Venting about childhood.

After thinking about this some more, I had another memory. Because we lived in an apartment, my parents stored a lot of things in the close in my room. I remember discovering my father's stash of pornography around the age of 3-4, I also remember finding a lot of pornography around the apartment growing up. I think this has heavily contributed to my sexual dysfunction as an adult.

I've done a lot more thinking about this in the past few months as well as having some very deep and detailed discussions with my SO. She definitely seems to think my upbringing has had a major effect on me.
I'm still trying to put a lot of the pieces together so I guess I'll just use this post to chronicle some of the assumptions I've made and maybe spur some discussion.

After I was born my mother gained a lot of weight, like hundreds of pounds, she didn't even look like the same person. My dad was around the same age as I am now and as shallow as it may seem for me to think I know it must have been difficult for him to deal with that. I can think of many times growing up where his resentment was noticeable. I've had issues with partners and weight a handful of times in my relationships. I myself have gained and lost a lot of weight. I've dated larger girls, I've dated girls with eating disorders, and I've left a partner for gaining weight during the relationship.

I also noticed his anger towards my mother and the situation we had with money. She had a lot of debt and created a lot of debt throughout their relationship. I know this caused a lot of stress for them.

I didn't really understand it until I was older but neither of my parents had good relationships with their parents. They each had two siblings and were considered the 'least favorite' of the three if you could put it that way. I'm almost positive that was both of their reasoning for joining the military and ultimately meeting each other. I was told by my mother that I wasn't even supposed to ever meet my grandparents, that's how bad she despised her mother when she was younger. But due to financials they were both forced to try to get help from their parents. First we lived with my fathers parents for about a year and from what I was told it didn't work out so we moved across country to be with my mothers parents. Luckily they had a change of heart and were great grandparents, I had no idea how awful my grandmother was until I heard stories later in life. My dad currently has almost no relationship with his parents and neither do I as I've only met them a handful of times. I don't know if these relationships had a direct affect on me, but I'm sure it didn't help.

My SO has also commented on the fact that I'm an only child and how that may have contributed. We actually lived in a small neighborhood behind a meat packing plant that didn't have many kids so I didn't have many friends until attending school. I was always around my parents, their friends, and my grandparents. I was kind of forced to always be more mature than someone my age would normally be. Also, as I've mentioned before, during conflict I really had nowhere to go and I think I ended up internalizing a lot of things. I'm still learning a lot about myself at the age I'm at and I can't imagine my parents trying to explain complex situations like that to a child when they might not even understand it themselves.

Growing up my dad was my dad, but we were also friends, I don't feel like it was healthy, not in an abusive way, just in the way that it may have affected me negatively. My dad had to move across the country and start working long hours so he didn't have any friends and still doesn't have many to this day. I remember a lot of times where my dad would have a hard time acting as a parent because he didn't want to be the 'bad guy' or whatever. I also remember lying for my dad or covering for him sometimes to my mom. Sometimes when they would have big fights he would take me and we would just drive and he would talk to me about things I had no understanding of just to vent and because he had no one to talk to. Growing up this often gave me a very negative view of my mother hearing him say some of these things.

It may seem like I'm just ranting, but my posts on these forums are turning into a sort of journal for my thoughts. I feel like analyzing my life is helping my recovery. I feel I can better understand my behaviors and avoid acting out.