09/20/10 - 12:05 a.m.

I'm making some progress on this. First, I finally have perspective on the last big fight I had with my family. And I guess I'm being honest with myself: I used to pretend that I was happy there. To be fair, it's probably hard for them to admit that I was just faking. Yes, a big additional chunk of that might be that they're deliberately being obtuse because they just don't want to accept it - the classic "coming of age" dilemma. But then a third factor - me being honest again - is that I actually did try to lead them to misconclusions. I figured out what they wanted, and then played to it.

And that's actually liberating, because then it tells me: it's not a mystery, what happened. And it's also got nothing to do with how the rest of the world is going to treat me. I'm just seeing a freaky, weird pocket. I won't even get enmeshed in a swamp like that, over years and years, again. And that's also in my power. If I stop playing with people's emotions, that'll stop happening.