Gotta love repression and denial as great, creative short term (even if for many years in childhood) coping strategies.

Eventually these tend to come back to bite you in the @ss. Or at least they did me.

In childhood, I focused on what I could control and where I felt safe and secure-- in school, in books, in sports, in music performance, and later on in childhood, I basically did anything that would get me the heck out of the house. I was overscheduled and Type A then, and all throughout college and law school. I studied hard and worked hard and found incredible satisfaction in that. I had friends and lovers but I really only discussed ideas with people, maybe some superficial personal experiences, and certainly never any of the real truth about my family and my emotional life? Nonexistent.

Once I was secure in my life, in my late 20's, I started therapy and I started to reclaim back those parts of myself that had been lost to repression and denial. Still a work in progress.

Anne