Thread by @BiasedGirl

Since so many of you are new Peeps of mine... and because I'm feeling like tweeting about it... Domestic Violence Awareness Month holds significance for me for very personal reasons... 20 years ago, on November 8th, 1998, my father murdered my mother, then killed himself.

My father wasn't "physically" abusive to me while I was growing up, not in the way you'd imagine, He did like to choke me when he was really angry. I just didn't realize that this wasn't normal behavior. At some point when a friend witnessed it in horror, I figured it out.

He struggled with a number of issues that could have led to this horrendous, selfish act. He had a traumatic brain injury, he could have had CTE, he definitely suffered with depression and mental illness of some kind.

Not one of them is an excuse for what he did that day.

He was controlling, obsessive and could be violent. All the classic *signs*... but the signs weren't talked about back then and I don't think any of us knew what to do with the "signs" we had seen.

As a Kid I blamed myself, he let me know early and often that I had ruined his life,

If only he hadn't had a kid, gotten married... then He could have had the life he wanted.

Obviously, he took no blame on himself. It was always someone else's fault.

His parents, my mom and of course me.

We were the scapegoats for his internal struggle.

And we were punished for it.

My heart breaks nearly every day that they aren't here to be a part of our lives.

Time doesn't heal all wounds, that is a lie. It merely dulls the pain.

No family should ever have to go through what we went through.

He took away so much from me... and I miss him still.