I grew up in a traditional Irish Catholic household - meals on the table, very little affection, pushed to excel, lots of activities, held accountable, no excuses, don't take any crap from anyone, family first.........that sort of thing. My mom was an undiagnosed BP and she could be very challenging at times. My dad was the breadwinner but he was also very involved in everything. My parents are products of the 40s and 50s and they had a certain outlook on life - work for the same company for 40 years and retire. Go into banking. Get a pension. They weren't open to new ideas about how to live your life so we were all steered in standard directions. Anything out of the norm - be a musician, a firefighter, a landscaper - was scoffed upon.

How has it affected me? Well, the environment was mostly stable - we had a nice house and my dad did very well in his career. We all played sports and we took a vacation every summer. But my mom could be unstable here and there and that made for interesting times. Since it was a more or less narrow minded environment, I have a lot of regrets. I should have joined the Marine Corps when I graduated from school but my dad would have flipped. "I didn't send you to college to join the Marines"! My mom would have gone on and on about how "embarrassed" she was that I couldn't find a job. Maybe my BP is centered around all the rage I have inside of me about the things I could have done. It's almost like my life, right now, is *still* all about what my parents want for me.