A battle - Me v Parents

I realise that I am in a battle.

One the one side is me. my childhood. My experiences. My feelings.

And these appear to be in direct opposition to my parents. Their beliefs. Their requirements. Their desires.

And the two battle against each other. I want to believe what happened to me, they don't. I want to say what hurts. They don't. Worse, they say that if I am honest that I am directing a sustained and personal attack upon them. That acting as such means that I don't love them, am deliberately hurting them. My mother would have me believe that what happened to me didn't. That dad wasn't violent. That my childhood wasn't unhappy. That I didn't feel bullied, lost, alone, intimidated, fearful of my own father.

I had to work soooo hard at being able to cope in the world, enabling myself to be able to be a father, husband and a successful business man. It took everything I had. Because my parents didn't give it to me, I had to give it to myself. Now, in therapy, I'm having to work so hard again to go through all the crap.

So that's twice. Thanks. Crap. It hurt so much the first time. And it's hurting just as much the second. My parents have been crap. Crap at protecting me as a child, crap at being parents as I grew up, crap with my wife, my girls, me. Everything in fact.

They are just crap parents.

And still the battle rages. A part of me telling me that I am wrong. That I don't feel like this. That my parents weren't really like that. Alice Miller would say that it's as a result of the fourth commandment to honour thy parents. But I'm not sure it is, though of course my parents drilled that one into me. I think there is a more base reason, that me want to believe the best about those who brought me into this world, fed me and clothed me.

And the battle rages. And it's tiring. Exhausting.