therapy....

[nats]

well, it WAS normal for you guys so it makes sense that it's hard to connect with other people's ideas of normal and how extreme it may seem to them. think of it like a cultural difference in that you can identify that to most people your upbringing was extreme but that's not the same as feeling it, anymore than someone who grew up on a rubbish tip might feel it as extreme in the same way as someone seeing it from the outside. there is a very good novel 'Room' that tells a story of abuse from the perspective of a lady's 5yr old son to whom it was just normal life.

so, maybe the question isn't why you can't connect this in the past but whether you can identify that this is not how you would want yourself or others to live now.