The Fine Line

     11 months after my dad's death, I think I've gotten pretty good at walking on some fine lines. I remember when he first died, and I felt a lot of anger. There was some internal conflict - I really, really wanted to be able to cry about his death. I don't know why I wanted this so bad. I guess it's what normal people do when their dad dies. But I was still really mad at him, I wanted to write a mock obituary where I outed him as the disgusting pig that he was. A big part of me was and still is glad he's dead. I also remember feeling really giddy, but guilty, about the fact that my mom was more than likely going to end up back in our country, having lost all of the material things for which she traded my dignity (and she did end up going back there for some time, things-less and broke).

    After a while, a lot of that anger died down. What was the point? He was dead. It slowly transformed into a somewhat sad feeling - not sad that he died, but sad that the unlikely scenario of true change on his part was now completely impossible, and sad that his life was so... pathetic. I don't mean pathetic as an insult. I mean, his life was pathetic in a way where you would almost feel bad for him, had he not willingly committed so many evil acts.

    Let me explain it better. There was a tiny baby boy born to some low-class Eastern Europeans in the 70's, and their poor treatment of him created an actual sociopath. He didn't stand a chance even from birth. All he ever accomplished in life was living illegally in the US, until he emotionally and materially manipulated his only child into getting him a green card, months before she stopped talking to him forever. His wife resented him, and he had no meaningful relationships with people who truly loved him and appreciated his company. None. I suspect he probably had alcoholism-induced dementia before he died. And everything he owned, which was mostly cheap Chinese crap, ended up going to some Mexican single mom who got their apartment and everything in it, after my mom transferred the lease and moved back to Europe. The only thing that's left of my dad is a box of ashes, and the bad memories and scars he inflicted on his wife and child. This can all only be described as "pathetic". He was the loser he always talked about being, I guess.

    We had to put our 17 year old dog down about a month ago. She was a good dog, although near the end of her life, I was getting very overwhelmed and exhausted with having to take care of her. My daughter adored this dog, I kept them apart but my daughter loved to watch her through the baby gates, one of her first words was the dog's name. The dog was only a part of my life for about 2.5 years, since she was originally my husband's dog. But when we put her down, I actually cried. I was far more emotional about an elderly epileptic dog who I kind of hated taking care of, than I was about my own flesh and blood father. And the only person to blame for this is my dad.

    The "fine line" here is having empathy for the abused little boy, who grew into a lonely and extremely adult who probably fried his brain with alcohol and porn to the point where he couldn't even identify the feelings that caused him so much distress, but also being glad that the dangerous sociopath who terrorized my mother and I for nearly three decades is dead. It's hoping that the little abused boy found peace, but that the adult man who abused me so cruelly for so long has finally been punished. It's being able to be angry about the abuse, but to feel at peace with the fact that he can never hurt me again and the fact that even he was put out of his own misery by dying.

    I feel fine with the fact that I don't miss him. Actually, I think it's outright odd that it's been nearly an entire year since he died. I still remember our last interaction, I was at their house and I was very pregnant, and he tried to kiss me goodbye. I told him no, and he stormed off angrily cussing under his breath. A couple of weeks later, I remember his dot on Google Maps approaching the area I live in (I've talked before about how we all shared our locations), and he tried calling me a few times. This was before I officially went no contact with my parents, but I ignored the calls, and sat in my house panicking. He must have taken the hint and I saw that he went back home. I felt relieved. 

    Almost every encounter I had with him as an adult made me feel dread, panic, and discomfort - I don't miss it one bit, but I'm sad it had to be that way. Every time I see my daughter run up to my husband after he comes home from work, or run to him when she trips and gets scared because she finds his presence comforting, I am reminded of what it's supposed to be like between a dad and his daughter.

    I think a lot about what I'm going to do when my daughter starts asking what my parents were like or what my childhood was like. She knows my mom, and I keep my mom on a leash, but I still don't really know what I'm going to tell her about my dad. I don't think she'll ever figure out that something is weird about my relationship with grandma - a part of the leash I'm keeping her on is very strict boundaries about what can even be mentioned in front of my daughter. But I'm glad I get to tell her some partial truths about how my dad was an Eastern European electrician who loved trucks, and that she doesn't ever have to experience what he was really like.

