Thanks for the link. I'm still not quite right--working on it. I am in therapy. Appointment later today.

My own mother (who probably would qualify for a few diagnoses herself, if she'd get the help) always says she's "too busy living in the present" to even *remember* things that happened before. She freely admits to being idealistic, and just refuses to see negative. She actually thinks, and will tell herself and others, that if she *says* often enough that everything is as it should be, that it's all OK, and that our family is perfect, then saying it will *make* it be that way.

I think my grandmother (her mother) is the same way and taught her to be so, all caught up in "just think good thoughts" and denying reality. When I talk about something that happened to me, if one or the other of them is present, I have been accused of lying, or at least having an "active imagination." I hear, "You might have dreamed it," or "You probably saw it on TV and got confused later, and thought it happened to you."

Bovine excrement.

My grandmother, by the way, angrily told me, "There is nothing wrong with the way you grew up!" Yeah, so it's normal to be sexually molested by your alcoholic stepfather when you're 12 years old? It's normal to have the cops show up when your parents are fighting, because the neighbors (or your mother) called them? For that matter, it's normal to hear screaming, slamming doors, and breaking dishes in the middle of the night, repeatedly? Does everyone go to 20 different schools in a dozen different states, sometimes changing schools as many as five times in a year? Is everyone so poor that even basic necessities such as soap, shampoo, toilet paper, and hot water are rationed, you're allowed only one bath a week, and they call you "stinky" when and wherever you do go to school? (Not that we couldn't afford it. The money went for beer and cigarettes instead. Always plenty of that around.)

Is everyone disciplined with belts, hair brushes, fly swatters, and wooden spoons for so much as forming an opinion? To the point where, by the time you're eight years old, even seeing your mother walk in your general direction, not even thinking about you, causes you to duck and cover? (When that happened, she would accuse me of having a guilty conscience; I must have done something wrong that she didn't know about yet.) Has everyone's family deeply ingrained into them that they are fat, ugly, and stupid (despite straight A's, which don't count, because that's only book learning, not "real life" learning.)

There's "nothing wrong" with all this?

I want to tell my story to the world. Screw what I've always been told; you know, "Keep your mouth shut about what happens in this house." Variations include, "Don't air your dirty laundry in public," "Loose lips sink ships," etc. It's always been that way. When punishment follows crime, who is blamed? The criminal? Nope. The one who told.

Still, I'm telling anyone who will listen.