Tempest Opens Up

I feel the need for a moment of true confessions so perhaps anyone who cares can understand a little bit about the real person behind this persona I have created. I am an extremely defensive person, although I was not physically abused by my parents. I was psychologically belittled, although they didn't intend to be cruel. My father was a very OCD college professor (he's still alive but he's confined to a wheel chair after having suffered a major stroke) and nothing I did was ever good enough to please him. My mother has a degree of borderline personality disorder (I do too, learned it from the best) and would fly off the handle and belittle everything I tried to do. I ended up feeling like I was not worthy to say no even if I didn't want something and I got used  throughout my life by predatory people. It is very hard for me to open up to people and I tend to defend myself against what others would just ignore.