Life Updates

     I didn't want to abandon this blog - I actually anticipated using it quite a lot, and for a very long time, as a sort of therapeutic tool. But, my life has changed tremendously, in ways that I intend on eventually elaborating on, plus I've been increasingly busy as my baby grew into a toddler. I am also opening another blog about just my regular life and opinions, where I will not speak so openly and in such great detail about having experienced child abuse (but will still brush up on it occasionally as it is relevant), so that more people would feel comfortable reading it.

    For starters, I have been back in touch with my mom since last June, about a week after my last post on this blog. She left me a voicemail saying that she was moving back to our country, and I just bit the bullet and decided to contact her. I had no idea where she was going within that country, who she'd stay with, or if I'd ever be able to contact her again. I loved her, she'll always be my mother, so I didn't want to risk completely losing even the possibility of a relationship with her. And she did end up moving to our country for about half of a year, until she couldn't take living there anymore, for reasons that deserve their own post. 

    In the beginning, I was very apprehensive about any sort of relationship with her, but so far, she has been relatively receptive to any of my boundaries and it really does feel like she has learned a thing or two from her life and especially her recent experiences. It's a work in progress, but it's functional. She seems to be figuring out who she actually is as a person outside of just being the brainwashed Eastern European wife of a dysfunctional, mean alcoholic pervert. By the way, in one month, it will have been a year since my dad died. I still don't really know how to feel about all of it.

    Additionally, I had to leave my church community of 10 years over long-term harassment that was never addressed by the parish authorities, and was in fact being promoted by them in secret. This happened about a month ago, but the months leading up to this moment were filled with targeted bullying of myself and my family, which caused me to become incredibly depressed and generally avoidant of social situations. The reasons for this are incredibly complicated and have a lot to do with my poor enforcement of boundaries, my tendency to jump very quickly into relationships with people, and the fact that I was an oddball among these people due to some of my lifestyle decisions and personal opinions (ones that had absolutely nothing to do with our faith). 

    I've been grappling with a lot of feelings related to the church issue, namely that a lot of those relationships were not what I thought they were. For months and even years in some cases, I ignored my gut instinct about some of these people. There was a discomfort that I intentionally stomped down. I was a vulnerable young woman who was desperate for a "found family" and for acceptance, and I feel like I was willing to walk into situations with glaring red flags in order to get this, years after I grew aware of the fact that I had a dysfunctional family and gravitate towards abusive situations. How could this be? It made me wonder - how much do I have left to work on? As I sat here writing posts about how much I've grown as a person and how much I've learned from being a victim of abuse, I was unknowingly still making the same mistakes that I was making at 16 years old too.

    And this is awkward to say on a blog about having been a victim of child abuse - but I no longer feel a need to live 24/7 in the world of being a victim of child abuse. I obviously still think about it a lot. I plan to continue writing about it, but probably more sparingly than it was back when I posted regularly. Through therapy, my dad's death, and my focus naturally shifting to creating my own healthy family, I feel like I'm actually healing past it in a truly meaningful way. I don't think these things ever really go away, but I did remark to my mom the other day that there are more days where I don't have that panicky tightness in my chest, than there are days where I do have it. I used to think the panicky tightness in my chest was just the default setting for how human beings feel when I was young and lived with my parents.

    I ended up getting formally diagnosed with PTSD, ADHD, and BPD. I have lost the vast majority of my pregnancy weight. I really want to start learning Spanish this year. I have gotten a bit into writing pen pals from other countries. And I also would like to have another child in the next year or two. Life with a toddler, having to travel two hours one way to a new church every weekend, rebuilding a relationship with my mom, and getting really settled into a relatively stable family life take up much of my time as well. And honestly, I'm very glad for it. The future is looking bright, and I feel like my abusive childhood is becoming more of a distant memory. Still one that requires analysis and talking about, but not to an obsessive degree.

    I intend on making a post about reconciling with my mom, some of the difficult conversations we've had since then, some of her personal growth, some of my struggles with enforcing boundaries, my feelings about my dad's death, and so on... one by one, slowly, over time. Bye for now!

Goodbye, dad

     On April 5th, my dad died. I had a therapy appointment at 2:00 pm, but my therapist cancelled. I was disappointed, but by 3:00 pm, right after I put my daughter down for a nap, someone started beating on my door. It was my mom and someone else, who I didn't immediately recognize. I called the police, but she left before the police got here. I called my husband to tell him that he needs to come home. My mom came back, I called the police again, and everyone got there within a minute of each other. After they chatted outside, the police officer came and told me that my dad died.

