[ChuckMcM]

Not sure that helps JP. As you can see from his response he doesn't see himself as being abused so yelling at him might not get the message through.

One of the weirdest things I've encountered was how much the brain internalizes its existence from a very young age. Without going massively philosophical on people the question of what is 'normal' is really really fluid. Nearly everyone I've met baselines their own childhood experience as 'normal' even though people have widely different sets of acceptable/unacceptable behaviors, language usage, religious views, Etc. These get injected into the pliable and undiscriminating brain of a child, and children of dysfunctional families usually can't express their discomfort as a function of their own upbringing because human brains don't work that way.

So while I agree the author would benefit greatly by deconstructing his earliest inputs and re-contextualizing them in a way that allows him to move forward with his life, that has to happen somewhat on his timeline.

[jpxxx]

Very well put. Here's to hoping this happens sooner rather than later.