My parents are addicts, they fought a lot my whole life, though rarely (not never) physically.
My dad was arrested when I was 4. It happened while I was in the car, I remember we got pulled over for expired tags and my dad had a failure to appear warrant so they searched the car and he had crack, too. So they took him away for longer and my family became homeless shortly afterwards.
We lived in a homeless shelter, a car, a broke down rv in a liquor store parking lot, a shed in someone's backyard, and various illegal rental situations over the years. My mom's family helped move us across the country when I was 13 from California to Arkansas, which was the first time I had my own room since I was 4
My parents did always have high expectations of me and instilled a lot of positive values and virtues in me, too, though. My dad taught me to be generous to others because you don't know what issues they're dealing with, and my mom always stood up for her principles even in the face of professional and personal disaster.
Both the good and the bad influenced who I am today. I feel an obligation to kids who grew up like I did because I know I was lucky. So I work to change public policy to better address the needs of poor and marginalized people and communities.
This sounds really difficult too. I'm glad you're working to help other people in similar situations. A sense of obligation can be a great motivating factor, as long as you don't let guilt from not being able to do more swallow you up.
MFBKBass5 posted...
Luckily it came to me very naturally even from early on. Have always been an extremely empathetic person, and I was clearly the outcast of my family because Id actually express how I felt about things.
My parents tried to force me into therapy as a kid/get me tested for ADD/all sorts of shit because I was different from them. My mom would call me bipolar without any clear understanding of what that actually meant. I was the rebel of my family, as my brothers grew up to be exactly like my dad.
If I ever have a family, Id make sure its 100% opposite of what mine is like. It sucks, because I never really got to know any extended family(they live on the other side of the country), and my immediate family and I are not close at all. Sometimes it feels like I straight up dont have a family.
That's good. I was the same way, but it still took me a long time to really work myself out of that mindset. I had plenty of therapy when I was younger too, but for something completely unrelated that's probably a bit tmi for a public forum.
DespondentDeity posted...
If anything, it left me formless, I didn't have an identity.
I'd say you built one up for yourself now though. I had a lot of identity/body related issues growing up for obvious reasons, but I remember always feeling worried that I'd forget who I was at some point.