mostly david ephgrave

I'm struggling to process the loss of both parents; one to cancer and the other to end a cycle of emotional abuse. My nerves feel utterly shot. The past year saw my relationship with my mum unravel through being built on unsteady ground. Whenever her expectations tested my boundaries, I still did my best to meet them. Some of my earliest memories are the lies she made me tell - to hide four affairs from my dad when I was a child, right up to her secretly getting married seven months before he died, yet refusing to tell him, and insisting I lie about that too. And though it wasn't fair to repeatedly put me in this position, I met her terms, because I loved her.  I was a witness at the wedding to show forgiveness to the two people who'd made my childhood so traumatic, yet within months, I was accused of homophobia by a solicitor my mum refused to correct. And she walked off from my dad's burial, seconds after I'd lowered his ashes into the grave, disappearing a...

I've had some difficult things to deal with in my lifetime, mostly at the hands of the same person, which are being compounded in a way I just don't know how to navigate. The problem is I can't say anything without them laying the blame back in my direction; their instinctive response is to compete: "But what about me ?". It's a mantra I was hearing long before I realised they were abusing their position, yet despite the fact they experienced similar things when they were younger, they won't link it. I worked hard to fight the demons left by their treatment ( "How can you say that?") and kept secrets that weren't mine to keep ("But I'm your --- "). The first eighteen years of my life were a vortex of toxic stress, confusion and fear ("How can you put this in public? It's embarrassing") but because of they were in a position of authority with a duty of care I thought it was my fault or saw myself as the gl...