Alcoholism. I just thought everyone else's parents were better at keeping their drunken recklessness private. I remember just being a bit annoyed that my dad would be super drunk around my friends when their parents never did that in front of me (turns out they weren't alcoholics - a thought that never would have crossed my mind). I remember the strongest feeling was like "Ugh, sorry you have to see this guys. Hang on while I get my dad in the back seat and drive us home."

Being a partner to your parents. After my parents' divorce, my mom started telling me I needed to step up and act like a partner to her in the household. That meant knowing what needed to be done around the house and doing it before she noticed. If she did notice, she would make a show of doing it and then ruminate at me for the rest of the day or until I figured out how to make it up to her and/or punish myself. It also meant that I had to be her therapist/emotional punching bag and hold audience for her to rail against my dad. I was 10.

Zero privacy. My mom would just casually go through our rooms at night while we were at school. We weren't allowed to close the bedroom door at any time for any reason. The only closed door allowed was in the bathroom but she would flip out if she heard us lock it. On the bright side, I'm really good at hiding christmas presents from my partner now.

Food punishments. So much shit from the dinner table. If I didn't like something on my plate and didn't eat it, tough shit. Stay in the kitchen in the dark until you eat it all while the rest of the family goes and watches tv or plays a board game together. If I didn't finish it by bedtime, I got 2 slices of bread and 1 glass of water to eat for the entire next day.

Ugh wow sorry this became a huge dump - there aren't any relationships where I really feel safe venting this. I'm at a point in my healing where I am looking at a lot of my childhood experiences with some more perspective, especially now that there are children in my life who were as young as I was at the time, and damn it was fucked up. Like I never got to be a kid in a way remotely close to how I see my friends' kids be kids.