    We didn't believe him. I told him to tell my mom that I don't want any contact with her ever again. He told her, she left, and we went outside to speak to him again. I asked him how I could confirm that my dad actually died, because I didn't believe my mom. Given her history with compulsive lying, how could I believe her? He suggested calling the police department in their county and asking for a wellness check on my dad, which we ended up doing after he left. And the wellness check confirmed that my dad did, indeed, die. My mom told the officer that he died of a stroke in the morning.

    Since that day, I've still never really cried about it. I've tried to force myself. This was in the middle of Lent, and my husband would often be gone in the evenings at church while I stayed home with our daughter. I would be at home trying my hardest to force tears out - that's what a normal person is supposed to do when a parent dies, after all. One of my first thoughts after finding out was, "he was a terrible person but he was still my dad". For a minute, I felt like he "didn't have enough time to get better" - then, I realized, he'd been married for over 30 years and a father for 26 years. That's plenty of time to have simply chosen to be a better person.

    I pray that he doesn't go to hell, that God sees him as a person who was so deeply flawed and traumatized by his early childhood that perhaps he didn't have as much control over his actions as he would have liked - although I don't really believe that, myself. Maybe I'm unnecessarily harsh. Who knows. I am deeply sad that there will never be a magical family reconciliation, where my parents realize how they've wronged me, apologize, and make amends. Sometimes, I think back to the few pleasant memories we had together and feel melancholic. But I'm far enough in my healing journey to know that just because there were a few good times, doesn't mean he wasn't a terrible father and overall terrible human being.

    I don't regret being No Contact at all. I remember watching a YouTube video where an estranged mother was begging all estranged children to reconsider their actions, and telling us that we'd regret them once our parents died - nope. One of my other first thoughts after finding out that he died was, "at least he can never hurt me or my daughter again". I felt safe. I felt relieved. I was glad I didn't have to worry about him showing up and hurting me or my family, like he'd threatened to do plenty of times before. I was glad that even if my husband and I died tomorrow, our daughter would never be in his "care". The positive feelings certainly outweighed the negative ones.

    I wondered what to do next - do I contact my mom? For a while, I considered it. Poor thing had just become a widow and had to watch someone die of a stroke. Surely, that's traumatic. And I felt terrible for her. Over the weeks, she repeatedly showed that she hadn't changed at all. I messaged my dad's sister (note how I don't call her my aunt) to tell her that her brother died, because I wasn't sure that my mom was in touch with them. My dad's sister told me that she knew, and that my mom reached out, but that my mom needs my support more than anything else right now - ah, a flying monkey. I was expected, yet again, to put aside my well-being and be her savior. She hasn't realized that this was one of the major reasons why I had to end our relationship, so I didn't bother contacting her.

    Next, she used my phone number to check into an Urgent Care. The Urgent Care sent me a notification intended for her, she did this to circumvent being told by the police to not contact me again. If you recall her previous "heart attacks" and "post-COVID disorder" nonsense, she doesn't quite grasp that an Urgent Care is just not as big of a deal as the emergency room. She thinks it sounds just as serious, and she clearly hasn't picked up on the fact that I stopped buying her fake medical emergencies months ago. One of my friends said "she's willing to do anything to get your attention, except for apologizing for her actions and making amends" - he was about right. I ignored it.

    Eventually, she gave me a call. I was in the car with my husband and daughter, and I obviously didn't answer. She left a very cryptic and mysterious voicemail - something about "please call me so I can discuss something with you that affects your future as well". I talked about it with my husband, who usually grounds me when I'm about to fall for one of her manipulative tricks, and we came to the conclusion that it's another attention grab. There couldn't possibly be any business that her and I have left to take care of - I really mentally went through everything it could possibly be, and couldn't come up with anything. Besides, wouldn't a normal person just say what it is in the voicemail? Ignored. I recorded the voicemail and considered a restraining order... I still might, but she hasn't made any attempts since.

    Because the way that this all went down, and how traumatic it all was, I still didn't really believe that my dad was dead. I ended up ordering a death certificate. The first time, my request was rejected - "aha, he's not really dead, my mom made it up!". My husband and my therapist both reminded me that the government takes it's time with these things. I tried again a few weeks later, and it was approved. I got it in the mail, and I studied it for hours before shoving it in my drawer. I was amazed at the cause of death, which was medical non-compliance (still trying to figure that one out), which lead to uncontrolled hypertension, which lead to intracranial hemorrhage, which ultimately lead to cardiac arrest. It certainly made me want to live a healthier life, so I don't end up like that.

