Post-moving catch-up, part 2: Hello, Montreal.

Trying to write out my feelings after moving to Montreal is, again, something I've had a hard time putting in words.

My impressions of the city itself are easy enough. I like it so far... or at least the small part of downtown I live in, 'cause I've not had the opportunity to go very far yet. Hard to do really, what with all the errands we still have left, and a lack of money.

The conveniences here are better than I had in Quebec City. We have a grocery store just a couple blocks away. Few blocks in the opposite direction is a mall and the closest subway station. Within walking distance, there's plenty of other malls and restaurants. Same with my college of choice (it's only one subway stop away, so it's more worth walking it unless the weather truly blows.)

Language is less of an issue. People truly live bilingually here, which never ceases to amaze me. I'm pretty sure no one can get away with working in this part of the city without being fluent in English. So... at least here in the most populous part of Montreal, I don't have to worry about that at all.

What I do have to worry about, of course, is my own anxiety, which stretches beyond a simple language barrier. To be quite honest, the language issue was something that really exacerbated the anxiety that was already there. I've never really learned to deal with people and responsibilities *properly* -- my motivation has always been "because I have to", so dutifulness and desperation pushed me to put aside my awkwardness about making phone calls, running errands outside and such.

Faced with an actual *choice* -- because Jon is here, and he can do things for me, and he refuses to force me like a slave to do what must be done -- I've discovered I hardly have any motivation at all. The choice doesn't give me freedom, it gives me more excuses to say "I can do it later" or "he can do it for me" and so on. That doesn't mean I think I'd be better off if I just struck it out alone. Oh sure, pride and survival instinct would do plenty to "force" me, but that would only cover up the real problem I have.

My upbringing, as I've said many times, has led me to be fearful of mistakes and disgusted with my failures. I associate a great deal of shame with the idea of being caught in either one. That shame was something drilled in me early in life, because failure was always associated with punishment and derision. I guess "derision" is the best word I can think of to describe it: how my sis and I were always made to think that it was our fault when something went wrong. How our best efforts were rewarded with nothing unless it met with a certain parent's perfectionist expectations.

I always think back on it, how unfair and irrational those conditions were in hindsight. Back then, as a kid and a teenager, I really didn't think there was any other way. If I crossed the street wrong and nearly got hit by a car at 7-8 years old, and my father's reaction was to threaten to hit me in public, I could only think it as normalcy. After all, my mother always said it's just his way of showing his worry. "He's just being dad," she'd say, or something of the sort. Right.

Later on I got a little bit wiser. Another oft-repeated anecdote: my car got broken into when I was 17-ish, and his reaction was to raise his hand against me and yell that it's my fault because I pinned buttons -- you know, the round ones with pictures or sayings on them, I used to love collecting those -- on my dashboard cover. I got robbed, of course it's my fault because I did that and then was stupid enough to leave my purse in the car! At that age, I had a sense that what he was accusing me of was wrong, but could I really say a word against him? Of course not. I was too scared of him -- terrified of his voice, his threats, the sickening truth of my utter incompetence in his eyes.

He did (does?) that kind of thing all the time. If we ever lost something, got stolen from or frauded, it was our fault we lost it and he'd rail us for it. If we ended up spending what he thought was "too much" for a repair bill or phone bill or whatever else, it was always because we're too stupid to look for the right bargains, to be more careful with our resources. If the computer's not functioning, if the car breaks down, it's always "what did you do wrong?" I mean, sure, we could very well have done something wrong in the process, but why did that have to be the default, and why did that have to be so BAD?

People learn from mistakes. Yeah they're embarrassing sometimes, and awkward to work your way out of, but if you're made to believe you have to avoid them at all costs or face retribution or ridicule, you'll never really learn anything. You'll end up like me, a faker who tried for too many years to act as if she's a confident, responsible adult, when in private she only managed to bypass her intense fears because the consequences of doing nothing would be worse. Because if I did nothing my father and everyone else would realize just how incompetent I really am.

So what did I do to quell my anxiety? I learned to overcompensate by expecting the worst. Hey, it works in coding, right? But it doesn't really work in life. That sort of thinking slowly and surely destroys any foundation of self-confidence you can ever build for yourself. Eventually you end up simplifying what the "worst" really is. Instead of expecting external errors, you simply believe you're surely going to fail, and anything else is a pleasant surprise. And then you start to believe it's okay. "Oh, that's fine, I'm a fuck-up! Well that's what people expect anyway."

