Today I messed up by letting my toxic family back into my life.

They're completely unaware that I won the lottery several years prior.

So some backstory.

I'm the youngest of five children, and we grew up in absolute poverty.

My mom loved having kids, but she didn't work, and dad didn't make enough to support everyone.

I was poor enough that I remember as an 11 or 12 year old,

receiving a single plastic slinky, and being absolutely thrilled I got anything.

Growing up with that kind of family was rough.

Parents got divorced, and dad lived locally, but didn't really do much to try and be a dad.

Just support financially when legally necessary.

And he let it slip once to me that he never really wanted kids.

He just loved my mom, and she wanted kids.

So we went along with it.

Obviously with this kind of dynamic, and the lack of resources,

home life wasn't great prior to the divorce.

I was helping fix drywall at like age five,

because we could only afford to live and crumbly, run down houses.

I remember stripping paint with a steamer, and putty knife at about six or seven,

and only learned recently that the house had lead paint.

My oldest siblings did even more housework,

and probably inhaled a bunch of lead dust in toxic substances.

Couple that with the emotional abuse of our parents,

...