When I was very young, my father used to whip me for making noise. He used his belt and switches made from tree branches to spank my bare bottom. He used to carry me out of church and spank me in the parking lot if I didn’t sit still.

My mother suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, and she developed a delusional system that involved our preacher, our preacher’s son and me. She thought she was actually married to the preacher, and that the preacher’s son and I were twins. The people in the church decided that she needed to go to some kind of Christian treatment center. My mother wasn’t willing to go on her own, so the preacher and several of the men in our church literally kidnapped my mother and took her to this place. They did this right in front of me. I was four years old. My father let them. He did not try to consol me in any way.

The “pray away the psychosis therapy” didn’t work of course, and my mother was soon sent home. My father didn’t have my mother committed to a real hospital where she received professional and effective care from real doctors until I was a senior in high school. It took him all that time to finally accept that my mother had a real illness and that she wasn’t acting crazy out of spite, and that she wasn’t simply going to snap out of it. It took him all that time to figure out that she was mentally ill and it was up to him to make medical decisions for her because he was her husband. By then, my sister had graduated from high school four years before, and I was about to graduate in a few weeks.

Even though my mother was seriously ill, my father generally left it up to her to take care of my sister and me. He was raised to believe that looking after kids was “women’s work.” He showed very little interest in me as a person, as an individual with specific needs and my own perspective on the world. He never showed much interest in wanting to get to know me. I never noticed his face lighting up when he saw me. And every day he let me know what a bother it was to go to work to support me financially. When I was older, he used to sneer and look down on me for not being the kind of boy he expected. He would actually smirk when he thought I wasn’t being masculine enough.

When I figured out I was gay when I was 11, I felt I had to keep this a secret from everyone around me for my own personal safety. I did not trust anyone with this information, least of all my family, and especially my father. He had given me every indication that he wouldn’t be sympathetic or understanding. He had given me every indication that he wouldn’t even try to be sympathetic or understanding. He wasn’t interested in understanding me, the real me. He only wanted to see what was comfortable for him, which wasn’t much. Those first sexual and romantic feelings are delicate and fragile, and he would have smashed mine given half the chance.

Two years after I graduated from high school, my father had a massive heart attack. He survived, but he never fully recovered. His health became his primary focus for the last twenty-one years of his life. Even when I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, he was mainly concerned with his own health. After I had surgery to remove the tumor and was sent home, a clear liquid started coming out of my nose. I asked my father to call my doctor to see if this was anything to be concerned about. My father came back and informed me that the doctor had told him that I needed to get to the ER in Morgantown--a three hour’s drive--as quickly as possible. When I was being admitted, I was told that cerebral fluid was coming out of my nose and this was a life threatening situation. I needed emergency surgery to correct it. While I was being admitted, my father scolded me for being too active following my first head surgery. The nurse had to inform him that the situation was not my fault. After surgery, I wasn’t feeling so great, of course. My father stood by my bed and talked about how all the excitement had really gotten to him and he was sure it would cause him to have another heart attack.

I was in therapy throughout most of my twenties. I had to sort out my feelings of disappointment, regret, anger. I had to admit to myself that I had needs. When I was growing up, I needed to be cared for, nurtured and loved. I needed to feel safe and wanted and respected. And because these needs were not fully met, I had every right to be angry and disappointed. After that, I was able to look at the world through my parents’ eyes. They were who they were. I saw them as deeply flawed and limited people who did the best they could. I loved them, and I know they loved me in their crazy, twisted way.

Of course that doesn’t erase what happened. The anger is still there, the disappointment, the regret. And the effects of what happened are still with me--the PTSD, the depression, the mood swings, the social phobia. I’ve become a deeply flawed and limited person myself. But I loved my parents. I miss them every day. And even though life for me isn’t what it could have been or should have been, even though I’m insane and I don’t really fit in anywhere, most of the time I’m glad I survived, glad I’m here.