What's a book that can remind me that I am not defined by my emotionally absent alcoholic father with depressive tendencies who is now dead? There's this constant fear that I will end up just like him because we are more similar than I am willing to admit, and it's making it impossible for me to use this opportunity to heal and unlearn the ideologies he corrupted me with at a young age. I'm open to whatever applies, but a book from an evolutionary or psychological perspective would be interesting: how our viewpoints are shaped by those who raise us and ways we can remember to separate ourselves from their existence, something like that. I'd also like to read something that examines these complexities: When a parent struggles with mental health and is using substances to cope, how can you empathize with their experiences without invalidating your own? How can you stop yourself from carrying resentment towards someone you didn't share a whole lot of happy memories with and will never receive the chance to find a common ground? At which extent do they turn into a human being you can observe from an objective standpoint? Anything that provokes these questions and more, please.
by Ok-Yoghurt-6613