As a preface to this:  This is a personal account, told as bluntly as I can tell it, and because I hope that others will be helped if I narrate my path.  Also, I have come to completely love, accept and forgive anything in my family of origin- and I really loved my dad. That doesn’t change the truth of the story.

I had a mad dad. When things didn’t go well, he would bang and break.  He would bully sales clerks and support people with his analytical brilliance. There was usually a low level of exasperation and sighing in his presence.  It was this way before my mother died, and continued until he was well into stage 4 cancer.  My stepmom wore her jaw down by clenching it over many decades, and although she’s a very cool and aware person now, I can remember her kicking her foot through my plywood bedroom door, because I had locked it and wouldn’t come out. I never understood their anger, I just learned to get out of the unhappy way, and wait for the good part of them to return. I would run, hide out, dream, and wait for the wave to pass.  But the loneliness and fear in these moments didn’t stop me from growing up and doing the same kind of thing in my own household. (more…)