Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: family dysfunction

But faaaaaamily

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I want to talk about my family today because I’m so tired. I’ve been talking about what I want to do with my life, and I derailed myself by talking about my family in my last post. More specifically, about my father slipping further and further into dementia, and how my mother is dealing with it.

Or not. I mentioned that she is pinning her hopes on him returning to normal, whatever that means. She knows that dementia is irreversible, and yet. She has confided to me that she does things expecting him to return to himself.

I’m doing my best not to snap at her, but it’s hard. She is very rigid in her expectations about what is and isn’t acceptable. when I was in my twenties, I told her several important things about myself that she vigorously rejected. She didn’t just not like what I had to say; she hated it. She hated that I got a tattoo (I have four now); she hated that I was bisexual; she hated that I chose not to get married and have children; she hated that I decided to study Taiji. Those were all heresy in her eyes, but there was one that was even worse–I think.

When I told her that I did not believe in her god any longer. I told her I no longer believed, and true to her wont, she simply let it fly over her head. That’s her way of dealing with unpleasantry–not accepting it it all. A few years after I told her I was bi, I said something casually about liking women, and she said dismissively, “Oh, are you still like that? I thought you were over it.”

So, yes, she did not accept that I had left Christianity. She had people from her mother church (LA branch) praying at me as they circled me, their hands near my face. They asked if they could touch me, and it was a hell no to that. I was so freaked out, especially when some of them started speaking in tongues. NOT a way to try to convince someone to return to the fold, I’ll tell you that much.

But when you’re that deep in, you just can’t see it. Just like people say, “I’ll pray for you,” thinking it’s a positive thing. They don’t realize if you’re not part of their group/cult/denomination, it’s at best, neutral, and at worst, repulsive/scary/offensive.

That’s not completely fair. I’m sure for some people, the positive intent is there even if the receiver of the prayer is not part of the group. Some people can think of it as the equivalent of warm wishes and be at peace with that.


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More thoughts on family, dysfunction, and letting go

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I’ve been talking in the past several posts about my family, and here is something I rarely admit out loud. One of the reasons I get so frustrated when my mother goes down the negativity route is becuase it echoes the monkey chatter in my brain as well. I can ‘what if’ until the cows come home, and it makes it so it’s really difficult for me to make an actual decision about anything important.

When I was in my twenties, K and I talked about how different our mothers were. Her mother was very much a ‘things will work out, no matter what’ kind of person, whereas my mother had a ‘something will always go drastically wrong, no matter what’ mentality. This came out when K was taking me to the airport and joking about me having a roll of quarters, an umbrella, and a bunch of other things she thought unnecessary. I said you never knew what you might need when you were on vacation.

Years later, I realized t hat as long as I had proper Id and my credit card, I could buy anything I needed. A huge privilege, yes, and not something I wanted to abuse, but it really eased the anxious part of my brain.

That’s something I learned in my twenties/early thirties. I had to find ways to work around the destructive chatter in my brain. I had to build that into everything I did because it was just a part of me. It makes it harder for me to do things, but I’ve gotten better in the last few years. In some ways. In other ways, it’s gotten worse.

K and I talked about the pros and cons to our mothers’ ways of thinking. With K’s mother, a pro was that she did not have to expend too much energy on ‘what ifs?’. She assumed things would turn out ok, and that must have been a relief. On the other hand, when things didn’t turn out ok, she was ill-equipped to deal with it.

Whtereas with my mother’s Debbie Downer mentality meant that she was always prepared for the worst, but didn’t know what to do if things did not reach that point. In addition, in always looking at the negative side of things, it paralyzes her from actually making decisions because any choice seems bad.

This is what I hate the most because it’s how I deal with things as well. I can see a million things that could possibly go wrong at any given time, and I can’t see a way forward. Rationally, I know that every decision has consequences, both good and bad. I know that there is no choice that is completely positive.

And yet. My brain equates negative consequences with catastrophe, and then I can’t make any choice at all. I have to consciously push my way past that mental barrier in order to make a decision.


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I have one more post in me about family and common ground

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I’m back with one more post about family. Here is yesterday’s post in which I talked about how sad my father’s life is now. I feel a little bad for him, but at the same time, it’s the logical consequence of his previous behavior/attitude.

It’s something I contemplate from time to time because my parents aren’t going to be on this earth for much longer. I mean, none of us are guaranteed any given time on earth–I know that all too well.

