Scary to think about really, probably a lot more messed up because I wouldn't have gone and gotten any help for my depression and anxiety, they were an avenue for someone to talk to about my problems, which led me to getting some real help. They helped me a lot and well they pretty much raised me for a while when shit got real bad.

It's just there were some really awfully bad circumstances that made them act pretty scary for a while: my brother's death, my mum's severe depression where she felt it was her fault, my dad going off to Iraq, my mum very nearly dying due to a baby growing outside her womb, my dad's PTSD, my mum cheating on my dad and using us as an excuse to see the guy, us having to lie for her to our dad, our dad getting super paranoid over what's going on, days and nights of constant fighting and arguing between our parents, my mum wanting to kill herself, followed by her developing a mental illness that made her switch personalities every so often, I then developed a mental illness and became severely depressed and my sister has the same too, followed by the abortion my ex girlfriend had and then my uncle was severely injured in an accident and just about managed to live through it. He's fine now.

There's way more that happened in the span of 6-7 years that if I didn't have a means to escape, which was going to my aunt and uncle's house, I think I would have been a pretty fucked up adult in the end. They're as much my parents as my mum and dad are and taught me a lot.

It was a crazy knock on effect that my parents found difficult to handle. When you have things constantly going wrong, there's just not much you can really do, people always say "just stay strong" but chances are you won't be able to, not without help anyway, particularly if you have children piling on the stress.

The only thing that held them back was that they refused to get help, my dad did eventually and he's better off for it. My mum, not so much.

Mind you my parents weren't bad people, I know they don't sound that great right now, but in fact they're pretty great people and the way my dad treats my baby sister makes me pretty jealous that she gets it so easy.

It also makes me happy that she may never experience what we went through, I'm happy for her and I'm happy that my dad finally found happiness, my mum is getting there. We never went hungry and they did a fantastic job bringing us from severe poverty into quite a comfortable life in the end, despite the awful circumstances. I appreciate it, even if they did hit me and I kept secrets from them and couldn't turn to them for help, I'm glad they're changing.

I have already forgiven them, for everything and I hold nothing against them, no honestly.

I mean not ready to start being open with them yet though, they still get very touchy about some things, but maybe a couple years from now they'll be ready and a lot more open minded. That's currently our issues, I'm very open minded and they're still very narrow minded, leading to intense clashes at times.