This doesn't seem to be the most active group, but here I go anyway.

My parents divorced when I was 1. It's a little complicated. My mother has a bunch of issues because she was raped as a teen (I believe). I think she's bipolar and probably borderline. My dad's not far off. A few months after I was born, my father began work on my half brother. He met his second cousin (married in?) at a family reunion of some kind, and they apparently hit it off. The woman was crazy, vain, and self centered. My mother was as well, but she didn't put out because of past traumas and religious issues. Growing up, people referred to this woman as "your aunt" instead of "your stepmother" to bring attention to the family relation. After my brother was born, they got married. My father tells me this was done on the day the divorce was finalized, to be symbolic.

Basically, their relationship is a very long rebound. My father lovingly tells me that I look "just as beautiful as the day I met your mother", in front of his wife of how ever many years. When I was younger, my parents used me to fight with each other. They would argue about visitation days all the time. One of those times, my father actually moved to a new residence. There would be either verbal or physical fights with other relatives involved concerning visitations. Lawyers were involved, too. I remember going to his office to have information extracted.

My mother found the first loser that would look at her in a trade school and married him. He ended up sexually abusing me in kindergarten. They fought all the time, and I was reprimanded for trying to beat him off of her. (I thought this was "the right thing" to do-- you know, defend her, fight someone ten times your size because it's the right thing to do.) She pretended the fights didn't happen because she wanted my father to be jealous of their relationship.

The whole thing was basically one big, fat nightmare. My earliest memories of my parents are of them fighting over me. It's not that they wanted to see me, they just wanted something to fight about. Neither one of them really noticed that I wasn't normal or okay. My dad thought I was just shy because I was a nerd or something. Once I got older, my mom blamed my mood swings and self isolation on my periods (which is semi-fair because I have PMDD). Both of my step parents mistreated me in their own ways. My step dad, as earlier mentioned, sexually abused me, while my step mother just did things like pulling my hair while putting it into a pony tail, hitting my head with the brush.

The end result is just severe disappointment. Nobody noticed me, and nobody noticed each other. I have no idea where the hell everyone was looking, because even as a child, I noticed everything that was going on between these people. I remember thinking my "aunt" is just a bad person because she's sad inside. That's what they say about mean people, "they're sad and dead inside". I even tried to ask her why she was so sad so she could be nicer to me. I wanted to know why she hated me. I tried to fix my step parents by forgiving them and being nice, but they ran me the f*** over. My stepfather stopped abusing me for a few years, and I thought it was because I forgave him. I thought his religion helped him become a better person or something, but he just didn't have the opportunity at the time. When the opportunity came back, so did the abuse. I have problems forgiving minor mistakes now, and being overly forgiving of more severe mistakes. I don't know how to be normal; I don't know anyone who is.