I like to call it "Emotional Instability". I was watching Donnie Darko, he says "Emotional problems, I have those. What kind does your father have?"

   A tale of 2 people... a legacy of physical and sexual abuse, passed on from generation to generation. They were both born into it, they didn't make the choice to be born to those parents. Everyone just trying to survive from day to day.... just trying to make it through their day. Everyone scared by it, The walking Wounded so to speak. They talk about the emotional trauma of War, the Trauma of killing or being killed. People around you, here today gone tomorrow. There is nothing like the Truama of a father Betraying a child, The person who is suppposed to protect you, to love you. Taking advantage of you. Either by Hitting you, or by committing the most narcissistic of crimes, using ones child for their own pleasure... sadistic or not. Violated in the one place a child should feel safest. I imagine most would rather be dead, rather be in war.

The tragedy in the tale... as is in that cycle... the tragedy is the children.  Having both parents struggle with being lucid, not sure what reality anyone is in. Dad the loving father reading christmas books or the father terrorizing his children in their beds. A mother unsure of what is going on, too afraid to find out, to ask or to look. A mother also sliding from reality to reality... struggling with her history of abuse. "Is this what love is? Is this what Sex is supposed to be? Dutiful submission. Masochistic toil? If I do these things... will it satisfy him, will he stop hurting the kids?

I have never understood religion, I don't need redemption. I haven't done anything. I live by the rules, I have a momentary laps and J-walk. I have trespassed. I once stole a candybar, but only for the thrill. This is not the same thing most people go to church for. It frightens me, to be in that place. To be in a place where people NEED salvation from the things they have done. Maybe I will go to hell for my candybar theft without confession, I doubt it. If there is Heaven I don't want to be there with those that sit in church. I will say, I don't want to sit in church with someone who needs salvation. I know it is judgemental, I get that in many ways they are powerless... so are the victims. There are many victims that never lift a finger, never lift a hand to their children... but who suffered none the less. I can decide to not sit in the same room with those that do need salvation. I would also add that salvation will never come by shoving your hands together and hoping. Like they say, even a miracle needs a hand. The worst part, when the religious Zellot decides... well if god isn't answering, then it must be what he intends. God must want it to happen, or he would stop it/me.

Imagine growing up in a household created by two very desperate emotionally unstable people, both hoping that god will provide and help to created a decent life for their kids. Children growing up with two parents who lack any form of lucidity or consistency, both who struggle with reality. Those children struggling in these realities, just trying to get the food/warmth/love that they so disparately need... in a place where those things are in short supply.

To quote Joseph Conrad ""The Horror! The Horror!,"