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[quote=Anonymous]Hey OP, I bookmarked this thread weeks ago and just getting around to posting.

I grew up with a violent alcoholic gambling philandering POS father who made my mother so miserable she was emotionally disconnected from me from before I was even born, when she allowed him to batter me in the womb. They were both narcissists, my father overt and my mother covert/martyr. On the surface our family looked ‘normal,’ but next door neighbors knew different. There was no affection for me, and no acceptance. I was the scapegoat child while my older brother was the golden who was encouraged to bully me and so every single day of my childhood there was bullying by one of them and some days all three. The only happy memories I have were formed during the summer weeks I spent with my grandmother - my mother always complained that I loved her mother so much (what a narc, huh?) and suggested it was only because she lived at the beach. Well she left the beach when I was only six and I still wanted to be with her every chance I could and would have if she’d lived in a tenement it was just about the peace I had at her house - she was not overly affectionate and not at all spoiling, she just didn’t abuse me. The chance to spend days and weeks without daily verbal or physical abuse was bliss, and when I escaped my family for college it was the same. I thrived under the encouragement of professors and it turns out, I was very very smart and accomplished a great deal despite being told all my life I was a worthless piece of crap who would never amount to anything and was unlovable and a mistake to boot.

It took me many years of chasing every means of escape before I finally, in middle age and with my physical and mental health breaking down, confronted my demons. I’m a very sensitive empath who doubtless suffered all the more for being exposed to that kind of abuse - and while the physical was terrifying it is the verbal which destroyed my psyche. I developed anxious/avoidant attachment disorder, the worst kind. And I have never been able to trust love, except that which was offered me by dogs. Even today the friends I know must love me because of how they have been there for me - I do not really believe they love me.

The older I have become and the more I have observed - long time working as a domestic violence advocate and later attorney, including criminal law attorney and family law attorney - the more sure I am that a great many people are struggling from childhood trauma very much unresolved. There is some comfort in the certainty I am not alone, including in being someone who will not see a single blood relative at the holidays - but mostly I am just sad at the reality of how much abuse is happening all around us every day and how many children are being crushed by those who should most cherish them but instead they will struggle all their lives with the fallout, because childhood trauma is not easily overcome even with the best mental health resources and the vast majority of people get none.

Humans aren’t such a great species, I think.

Anyway you are not alone and you are not one bit at fault. Innocent babies never deserve to be abused in any way. So sad that so many are. I’m glad you have a family of your own and are doing everything you can to break the cycle. I hope you have a good holiday season and don’t spend too much time lamenting the family that cannot love you as you deserve. [/quote]

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