Dear Steve,

I am sorry that you have dealt with a father like this.

My mother and father were flawed but not mean or violent.
Because my mother has HUGE anxiety, she taught my siblings and me to be afraid. We were afraid of her, my father, and everything in the house. We spent most of our childhood and then teenage years outside in the yard, the nearby woods, with our farm animals, and with our neighbors.

From about age 8 to 17 I also spent hours a day pracitcing the piano and saxophone as a way to escape.

M