Thanks, Sannah. I'm not really sure why I posted at all...it was kind of a one-off. Actually, I kind of expected Valentine’s Day to be more of a thing for more people, but it doesn’t seem to be...which is good!

I know my parents are not deliberately trying to make me crazy (they just honestly do love me and are trying to show it). But the cognitive dissonance between what I know happened and the way my parents act toward me when things are going their way is confusing…like, when my parents are not angry, they can play nice. And that makes me feel crazy. And guilty…like I am this disrespectful, ungrateful, un-dutiful bad daughter. I am just making them angry by not being good enough.

I got brave and asked my mom on the phone last week what, in her perspective, happened when I was a kid. She told me I was hard-headed, had a temper, and inherently knew how to push my daddy’s buttons. She admitted he wasn’t very good at controlling himself, but, basically, it was my fault for provoking him.

When does an eight year old do anything that warrants picking her up, dumping her in the shower in her nightgown and turning the water on? Did I provoke him into giving me black eyes or holding me down and hitting me or throwing me at the ceiling fan? If this were happening to one of my clients, I know exactly what I would say, but, along with the being angry, I am still looking for some way that I can make it my fault or convince myself that I'm wrong that it was wrong or make sense of it somehow.

My mom didn’t remember the one specific incident that I asked her about (and there were many, over and over again as long as I can remember), and I know she was there. I remember things she said to me, the look on her face.

And this whole long winded thing is just to explain that I see those flowers and I don’t feel very much warmth or appreciation for my dad and I think I should, but I just can’t.