Melanie - my relationship with my mother & sister is fairly minimal, and has minimal impact upon me thesedays ...I've seen them a fair bit recently because of my father's illness and death, and also I don't believe in denying my children the chance to know these people - I was prevented from having much contact with my grandparents because my mother had issues with them and her upbringing, and I resented being denied those relationships and being told what to think and feel about people I didn't really know, and so I will not do the same to my children I also believe, that the attitudes & actions of those people, albeit fairly toxic to me quite a lot of the time, are not deliberately toxic, and not something that they can easily rectify...and for all the negative things they've done, they did do some positive things too - if my mother hadn't birthed me and raised me, I would not be here today, and whether or not she did everything well, she dedicated her life to that, and she did what she did believing that it was in my best interests - so complete rejection, I feel, would be a hurtful insult to her. I do care a little about them both, but I have learnt to keep myself at what is a "safe" distance for me...but that doesn't mean that things from the past don't still hurt, it means that they can no longer hurt me going forwards. Joanna - I don't really have the privilege of discussing my father with my therapist as I'm still seeing her, but in a minimal, kind of emergency measures way - I have talked a little about him when I first started therapy, and my therapist did express her concern to me that I wasn't allowing myself to grieve, but I just don't feel the need to. I just find it curious that he did some pretty bad stuff, and never apologised for it, but I don't resent him like I do my mother In death - he knew I loved him, and I know he loved me - what else is there to say or know? I guess in my head, I have my mother constantly berating me, and my therapist bolstering me up and making me stand up to her and believe in myself, my father's voice isn't there, it never has been! I think it's because, in spite of the aggression & violence, he did love us, I don't feel any doubt that he loved me and cared about me...whereas my mother, I don't think she loves me, and I don't think she ever has done.