Dysfunctional is Normal

This summer, my reading path, seems to be following every dysfunctional person/family on the planet. I am walking straight into the "light" ( I think the light may be a bug zapper) with eyes wide open. These people, overly smart and creative, are messed UP!!!! Their lives are train wrecks, and I have pulled to the side of the road to watch!!! Reading My Father by Alexander Styron (www.amazon.com) was one of the best "D" ( Major dysfunctional) books, so far and I think I may need to re-read it!!! I have yet to learn how to highlight on my kindle, so now......I have to re-read and highlight all the best stuff, and stuff there is!!. William (Bill) Styron wrote Sophie's Choice!!!! need I say another word? Reading My Father is written by his youngest daughter, which I like even better. A child's point of view in the family is pretty accurate. Now if you ask the older siblings, they may see things differently. It would then be their accuracy. Children write the truth, their truth. Bill Styron suffered from major depression, and wrote masterpieces. He was a drunk without apology, and a tough cookie. His family felt the sting of mental illness in the family, washed down with some joy-juice. Cataclysmic breakdowns, break down the family. Mr Styron did feel guilt and shame, MUCH later in his life. The question remains , did his family care? I'm so interested in how families rally and take care of each other, during the most horrific situations. Some families are so scared, yet some breeze through it. Dysfunction haunts everyone. His daughter describes him as remote, melancholy, inspiring fear and loathing in his children. This same man, was a genius writer, and left us so much. A novelist, with awards coming from the global arena, visited mental hospitals like we go to Starbucks!!! The fine line between a nutcase and a gifted writer, merged. He wrote with brilliance and lived like....the only way he knew how....crazy, depressed. The family survived and loved him, somehow, in the end. This books, makes me want to read Sophie's Choice this summer, like I said earlier, I'm on a spiral to crazyville!!! I think reading others, not so shinning moments, makes your day to day, hullabaloo seem like a piece of cake. The human parade, as Alexandra wrote, is in all families. We just may march to a very different drummer.