My first close relationship was with my 1 yr older brother who was closer to me than either of my parents ever were but, unfortunately for us, our parents failed to help my brother happily and respectfully accept me into HIS family when I was born and then temporarily took away the love and attention he had always enjoyed so he decided early on to see me as THE ENEMY and savagely punished me from then on. I suppose our parents could have taught him to treat me better after they could see how mean he was to me but I believe they actually enjoyed our little toddler skirmishes and assumed it was just “normal sibling rivalry”. Our “innocent” and harmless skirmishes turned pretty ugly and violent as we got older and I went from loving and respecting my older brother to hating his guts as much as he hated my guts and seeing him as THE ENEMY.

Getting back to our parents, I can now see that, after my brother and I reached about 4 to 5 and became a little too outspoken and troublesome, our embarrassed and alarmed parents suddenly saw both of us as ENEMIES and turned from permissive or indifferent parenting to harsh and abusive parenting to reign us both in after letting us run absolutely wild from day one. Once they decided we were THE ENEMY, everything went down hill from there.

I had very loving and respectful feelings for my older brother and my two parents but, like my older brother, I hated my little sister’s guts for the very same reason my brother hated my guts – inadequate parenting which failed to teach me to happily and lovingly accept our little sister into the family and I saw her as THE ENEMY but, unlike my brother, did not dare abuse her or dad would have MURDERED ME!

After about 5-6, I began to see my parents as THE ENEMY due to their harsh and abusive punishments and/or utter neglect. I can still remember the time when us boys were allowed to do just about anything and then, as if over night, the joy ride was over and mom and dad became two very dangerous ENEMIES. Once the hostility and FEAR set in, my reaction was to see my parents and my older brother as THE ENEMY and I slowly went underground to do my thing while trying to avoid punishment. I would have happily been honest, honorable and LOYAL to my parents but THEY - not me - made it impossible to stay loyal and respectful to them.

Once my parents set up the hideous conditions for my attitudes towards them, I gradually slipped down into: lying, stealing, cheating, damaging property and just about any and every CORRUPT behavior and attitudes I could pull off behind their menacing backs. Please don’t get me wrong. We did have some good times, laughs, fun, joy and “normal” family experiences BUT these were always tainted by the absolute certainty that our parents, especially dad, were going to say or do something, somewhere to HURT us kids and we were powerless to stop them or find a defense from their harsh punishments or shameful verbal abuses and other hurtful actions that are typical of an ENEMY.

Now that I am old enough to understand exactly what happened in our SICK family, it hurts a lot to realize that all of us could have and should have been GOOD FRIENDS from day one instead of the bitter, spiteful, FEARFUL and destructive ENEMIES that our parents created in the beginning with their extremely ignorant and abusive parenting.

I sincerely hope that the relationship with your parents or anybody else is not that of THE ENEMY.

jim