"It's weird when you get older and start to look back on your childhood, especially when you start to learn things about it. You hear from family members some things that you never knew, and suddenly you see things clearer now. Things start to make more sense. I started to realize how not normal my childhood really was, even though I thought it was as normal as normal gets. I see why my parents argued so much, and why my mom was always out so late. I start to see why my dad always had anger problems and why he seemed to be a different person everyday. I understand why they both drank so much, and why they started talking less. I finally understand why they left each other when I used to just say I understood to seem stronger. You never notice when your parent has an alcohol problem so bad that it lands them in jail for drunk driving. You never notice when your parent has a major drug addiction and why they're nice one day and why they're angry and short tempered the next. You never notice that your mom cheated on your dad for years and ripped your family to shreds. What's worse is that you never hear it from them. They never apologize for lying to you all those years and acting like they raised you right. There's never a time when you visit them and don't think about all of the things they did, both to you and to each other. I learned a lot from my parents, but the most important thing I learned was that I don't want to be anything like them. I learned how not to be a parent and how love isn't supposed to work.
My parents are the reason I'm so fucked up and they don't even know it."