It's become a mantra in my head, an impulse, as if accepting I'm worthless will somehow save me from the shame of it. (It really doesn't.) It's like armoring yourself with an iron maiden... all plates and spikes, but the spikes are pointed inward towards your own body. If I'm anxious enough, I'll grab at anything negative about myself as some sort of "reassurance": I'm fat, I'm ugly, I'm stupid, I'm lazy, I'm unreliable, I'm selfish, I'm worthy of ridicule, abandonment, punishment, rape. Everything I can think of, just so I can bask in this sick little "OH well they think badly of me, but I think WORSE of MYSELF!" feeling. No one can possibly hate me more than myself, see? I've learned my place, I've learned my lesson well.

There's a certain pride in my masochism, I admit. I mean, hey, maybe my dad thought he was pushing me towards excellence, by pointing out my wrongs and pushing the "truth" that they're unwanted and despised. But it only pushed me downward. It only drove in the point that I'm no good for anything unless I followed his directions exactly. And if for some reason I can't... well, I'm garbage. It's my fucking DUTY to think I'm dirt if I fail him.

Since I left my parents' I've been clawing my way out of that pit. Day by day, I've had these little epiphanies and come to understand that what I experienced growing up was abnormal and harmful. I get repetitive when I write about it, as if repeating those thoughts, those memories, those revelations over and over again will make it stick in my head. Sometimes it even works.

But you see what a long journey it's going to be for me still? Three and a half years. Nearing four now. And I'm still shoving desperately at my impulses to resort to self-punishment when I'm faced with the unfamiliar, with the mere *concept* that I might be put in a situation where I'll make a mistake, or things will not go as expected. It amazes and terrifies me how LONG it took just for me to realize my rape fantasies were not this "important part of my identity" that I seethed and railed at Jon for trying to deny me, but part of a greater self-loathing that's constricted my emotional growth for nearly my entire life.

And there's still so much more for me to overcome. I'm in a better place -- and I believe I will come to love my life in Montreal -- but my inner demons are the same as ever, and now I don't have "language barrier" or "can't get around on my own" to serve as an excuse for delaying my struggle for autonomy. I can't just sit around and let life pass me by; I NEED the loans I'll get for going to college to live on. I'm denying any further support from my parents as soon as those loans are passed.

This is my life now, and it's up to me to fix it. I'm absolutely terrified and overwhelmed. But this is the turning point for me: whether I can truly learn to live, or remain a hermit connected to people only by the games I play online, saddled with the soul-eating guilt of my continued worthlessness.

I get angry more often than not when I think that my father still believes I owe him something. No, I'M the one who has to spend the rest of my adult life -- at almost 30 years old -- trying to undo all the fear and shame that chokes me, all those twisted defense mechanisms I've learned (wrongly and unhealthily) to cope with it. I've been stuck at a state of post-adolescence for well over a decade, and only NOW do I have even a chance of escaping it. All those years I've been stuck could've been years I used to build a career, save up some money to realize my dreams -- but instead I've been paying and paying for my existence with the currency of guilt and self-loathing. It's a debt that, so long as I recognize it as such, I will never, ever finish repaying. It will suck me dry of any motivation or desire to live until I can die with a smile on my face, knowing I've done my father proud by ceasing to exist.

So it has to end with me, one way or another. I'll die, or I'll sever that hold that my dad's had on me for all these years. I often wonder if people will think me disrespectful for it: he's my father, after all. He brought me into the world, he poured money into my growth. Isn't it a terrible crime to shut the door on him now that he's entered his 60's and retired? Shouldn't I be the dutiful daughter now, of all times?

Familial loyalty. It's a terrible thing when it's taken advantage of. When one can bypass earning and deserving respect because they're older than you, brought you into the world, raised and paid for your expenses. It's that kind of thinking that allows child abuse to continue like some dirty family secret, unspoken of until well after they reach adulthood. The relationship between a parent and child should be based on love, not obligation. The parent should not be a deity to his child, but a guide through those painful early years of life. I will never believe that loyalty should simply be assumed because one shares the blood of another.

My father has always said there is a price for everything, and that price is not always monetary. If that's true, then I've paid in full, and I've repaid it hundreds and hundreds of times over.

Hello, Montreal. I'm ready to stop paying now.