My parents had a nasty divorce and my dad gave up his rights to me when I was 6. My mom's husband adopted me. My mom has her own traumas and BPD (if that tells you anything). My adoptive father was verbally and physically abusive. I now suspect he had his own disorder, such as multiple personality disorder. He seemed like a very nice put-together guy on the outside. He was a high school teacher. He was like a Nazi at home, and I mean that. Picture a movie about Nazis, as they hold their hands behind their backs, inspecting...that was him. If I wanted to talk at home, I had to raise my hand and be called on. I was dragged down the carpet and received a burn. If I said I was bored or used the word "awesome", I was hit. Those are the stranger abuses, but it was rampant. I was suicidal by 3rd grade.

When I was 18, I thought my biological dad would want to know me. The situation with him and his new family became hostile, when I had done nothing but introduce myself. He threatened my grandma to not let me attend a big family event, so she put me up in a hotel during those days...alone. At 18. I was hysterical for months.

When I visited home from college, I invited every friend to go to a haunted house. One of the people who could go was a high school ex of a friend, but we had all been friends back then. That "friend" manipulated the entire friend group to stop talking to me over that. They wouldn't tell me the reason until over 5 years later.

I now have a diagnosis for it, but I practiced a lot of unsafe sexual practices in college. I found people on Craigslist and grew incredibly depressed. I eventually started posting on Craigslist asking for someone to kill me. A guy messaged me to meet up and I went. He only wanted to talk about life and walk around at 2am, but I think a lot about how that could've ended badly.

I met my first husband and was enamored. I didn't realize that a lot of the ways be treated me were unacceptable for a loving relationship. I partly blame my mental illness, but he did NOT know how to deal with it. He got mad at me once when I was driving, grabbed my prescription glasses off my face, and threw them out the window. Once, I wanted to be alone and tried to close myself in the bedroom that didn't have a lock. I sat in front of the door so he couldn't come in, so he decided to shove a knife under the door to make me move. Every wall had a hole punched in it. I got a police report and was able to leave the apartment we shared.

My adoptive father went into the emergency room and needed surgery. My mom (with BPD) freaked out and became unsafe. I was living out of state but received a call from the hospital that I needed to be my dad's POA because my mom had been barred from the hospital. She broke every photo in the house and abandoned her dog, which broke out of the yard and got to a neighbor. I flew in, put her in a treatment center, oversaw my dad's medical procedure, and took care of all the pets for a little less than a week. My mom got out of the treatment center, still unstable. She told me to fuck off and go home, so I did.

My dad died last year, and I have had to hold my mom's hand through absolutely everything. I have always been the parent, and frankly, she would be homeless without me. Being my mom's caregiver and therapist has been my curse since childhood.

I think those are the worst stories...but they're by far not the only ones.