Products of our childhood.

I got to thinking. I was washing dishes, a task which lets me stop and think. It's a mindless task and I can reach a Zen state. I accidentally turned the water on too hot. I realized it when I put my hand under it and yanked it out. It reminded me of when I was a kid. My dad would complain that I wasn't washing the dishes in hot enough water. It felt pretty hot to me. But, I had delicate kid hands. My dad had heavily calloused worker hands. He was an electrician and spent a lot of time working outside. He didn't feel the hot. I did. And it hurt. I complained to my mom about it, and she talked to my dad about it. But still, every time I washed dishes, and I did a lot, because dish washing was "girl" work, dad turned the hot all the way on and the cold almost all the way off.

Now, you probably have a good idea of what my dad was like. He wasn't a nice man, and still isn't. He apparently appears nice, but hey, they give good drugs now. Anti-depressants rock. He puts on a good public face. But, in private.... Yeah, he was abusive. Luckily, for me, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but I'm still an abuse survivor. There are a lot of people who had it worse, much worse. But there are also a lot of  people who had it better.

I am a 30something woman. I have mental illnesses. Some of them are direct results of what I grew up with. I am the product of what I grew up with. I have to fight hard to deal with my temper. I have serious control and trust issues. I am much more likely to react angrily or defensively than I am to be calm about it. I know these things about myself. I work hard to not be that way. It's becoming habit for me to take a breath and wait to see what is happening and to be reasonable about it. As I get older, it gets easier. I've learned politeness and firmness works a whole lot better than raging at someone. I am much more likely to get what I want if I don't go to that place first. After all, I always can go there. I can't come back from it.

Here's the thing. I may be a product of my childhood. But I am not a prisoner of it. Yes, I have PTSD because of it, but I don't let it control me. I have a personality disorder, but it is not who I am. I am me. I am not the illnesses. I finished high school, I graduated college. I have a 15 year old son. I have lived on my own since I was 19.

I have some brothers. They are prisoners of their childhood. The oldest of them is 2 years younger than me. He didn't move out of our father's home until he was 33 or so, and then it was a forceful move, which is a story for another time. Of my two youngest brothers, one is in college and lives with dad, the other lives sort of with dad, and the last time I talked to him wasn't working. They stay with our father and take care of him. He's in poor health. He still manipulates them and controls them. They don't talk to me or our mother because we are the "enemy." They can't break free. And what's worse, they don't want to.

I wish they would break free. I wish they could break free. I wish there was something that I could do, but there isn't. They don't want my help. They don't even want to talk to me because they listen to my dad, who tells them that I am manipulated by my mother. My brothers still live in Hell. Every day I am glad that I was able to get free of that, and that I don't have to live there.

I may be the product of my childhood, but I am not the prisoner of it. I was able to break free and become more. Every day I try to be more. That's the only thing I can do.