@freeschool The goal of my upbringing from parents, authoritarian church leaders, fundamentalist thinking was to require conformity and deference to their power and magical thinking. I never believed any of it, but i had no choice but to pretend and over the years feel like i was living a death. It's impossible to say past what-ifs, changes, differences -- we are where we are because we are where we are.

My upbringing told me to not be proud of myself in any way and that any success was the direct result of parental/god's doing, not my own. What I've done is work to (still continually) shed that nonsense, destructive thinking over time to grow into somebody who that little kid never thought could exist. I have traveled, met amazing people, and grown beyond the tiny little emotionally non-existant and manipulative world that I was expected to live in until I died.

What I've done is not succeeded in drinking myself to death. Being told since birth that you're a worthless "sinner", and the "that's okay because god loves you part and can save you" makes NO sense and nobody even cares to attempt to have an actual discussion about it and the only safety you can create as a kid is to figure out what your caregivers want you to say to be proud of it, and eventually being able to move past that is a success I count for myself that I have reached despite my upbringing.