Did anyone have the misfortune in childhood of having a "non-nurturing parent"? I've been told early in psychiatric treatment that my mother was not really adequate as a parent and that had much to do with my feelings in childhood. And I was told by the same psychiatrist that all I really needed was to be around healthy people.
What?

I always thought it was a sister who made it tough on me and let me know straight-away that I was an adopted child (not true) and that my parents intended to leave me. Can you imagine what that does to a two or three-year-old? I can remember crying my eyes out one night when they left to attend a bridge party. (My sister was nowhere in sight.)

I've spent a lifetime trying to get to the bottom of all of it, and I think I have finally come to the conclusion that some parents have many of the necessary skills and some don't, and so we take our bumps and knocks and spend our lives trying to overcome them and maybe we overcompensate by trying to do too much.

I don't know. The thoughts have just been occurring to me recently.

Anybody else feel that we missed something in early childhood that could still be affecting us at times?