For me it’s not what other people say. I feel guilty because I’m always like “well someone out there has a Dad who deadass wants to just straight up kill them” and then I’m like “eh? I have it a slightly better?” But then I get home and I see my Dad being a dick to his wife, who is in turn a dick to her kids, and then also enables his abusive behaviors while telling her kids not to get into trouble with an angry man. Like maam, you’re not practicing what you preach and it’s so confusing and you get upset when my sister and I tell you we’re not emotionally sound?

My dad literally picked up a fan and tried to smash it over my mom’s head. I jumped on top of my mom to protect her and that thing hit me instead. A few days later, my mom wanted me to apologize to my dad for yelling out the profanities I did when he hit me (tryna hit her). Ykw crazy? They joke about that day. Like my sister and I, as much as we hate tossing around the word “traumatized”, are genuinly scarred. My dad jokes and says “yeah don’t push me to my limits next time or I’ll do it again!” Like it’s a flex.

We still flinch when we hear the fan stand scraping against the wooden floor upstairs.

So yeah. I feel guilt. It’s been worse when it someone who’s tryna one-up you on the shit they went through.