    I think that was one of the only times I shed a tear about his death, although I didn't really cry. It was real. I had the evidence. I sat on the deck and thought about some of the information on the certificate. We live in a city between the city my parents lived in and the city my dad was cremated in - I imagined his dead body in the back of a car going down the highway near our house, and it made me choke up. I imagined my mom, the "informant" on the certificate, helping the EMTs fill it out in her broken English, minutes after watching her husband die. I thought about calling the funeral home for more information, although I doubt my dad actually had a funeral. No obituary, no funeral - no one really loved him enough to put these basic things together for him. I got sad thinking about how his own mother abused him so severely that he turned into a person who genuinely spent his entire life utterly unloved. At some point, this "unlovableness" was of his own creation, but it was a pathetically sad existence either way.

    Anyway, I've had lots of dreams about my dad. It seems like almost every night that I have a dream that he's not really dead. I won't go into what spiritual significance I admittedly try to project onto them (this is dangerous territory in my faith and I try my best to just view them as dreams), but the dreams are almost always the same. Usually, I'm at their house, he shows up, and I wonder why he isn't dead. I thought I'd stop having these dreams when I saw the evidence of his death, but I just had another one last night. They tend to take place in the dining area of their townhouse, where I'd sit and do homework often. I might ask my therapist if this means anything. I'd like to stop having these dreams, they're honestly a bit disturbing and they make me far too emotional.

    It's weird to think about the fact that the townhouse I lived in from ages 17 to 25 is never going to be the same again. I accidentally found out that my mom has a roommate now because the landlord called me, because I forgot to take my phone number off of the lease - so it's not really "her" place anymore. I could never just come back and be with my family - as abusive as they are, and as much as I wouldn't want to anyway. The good times live in a world of nostalgia in my head, somewhere I can never go back to, and I'm glad the bad times are in the past. In a sense, I feel like this is when I became a "real adult". I don't have parents to come back to anymore - I'm sure some amount of begging would have done the trick before my dad died, although I'd rather starve than do that. We went from "No Contact" to "one of them is dead, the other has been told by the police to leave you alone". The separation is totally permanent now.

    I do wish it all happened differently. I always tried to be the voice of reason - my dad was an alcoholic, a heavy smoker, and ate terribly. I wasn't exactly shocked to find out that a stroke followed by a heart attack at the age of 50 is what killed him. I'm more shocked by the fact that my mom thought everything would work out in her favor if she threw her flesh and blood under the bus in favor of a man who was almost destined for an early death, because he would "provide" for her. In a way, I think she's eating the consequences of that decision now, and it helps me to not feel so bad for her.

    Grieving is a linear, predictable process when a death happens in a healthy family. I used to have this fantasy of my dad dying in a hospital bed, and me bringing him a porn magazine and vodka. When he'd die, I'd pop a bottle of champagne and loudly declare that a disgusting, alcoholic molester died. Then when I got his ashes, I'd flush them down the toilet of a gay bar. Now that it's actually happened, as much as it didn't change how rotten he was, I would probably try to give his ashes a proper burial.

    I miss my mom too. I miss her voice, her jokes, her stories, her cooking, and the fun times I had with her. I wish that she would realize what she's done and make amends. Right now, I'm trying to accept the fact that I very likely will probably not speak to her again, because the chance of her realizing what she's done is slim to none, especially after my dad died. I might not even find out when she dies, when that day comes. I actually don't even know if it's already come. Who knows?

    I love them both. I don't know how I can love them, but I do. It's a biological drive. I loved my dad, despite everything you read on this blog. He was a monster and an abuser but my body was grown inside of my mom's body from a placenta that was entirely his DNA - from the moment of my conception, I was destined to love him (and her). You recognize and love your parents from the moment you develop senses in utero. I love my mom, despite everything she allowed to happen. My daughter feels the same biological drive towards me - I hope that by distancing myself from the people who spent my entire childhood tearing me down, her love for me will always feel right and make sense to her.

