If you are like me, you may be super-high functioning in certain areas (writing, helping people, being a loving and creative mom) and practically disabled in others (keeping your house clean, changing a fuse, asking for what you need, ).
Growing up in a family that struggled with issues of alcoholism, codependency, divorce, mental illness, middle-class insecurities and owning-class entitlements didn’t give me every tool I needed for life. My parents and stepparents did an awesome job of working with the tools they were given to the best of their abilities, and I have a close, loving, mutually respectful relationship with all four of them.
However, each of them (like pretty much all of us) were given only a partial tool box to start with. (more…)