"Darkness. Imprisoning me. All that I see. Absolute horror. I can not live. I can not die. trapped in myself. Body my holding cell." -Metallica

Had class again tonight. For some reason this class is very triggering for me. (This would be the same class that I had to stare at my paper and pretend to be busy, so as not to catch the eye of the teacher and start to cry.)

Lecture was about the feminist perspective in family therapy. Tried to find a link online for you to get the gist, but to no avail. So basically the concept of it is that traditional family therapy is all pro-masculinity which doesn't work in the world today where gender roles aren't so well defined as they once were. The feminist perspective on couples and family therapy promotes an understanding between the sexes that they do in fact perceive, communicate, and understand things in the world differently....kind of what the book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus is based off of.....it's much more complicated than this, but without typing up all my notes from class on here, I don't think I can do it justice. It's pretty deep.

At the end of class we had to fill out this paper of 10 questions about how we were raised by our parents and how our family of origins shaped our perceptions of gender and what all that means to us now. I couldn't handle it. It was really hard for me to come up with a lot of answers to those questions because memories from my childhood are so fragmented. My parents were divorced by the time I was 2. My mom had custody of me and she married another man-- the father of my middle three siblings-- until I was about nine or ten.....but I don't have many memories of this time.....none of which involve my mother or father, but also, none of which were good.

I remember being 2 and my ex step dad shaking me and yelling at me until I peed on the floor....and then he made clean it up.....I remember being little and him not letting me go to sleep until I recited the Catholic bedtime prayer which I don't think he'd taught me before then....

I have memories about going to my dad's house for visitation and being beaten by my ex step mom with a belt....and her sister burning my foot with a cigg because me and my step brother wouldn't settle down...I remember hiding with another little girl named Tracy who was some relation or another from the ex step mom's brother in law and him catching us and touching us and making us touch him....

but....none of my memories include my parents. So answering these questions, like "How did your parents model gender roles?" or "What did your parents tell you about how boys/girls are supposed to act?" or "What messages did your parent's give you about how men and women act in relationships?"......these questions are damn near impossible to answer. By the time memories started to stick, so to speak, my mother was my only source of influence on these things....and she was busy dating and drinking by then.

Needless to say...I completely felt like shit by the end of class. Everyone in my group had these great answers about their traditional families and how "mom did this" and "dad did that"....but I was to ashamed to share much. I felt...once again....like a leper in a sea of normalcy. My views of men are a bit jaded....and I was taught to survive by being independent, quiet, and not to show weakness. My life and upbringing were anything but normal.....and I am so ashamed....I have been carrying shame all my life...

On top of all this...my step mom called and told me that my father is cheating on her again....to catch you up to speed, she caught him for the forth time over Christmas break....and all hell ripped through this side of the family....me stuck in the middle holding my tongue....

I have to get out of here. I really do.