My siblings and I grew up with a terrible disease. That disease became part of how we related to each other each and every day. That disease became much bigger than us and infiltrated our interactions and burdened our relationships. When our parents dropped the ball, we stepped in both to help by trying to take over responsibilities our parents were ignoring and to hurt, by taking our pain out on each other. We grew to have way too much power over each other. We took advantage of each other’s vulnerability as often as we helped each other through and that made our relationships very confusing. As I get healthier, I can see this more clearly and that hurts a lot. We formed traumatic bonds in the living in the trenches with active addiction. We weren’t really young together. We couldn’t really move through our developmental stages freely trusting our parents to keep us safe.

                I can see how the disease affected us

You can’t necessarily trust your eyes if your mind is out of focus.

Mark Twain