Why is it that alot of parents should really never have been parents?
I saw a quote today that made me laugh and wince at the same time
"My only goal as a mother- raise children that don't have to recover from their childhood."
Isn't that such a interesting concept- yet holds so true for so many of us?

Both my father and mother were pretty much completely absent from my life. My mother is bi polar. Which means she never had enough energy, or had too much. Meals were skipped, raids in our rooms were common, and her mood swings were like wreaking balls, coming with full force and from a different direction each time. I don't know if the moods were worse or the withdrawals. Times where I didn't know where she was even I when I was sitting right next to her. I learned from a very young age not expect a meal, let alone a shoulder to cry on from the first person who is supposed to provide security for you. Needless to say, I signed all my school permission forms, I learned to vary toast as much as could ( as in with cheese, with sugar and cinnamon, with ketchup ((seriously)) ) and I spend most of my days couch surfing on friends homes and switching it up enough that their parents wouldn't get suspicious. From a very young age I had to lie and pretend. I wanted to die inside every night I saw my girlfriends get kissed or the cheek or asked about school from their moms. It was like a special club everyone was in on but me.

It pains me that I had to pretend, because I think now maybe if I had just given up the jig, told somebody, or went to a counselor...I might have gotten help. It terrified me then to think of being placed in a boarder home...but now that I think about it, it would have been more consistent and secure than what I had been doing.

My father. Lord my father. A conundrum. In some ways he did alot and in others he fails me still. He did step in when I was 16 and took me to live alone with him. And I am thankful for that. But from 9-16 he left. Too tired, too weary, and just too frustrated with life with my mom, he left our home. Gone to California. Such a fucking cliche when I think about it, except the casualty of this cliche happens to be my life. By that time my two older siblings had graduated and were out of the house, my sister was in her senior year, and I was at most impressionable age. Seriously it's scientific. By 9 years old you identify your world and get your most defining outlooks or view on life. What I knew for sure was two things. I'm not worthy of attention. And that people never stay.

Once my sister graduated I had 3 long years of being alone with my mother. I was ignored, berrated, and often interrogated. It was like I was living with 3 evil step sisters all embodied in this short squat little woman. I will never forget with such clarity that I reluctantly came home one day and saw my moms friend Sam's car in the driveway. Sam was another like my mother. Bi polar and scary when she was unleashed. I walked in the door and saw them talking in the kitchen and at the sound of the door Sam looked at me with daggar eyes. Like I had done something wrong. I didn't want provoke anything so I went into the living room and switched on the computer. I waited as the stupid fucking dial up loaded like the piece of shit it is and heard them walk into the room. Taping my foot anxiously I tried to ignore them.
It started off easy
"So have you heard from your father?" Sam's voice dripped like acid. It was a laid out trap and I knew I could never walk out of sharp edges.
It became a bash session. Sam at the front whipping me on both sides, and what I remember most is my mother just sitting there. Just sitting there. No expression. Watching. Watching as this outsider, this violently loud woman spit things like "your father made your mother have kids, she didn't want any!" or "your father should've had a vasectomy!" Things you just never want to hear as a child, as a person, or as a spirit. I don't think I've ever been more scared or more hurt in my whole life watching my mother sit by and let me be torn to shreds. And I will never forget that feeling that I witnessed evil at such a young age.

Why am I saying all this? Because I'm 23 and unemployed and working dead end jobs my whole life. And I know they say don't blame your parents, but is it really blame to say I am so broken from not having any? I cry myself to sleep in one way or another every night. Whether because I am so terrified every day, or because I feel like a complete failure, or that I can't impress the very people who will never give me that satisfaction of recognition anyways...I dunno.
Bad night tonight. Can't do this anymore.