I don't know if my parents ever meant to hurt me or not.

@Dainbramadge Am I disrespecting my siblings by minimizing what could have happened?

@SinlessOnslaught Oh that's a little hard to answer.
I never thought of my brothers choice to focus on the good things as something bad just not very accurate. Actually he probably is doing what healthy adults do about bad situations and I am probably handling it like someone who should be in therapy. LOL
We aren't cookie cutter people. We don't react or process situations the same.

That is a great question tho.
Sorry I don't feel like I did any justice to answering it very well.
Maybe I will try again in a few because that question really has me thinking now.

@Dainbramadge You seem really introspective like me and I appreciate that. It's okay to not have the answers right away sometimes.

@SinlessOnslaught Well I was just getting out of bed when I saw this. LOL
But you have me really thinking about it. I just didn't want to not respond at all while I thought on it.

For the most part, my sister, older by five years, is a complete ostrich about the entire situation.
If you directly ask her a specific question about anything that happened she just smiles and nods. She doesn't even want to talk about it in any fashion at any time.

My brother on the other hand acknowledges the abusiveness but then quickly throws in something fun we did and rambles on about how cool that was.
Like he knows it was crap but tends to want to not focus on that aspect and so he finds his happy thoughts to embrace him and I think he tries to do that for me as well.

But the fact is we are all f#cked up in some way from that crap.

My sister kept moving away to college first then 700 miles away to Missouri to not have to deal with it. She takes anti-depressants for something she never talks about.
My brother joined the army and is a horrible control freak. The sad part is he knows he is like that and when it comes time to teach his autistic son something new he asks me to do it because he doesn't want to traumatize him with his attitude.

Then there is me. I'm a wreck from end to end.

So maybe my brother and sister are the only ones doing it right. They just ignore talking about it like it never happened or focus on the better parts, no matter how small they were in the big picture.

I don't feel like either is marginalizing my position by choosing their reactions.
It's not like I make them relive it all every time I see them.
I guess I am just bitter as hell about the whole situation.
Don't get me wrong I don't dwell on it endlessly I just speak up when someone tries to put a prom dress on that pig of a life and call it pretty.

I hope this wasn't the wrong direction.

@Dainbramadge This is something good you're doing, don't forget that about yourself.

@SinlessOnslaught Thank you and that really does mean a lot.
But like I said we all interpret and respond to stimuli differently.

The thing that I tend to like to focus on is me being a better parent to my kids than mine were for me.
It's funny. I have seen counselors over the years. We mostly talk about my kids in most sessions. One time I questioned if my parenting was lacking because I don't discipline my kids in any way for any thing. My defense was they don't do anything wrong that we can't just talk about but I was sure that if something did come up I would be moderate with my discipline.
My counselor assured me I was parenting well and I had lost any ability to discipline in any fashion. But for not being able to discipline I had found another way to get through to them. It was respect.
By always admitting when I did something wrong and addressing it with them and encouraging them to question anything they didn't feel was fair, that I put the shoe of discipline on their foot.
LOL.
They are great kids and even tho they know they will never be grounded or punished in any way for anything and why I can't do that, they never take advantage and never have.

They are having, even after the divorce, a great life considering.
We never argue and enjoy spending our time together.

I could babble for days about them. LOL

@kodiac Thank you my friend. That means a lot to me it really does.

I guess I can't fault them very much because they are doing, socially at least, way better than I am.
You are right that it isn't healthy to put your head in the sand about something that shaped you for life and not for the better.
Maybe because of the bipolar I processed things more personally than they did.
Maybe I got the worse part of it because of that too.
I'm not sure but I tend to not try to push them in to talking about it. I know it's a sore spot that they would rather pretend it never happened but I can't do that.

I am 99.999999% sure that your shit experiences will also make you a fantastic parent.
We don't always carry on the shit we lived with to our children.

I did know a guy who's family were alcoholics so he never had kids simply because he didn't want them to suffer that like he did.
That was so sad too because when my wife would bring our daughter to the shop at lunch he was all crazy about her. He was always asking about her and kept up with all her new things.

We do grow from our experiences.
My brother turned out to be a great parent. He has his issues but tries to work around them and the kids have turned out so awesome. So he didn't parent like we were parented.

I am doing pretty well in that area, I will say myself.
I have absolutely no ability to discipline them in any form.
Yup. No punishments for anything even repeated negative stuff, not that that has happened.
They know this to and why I am like that and they have never tried to take advantage of that aspect. They are perfect kids. They make mistakes. But we talk about them and they correct them every time.
Isn't that just the beat all. You can actually raise kids to be polite and respectful with out beating the shit out of them daily for everything.

Now I did throw in the bit about the kids because I worry that because of your past you may be hesitant, not that you have ever said anything along the lines, to maybe become a father yourself.
I hope that isn't an issue and never becomes one.
Actually I have more examples of kids of crap childhoods being great parents than the other.
Hope I didn't overstep any bound with that.

@Dainbramadge No overstep at all . I don't really remember my bio parents but i feel like they would have been like you. I'm not sure about kids myself so much healing to do yet. One thing i can see your relationship with your kids protects them . They will never be an easy target for any kind of predator, kids close to their parent are so much safer . It's the kids that don't have involved parents that predators seek out . In my case having 13 sets of parents that all insisted i be whatever they wanted me to be .I knew that the abuse wasn't from my real parents .

@kodiac Dude. That is by far one of the nicest things any one has ever told me.
I am really flattered.
You are strong I must say. To have lived so much hell and yet strong enough to talk about it.
I think you are a special person.
You are strong in ways that I wish I was.
Smart and your very concise with your words.
They most always hit home with me.
Like pointing out the stuff about being close with my kids keeps them safe from evil.

My brother stay strong and I need to check your profile to see if there are any more songs to be had. :-)
Thank you so much for those wonderful things you said to me.
They are in my heart forever.

@Dainbramadge All true my friend , you're strong enough to raise your kids right when most people would say you got to discipline kids . I think you're really good at the most important thing a man can do treating kids like people instead of property. I have some poems in my profile feel free to use any if you like .