Background: My mother is volatile and has a significant amount of childhood trauma. She would threaten to leave the family at random times. She took the car and left for a day or two at a time. My siblings were older and it stopped phasing them, but my sister and I begged each time for her not to leave. She threw stuff at us all the time and then repeatedly told us that she’s the only person to love us. My dad would hit the living daylights our of us for the smallest things. He 100% has OCD or OCP and a huge temper. He would never get physical with my mother but he’d given us bruises and my oldest brother got a fracture.

Anyways, the first time I was in middle school, and I went to a sleep over party, I was shocked at how a family behaves. Then, I went to my second sleep over and I figured out by then that my family wasn’t functional.

My siblings 100% knew but I only realized once I visited other homes. I found it so weird and I should have realized something was up when kids talked so highly of their parents.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents and they are better at handling themselves but they were super dysfunctional