[Hopefull]

I am reading a book about children of dysfunctional families and I am marking the lines from these people's stories that I relate to. I am wondering if any of you also relate strongly to some of these lines.
"Never once was there a display of affection from my grandmother toward my grandfather." I don't remember my step-father and mother kissing, hugging, saying, 'I love you' or nothing.
"I didn't give a ***** at the moment if I died. I felt that would be better than where I was." My step-father chased me with a horse one day. I don't even remember why. I just remember thinking about stopping in my tracks to see if he and the horse would run me over.
" I was angry at mom, too, for letting it go on that way, for not stepping in more often when she could see we were being physically abused."
I have wondered why my mom didn't stand up for us when he yelled and insulted us.
"If it wasn't for you dirty, rotten kids, I wouldn't have this situation that I'm stuck in now. I'd be driving a Cadillac."
I remember him reminding me that he worked at a job that he hated because of us kids. I sometimes felt guilty for making him work a job that he hated.
"We were to be seen not heard."
How can a kid learn to be able to deal with their emotions if they can't even share them with anybody?
"She would make sure that he didn't find out anything unpleasant that happened that day."
My mom kept secrets about the finances. She seemed to protect him from bad news in order to avoid his bad temper or something. I sometimes wonder if she feared him some.
"Don't talk." I remember my mom would slap us kids (using whatever may happen to be in her hand at the time) when we said something that she didn't think she was going to like. If we try to talk to her about my step-father and how his parenting hurt us, she ends the conversation. Sometimes, we wouldn't even know why she didn't like what we were trying to say before she interrupted us with a slap.

[Lexicon78]

The big thing here that I can relate to very well was "I was angry at mom, too, for letting it go on that way, for not stepping in more often when she could see we were being physically abused."