I'm such a child.

Today, my therapist implied that I am a "child" in my relationship with Matt, and that I am an adolescent in terms of emotional maturity. I've said of myself that I feel I am still making up for a childhood I never had, but hearing it in this context got my hackles up.

Frankly, it made me feel like shit. I'd really like to believe I'm a little better-adjusted than that. I felt attacked, when she said those things, which prompted further "adolescent-like" responses, and of course only made the situation worse. By the time I got out of there, I felt like going home and cutting myself -- also a very adolescent thing to do. It seemed my therapist was hell-bent on making the point that I am not an adult on any meaningful level.

This all started with a discussion about money. My husband and I go to the same therapist, and we have joint sessions sometimes. Last time, my husband told her that he felt over-burdened by money problems, partly because I do not take part in budgeting. The problem is that I'm almost phobic of dealing with anything involving money. And I meant to come into therapy and tell her that, I really did, but something stopped me. Instead, I became very resistant to her suggestions that my husband give me access to his financial information and could not bring myself to tell her why.

So I'm going to start with the easy bit of the hard stuff: why am I terrified of dealing with money? I'll just make a list.

1. My credit is terrible because I did stupid things in my 20s and I've defaulted on student loans. I still have creditors trying to contact me. I don't want any of that to impact my husband. 
2. I do not work, and I am not contributing to the household monetarily. I feel that his money is his money, not "half mine" or any of that happy horse shit. What he gives me is a gift, and I am thankful for it. I am not comfortable with thinking of the money Matt earns as "ours." 
3. I have never had a real income for more than a few months at a time. Mostly it was student aid that came in quarterly. I'd feel rich for about a week, and then the money would be gone, because I would eat out a lot and buy things to make me happy that I really didn't need (but that everyone else around me seemed to have.) I am afraid I would not be trustworthy with free access to my husband's money.
4. My mother never allowed my father to have his own bank account. Every red cent he ever made went into her pocket, and she got everything when they divorced. There was no trust at all. Some of this might have been justified on my mother's part, but not to that extreme. I am afraid of becoming like her if I have access to my husband's financial information.
5. When I was growing up, there were three unforgivable sins, according to my mother: enjoying sex, being fat, and being in debt. Now, I am all three of those things. Even though she doesn't really talk about that stuff with me any more, it is still ingrained. I mean, she went so far as to tell me not to talk to other kids whose parents didn't own homes.
6. I have seen money issues destroy relationships even when I thought those relationships were strong. It just doesn't seem fair that I should be forced to get involved with something that could poison my relationship with my husband.
7. I hate the entire concept of money. I hate that every single thing I do every day of my life has something to do with money. This is just my naive idealism, and it has no place in reality, but it's still in there as a contributing factor. I'm not about to go off the grid - I'm far too addicted to the Internet

All of these things make me hate money and everything to do with it. But apparently, I need to deal with it in order to be an adult, because being an adult is the ultimate goal. 

Which brings me to the harder part of the hard stuff.

What do adults do?

They have jobs. They have responsibilities. They support themselves. They have cars and they know how to drive. They take care of their belongings, including cleaning their homes and replacing things when they are worn out or need an upgrade. 

According to these criteria, I have never been an adult. I might as well be five years old. Why does this hurt? Because I should want to do all those things, but I don't. I've never wanted to. And not wanting to be an adult makes me ... what? A terrible person? A worthless person? It's too easy for me to fall into that spiral when I think about it too much. 

When people see me in public, they see an adult. I speak with eloquence, I create art, I conduct myself professionally, or casually, or sexily -- whatever the occasion calls for. I seem like an adult, but I am not. I'm just a child pretending to be an adult. I am controlled by childish fears, and I am deeply ashamed of those fears, and I hide that shame so well that people might even take me for being arrogant or haughty at times. 

It's disgusting.

I'm disgusting.

I'm not making anyone proud. I'm failing. I am a failure. Despite my considerable wit and wisdom, despite my way with words, despite my passion, my intelligence and my experience, I have never graduated from adolescence. And realising that is infuriating and hurtful and... makes me act even more like a spiteful child.

And I really don't know what to do about it, to be honest. I am still clamoring for things I never got, things I have been led to believe that every human being has a right to -- being taken care of, being trusted, being allowed to stretch my wings and explore my talents and become what I was meant to be. It never happened and now I am ... this thing. Whatever this child-monster is. 

I'm a lie.

So what do I do now? Suck it up, get off my ass, give up all of my precious free time and much of my time with my husband to get a $8.00/hour job to pay off my debts, go back to school, actually finish a degree, get another job, then a better job, then another better job... 

No. Society says that I should want that, but I don't. I just... don't. I can't make myself want it. My therapist can't make me want it. I just ... want to rest. I've spent fifteen ... no, eighteen years running myself ragged just trying to survive. I deserve to relax. I deserve to be taken care of. Maybe I'll get to the point eventually where some of these things will fall into place naturally. Maybe I'll be one of those late-bloomers who gets her first degree at 50. Maybe I'll make some real money with my artwork. 

But if I'm going to live that way, I have to stop feeling guilty about it. I have to stop comparing myself to others, to societal standards, to what my own psychotic super-ego says I should be. I have to be okay with who I am, and where I am, before I can grow at all, and all growth takes time. 

What I am now is a wife. If, in order to be a better wife, I need to get over my terror of money, I will do it, for my husband. Somewhere in the process, maybe I'll begin to see it as personal growth, but for now, I have to take him into consideration. He loves me unconditionally, but he needs me to step up. So I'll do my best. 

I was hoping that, by this point in this lengthy entry, I would start to feel better about this, but I'm not feeling better. I feel like I'm in trouble. Like I'm being punished for something I forgot to do, or put off doing. I feel judged. I know that I'm the one judging myself, but that just makes it more difficult. If someone else is judging me, I can fight back, but if I'm judging myself, all I'm going to end up doing is going around in circles. I'm suck. 

I don't even know where else to go with this entry. My mood is in the toilet. I'm tired. It's almost 2:00 a.m. I'm done for now.