“Please, dear, I love you to pieces…”
“If you loved me that much then you’d agree with me: this is sick! It’s violating! I won’t do it! I won’t!”
A mother sits in a therapist’s office, fit to burst into tears, while her teenage daughter stands defiantly on the other side of the room, arms crossed.
“I’ve gone 16 years of my life doing what I please, within reason,” the girl continues. “At this rate I refuse to bend to someone else’s will, especially in such a barbaric manner!”
The mother, by this time beyond desperate, looks to the sympathetic therapist: “Every conversation’s been like this, doctor, she simply refuses to see reason,” she moans tearfully. “I’ve tried to make her follow the rules, I just want what’s best for her.”
“Your mother’s right, dear,” the therapist says to the teen. She cringes at the spontaneous, unreciprocated familiarity. “We just want you to be good & to be happy.”
“I seem to think the contrary. Nobody with a brain in his or her head would submit to this. I’ve simply had it.”