Childhood, cont'd. in Journal

Bad parents create lifelong children. Ain’t that the heart, liver, and soft yellow underbelly of it.

I had a personal revelation a couple weeks ago. If you’re interested, I shared it- it’s pretty incongruent and emotional so don’t get your hopes up. In this revelation of mine, I realized, after years of thinking and believing and knowing that I was okay, that I turned out alright, that I had really shitty parents and that I was not okay.

It’s very difficult to come to terms with a revelation like this. At first I felt utterly dumbfounded, broken, lied to (how could anyone not notice!?), and betrayed (if they noticed, why did they do nothing?!).

And then I realized that it was just the world. Its everyone’s life. Everyone has shitty parents. Everyone is f’cked up.

And that is not an excuse.

It was wrong. Morally wrong. Ethically wrong. In every imaginable way; wrong.

And I was wrong, too. Am wrong. I’m wrong in ways that I can’t yet recognize. Because I’m blinded to it like so many others; like everyone else I don’t yet recognize the ingrained patterns of vice and abuse.

Yesterday, I spoke to my mother about it. Just a few sentences. The briefest of mentions during a longer conversation;
Mom: “You never talked much. You were always so very quiet. But when you did say something, it was very intelligent.”
Me: “Well it really didn’t help that Dad yelled at me every time I said anything.”
Mom: “I know. I tried to listen, and I tried to tell him to listen. I don’t even like working with him all the time. I try to tell him; no one likes to work with you when you’re like that.” she paused. “But, he means well.”
Me: “yeah.”

And, I was fine.
We were fine.

I felt acknowledged in my experience, and she felt acknowledged in hers. And I feel like I’m just a fraction of a percent more of an adult, now.