    I hope my dad doesn't go to hell. I will probably be the last generation to pray for him, and God knows he needs it, unless I can convince my daughter to pray for her grandfather who died when she was 6 months old. Funny enough, my dad's dad also died when I was 6 months old. Sometimes, I feel like my little family is God giving a little girl just like myself a second shot at "doing it right", like my daughter's existence is a chance to make amends for what was done to me. I pray that this poison ends with me.

    If I could speak to him, I would say: "Goodbye, dad. I love you. You loved me as best as you knew how, in your broken brain, not capable of very much love at all. At least not love the way healthy people recognize it. Perhaps, I'll get around to writing you a proper obituary - no, not the angry one I wanted to write weeks ago, where I exposed you for what you were, with your real name and picture attached. Despite everything you've ever done to wrong me and others, I'm sorry that you were never properly loved.". And this comes after many weeks of processing really nasty, angry, yet still justified thoughts.

(I apologize for not updating this blog in months - I haven't forgotten about it, and there are many posts I'd like to make, but my daughter takes up much of my time, which I'm glad for. I love her very much and I'm glad to see her becoming more mobile, eating more foods, and learning new things. I have a little bit of computer time after she goes to bed, and as her schedule has finally become more consistent, I'll probably be writing more posts!)

Memes - #1

The Conversation

    Most adult children of abusive parents have "the situation" which divided their life into a "before" and "after" section. It's what made them realized that they cannot have a normal relationship with their parents. Perhaps it was the moment when they first learned about personality disorders, or their parents crossed a line so severely that it was unforgivable. Maybe they got out into the real world, which their parents always tried to isolate them from, and learned that all of the "quirks" that bothered them were actually forms of abuse. Or they got "corrupted" by a friend or partner from a "normal family", and realized that emotionally healthy people don't treat them poorly like their own family does. Whatever it is, most of us had a moment when the illusion of a happy, healthy family where our discomfort was the only "problem", was shattered. And there was no looking back - nothing could ever go back to how it was.

    My "situation" was a conversation that occurred in my late teens. I formed an online friendship with a woman who turned out to be a nutjob in her own right, but also came from an abusive family. Through talking to her, I realized that most of what I was uncomfortable with in my family wasn't just "quirky behavior" that I should forget about, like my parents always insisted. Her parents were extremely similar to mine, and we could relate to each other on the vast majority of the abusive experiences we both suffered at the hands of our parents. She showed me Issendai's series on estranged parents' forums, and I realized that my parents' behavior and beliefs were nearly 100% identical to the ones discussed on that blog. I finally knew the words to describe my feelings and experiences, and that I wasn't alone. I began reading various forums online for adult children of abusive parents, including r/raisedbynarcissists (which has gone downhill significantly since then - but this was all almost a decade ago).

    But I was hopeful - surely my mom, who loves me and cares about me very much, would be open to a discussion about all of this. At the time, I thought she was just a co-victim of my terrible, abusive dad. Perhaps an enabler at worst. So, I decided to confront her about it. I went into the kitchen as my dad watched TV in the living room, and I told her I wanted to talk to her about something. I told her everything, just about. All of the sexual abuse at the hands of her husband, my dad. All of the times where his alcoholism threatened my life or caused extreme dysfunction in the family. All of the times I felt unsafe. Every event written on this blog taking place before this conversation and many more - I got it all out.

    At first, she seemed so supportive. My mom apologized for not giving me a good childhood, and she cried with me. Yes! I've succeeded - I imagined that things would be so much better from now on. We'd really work on things, and we'd be happy. She promised me that everything would change and that she'd make it right.

    Unfortunately, my dad overheard the conversation and started stomping around angrily. His feelings were hurt. My mom asked him what was wrong, and he said "nothing" and stomped out of the back door to go smoke a cigarette. Looking back, this is when my mom realized she made a mistake - she was not supposed to take my side. From this moment, the conversation got uncomfortable and just weird.

    I tried to get my mom back on topic after he was out of the room - he always threw tempter tantrums about random things, so I didn't pay it any mind. I wanted to tell her more about the sexual abuse. Her response broke my heart - "okay, but did he rape you?", said in this terrible, snarky, dismissive tone. She repeated herself. There was no mistaking this for a benevolent attempt at making the details of the situation very clear - there was nothing but pure malice in her voice. I said "no" - she replied, "then it wasn't that bad". I insisted that it was sexual abuse either way - her response, "oh, so he's not good enough for you, but his money is?". "But I was an innocent little girl! I didn't choose to be born to a man like him!", I said. "Oh, you weren't that innocent", she smirked back at me.

