Originally Posted by
Triplek 
Like yours, mine was both a positive and a destructive force in my life.
Yes. This is what nobody, but nobody outside the program, gets.
I was visiting one of my two remaining aunts the other day (of my parents' generation, there are only those two left -- the one I visited is 80-ish, but still lives independently in the suburbs, is in pretty good health, and still drives, although she doesn't drive into the city anymore).
It was a nice visit -- and I learned some family stuff I hadn't known before. But at one point, I mentioned how my Dad would yell at me/us, and how scared I was, as a kid. "Oh, that's just how he was," said my aunt. "You have to realize he didn't really mean anything -- he just got angry and yelled for a few minutes, and then everything was all right again."
Well, no, I'm sorry, Aunt E, everything was
not all right again. It was bad, my childhood was unhappy, my Dad was an alkie, my mother was insane, and everything was
not all right.
Almost everyone in my family is just as oblivious to what it was like growing up in my house. So they wonder why they don't see a lot of me....
T