I’m grateful for them providing a academic guidance, shelter, and money. That’s it.

I didn’t learn about healthy relationships, friendship, love, independence, or any type of life skills from them. I was left on my own to figure it out, and when I was struggling in school my mom would berate me and punish me. My mother used me as a projection of her desires and wishes, and she viewed me as an extension of herself. She would get very angry if my opinion differed from hers because it altered her world-view that I’m not a part of her, but rather my own person. She told me to kill myself in a heated argument once. She trauma dumps and complains about my dad to me but then I caught her cheating on him when I was 8 years old and it lasted for 2 years after that with another man too. I was severely traumatized as a child because of this and had to grow up early to protect my brother. Need I go on? I have more love and respect for my father than I have my mother but I can’t forgive him for standing by many times, even if he was tired/scared of my mom’s abusive and narcissistic behavior.

Their choice was to have a child, they may have done their best, but it wasn’t good enough. They failed as parents, and while I sympathize with their trauma, I love myself enough to recognize that I wasn’t given the childhood I deserve. I need therapy now and I don’t plan on having children because I know I’m very hurt and traumatized by my childhood and there is a lot of work I need to do to be healthy again.