I was saying to K how sad it was that my mother had given her life to my father. K is an optimist and said that it seemed my mother had made a pretty good life for herself professionally. Which, true. She broke ground by bringing sandplay therapy to Taiwan. She is called the grandmother of sandplay therapy, and she’s been giving a lifetime award in psychology for it.

When that happened, she asked me to record a video talking about the work we’ve done together. I wrote some things for her and edited all her works. That included her dissertation and her book. She also did a chapter in an anthology of how people came to sandplay therapy, and she needed help writing it. I came up with the idea that I would ask her questions about her journey, and she would answer them. I wrote it all up, and she gave me a credit in her chapter.

In other words, it made sense for me to do a video about working with her. My father threw a fit until she let him do one as well. It was embarrassing to watch, even though I didn’t know exactly what he said. He had nothing to do with psychology, and it was just so out of his lane. But it’s typical of him that he had to insert himself into the middle of things because he could not stand being the center of attention.

I feel so tired because I’ve tried to tell my mother that she should get more help. It’s too much for her to handle alone or even with her in-house aide. She’s eighty-three years old and tiny. My father has more than half a foot on her still, even though he’s shrunk quite a bit in the last few years.

My brother and I have urged her to put him in a facility, but she has a million-and-a-one reasons why she can’t do that. Some of them are valid (such as there not being good facilities in Taiwan), but many of her excuses just boil down to she would feel like a bad wife if she did that.

This reminds me of when I was eleven. She would cry and complain every night for hours about how terrible my father was and how badly he treated her. I would tell her she should divorce him, and then she would give me a million reasons why she couldn’t.

Think of that. I was begging her to divorce my father when I was eleven. That’s really unusual thinking for a kid at that age. Even when a kid is being abused, they will cling to the abuser. I don’t know when I realized that my father didn’t love me and had no interest in being a father, but it was pretty early on in my life.

Even as a preteen, I knew that life would be better without him–though I could not put it into words. All I could do was beg my mother to leave him, knowing that she would never do it. At some point, I gave up hope. At some point later, I began resenting her for dumping her shit on me, especially since she would never actually take my advice.

I feel the same now. Not the life would be better without him, but the frustration at trying to give her advice that I know she’ll never take. I do my best to keep it to myself, but when all she does is complain, it’s hard not to let some of my impatience slip through.

The situation is incredible difficult; I don’t want to gloss over that. Dementia is terrible in so many ways, and it’s hard to watch someone–anyone–disappear by the inch (or the foot in the case of my father because I don’t see/hear him that frequently). When we talked on Zoom last week, I could see the blankness in his eyes. He was not there and has not been for several months if not a year or two.

I think in some ways, my broken brain is helpful here. I tend to hop from subject to subject in my thoughts, and it’s hard for other people to follow what I’m thinking. When I write, I have to consciously write transitions because they’re so evident in my brain, I assume other people can see them as well.

So when my father jumps from topic to topic, I can sometimes hang with him. Because I know that most of what he wants to talk about is me to visit him, it’s pretty easy to connect things to that. I don’t usually get the full brunt of his delusions, which he seems to save for my  mother.

The problem is that my mother has her own unique way of looking at things. It took me way too long to realize that I could not trust her description of an event. Not that she would lie on purpose, but she has a way of twisting things as she sees them through a very distorted lens.

I read a very thought-provoking piece about The Missing Missing Reasons that estranged parents elide over when they tell a story about how their child is being so mean to them–and they have no idea why. Except, even as they try to claim they don’t know why, they let slip that they actually do. They just glide over those reasons because if they were to acknowledge them, they would have to look inward and admit their wrongdoings.

Instead, they bury everything ten feet deep because it’s too scary and threatening to admit any of it. I was struck by the explanation that the parents were in deep denial and truly made themselves forget what had happened. I had realized that years before I found this post, but it was so reassuring to read the post in validation of what I had struggled to figure out for myself.

Even as I’ve mostly made my peace with my childhood, the anger still flares up every now and again. It’s usually when I’m already tired and at the end of my rope. After a half hour of my mother unloading on me, my patience wears very thin. She’s taken to thanking me every time for listening to her, which makes it worse. She says plaintively that she has no one else to talk to, but that’s on her.

