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Yep...I lived with one of those for 56 years. She was never part of the solution, she was part of the problem. I had to get past the anger I had for the way she tore me down for 4 decades so I could recover a positive sense of being for the rest of my days. And I had to own what it must have been like to deal with a kid that was off the rails from 15 on too.
The family of Italians I was raised in was short on patience but long on expectations...you never ever reached out for help...never. But yeah, being in the 1960's with a mental disorder wasn't exactly utopia, there was no Dr Phil to raise awareness. Leave It To Beaver was perpetrating the nonsense that everything that looks ok...is ok.
A buddy I grew up with here in the neighborhood stopped by 3yrs ago. I'm living in the house I grew up in. I gave him a hug, introduced him to my wife...and we sat down. He jumped right back up and walked over to the wall, feeling it with his fingers. I said, Jim...what the hell you looking at? He said one day we were standing here, and your mom threw a scissor at you and it hit the wall...I was just seeing if the nick was still there. It was.
10's of thousands of words of hate and disdain were spewed at me up until 3 days before mom died. She passed away in the back bedroom with her mouth open, just as it had been for 93 years spewing her black-hearted hate.
Friend, foe, father, mother or sibling...I learned the hard way if they are toxic to you, the quicker you pull the trigger on them and erase them from your life...the better.
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