I'm Just Waking Up At Age 54

Hello, my name is Lisa, I'm now 54 and it took me years to realize why I have been a people pleaser all my life. My mother and father were divorced when I was three years old. My mother hated my father, said he was a womanizer and cheated, she was controlling and a manipulator and my father was verbally abusive most of the time to me growing up, letting me know how much he hated my mother, they both basically hated each other, how they ever had sex and had me, is beyond me still today. Anyway, I now have a 31 year old son who is also very aggressive and verbally abusive to my grandchildren, and I want to just smack the **** out of him, I also was married for 15 years to a guy who was just like my father, and I once heard a lady counselor, teacher say to me when I was about 40 that you will always marry the person that Abandoned you the most as a child, and I really did not understand, but at 54 now, I am totally understanding when I look back on my life, I see how all their anger, and verbal abuse affected me as a child. I spent most of my childhood trying to please my father, wanted to be the good child, even when he called me stupid so many times, I was 12 years old. Anyway, verbal abuse makes you feel like you are "unworthy" and very insecure. I always was a friendly child, but I spent alot of time trying to people please, I still struggle with that today, but my father is dead, he had a massive heart attack at age 60 and died in 1995, I still miss him very much today, and finally when I was 35 years old he told me for the first time he loved me, and he was proud of me, which really shocked me. I had wrote two children's books back in 1992, sent him a copy of my book I wrote about growing up in Seattle, called Home is Where My Heart Is. I sent it to him thinking he would just think again I was not smart at all, and throw it in the garbage, but he actually read both my books, and said he was so proud of me, imagine that. I had little confidence in school, I was very shy and I was so use to being called stupid that I always believed I was not worthy, I got drunk alot in high school, and college, I met my ex husband one night in Hawaii after being out all night drinking, I met him in Harry's underwater bar in Hawaii in 1980. I only knew him for about two months, got pregnant and went home to tell my mom and dad, both of them were totally abusive, told me to get an abortion, I was a *****, just on and on and on, I cried alot, felt like trash, unloved, my ex husband ended up marrying me, but he was abusive and angry at both me and my son, my father was angry, my mother was a mega control freak, but I did not listen to any of them. Today, I'm single, I'm 54, I have five beautiful grandkids, I'm smart, I finished college at age 41, I'm praying for my son that he will wake up, stop drinking, and not be like my father or my ex husband. I do pray alot, but I am thankful that I am who I am today, I'm far from being the stupid child, I still have a "hurt child" inside of me that did not get to be much of a child, I was expected by my father to act like an adult from age 5 which is crazy, I never got to play much, so I am thankful today that I can play with my grandkids, I still have forgiveness issues and just when I was started to know my dad and really trying to figure him out and his behavior, he died. I remember the night before his funeral in California I walked up and down the street, got a cup of coffee, was just in a fog trying to figure out why I had such crappy parents. The only thing that counts today is that I know God accepts me for who I am, I dont have to please anybody anymore, I just have to be me, my ex husband thinks I'm a total grandma nutcake from hell, and that is his problem, he never quit drinking, he hates the whole world and his own mother, so he is the one who needs the therapy, I'm fine with just being Lisa, and loving people and accepting that I am not a perfect person and I'm certainly not the dummy I was made to feel as a kid. I'm still working on forgiving and its a daily process, one day at a time, but the more I learn to forgive my dad and my ex husband it frees me.