Reply #119: That is quite similar [View All]

[neebob]

except that religion played a lesser role with me. One of the things I struggle with is how bad it really was vs. the level of crap feelings I have.

I used to think they were just the normal way to feel. I might not have become aware of them at all, if not for a ruinous relationship with a psychopath I met on the internet. I wrote a book about that and came pretty close to getting it published three years ago. Then I recognized my dad's hand in my relationship history, and then he died, and I got into it with my mom, and it morphed into this big unresolvable thing.

I need to rewrite the end of my book, but I struggle with how much and what to say because my mom is still alive and in a dozen different kinds of denial, and I've added enough to her grief. Plus I want to end on a positive note, not pinning everything on parents who had good intentions and weren't entirely bad. But the bottom-line answer to why I let the psychopath stay for two years lies in how I was raised, so I need to talk about my parents. I feel the need to resolve those issues before I rewrite the ending and try to publish the book again.

I have ordered some books: If You Had Controlling Parents, Cutting Loose, and The Wounded Woman. I can't remember the subtitles. I'm hoping these will help me figure things out. I also ordered Predators, Prey, and Other Kinfolk: Growing Up in Polygamy by Dorothy Solomon, mostly just to see how she structured her memoir. I'm always checking out other people's memoirs. You might find Solomon's book helpful, too, and I'm sure there are other memoirs of religious childhood oppression.