Fuck You World. I'm mad at you.

My mom doesn't get it. She doesn't understand my need to plug in. She doesn't understand how working on the things I'm good at - programming, digital art, graphic design, video productions - makes me a whole person. She doesn't get that without this, I'm nothing. I'm bored. It doesn't matter what I'm doing in any of my classes, what I'm doing with my friends, but not being able to do this, not being able to create things makes me less than a person.

I get so fucking bored.

Without this, it's like, what's the point? Why should I give a fuck?

I really hit it on the head the other week in my Career Talk for speech class - I'm an artist at the bone, I'm not happy unless I'm creating something. I'm honest-to-god not happy unless I'm creating something. I have to have a creative outlet or I'm not me.

My outlet these days is my Video Productions class. It's working with Gabe. It's bringing together snapshots and camera angles and seconds of video into a complete work of something else, hopefully something amazing. I'm good at it. I'm really good at it, one of the best video editors in the class when I've never touched the software before last month. This is a place where I can thrive.

And my mom doesn't get it.

It's not even that she won't let me take my laptop to school. It's not even that she thinks I'm not responsible enough to make sure it doesn't get stolen. Sure, that bugs me, but I can understand it on some leve. It doesn't get to me.

She called my Video Productions work a "silly little high school project".

It's the only directed, scholarly, creative work I have right now. It's important to me. It's worth risking things, because without it, I can't keep myself happy. It's my recharge, my refuel, my pit stop for self fulfillment and being me.

It's not silly.

It's important.

Technology

My mom is an oxymoron to me.

She blames me for breaking everything any time something goes wrong with technology, and assumes I am incompetent and that I don't know what I'm doing to the point of ruining everything every time I touch a control. She does not trust me to maintain a computer on any wavelength.

She also demands of me and expects me to fix anything that is wrong with the computers, and expects me to know how to fix everything. She never attempts to fix the computer herself, she always forces me to work tec support even when the problem was not something I caused, and is not something I know how to fix.

See? Oxymoron!

Somehow she doesn't think I know anything about computers, yet demands I fix them every time they break. I'm baffled. She knows nothing about how technology works, yet believes all of her suggestions have merit and none of mine do.

I quit. This is insane.

Confrontation

I am absolutely terrified of confrontation. Of any confrontation.

Let's say I go to the bathroom at school. If there's another person in the bathroom I have to wait for them to leave before I can exit the stall because I don't want to have to confront the possibility of talking to them. I know it's stupid, I know nothing at all bad would happen, but it still scares me.

Or I'm at a stop sign and there's another car at the same intersection. I get a panic attack and freeze up because even if I know which of us has the right of way, I still don't know who is going to go first. That's why I failed my first driving test.

And when someone, anyone, catches me doing something wrong, I will lie about it.

I can't help it. It's compulsive. Even though I know it's a terrible idea and it's only going to get me into deeper trouble I am so absolutely terrified of that person being mad at me that I can't tell them the truth and admit I fucked up. I try to lie and smooth it over so they won't get upset with me. I know it will only get worse, but I will still do it. Every. Time.

This is why I try to live an honest life. Not because I think it's the right thing to do (although it is) but so that there won't be any reason for me to lie.

I know where this stems from. I am completely aware this is another offshoot of my Daddy Complex. When I was a kid my dad would could shoulder me and down talk me if I did even the slightest thing out of his taste, and so I desperately tried to cover it up whenever I screwed up.

So, yeah. I know I have a problem. I know why I have a problem. I am willing to admit this and ask for help.

Which means I think it's completely uncalled for that my Mom's initial reaction is to say I'm insulting her by saying talking to her could possibly be a sort of confrontation, and that her proceeding to make fun of me for admitting I even have problems talking to people at school in the bathroom is just mean spirited. I don't know what to say. She and my brother were both laughing, but I was crying. Even if it was a joke, even if my fears are utterly ridiculous and are practically begging to be made fun of... They are still my fears, and they are legitimate enough to me that it hurts me when they are made fun of. If I am crying it is not funny.