their argument: Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants in the United States expect their children to graduate from an elite university with an advanced degree and a job that can net a sizable income; achieving this isn’t special, it’s expected. Reading about this framework helped me understand my mother’s view of me and how I consider my own accomplishments.

It’s Weird!

I waited over a month to email the news to my two past long-term therapists. When I said bye to C in June 2022, I had already planned when I’d reach out to both her and L again. It’s perfectly reasonable to email your two therapists who saw you for multiple years when you get your tenure-track job, I thought to myself. It’s just a casual update so they know how you’re doing and so they can hear the good news.

I reached out to C and L with the update in February, a month after I secured my academic and clinical positions.

Wait a Second

A week after I accepted my academic job offer, I started thinking about one of the courses I would teach in fall of 2023. Omg, how should I structure this course? What learning objectives and assignments should I plan out to ensure that it runs smoothly? Omg I haven’t taught this yet what am I doing?? Most of my internal dialogue focused on my lack of experience teaching this particular course and my desire to put in work now to make sure it goes well.

At some point, I paused and practiced cognitive defusion.

Ten Years Later

Almost ten years ago, I opened an envelope in the mail from my top choice undergraduate college: I got in! I remember feeling almost euphoric, pacing around the basement of my childhood home. On an academic level, I yearned to dive deep into English and Psychology, subjects I felt an affinity for in high school. More personally, I couldn’t wait to escape my abusive mother – I had studied and planned for years to get away from her, and now I could see the end of our relationship in sight.

In terms of academics, my idealized vision of college pretty much came true.

7pm for a 7:30 surprise

Over the past two weeks I finished rewatching Fleabag, a show I first saw in 2019. This time around – thanks to years of therapy, I think – I see a lot more of myself in the character Claire, the protagonist’s sister. Claire is caring, though also uptight and perfectionistic and rather rigid. In a scene in episode three of season one, Claire tells her sister “it’s a 7pm arrival for a 7:30 surprise,” referring to her own surprise birthday party.

When I heard that line this time around, I thought ooooooh yep that’s me.

It’ll Pass

I had my last therapy session with my second ever long-term therapist last month, on June 22. I started seeing her in late May of 2018, almost a year after I moved to the Washington D.C. area. In contrast to my first long-term therapist L’s snarkier and more detached yet caring style, this therapist had exuded warmth and nurturance from the beginning. We spent this last session celebrating my growth and wishing each other well.

One theme that came up a little bit during our four years together included how I reacted to my mother’s consistent emotional abuse in my childhood.

Men

I went on three dates with three different guys in the past two weeks. The most recent date took place in a bar in Cambridge with the first white guy I had gone out with in a few years. He graduated from Harvard, worked as a political consultant, and bored the heck out of me. The date itself had been pleasant enough and I got him to pay for my drink, though I still felt disappointed as I left the bar and walked back to my apartment.

A few years ago, I think I would have experienced a more extreme reaction to this mediocre date.

The End (?)

In my most recent session with my therapist, she and I decided that we would stop seeing each other after two more meetings. Logistics initiated this shift – my residency starts on June 30 and I will have far less free time then in my schedule for a weekly therapy session. The choice to end therapy, for now, feels quite emotional though, in large part because of how I have attended therapy for six of the past seven years.

I remember at one point in undergrad talking with one of my favorite mentors on the phone while sitting on the floor of a bathroom in the main campus library.

44 Days

I signed a lease for an apartment in Cambridge last week! While I felt relieved after receiving the final confirmation email, the stress about moving itself soon sunk in: I have so much random sh*t strung about every nook and cranny of my apartment, I lack any sense of where to obtain boxes to pack this random sh*t once I get it together, and I still need to figure out how to attain furniture for my new place. I have told my friends over the past week or so that I feel stress adjacent – not stressed, because of my intensive use of emotion regulation strategies, though approaching stress, because moving blows.

On one level, I think I may feel stress adjacent because of just how much logistical effort moving entails. However, today, I made a to-do list of sorts to orient myself. Figure out where to get boxes. Ask about the parking situation at your apartment complex. Get rid of old clothes. Make a plan to procure furniture. Find a new hair stylist in the Boston area. Sacrifice your values and seduce a rich man of color to finance your life so you can afford a 1bed/1bath right on the Charles River, an apartment filled with books and far from the man himself.

When I paused to self-reflect on my stress adjacency today, I thought about the urgency I felt throughout my childhood.