I have suggested talking to her friends. Nope. They know my father, so that’s out the window. I have pushed her seeing a therapist. She is so resistance to that, I have given up. I would even settle for her talking to her pastor, but she would not want to do that, either, because it might get back to my father.

I have more to say, but I’ll wrap it up here for tonight.

 

Finding that almost non-existent common ground (part four)

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This is my last post on finding common ground within my family. Probably. Here is yesterday’s post explaining some of my family history. It’s necessary to at least know the basics before I dive into the latest chapter.

My mother is having a really hard time dealing with my father’s dementia. This is not a surprise, obviously, as dementia is really cruel. Both on the person it’s consuming and anyone around that person–especially the caretaker/s.

The problem is that she still hasn’t accepted that the dementia isn’t reversible. One of the last times we talked, she brought up some promising science that suggests there may be a way to reverse dementia in the very early stages. I will admit, I was impatient when I told her that it was not a thing, but that’s because I know better than to give my mother an inch.

Also, I did look up the science she was talking about, and even if it was promising, it was not applicable to my father. Even if it had been, it’s in the very nascent stages. That means it will be years before it can go on sale–if the efficacy turns out to replicable and an actual thing.

My mother talks about how she’s doing this, that, and the other thing in hopes that my father will turn back to ‘normal’. She also mentions how frustrated and bewildered she gets when they’re having a conversation, and he suddenly veers into dementia.

I understand and symppathize with the latter. He’s not so bad when we’re talking as he can usually keep to a topic (that topic being when am I going to go visit him), but when he does start spouting gibberish, there is no warning.  He usually knows who I am, but he can’t grasp that I live thousands of miles away from him.

I have read about what you’re supposed to do when someone spirals into delusions/dementia. Basically, just go along with whatever they are saying. So like when my father asks (demands) when I’m going to visit him, I tell him soon. Or in a few months. Or whatever. I have to repeat it over and over, but usually, he will accept it.

Sometimes, however, he surprises me. He’ll say how long it’s been since he’s seen me (true. It’s been nearly four years), and then urge me to plan something sooner with my mother. Also, one time, I said that I would go visit him the next day. Much to my surprise, he latched onto it and got really excited. He shouted to my mother that I was coming, and I realized that I had made a mistake.


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Common ground is good, even when it’s slim (part three)

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In my third post about finding common ground within difficult relationships, I want to talk a bit more about why at this point, I’ll take whatever I can get. In the last post, I mused about it, but wasn’t really explicit about the reasons for my conclusion.

Let’s start with a little backstory. Yes, I’ve talke about this before, but I feel like talking about it again.

I had really severe depression as a kid. By the time I was seven, Iwanted to die. I thought the world would be better off without me, and while I didn’t have the guts to do anything about it, I didn’t go out of my way to avoid death, either.

The other thing I did was pray every night to a god I didn’t believe in that I would wake up a boy. Not beacuse I felt like a boy or thought I was one, but because being a girl in my culture was such a miserable, shitty thing. Don’t laugh too loud; don’t climb trees; don’t sit with your legs uncrossed; don’t run around with the boys. Don’t do anything masculine, but, in a weird twist, be good at sports. But don’t be better than boys at any given sport.

Be smart and go to college, but don’t be smarter than a boy. Don’t know more than boys, and don’t ever even imply that you are in any way bigger, better, brighter, or any thing more than any rando boy. Was it any wonder that I thought it would be better to be a boy?

It was so confusing because my mother loved sports and was good at them, and she made me play them, but I wasn’t supposed to really like them, apparently. I was also supposed to go to college (in fact, that was mandated), but the ultimate goal was to get a husband.

In my twenties and thirties, in short order, my mother hated the following things about me: my college boyfriend; me being bi; me deciding not to have children; me getting a tattoo (and then three more); me leaving Christianity; and, me studying Taiji. Oh, and me being fat, but that’s not a decision I made–rather, just me being very fat.

At some point in my mid-thirties, I realized that it was better for me not to mention anything important to my mother because she would hate it/disparage it/feel threatened by it/belittle it.

When my parents were here after my medical crisis, I foolishly decided to show my mother the Sword Form. Only the first few movements, but that was enough for her to look at me as if she had eaten a lemon as she said with the little laugh she gives when she’s about to say something particularly unappetizing, “Oh, how cute.”

