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Old May 25, 2010, 09:30 AM
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Perna Perna is offline
Pandita-in-training
 
Member Since: Sep 2006
Location: Maryland
Posts: 27,289
My T taught me the difference between Love and like and I learned that though I loved my stepmother I didn't like her. It's okay to love one's parents. But, you don't have to be the good daughter anymore in your thoughts if you don't agree with, or even merely don't personally like, what they did with your upbringing.

What happened to other people with their upbringing has no place because it's not part of your own life and experiences. You only have you and your experiences and can't compare because you can't be another and another can't be you. My SA was not that major either but it should not have happened and I would have liked to have had someone I could have told instead of having to deal with it all by my 10 year old self. There's no disloyalty or guilt in feeling that way, it's just the natural way I feel. I was not a "failure" for not being able to tell my stepmother and she was not "bad" for not being the sort of person I might have felt I could tell. That's just the way our personalities, backgrounds, and relationship made the cookie crumble.

I'm not "stupid," as my stepmother called me one time too many, making me decide to leave home, nor was I ever a "dirty, old, black-hearted thing". I was a child struggling to learn to make sense of my surroundings and experience and, in some ways had a helpful teacher and, in others, a really lousy, abusive one. But here I am because/despite my education at the hands of my parents and other teachers and I'm still working at it.

As Melbadaze alludes, forgive both yourself and your parents, your insides are yours and your dealing with your parents is how you have learned/want to deal with them. They have their own issues unrelated to you.
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Thanks for this!
sittingatwatersedge