Hey my name is Zainab and I didn't know until I was in my mid 30s and went to counseling that....TW

Good for you for going to counseling and working through your feelings. 👏💛

It's crazy how certain things seem normal when you grow up with them. Glad you're working through these things

This is common. People normalise some difficulties as part of life when they are actually abuse.

I’m so sorry ur just discovering this in ur 30s bt Just curious on how u didn’t know. Why did it therapy to uncover it.
I realized I was fucked up based on how I was raised when I was a teenager & it’s not until I took some intentional time away from my parents in my 20s & the rest of my toxic ass family to realize that I was not raised in the healthiest environments. And then I became the black sheep once the healed version of me started calling out the dysfunction. Bt because I knew I was fucked up, I found myself happily single, never wanting to get married or have kids until I met my Husband of course bt I knew I couldn’t get married or have kids until I was fully healed. I don’t want to pass down generational stuff to my kids just like my parents did with me. Ive always been so hyper aware of these things, bt my older sister who grew up in the same home has always had trouble recognizing what went wrong in our childhood, we are both in our 30s bt our lives look so different.

It will be such a rewarding experience! I can’t imagine growing up in a situation like this, but kudos to you for having the strength and courage to start unpacking these feelings and trauma!

As a therapist I want to say this is so common.
To the point that I only realized the first relationship I was ever in was abusive because of what I learned in grad school. I spent a decade saying "it was wild, but it doesn't really affect me" until one day I realized "oh its affected every relationship I've had since and my views on myself - fuck". No one around me thought it was weird or if they did they didn't say so to me so I thought it was normal.
We all live in our own perspective so we only know what we are presented with.

Meant to hit “started counseling too”