Cute??!! Just, no. I realize that she didn’t know what to say and that she probably didn’t like it at all, but that was one of the worst things she could have said in that situation. Even just saying, “How nice” would have have been better than that. Or “That’s not for me”. Or any other kind of platitude that didn’t involve the word ‘cute’.

Sometime in my forties, I laid down that burden. What burden? The burden of trying to win my mother’s love. I mean, I gave up on it before that, but there was still a corner of my heart that hoped against hope that one day, I would have a mother who could see me as me and if not love me for that, at least tolerate it.

I had to readjust my thinking. This has only been in the last four years or so, and only once my mother made it crystal clear what her priorities were. It’s funny because she’ll say that my brother and I are first in her heart, but it’s very much evident that this is not the case.

Actually, she would say that God was first; my brother and I were second; and my father was third. When in actuality, it’s my father, then God, then my brother and me in third.

I made my peace with it. And when I was able to truly put that burden down, it was a weight off my shoulder. It does flare up now and again, but it’s very subdued.

This is my long way of explaining why something as small as finding the Taiwanese song I like is meaningful in my relationship with my mother. We have so little in common, so anything we can latch onto is a positive. Also, I’m not looking for anything big. Any time I find myself getting impatient with my mother, I just take a deep internal breath and try to let it go.

I had to come to grips with the fact that she is who she is. She was not going to change, in a large part because she was resistant to even admitting her flaws. The flaws that she will admit to having, she hasn’t done anything to address them.

Because of this, she will never see me as who I really am. I’m not sure I would really want her to because she hates every part of me she already knows. She ignores them as best as she can, pretending that they don’t exist. When I told her about my first tattoo, she told me not to tell my father.

She didn’t even have to mention that when I told her I was bi. I already knew that he would freak out about it even more than my mother had. Which, by the way, I’m not sure is actually true. My mother was excellent at triangulating between my father and me. I have no doubt that my father would have issues with some of the stuff, but all of it?

I’m not sure. Because I don’t know my facther at all. Or rather, nothing more than a few superficial things. And things I was able to gather about him by observing him. I do know that my mother did not make things better by constantly stepping between us. I don’t think we had a chance at having a relationship for many reasons, but my mother made certain that didn’t happen.

Did she do it purposefully? No. Does that matter in the end? No. The impact was the same either way–I did not have any knid of relationship with my father as I was growing up.

I want to emphasize that my father was not interested in a relationship with me or my brother, regardless. It’s not like my mother single-handedly kept us apart. I’m just saying that she salted the wounds with her actions.

As I’ve mentioned several times, my parents are on their last journey. I will take any moment of connection I can during this time, no matter how superficial or fleeting.

 

 

The ground is common, but weird (part two)

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In yesterday’s post, I was talking about a Taiwanese pop song that I really liked, but could not find online. It came up when I was on Zoom with my parents after my father sang several songs, one after the other. I did not want to interrupt him because he has so little that gives him pleasure these days.

It’s really sad. When I look into his eyes, there is nothing there. It’s astonishing that he can still speak English (his third language), but he’s losing more of his vocabulary every time I talk to him. He will sometimes slip back into Chinese or Taiwanese when we talk, but it’s not really a problem as, well, to put it bluntly, it’s not as if his English is the best right now, either.

I can understand most of what he says in any language, though it doesn’t always make sense. What I mean is that I can understand each individual word, but the way he puts them together doesn’t always make sense.

I know it’s part of the dementia, but it’s so fucking cruel. Watching someone lose himself bit by bit (or in chunks) every time I talk to him is excruciating. In addition, he’s fixated on me going there. He says he hasn’t seen me in a long time, which is true. It’s been almost four years since they were here for my medical crisis.

Here’s the problem, though. I can’t fly and neither can they. For them, it’s age and my father’s dementia. For me, it’s my various immune system issues. I have not flown since my medical crisis. I was going to fly to Ian in April of 2020 and K in October of the same year, but, of course, the pandemic changed those plans.

I don’t know if I would feel comfortable flying domestically, let alone internationally. My parents are too old and frail to fly here, either. To be honest,  I’m glad. I have a really hard time being in the same room as they are for several reasons, but at least I have a legit excuse for not flying out.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have known for at least a decade if not longer that my relationship with my parents was never going to be close. I knew that civil was the best I could ask for and not resenting/hating/feeling bad about my parents was a plus.

