Toxic, dysfunctional family backgrounds

Religious guilt, even though I have turned my back on a lot of what I was raised on I am still afraid of going to hell.

Hoarders. Too damn many of them - both sides of my family. I’ve lived more than a lifetime of hell just putting up with their metaphorical bullshit and their literal bullshit.

I can’t suffer hoarders at all because of my prior times dealing with them.

It seems to be true: it doesn’t get better, you just learn what your issues are and try not to repeat bad situations. But there’s no moment of redemption etc.

Depends on how bad your "bad" was OP.

[quote]There's no genuine recovering from one, is there?

No there isn't OP. But it is possible to lessen the effects of a dysfunctional family over time. You can learn from it and improve and try to forgive. You can make sure you don't repeat the learned behaviors. You can work on dulling the effects of the dysfunctional childhood and lessening the "go to" behaviors you learned as a child due to the situation.

I came from a childhood with a screaming, nasty, manipulative, drama filled alcoholic mother and a terrifying, violent, nasty, raging gambling addict father who began beating me when I was 4 years old onwards. The authorities got evolved when I was 12 and described me as "a very badly mistreated child". I'm 55 now and things are better yes - they lessen with time - but the damage my parents inflicted has shaped me and left me with serious bahavioral issues to this day.

Obviously recovery depends on the situational specifics of the dysfunction and the level of dysfunction.

My mother thought Mommie Dearest was a how-to video.