Most definetely, our environment has a lot to do with the way we end up as adults. Yet, that doesn't mean that we can't continue to grow and learn how to handle life more effectively.

I was over disciplined. My mother would say "protected." My dad left when I was six and never came back despite the fact that my mother asked me to pray for his return every time I prayed. Not a good thing. Left me with a great big hole in my faith in God... until I asked a minister why a child's prayer would go unanswered. He hit the nail right on the head when he said that the child no doubt would have been in danger, somehow, if he had returned. I found out just the kind of danger I had already suffered when in my 40s. My dad had sexually abused me.

Why God didn't strike my grandmother dead from the beginning is beyond me, but it was in His plan. She was my worst abuser.

Like they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger... well, some of us. It's my opinion that some of us do break and some of us get so angry at our abuse that it makes us stronger. Either way, we need to learn the right way to deal with life.

We all grow up with "coping mechanisms" but for the most part, they can be flawed. That's where therapy comes in...