I share what I do with you, Hubski, because I enjoy being surrounded by your thoughts and I can feel the humanity in your posts. This story is mine and I don't share it with many people, hope it doesn't suck the happiness out of you like it did to me.

@kleinb00, I don't often hit my breaking point. It could be that my tolerance is high for stress, but it does affect me. Last time I just couldn't handle it anymore was three years ago. And only the next day did I regain my drive to keep on keeping on.

My parents have been divorced for 20 years or so, and they've been to court more times than grades of school there are in the US. Which hopefully gives you an idea of how often the floor fell out from underneath my family. Never was there a period longer than a couple months that serious consideration was had over who should have custody of us children or who should pay whom for whatever failure to pay or perform some action demanded in the ruling from the judge in the last case. No worries, I didn't know any different, it's still hard to imagine what roles each parent would have in a two parent house hold.

I was 17 and living in the American pacific northwest with my father for the summer and winter breaks. Otherwise, I resided in Tennessee. Things were looking up with no real quarrels between my parents or them and us children. My father was housing sector when the economy crashed, so at this point, he was living with his parents and was doing handyman work wherever he could find it. During the summers when there was work to be found, I had worked long hours with him. At the point he had actually married again out of the blue when he reconnected with a lost significant other.

My sister was dealing with urinary tract problems, and had been in and out of the hospital. At some point while we were up there without our older brother, she started to have more problems. My grandfather alone with her, asked where she was hurting. When she couldn't describe it he asked it was hurting here, as he put his hand on her pelvic region but not on her genitals. Sister was not comfortable with this, and called our older brother. He apparently had some info that we did not. When we first started going out there to spend the summers and winters with our father, our aunt mentioned that all things should be fine... but keep an eye on him, because he had molested (I do not know the extent of this which is why I chose the softer word choice here knowing that they have two different meanings) her when she was just younger than my sister then. I didn't learn this until my father put us both back on a plane home out of fear and wanting to keep anything bad from possibly happening.

Haven't been back sense. Most of the reason why is because when my mother and the children demanded an explanation, my father took my grandfather's side and said that my sister had overreacted (she has a tract record of being a bit dramatic). We also got older and money got tighter from the following court case, so we couldn't fly out anyway. I believe the original divorce attorneys skipped town after the divorce case because it was so terrible. Not all of the t's were crossed and there was no end date for child support or something like that.

About three years after that summer, my father's name was still on the mortgage for mother's house. A quit-claim was filed, and yet the case was continued. I believe the state had screwed up records or the laws had changed sometime before we became adults and my father had paid too much money in child support. I'm not sure to be honest. In any case, some how my father's credit was being weighed down my my mother's late payments for the mortgage when things were hard again. He wanted the house to be foreclosed upon. My sister and I were still living in the dorms and dependent upon my mother financially.

It really sucked, for what my inner child felt, that my father wanted to put us out on the street. My relationship with him up till that point was complicated. There were times when I didn't want to be anywhere else but right next to him, and yet there were other times when I couldn't force myself to be in his presence. After the incident with my sister and our grandfather and the reaction from my father and his side of the family, I couldn't pick a side in the argument. I've always been like that; always looking for evidence and trying to remain as objective as possible even at the expense of relationships with individuals on either side of the quarrel. But here, I knew from the beginning where I stood, and it hurt my father tremendously after the trial, that I witnessed with an ever sickening stomach as did the judge who presided over the case, to not hear an "I love you too" from me. Clinging to his wife's arm in one hand and white-knuckle clutching a cane, his eyes shed tears as he said I love you again. All I could say was, "I know."

And it tore me up on the inside to know the pain that I caused him. I looked upon him when he clearly felt like he had no other alternatives but us or him. Years of kneeling in the mud and working in the burning sun put him in a such a condition that he had to give blood to rid himself of excess iron in his blood and that he had to move about with a cane. "Sink or swim." What else could he have done? Do I really think he should have bitten the bullet for a little while longer?

I had watched my mother on the witness stand, feeling like a soldier rushing into battle knowing death is the only possible outcome. She cried as she said her home is her workroom and business. Taking that away robs her of the chance to make it in the world. What once was a determined and emotionless mask that was the judge's face had turned into a grim, defeated expression. There could be no winners in this fight. Mother did not lose the house, and I got a warm place to sleep for an extended time, a time after which if she had not gotten her mortgage refinanced the house would certainly be foreclosed upon. I was back in school after winter break, but the only bits of knowledge I hung on to were how to survive in the wild. I learned how to make fire, how to spot food, how to build traps, what kind of clothes are necessary to not freeze, what kinds of shelters are the warmest, eventually how to make cordage, a little urban survival as well. I watched and rewatched Survivorman, and online videos, and I browsed online forums as well. These were the most stressful months of my life so far, and it's entirely possible that I'll never be able to top them. If you want to know how it turned out, the mortgage was bought by a family member and foreclosure was avoided. Yet money is still tight. Some months, I pay my bills and some of hers too.

It's been three years since that court case, and I'm looking to graduate in a year. My brother has a child now. My siblings have opened up communications with my father again, and he wants to talk to me too. It makes me shake thinking about it. Have you ever heard the common saying that family is forever? Have you ever thought that you might be better off without whomever that person is? In the 3 years since the last court case, I've come up with and understanding that I can forgive him, but I don't have to forget or let him back into my life. But, now he's pushing even hard to get in touch and resolve the tension between us.

Most times when I think about it, I'm calm now. But every now and then, the anger reddens my eyes again.