All I can say about my family is, two out of four of us -- my dad and my sister -- didn't really want to be there, and they made life tough enough that I stayed in my room most of the time I was home. Safer there.
I can't say I hated anybody, but my father was self-involved and unsympathetic _and_ didn't understand me (if he had, I think he'd still have been unsympathetic); he really didn't want to have much to do with children. My sister, after age 10, spent most of her time out of the house and kept her life private. Now, when we're both within spitting distance of 50, we get along well enough together in the same room but she _still_ won't say a thing about what's going on in her life. My brother-in-law's much more open to me than she is.
So it wasn't much of a family. Dad died, and I didn't miss him because he'd never really been a part of my life anyway. Yeah, he'd provided, but made sure that we paid him for it in guilt and in suffering abuse passively (it was okay for him to yell or get emotional, not us).
Mom was okay, but she's always wanted to pretend we were one close, happy family, even though we weren't. After my sister and I were adults, she continually tried to gather "the family" together for every possible occasion, and then we'd all sit in a room and stare at each other while she tried to keep a conversation going.
|