    Well, that hurt. I went back up to my room and cried. I'm not sure I really knew what to make of this whole situation at this point. I was mostly confused, but I wanted to keep trying. Something really bothered me about it, though. I guess I couldn't yet accept what it meant - that my mom doesn't really care about me, never did, never will. Admittedly, it's a hard pill to swallow - plus, you have to remember that I was still in "my mom is an innocent victim in all of this, just like I am" mode. I tried again for a couple of days, through the discomfort with the hurtful things she said.

    This was during the time period where I drove her to and from work every day, sacrificing my ability to experience normal, age-appropriate things like relationships, friendships, jobs that I wanted, and educational opportunities. That same week, I drove her to work and I saw a billboard that said something that I consider triggering - I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was a word that can be related to one of my dad's many deranged sexual fetishes, which he openly exposed me to from infancy to early adulthood. I've always had a twitching problem which occurs when I have intrusive and disturbing thoughts, primarily those related to my childhood. I told her that my childhood was so painful that I can't even see that word without twitching due to the flashbacks it puts in my head. "I don't want to talk about this anymore", she said. She was done entertaining the things I was saying and I stopped bringing it up. I realized this was going nowhere.

    She very explicitly made a choice to prioritize her sad little marriage and her terrible husband over her own child. The worst thing is that she didn't realize what she did - I bet she doesn't remember this even happening. Not in the gaslighting "that never happened" way where they damn well know that it really happened, but denial of anything being wrong in our family comes so naturally to her that I doubt this event was special enough to be remembered in the long term. If she remembers it, she doesn't think it's a big deal. Nothing that anyone ever does to me is a big deal to her, no matter how bad it is.

    From that day, I became cold and distant. I started to looked down on her and I could never quite stop. I realized that she wasn't some precious little co-victim of my dad's abuse, but that she was every bit as rotten as he was. She allowed all of this to happen. She didn't care about any of it - not even the parts where I was sexually abused, something that would send any healthy mother into a homicidal rage against the person who did it. Even if he had penetrated me, she'd still find some way for it to "not really count". I remember thinking, "if he murdered me she'd probably find a way to make it my fault and absolve him!". And I was right, I really do think she'd find an excuse even for that.

    There were a few good times after that, but this is when I developed the "ick" feeling towards her. It made my skin crawl for her to even touch me. I could not hear "I love you" from her without wanting to vomit. She always wondered "what happened to our close relationship", which is why I doubt that she even remembers saying anything that she said to me then. There were many attempts at rekindling said "close relationship", and admittedly I tried to stomp down the "ick" feelings and go back to "normal" a few times, too. I couldn't. There was no way. This was the beginning of the end. Denial is not something that works for me, and I have no idea how it works for these people.

    The worst thing is, it was just a couple of months ago that I realized that this conversation was totally unnecessary because she already knew. I basically just told her a bunch of stuff that she was aware of because she was there and/or I told her about it right after it happened. My brain had blocked out the parts of many memories of being sexually abused where I ran to her for help, and she totally rejected me. At best, she'd make a half-hearted attempt at "getting him to stop", and promising me that "he won't do it again because she talked to him about it". One time, she even let him abuse me so she could go spend time with her boyfriend. As for the non-sexual abuse, she knew about all of it too, but didn't care about that either. But if I hadn't tried to confront her about all of this nearly a decade ago, maybe it would have taken me much longer to figure out that she is a co-abuser, not a co-victim.

Here is what I think she really told me "between the lines", during that conversation and the following days before she forbade the topic altogether:

"You are not getting in the way of my family - we're going to act like you never said any of this"

"Three year old girls have the ability to sexually tempt grown men - and it's the little girl's fault, not the grown man's fault"

"Sexual abuse is okay up until a certain point" (although, like I said, I doubt the existence of this point in her mind)

"If you provide the bare minimum as required by law for a child, it's okay to sexually abuse them"

"You don't get to complain about any degree of abuse if we occasionally pay for something of yours"

"It's uncomfortable for me to be confronted with the reality that things are not all well in our family - so shut up about it"

"Deep down inside, I have a conscience - but I choose to prioritize a sexually abusive, violent, good-for-nothing alcoholic over my own child anyway"