Not a single word. I could have known. I should have known. Truth is, in our family we don't talk about that topic. I guess it's too painful and after all, what is there to say? It happened and we have to live with it. No wonder I have never known how to deal with it until I asked my therapist.
The first thing everyone learns in therapy is that all the bad things that ever happened to you are really your parent's fault. Come to think of it, parenting is really an impossible job. The only logical consequence is that no one should ever have kids. Problem solved, right? Well, almost.
The second thing you learn in therapy is that your parents are people, too. They have their own history (including their own parents) and their own struggles. And different from me, on top of those struggles they had to take care of children. Not sure, I could have done that, let alone fare better.
Probably the most important lesson in therapy was that I am actually a grown up. This means that whatever happened or didn't happen to me, it's up to me to do something about it. Thus the circle is complete, since that's exactly what I did when I sought professinal help. And that topic was very high on my list of what I want to learn about. And learn I did.
Accepting it as a necessary part of life combined with what I learned about emotions and how to experience them instead of hiding from them is what let's me come through this time. That and of course, friends who are there, right when I do want to talk about it.
As for my family, even though the usual suspects of what I could do to support them do not really apply, there are other ways. Like being more lenient when my dad honors our visit by sitting alone in front of the television for a couple of hours. Conflicting emotions are probably one of the hardest challenges to negotiate. Even though we all react differently, I can understand the impulse to withdraw and shut down only too well. All I can do and all I have to do is accept and love.