~If you don't like it, leave.

My whole youth... my whole concept of "family"... my whole concept of life...

That's all it ever was. That was always the bottom line.

I did two things, thinking that was reality... the way of life... the way you were supposed to be...

I learned how to get the people I loved to go when I "didn't like it", and I learned to leave... to hide... to protect myself by isolating myself... by shutting down. Yes, steel shutters.

The fact that it's not the bottom line all the time is a new concept to me. The word "try" is new to my vocabulary. The whole concept that someone might not be ok with my not liking something, and might want to make it so that I do like it, is difficult for me to trust as truth.

Some wounds take longer to heal than others.