Well, it's been an... interesting day, let's call it that. Not going
to get much done, but that's okay. We need time to process things.

Possibly depressing mental health talk ahead, specifically regarding
questionable parenting. No pressure to read.

We're finding out that a few more things our parents did raising us
weren't normal, which isn't really a new thing but still not a fun
realization to be having. I still can't really emotionally process
it. It's more of a "huh, weird." If I think about it too much, then
it comes right back and sets off emotional overload until it's too
much and I shut down, and it's hard to think about it non
intellectually at all even though I probably need to. Especially
since I know other folks in-head have been stuck in those moments and
could be helped if it's at least partially processed. It's just a
lot, you know? There's a reason I don't remember the emotions of it
at all by default, and why the worst of it is totally inaccessible. I
still don't quite believe half of it happened or wasn't totally
typical, and I feel bad for even considering it being abusive
behavior because these are our parents I'm talking about. It makes me
feel like a bad kid to realize that their behavior is something other
people look at and call abuse, intentional or not. I struggle with
that. On one hand, they did their best (I think). They were working
with a chronically ill autistic kid while dealing with mental health
issues and abuse histories themselves. I mean, our mom emancipated
herself when she was 17 because her dad was a drunk and her family
fought all the time, and her mom refuses to talk about her childhood
(though we do know she was abused as a kid). It goes back a ways. But
on the other hand, it's not an excuse for how we were treated, and
it's definitely not an excuse for blaming us for that treatment and
refusing to change their behavior or seek help for mental health
issues. A kid isn't a therapist for their parents- we know that much
for sure. But it's hard not to feel guilty for not being able to
handle it because of how often we were shamed for being "sensitive"
or "selfish" for not wanting to listen to mom ranting about how we
were probably going to be homeless because our dad was horrible to
her (which he wasn't- we've talked to both sides here, and our dad
had solid evidence from the divorce paperwork to back him up), or not
wanting to be an emotional prop, or wanting affection and to be
listened to. It feels like we're not allowed to have negative
emotions, or that it's outright unsafe to have feelings in front of
people. Like making anything about ourselves makes us horrible
people. Honestly, we feel bad for venting in feels but it's more
manageable online since there aren't any faces and no one has to read
anything. It's not burdening people if they're free to ignore it.

We really need to process things that happened but it's hard when it
feels like being emotionally stabbed every time. It's easier to start
when people tell us "no, that's not normal, what the fuck?" about
things we thought were normal because at least then we can confront it
and realize that yeah, it hurt us and fucked us up one way or another.
But it's still hard and exhausting. We don't have a therapist to help
because mental healthcare here sucks, so we have to keep doing this 
solo and make what progress we can.

And then on top of that whole mess, two people at our mom's workplace
have COVID and they've been in contact with everyone else. Lovely. 
We're high risk. Vaccinated, but still high risk.

Sorry for the negativity. Hope the ASCII cat helps.

./\_/\.
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