> At least once a week...would spend sometimes close to an hour squeezing all of my pimples...Once she had her fix
> Both myself and my brother approached my mum on separate occasions, desperately seeking help with our anxiety... ‘you aren’t a crazy person who needs pills you just need to grow up’.
This is my mother in a nutshell. When I was a teen, she was utterly obsessed with popping every pimple she could get her hands on. It was rather disgusting, looking back. The only saving grace, was nfather absolutely *hated* when people touched their face, popped pimples, etc... and was equally obsessed, but in the opposite direction. One night he lost his shit when he seen my mother doing this, and she finally stopped. They're both batshit crazy, but that was the one time his hangups actually helped instead of hindered.
For anxiety, same as you've described. Nfather hated "shrinks" with every fiber of his body (I figure, because they called him out), and always called them useless quacks. Nmother insisted that none of us had mental illness, we were all perfectly happy health people. I begged for years to get help with crippling anxiety that was impacting every facet of my life. She would basically tell me to deal with it and when I grew up (turned 18, I was around 16-17 at the time) if I wanted to "pursue that avenue of thought" I could do it, on my own dollar, and not under her roof. Even later when a doctor prescribed me antidepressants (as an adult at 27), she about lost it. She begged and pleaded like her life depended on it, for me not to take antidepressants. Her concern? That if the word got out that I was taking an SSRI, that it would tarnish *her* reputation in the community. She didn't care at all if they had any side effects, unless the side effects I got somehow impacted *her* life. Fuck that. I started my prescription immediately after that conversation.
Anyways, I hope therapy goes well and helps. For myself, it has been a wonderful experience, helping to work out and resolve the tangled trail of destruction my nparents left in their wake.