Definition: Given a real-life anecdote of a complex ethical situation, generate a suitable title that describes the main event/root cause of the situation. Imagine that the given text is a social media post, and you have to write the title of the post, so the users can decide to read the main text or not.
Input: I’m 19 years old going on 20 in a few months. I still live with my parents because I attend community college in my hometown. I’ll be transferring and going to college a couple of hours away in the fall. 

I’ve started going to therapy after I asked my parents if they would let me go (aka let me use their insurance and be okay with me going) to help me with my anxiety. I have social anxiety disorder as well as some generalized anxiety. I’ve struggled with my mental health for what I think has been pretty much my whole life, or at least as long as I can remember, but within the last couple of years I’ve become way more cognizant of it and it’s been bothering me a lot more and interfering with my daily/weekly life. So I asked to go. 

My mom went with me to my first appointment. I told her it was fine if she came with me to see the office or meet the psychologist at the end of my appointment but that she wouldn’t be able to sit in with me because that’s not allowed (and also I didn’t really want to her to, but I didn’t tell her that. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings). She tried to sit in my appointment anyway and my psychologist very nicely said she couldn’t basically and that she would talk to her at the end of the session. 

I learned that my mom told my psychologist stuff at the end of the session that just blatantly isn’t true and isn’t really relevant to treating my anxiety. I know she was just trying to help and is just worried about me as a mother, but it frustrated me. I told her I could go to therapy by myself from now on, which I was planning on doing anyway since I’m 19 years old. 

I went to another appointment recently and she tried to ask me details about it as soon as I got home. I wasn’t really in the mood for talking about it so I told her that sometimes I wasn’t going to tell her all the details about every appointment; that I was 19 and therapy is a personal thing, that it’s not like going to the doctor for the flu. She said that she had ‘been on this journey with me’ with I fully realize since she’s my mother and I don’t plan to leave her in the dark. But then she said that she pays for it, insinuating that since she pays for it I should tell her all that goes on, which really bothered me since I don’t think that entitles her to knowing intimate details about my sessions. Then she asked if I didn’t want to tell her because I was talking about her in therapy. I said no, because I’m not. I’m doing CBT, not talk therapy. Also even if I were, I don’t have much bad to say about my family. 

I felt bad about what I said earlier so I told her that it wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to her about it, it was that I didn’t have much to say, which was partially true. Then I saw she had read the little stack of papers my therapist had given me without asking me, which annoyed me a little bit. I didn’t say anything but the principle of that is wrong imo. 

Then today I came home earlier than usual from college because I had stuff at home I needed to get done and she asked me why I hadn’t gone to a club meeting I usually go to. I told her why and she started berating me about not going and telling me that ‘it’s hard to feel sorry for me’. Basically saying it’s hard to feel sorry for me about my anxiety when I don’t go places like that. But I usually do. 

That hurt my feelings and so I said that she can’t expect me to go into intimate details about my mental health when she says stuff like that, and that I don’t have to tell her anything especially when she says stuff like that. She stopped me from saying anything else. 

Am I the asshole? 

TDLR: I’ve started going to therapy for anxiety disorders. Mom wants me to tell her lots of details about sessions and mental health but isn’t very compassionate or knowledgeable about it and I responded. 




not telling my mom details about therapy and my mental health