Family; it's complicated

Mom was fairly protective of me. There were times when I feel like she hurt me more than she realized as a matter of trying to discipline. One that stands out was when she banished me from the house and told me to go wait on the back porch in my pajamas, when I was probably 4 or 5. It was just dark, early fall. I wasn't going to freeze, but the evening chill made me upset.

She spanked me a few times, but honestly any time that happened is pretty much a blur; I got a LOT more corporal punishment at school when I was in 6th grade than I ever got at home, and so any particular incident from earlier than that sort of blends into the noise.

Stepdad on the other hand was abusive. And so Mom was my number one protector, to whatever extent that was possible while staying married to him. By the time I was an adult and had come out as trans, he made noises of being supportive. But when I was young he was easily angered when drunk, could not handle hard alcohol at all, and had bad anger management and tended to take out his feelings on Mom, and if she wasn't around to protect me or couldn't get in the way to interfere fast enough, me.

I have more to write but I'm getting just agitated enough to want to stop, so I'll stop here and publish this for now, and come back later to add to it.