I don't even know where to start. I feel so nervous. But I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and need some affirmation.

I've been told by my parents, doctors, my T, that this never happened, but I can't erase the feelings and my own memories.

My parents, not as a very young child, but starting around age 8, I felt they never liked me. When they were angry [and they were often angry] they would call me names like "fat" and "stupid" and "lazy". They wouldn't speak to me. They would argue, which I was always very sensitive to. When I would cry, they would tell me to stop crying, stop being so emtional. Whenever I tried to explain my dreams in life, they would ignore me, which I always took as saying that I would never go anywhere in life. Whenever I told them something private and confidential, they would use it to hurt me later, or tell a whole bunch of people, laughing at me. I learned not to trust them with my feelings or my love.

I guess I wasn't a very easy child. I would cry and cry all the time, I was suicidal in grade 2 [which they never noticed and denied for years when I told them]. I would fight and yell and push them, but I wasn't angry, just feeling alone and worthlesss. I have communication problems, so when they said one thing, I took it to mean another. Maybe it was all in my head.

I stopped loving them, touching them, liking them. I kept trying to change myself to fit their ideals, but there was always something wrong with me. I could never be good enough.

I also was very alone at school. For most of my young life I was teased and bullied and had no friends. I just didn't get social society. I would have outbursts at school, and be unable to relate to any other child. I would walk around, just talking to myself and an imaginary friend. I spent a lot of time during those years fantasizing about being somewhere else.

But there were days when my parents were so nice, that it confused me. It made me feel even more like it was my fault when they would say I love you, or smile and hug me. The days when they would listen and not judge me. I lived for those days.

I slwoly became more and more distant, trying to protect myself in any way I could. By the time I was hospitalized for depression and psychosis [which then turned out to be bipolar], everyone was throwing around the term "attchment disorder". Looking back, I guess I fit the profile. I had a lot of family counselling after my hospitalization, but it was something my friend [my only friend] had said. She told me to hug them once a day. It hurt, to do it at first. I wanted to scream. But slowly it got easier and easier. We're still in family counselling, and our family dynamics have changed a lot.

I don't know, I just have this huge feeling that it was all me. The feelings of worhtlessness and shame and sadness and being so scared of what they would say next, were all my fault. I caused them. Everybody who knows my parents denies it happened, my parents deny it, my doctor and T deny it. They say I was just mixed up. But it was such a painful expierence, and still is, that I can't just dismiss it.

Thank-you. Please be kind.