Seemingly something wrong with everyone in my immediate and extended family

[ambivalent1]

I have returned to this forum this year after I was told suddenly that my mother had had cancer for quite awhile and wouldn't make it through the night.  She didn't die that night but instead roughly a month later in June.
She was a constantly lonely, needy person who brought me up to believe that my job was to get rid of those feelings for her.
I did do as I was taught until I hit adolescence.  At that point I reflexively built up walls hiding my thoughts feelings and what I was doing from her.  That caused a lifetime struggle where the more I asserted my existence as a separate person, the more desperate she got.

My father was quite simply an evil man who physically and verbally abused me and my brother.  My mother taught me, my brother, and my sister that he was responsible for anything and everything wrong in the family.  Noteworthy to me is that she never actually did anything to protect us.

I remember my father once telling me as a child that I would never know what it was like to win in life.  I think that's enough of an introduction for now.

[notrightinthehead]

Welcome back! I hope the tools and information on this site are as much a help for you as they were for me.