This past Abnormal Psychology exam was the first time I didn’t have a panic attack while taking a psychology exam. (Oh the irony, considering the exam included questions about panic attacks.) There’s really two reasons for this rare occurrence.
1. I actually knew what the exam was asking me. The professor is a lazy tenure who administers tests from the textbook. My previous psychology professors created the exams themselves and subsequently the exams just were not consistent with material covered in lecture or the textbook because they did not write standard exam questions as a career for a reason. My developmental professor didn’t even USE a textbook – she claimed exams were based on lecture but she only presented the questions in lecture – she never gave us the answers. She “taught” based on her personal opinions and it was easily one of the most aggravating classes I ever took because I did not regard all of the material as fact.
2. I’m simply familiar with the material through first hand experience as well researching the subject independently for years. I’m ready to jump out of my skin during lecture because the professor has been an aggravating and disorganized lecturer, but when all is said and then the subject is very straight-forward after taking five psychology courses already.
I had an uncomfortable phone conversation with my mother because she was doing one of those silly.. parenting things where she forgot what kind of stubborn mule I am and she told me that she wants me to get an internship next summer. Both my mom and sister frequently approached the future with the perception that hitting certain Stages is the way to gain Success. Good grades => college => internship => job that requires fancy business clothes => big salary => “success.” Admittedly I had this same notion and attempted to follow it my first year here. It’s a topic I avoid because while my mom is awkwardly quiet when I flat out say “I am not pursing any career that requires formal business clothes” because she’s probably thinking about the fact that my closest in the Poconos is full of this exact clothing that I told her at 16 that I’ll never need. Back then her response is “you’ll need them because that’s what you need to wear to work.” Now it’s silence because she knows I have the final say whether or not she agrees that I have the final say.
“What kind of internship. What kind of career am I pursing.” I said, not asked. Again, silence. I was challenging this magical term and the false promises it carries that my sister exposed her to. A few minutes later, she said something how she meant finding a research position, like one of her client’s kids who got paid for research on schizophrenia. I was too tired to argue because I wasn’t in the mood to open a can of worms. I decided it wasn’t the right time to tell her that I decided not to major in psychology months ago. She’s probably still carrying false ideas that I’ll one day wake up and agree with her that I should apply to medical school for the hell of it. The next day I’ll wake up and apply for law school, just for kicks. (I’m not even kidding, one day she concocted some idea that I’ll get both a PhD and JD.)
There must have been some sort of open admissions day going at NYU because a couple of places seemed more balloon-a-fied than usual. Even though there really were not many customers throughout the day, two different kids threw temper tantrums with their parent. The first was a boy of about age 6 or 7, yelling incoherently while his father was trying to quietly get him out of the store. It’s as if he was hoping we wouldn’t notice the scene if he remained silent. I don’t know how his father acted once they got outside, but it was obvious that he wasn’t the disciplinary parent, or even the present parent in the kid’s life.
The second instance of awkward parent-kid feuding was between a Soccer Mom and her brooding 15 year old. I noticed the girl a few times since the teeange goth look is kind of hard to miss. It wasn’t goth all the way, meaning that the most she got away with was wearing all black and dying her hair whereas her mom clearly didn’t tolerate more extreme accessories or loud details, such as studding and make up. The issue was at the register where the daughter want to purchase some Stephen King book. The mother intervened, saying that she won’t buy it because it’s “too scary.” Uhm, by the looks of your daughter, she already seen a couple of horror movies. It was awkward for us to politely ignore because the daughter was clearly bursting with embarrassment and argued in typical teenage-girl fashion. I think the daughter ended the argument with, “I just wanna go home!”
A few of us had a discussion which person was at fault in each situation. Most cashiers sided with the teenage daughter whereas the assistant manager sided with each parent. At the end of the day both are to blame. It was control in two extremes: the younger boy had no control whereas the teenager’s mom was too controlling. Each kid was clearly frustrated with their parent and rebelled in ways that we label as spoiled or immature. I’m biased with the teenage girl because I had that kind of mom who treated my refusal to wear colored shirts (in other words, I only wore solid-colored black tshirts with jeans) as if she found drugs under my bed. [I wish I was exaggerating, but she literally told me that I have a problem. Needless to say she completely got off my case about clothing when she learned what a real "problem" was.] Digression aside, that mom from the store is going to find drugs underneath her daughter’s bed in a couple of years if she doesn’t loosen her grip. Her daughter clearly isn’t happy for whatever reason and it’s only escalating because her perception is exaggerated during puberty.
We didn’t really come to a conclusion when discussing whether its parenting or the kid. I added, “After six psychology classes, I finally learned the secret.” A couple of people faked excitement, egging me to reveal this unknown information.
I lowered my voice, to protect the secret: “Psychologists don’t know either.”
[Ironically my train of thought behind organizing this entry did not revolve around parental control, but my decision to end my "education" in psychology this semester. Since I wrote my observations in the store before I finished writing about my phone call with my mom about internships, I unintentionally carried over the theme.]
The point of this long entry is to state what I was thinking about when I started writing in the first place: I really think psychology as a field is a load of crap. I probably went into it with false expectations, but so far I really haven’t been exposed to any grand answers to the human psyche. I’ve pretty much come up with this crap on my own and yet I struggled with exams testing me on the labels placed on common sense.
On another level, I’ve really questioned my desire to even pursue a lifetime of immersing myself in the depths of abnormal psychology. I can’t help applying the material to my own life which is ironically why I developed an interest in the first place. I was determinde to explain events and personalities that destroyed my innocence, to explain WHY it happened. Unfortunately, I keep getting stuck in revolving doors because I never really close those chapters of my life. I can’t separate myself from the material and unfortunately it has negative consequences.
I probably chased this topic for at least 5-6 years for the same reason the teenage girl developed her interests in horror books/films, and my mom really held on to the idea of hitting milestones to reach The American Dream: all three of us are looking for answers.