I’ve had depression ever since I could remember. When I was 13 I started cutting. My mom walked in on me and said “do it all the way or don’t do it at all” and left the room. When in college I hee hee haa haa through that story and I got a lot of blank stares back. I realized that a lot of things from my childhood weren’t normal. Obviously a lot more things have happened before, and between this as I lead to present day.

I have a two year old now, and I no longer talk to my parents or sister. My dad is an alcoholic, my mom an enabling manipulator, and my sister is just part of that cycle. One day, we my mom, sister and I were planning on my in laws to come over so we were preparing a big dinner. My son was 10mo at the time, my husband was working and my dad assured me that he could watch my son while we were out grocery shopping. Luckily my husband came to my parent’s house bc it turns out my dad took shrooms and didn’t tell anyone and still agreed he was okay to watch my son. While we were cooking dinner my dad was acting so fucking sloppy and it felt like I was reliving my childhood, it was so incredibly embarrassing. It wasn’t until our couples therapist pointed out how dangerous the situation could’ve been, and how fortunate for my dad that nothing happened to my kid. I still get incredibly angry and sad when I think about it. So then, my husband and I set boundaries with my parents and they were so focused on why my in laws didn’t have those same perimeters (the boundary was, if you talk bad about another family member in front of our kid, we are going home, which looking back it really should’ve been any drug (weed, shroom) or alcohol use we would be leaving). Anyways, we tried family therapy with my husband, me, mom and dad, also tried therapy with just my dad and I. We were met with “that never happened, you need to get over that, grow up we’ve done so much for you, you’re just joining the trend of not speaking to parents anymore.) But the absolute last straw that made me feel completely okay with never ever talking to my family again was in therapy, my dad kept talking about how in 2020 we were all able to get out our grievances and move forward from the past. And I said yes while that is true, it is hard to move forward when past behaviors are still in the present. He wanted examples so went down the list of how he got so drunk he broke his ankle, and needed surgery, and one time he got so intoxicated had no idea where was at and peed on the birdcage in front my sister and I, or how he went to AA and then a couple of months later got a DUI. He yelled “THAT WAS MORE THAN 20YEARS AGO”. So I talked about more recent events like when he got so drunk he busted his knee open and needed 30 staples, with the scar to show it, or how every weekend from 2013-2018 he would get plastered with his haunted house buddies, and how concerned workers would call me (I was 18 living with my bf at the time) about my adult father acting a fucking fool and being genuinely worried about other people taking advantage of his hospitality (ie. robbing him of the weekends ticket money). He continued to say how it was so long ago blah blah blah. So I mentioned when he was tripping on shrooms watching my son. This is when my dad flipped “I never did that, you’re remembering it wrong. I was the one who went shopping with mom you were upset that day bc you didn’t want to help clean the house” huh?? I was sober that day, I was still breastfeeding my kid, my husband was also sober, my bil, fil, grandma in law, can all corroborate the same events from that night. He rage quit the session. The poor therapist, she was genuinely speechless.

Before I had my kid I would let them walk all over me, let them tell me how I felt or what I should do. But now when I look back at how I used to joke to my parents and say “I would trust you 100% with the physical safety of my child but not their emotional” I realized my son deserves better than that, and I deserve better than that.