When I was growing up, my parents slowly became extremely religious and would constantly through a large portion of my life tell me that I was possessed or that I had demons and broken beyond repair. They used to have people from our church perform exorcisms on me. Sometimes they even did it themselves. This carried on until my early adulthood when I started college a few years ago. Up until college because of how isolated I was I genuinely believed that something was beyond deeply wrong with me because of their actions. (There was other stuff they did, but I don't feel comfortable going into the details).

This went on for years, and up until about the past year, I constantly questioned whether I was broken beyond repair.

Skipping a lot of details and skipping to now, things aren't fully better, but have become a significantly better, especially over the past three months. I think this is in part due to the fact that they are both in therapy now, despite how anti-therapy they used to be (and sort of still are). It’s a big shift, and honestly, part of me is glad they’re getting help.

But the thing is—I’ve been making jokes about it starting this week, specifically toward my dad. I’ve said things like “Better pull yourself together in 2 months?” (because when I was depressed, they once told me I had 2 months to fix it by ‘devoting myself more to God’). Or I’ll say stuff like, “It’s just in your head,” the same way they used to dismiss my mental health struggles. (They said a lot worse stuff to where this is barely anything, I just feel deeply uncomfortable getting into the specifics, but some of those comments I will also bring up).

To me, it feels like I can finally being able to bring it up by jokingly about it. I just spent so long being scared and ashamed of my own existence (and honestly still am) that now it’s like I can minorly bring it up.

I’ll note before closing out: I haven’t just been throwing jokes. I’ve actually stayed mostly silent about the past and have encouraged both of them to get into therapy over these past few months. And I'm scared by making these remarks it might make them less inclined to go. And I don't want them to think less of themselves for going. I just want to note past stuff. And for the first time, I feel like I have a way to do it jokingly so there's no tension. But now I'm second guessing myself. So… AITA? I'm just starting to feel guilty.