I'm 66 and I am obsessing more and more about who I could have been and what I could have done if I hadn't been so badly abused. I live in a college town and the students are coming back. I look at them and go home and cry because I want to BE one of them

My parents demanded that I have children since my only other sibling had said he wouldn't. I went to a cheap, third rate college because getting a degree didn't matter. I was just supposed to get a husband. (Although my father who was harshly critical also demanded I get A's).

No one talked to me about grad school or work, which was probably more normal back then but my teachers knew I was smart and they didn't even let me know there were any options. In fact I don't think they even told me I was smart - which would have helped - because nothing I did was ever good enough for my father. I still think of myself as stupid and incompetent.

I love my two daughters but watching them achieve what they have I feel jealous. All they had that I didn't was a good-enough set of parents. I've spent my whole life being what someone else wanted or doing what had to be done even when it meant I didn't get what I wanted. l

I'm still in therapy and still have a lot of issues. I think there's going to be a therapist next to my bed when I'm dying instead of a minister.

jerissa.