I've found myself and my very own happiness, but fortunately this "family" will never be a part of it. You always did say we put the 'fun' in dysfunctional but I never understood how disappearing once a year on the very day that you released the biggest mistake of your [life could be a functional relationship. You say that I fill the very hole in your heart but [why are you digging one in mine. You say that we are just like any other family, but other families hug each other, weird I know. You say that everybody deals with their pain in different ways, but I don't remember any of my friends telling me that their parents would take their paroxysm and give it to them as birthday presents. I still quiver with fear when I hear the word love because I link it with pain. "I hurt you because I love you" "It is only because I love you" "Love" is not an reassurance to hurt someone. I have found out that breaking a cup is not an actual reason to hit a kid. I have found out that telling someone that your parents words are sharper than shards of glass is not a reason to have liquid soap [poured down your throat. I have found out that calling emergency services is okay when you do not feel cleansed after drinking PalmOlive, they might have mistaken it for cough syrup demanding to purge me of this sickness but needing to be rushed to the hospital, but it's okay because you love me right? when they asked what had happened and you said I did it to myself and I was astonished but it's okay because you were doing it for me, -right? I have found that when you leave tragedy from those shards of glass on your legs that your parents will disregard it and mistake it for comedy but I am not a playwright. You forgot to notify me that the bedtime stories you use to tell me were fantasies of me {dying. I have learned it is not normal to send your child to a madhouse when you simply do not want them to go on vacation with you. I have learned that a trip to the sanitarium is the only vacation I'll getΒ Β and if you inform your child that they have shattered their family against the very ground that holds them, it will almost always engulf them in their very own straight jacket. I have finally learned that love does not mean tight knuckles and I have learned that happiness is not painful.