Golden Week Part 2
Trip Start
Jul 26, 2008
1
75
110
Trip End
Aug 06, 2009
Tome,
Tohoku,
Japan
Friday, May 8, 2009
In the evening, Mom had a guest over, and since I knew they would talk about me, I stuck in my earphones and listened to Tora's radio show, YA~BAY~YO!! The particular segment I listened to featured Tora and Nao reading letters from fans abroad. Nao tried to read in the American accent (i.e. what Japanese think Americans sound like when we speak Japanese...I guess it's their version of the FOB accent) and cracked himself up. Tora was laughing too, and I couldn't help but laugh out loud as well. I can always count on Alice Nine to make me feel good. ^_^
Yesterday, we visited Fumie and her baby. I learned that when you have a baby in Japan, you go back to your family's house for a month. In the afternoon, I heard lots of noise coming from the elementary school so I went to see what was going on. The baseball team was playing a game with Toyosato so I watched for a bit. For dinner, we got invited out by some people who had visited Southlake, and I finally got Mom to try gyutan.
I know I shouldn't get too personal with blogs, but if anybody out there has advice for me, I would like to hear it. Having my mother here has made me realize the severity of my problems with my family. The more I talk to them, the less I want to go home. Any conversation that deals with me or my future never ends well. I know I'm being immature in a lot of situations, mainly in my desire to escape responsibility and reality. That's why I don't take care of myself. However, I also do it unconsciously to "punish" my parents for not letting me be myself and pursue my dreams. I've had a history of hurting myself (not cutting but dermatillomania and trictotillomania...which start off as harmless as nail biting, then progress to bleeding). Moreover, social situations stress me out so much that I get sick (I swear there's a correlation between when I get sick and when there are parties). I recognize my problems, but I don't know how to change things. In college, I had a counselor to help me deal with my peers and myself. We never talked about my family because they didn't seem to be a problem then. Ironically, I felt like there was enough distance between me and them in Houston, but not in Japan. I would move away from home if I didn't have the aforementioned problems that need to be dealt with. I think I'm going to see a psychologist, but I'm not sure it'll solve anything. I'm almost wanting to be diagnosed with something so that my family will finally get off my case. They've already written me off as the "problem". Maybe I am just being childish, selfish, and stubborn. Or maybe we need family counseling because the communication isn't there. I don't know what to do when I get back.
Glossary
gyutan - cow tongue, a Miyagi speciality
yabai - originally a slang term meaning "dangerous" or "inconvenient"; now it can mean "great" or "awesome", along the lines of how we say someone is "awfully nice" or something is "terribly good"; also yabe
dermatillomania - (not Japanese, but I thought I'd define it) compulsive skin picking
trictotillomania - compulsive hair pulling (it's kind of like nail biting)
