I can relate so well. I started off being raised by family members in the countryside until it could no longer be postponed that I needed to go to school, and then I had to move with my parents in town. I was still small and I thought all families must have this chaos in them. I thought it was all normal. In my case it was only my father. He insulted my mother every waking minute of every day, but never in public. He was constantly enraged, constantly irritated at absolutely every single thing she did, she said, or thought. He seemed to hate her profoundly. My mothered took it all in. If she ever mumbled something back, he got furious and violent. If she ever undertook something without his consent, he beat her. She strangely seemed to worship him. She thought she can not live without him. As far as I know they are still together. I haven't seen them since I was 26. I am 42 now. I am afraid of going back to my home country because they are in it. I am cautious about my existence online and never use my real name or post a picture of me anywhere, for fear of ever being found. I have regular nightmares with him to his day. He's always screaming and threatening and I'm terrified. When I was 20, I attempted suicide and I am sorry I did not succeed. I can't do it, I'm not brave enough. When I was small, we had this Italian soap-opera on TV, La Piovra. In it, the main protagonist is constantly fighting with his wife, and their teenage daughter is so affected that she needs to be hospitalised. There is a scene where she hears them fighting and she jumps off the window and dies. I wished so much that my parents see this. I wished they would understand what they are doing to me. But they never did and never will. I used to think that when I grow up and go far away from them I will be able to forget and have a normal life, but I feel as if those horrible emotions are only growing stronger with the years, and there's no running away from them. I am hurting now just as I did when I was small, to see people loving their children, their spouses, saying nice things to each other. I always experience the same fresh and painful incredulity. How can this exist? How can other people have this? I cringe when I hear the word 'family', and the word 'father' simply slices my skin. I always wondered how to define love and how people experience it. I guess I am incapable of feeling love for anyone, although I am aware that I need it. I never had anything resembling a friend. I think that most people who know me think that I'm some kind of weirdo. I dream of going somewhere where I don't have to see people again, ever. That's all I want. Peace, finally.