I'll be 49 soon but I thought like OP, I'd never make it past 30. I still looks back at my first 20 years and if a pill existed to erase the memories of those years I would do so, without hesitation. I cannot believe the people that surrounded me before I turned 20 were pure trash, including fucks with my last name.
I know how you feel. I think back and just say, "it shaped me into what I am." I know it was fucked up beyond belief and I've had shrinks just say I was outright lying about some of it. My brother and I tell my mom stuff and she's just amazed we never even told her what was going on. Honestly, we thought it was normal.
I stopped the "talk therapy" when one of them said "are you sure it happened like that OR how you thought you perceived it?"
Oh good lord. Yeah. I went to one of those. I went to another to try to get out of an abusive relationship. He insisted I bring my bf and then told me to tell him all the crap that happened to me in childhood, that way he could use it against me and knew exactly how to manipulate me. It was great.
I've been to a ton of talk therapists and I can only think of two that were any good. The one risked her license by telling me to leave him and that she would help. The problem was that she was a drunk and kept missing our appointments. I couldn't rely on her for advice or help.
The one psychiatrist I went to as an adult threatened to toss me in the looney bin (the court appointed ones when I was a kid...don't even get me started), which is exactly what the guy I was trying to leave was saying he would do since his friend did it to his girl. Sigh. Fuckers.
Some do want to help and really can. Others are hacks. I guess it's like anything else.
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