Back to the song. I’ve added another version below, one I quite like. I’ve found several versions of it, so it’s more popular than my mom and I had originally thought. I even found a duet by two people who did it one of those The Voice type of shows. That was interesting, though not my favorite version.


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Have a holly, jolly–oh stop it

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I’m in a pensive mood. Not just because of the holidays, but just because of gestures at the world all around. There are people who believe that voting for that man is ‘just politics’ and why would someone end a friendship/family relationship over ‘just politics’? And why are we (those on the left) being soooooooooooooo intolerant? Aren’t we being just as bad/hypocritical/intolerant?!?

In a word: no. In two words: hell fucking no. Ok, that was three, but you know what I mean.

There’s a theory called the Paradox of Tolerance that was coined by Karl Popper in 1945. It’s enjoyed a resurgence in the past several years, probably because of the thing that I want to talk about. Basically, the theory goes that if a society is tolerant of the intolerant, then it erodes the very tolerance it wants to espouse. This is a very gross generalization of the theory, but it’s good enough for my purpose.

Whether someone likes pizza with pineapple or not is a personal opinion. I don’t care if someone likes the same musical groups I do, for another example. Hell. What someone wants or doesn’t want to do in the bedroom is fine by me! (As long as it’s consensual, obviously.) Whether or not someone thinks I am a human being who should be allowed to exist? Yeah, no. That’s not a matter of opinion or something I need to entertain.

That’s the devious part of the whole conversation and has been for as long as I have followed politics. Or rather, the disgusting part. This happened during the debates for marriage equality, too. The bigots were all, “Can’t we be civil about this?” Nope. I am not civil with people who believe I am less of a human being than they are. Also, I resent the narrative that the people who are being oppressed need to present their side in a perfectly calm and, let’s face it, servile manner or be viewed as uncivil. This is the whole ‘tone police’ argument, by the way. “Oh, if you only present your case in an agreeable enough way (i.e., supplicating), then maaaaaaaaaybe we would deign to listen to it.

Again. Fuck that noise. If someone wants to do the work of trying to win over the bigots–more power to them. BLah blah blah win them over to your side whatever the fuck. I ain’t got time for that shit, and I have no patience for begging people to grant me my humanity. Accept me or don’t, but I am not going to try to win anyone over.


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How dementia ruins everything, part two

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I know that I can only change myself. I mention that because I’ve been musing about family and getting frustrated with my parents. Different reasons for each one, but frustration just the same. I don’t bring any of it to my father because he can’t help how he is (dementia), and it’s just how he was before, but worse. Actually, that’s the hardest part. He’s hitting me in all my sensitive spots, but I have to just remind myself that he’s not himself. But he is. But he isn’t. Before I get to that, here’s yesterday’s post.

Here’s the problem. My father before his dementia was a selfish, or rather, self-absorbed person who never thought of anyone else. He was also deeply sexist and said sexist shit to me all the time. Here are some brief examples. He was always scolding me for not putting on a jacket when he was cold. He never asked if I were cold, which I rarely was. Now, one of the things he asks about often is the weather. And he gets stuck in the loop of being concerned that I’m cold.

In general, he doesn’t think women can do anything for themselves. Or rather, that’s what he tells himself even while my mother does everything around the house. This was even before his dementia, by the way. He’s been like this all my life. I know it’s a self-protective mechanism, but it’s so ugly and distasteful.

Fortunately, the explicit sexist shit does not show up, but it does rear its ugly head in sly ways. Such as, him repeatedly asking me how I get places. He knows (or knew) that I drive, but he has somehow forgotten that. To be fair, I can’t say that’s for sure a sexist thing, but it certainly feels like it. Also, his harping on my health might be because of the medical crisis, but I have a hunch it’s more a neg than anything else.

That’s the problem with my father–past behavior has shown me not to give him the benefit of the doubt. I know who he was in the past, and it’s hard not to apply that to the present. But he’s not resonsible in the present for…how do I put this? He’s not of sound mind (dunno about body). So he’s not trying to be offensive on purpose, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a quick flash of ‘not this shit again’.

However. The cruelty of the dementia has far outranked the impatience I feel when he hits one of my buttons. It’s really sad what’s happening to him and since I only talk to him for five minutes (at most ten) at a time, I can deal with the bullshit that comes with it.


