Need to stop hating myself.

[hunter]

7. I don't know if this will help you or not. Ignore it if it's not helpful.

My dad's dad was autistic-spectrum rocket-scientist. An engineer who's greatest pride was his work on the Apollo space project. He was a wizard with titanium. He was also an officer during World War II. He wanted to fly and work with airplanes but they put him to work keeping "crazy" people deemed essential to the war effort out of jail. Handsome young officer carrying the "Get Out Of Jail Free" card. His wife, my grandma was intelligent too, but with what would now be called a severe anxiety disorder.

My mom's ancestors were just plain crazy, nineteenth century European pacifists, religious misfits, runaways to America's wild west. Clueless about ordinary people but they knew cattle and horses. My mom's mom was so crazy that me and my many siblings always thought, "Why in the hell do all these older people treat her like she's sane?" It made no sense. When my wife first met my grandma, my grandma told her a very long story about a dog she'd known back in the early 'thirties.

My dad's an artist and occasional scientist, my mom is a writer-editor. Me and my mess of siblings had an entirely feral childhood. A house full of books and magazines, my parents' crazy friends, watching Saturday morning cartoons with random eccentric people who'd spent the nights sleeping on the sofa. Rescue dogs. LPGA lesbian golfers. Hairy harmless naked old Santa Claus dudes who didn't lock the bathroom door. Etc...

Anyways I never got any training in guilt or shame or authority and I think that saved my life. My only learned responsibility was to do what was right. My conscience is still that.