The thing they never tell you about addicts is that they have a way of getting inside your head like no one else. Addicts come in all shapes and sizes and their vices vary from drugs, to sex, to loneliness. But nothing satiates them like grasping on to something comfortable. Enter someone comfortable, that someone is me I guess, or all of the someones like me. The thing I never understood about an addict is despite lack of power over their own decisions, nothing seems to cripple their overwhelming grip on your psyche. I have found my self convinced time and time again that my memories are wrong. The way I see life is wrong. the foundation that I built the idea of "me" is faulty and misinterpreted. I have been shown a "true story", my real "reality" and it varies greatly from the one in my head. That is the thing about having a parent as an addict that no one tells you about. Your reality, your truth, your pain, your insurmountable agony is a falsehood. They find a way to wrap their idea of what your life is in a neat little bow and deliver to others in front of you to make the story of your life more palatable and less horrifying. Some are addicted to lying but these are not the addicts I am discussing here. The ones that ruin you the most are the ones that are addicting to rewriting, erasing, and proofreading your life for you so that every polluted memory seems like just a bad dream instead of reality. They write and rewrite your story to anyone that will listen. These kinds of addicts are the most harmful. They are the home wreckers, the abusers, the thieves, the innocent yet incarcerated. The thing they never tell you about people who are addicted to telling you your abuse was made up, is that you have a choice whether or not you let them tell your narrative. You have a choice in having a voice of your own and writing your own story.