True that it wasn’t the same as real experience, but I disagree witht the real knowledge part. Espicially now that I have kids and can understand (read: have knowledge of) what a parent should do for its kids, and how that kid should feel about the parent.
I was able to understand the concept of parent/child love, and able to understand that what I got was nowhere near that. In fact, I was able to understand that the relationship I had with my biological mother (I still refuse to call her “mom”) was nearly an exact dichotomy with what I percieved as an ideal relationship should be.
What I mean is, yes I did wish for a certain thing, and no I never really experienced that thing, but I did experience enough to know what that thing would/could be like, and that just made me want it more.
I believe you can know what you are missing even when you haven’t experienced it. All I had to do was see the relationships other kids had with their parents. I also had very loving grandparents who I spent summers with when I was very young. Unfortunately they died and left me with a huge gaping hole in my life.
I also wished for someone who would be my mentor/guide through life. Eventually I discovered I just had to muddle through and make my own way.
While I did feel better about divorcing my family (I have barely any nightmares and I don’t cringe and stuff like I used to every time someone yells or I hear air brakes for example), letting go of even a dysfunctional family created huge holes in my life. I spent a lot of time angry that they were so messed up and then I wondered if it was something about me that inspired them to treat me like trash. I also didn’t really want to answer a lot of questions about why I was letting them all go. Luckily for me they knew why and no one has tried to contact me since I broke away. The people closest to me know what happened in my life and that I made the right decision to sever ties…
Ok that was kinda rambly… Oh well I hope it makes sense 