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The cruelty of dementia only intensifies

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I intended to write a post about dementia, which I still will. However, today on Ask A Manager, there was a post from a man who is in the same industry as his well-known (and well-loved) father. The letter writer (LW) is estranged from his father, and he wrote in because they are both up for prominent awards in different categories. People seem to assume they’re in entertainment, which does make sense. Anyway, the LW did not want to take any pics with his father (which he feared the organizers would want for marketing/promo reasons), and he wanted a diplomatic way to tell the organizers that he didn’t want to be seated at a table with his father, either. I learned in the comments that Angelina Jolie’s children are speaking out about how awful Brad Pitt is (some are his biological children and some are not). I am not surprised by it, but it just brought out a feeling of profound sadness as did reading the comments.

So many people with abusive parents with whom they were either estranged or low-contact. In a weird way, it was comforting to know I wasn’t the only one. Also, to see a steady stream of ‘it’s not your problem’ as to the question about what to do in this situation (in response to managing the father’s emotions or other people’s reactions to the situation.

It’s hard. It’s isolating. It’s lonely. Having very dysfunctional parents, I mean. In my case, it’s tempered by the fact that my father has dementia–which is just getting worse by the day. I talk to my parents on the average of once every other week or so, but during the trying times, my mom has been known to call me several days in a row.

I have accepted that I am her therapist/emotional support person. I do what I can to not let it bring me down, but I would be lying if I didn’t acknowledge that I heave a small sigh of weariness as soon as I hear her voice. Not to mention a constriction in my chest. I have to put up a shield as best I can and not let it get to me too much.

Side note: I gave up on my parents being parents to me a long time ago. I never expected it from my father because he has never been a good parent. In fact, I would say he hasn’t been a parent at all except monetarily. He once hounded me to know if I was grateful for the money he had spent on me/given to me, and  I was in a very rebellious state at the time (mid-twenties), full of seething resentment over so many things. I was so very angry, and I was not having any of his shit. This is me saynig that I was a brat at the time .I will fully acknowledge that I was not at my best.

However, with his next line, he destroyed any illusion that he wanted to be my father. Or rather, that he knew what being a father meant. He looked at me with such hatred in his eyes and said, “Why should I love you then?”

And with that, I saw him for who he really was. There was no way to hide the man behind the curtain any longer. I mean, I knew before then that he did not love me and that he never really wanted to be a father, but it was unspoken and merely felt. See, in our family, we don’t say that shit out loud.


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I keep my mouth shut

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So I’m continuing on with my musings about family dysfunction, how difficult it is to be so different, and how I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut. And, yes, I’m going to tie them together somehow (or not). I’m not too fussed either way. In the last post, I talked about family dysfunction mostly. I will touch more on that, but I want to start by musing about masking. I didn’t even realize to what extent I did it until I talked about it with A. It’s such a part of me by now, it takes conscious effort to take it off.

I am on my guard almost any time I interact with someone, online or in the real world. I am constantly monitoring the temperature around me to know if what I am saynig in acceptable or not. In the Discord I’m in, there’s an in-group and an out-group. Or rather, there are a few (cishet white) guys who are pretty dominant and others fall in line behind them. It’s not deliberate and they don’t mean to be, but god grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man.

Not that they are mediocre, but they are cishet white dudes who have no problem just stating their opinions like they’re facts. It’s really irritating when it comes to pop culture because I don’t feel that there’s room for disagreement. For example. Sekiro. Many people consider it the best From game ever. People will blather about how once it clicks, it’s like a dance/rhythm game and soooooo easy. They don’t want to hear anything about it not being true for everyone. Or that for some of us, it never clicked. I had a hard time finishing it once–a really fucking hard time. When I tried to go back to it after my medical crisis, I could not beat Owl (Father) who was my nemesis, and who I needed to beat again, unfortunately, for the plat. I say unfortunately because I did him on my first playthrough, thinking I would not play again and wanting to do all the bosses on this path. The only reason I would go back is to do the plat, and that would mean doing him again.

No. Not going to do it. Also, cannot do Isshin again. Oh, and you have to do all the bosses (the ones you get a trophy for) on one save, so I would have to do Owl (Father) on NG?. And then do the Shura (bad) ending on NG++? Nope. I wasn’t going to do it, anyway, and now, I can’t do it.

That’s a word that Americans don’t like: can’t. We have been told since we were kids that we can do anything! We can be anything! It’s horseshit. Everyone has limitations, and that’s not even remotely controversial. Or it shouldn’t be.


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