Search Results: spend quality time with

I consider myself a high functioning adult these days; I was a professional "Composer/Recording Artist" for a number of years after gaining a PhD in Music Composition from Birmingham Conservatoire. However the money was sporadic at best so I changed careers and became a Chef, quickly rising through both the ranks and up the quality spectrum over 10 years to eventually become a Sous Chef at a 2* Michelin Establishment in London. However due to relationship responsibilities picking up (my fiance is a doctor and we both work 16hr days). Which would make having Kids... tricky to say the least. So I changed career again so I could maybe work from home. So now I am training to be an Ethical Hacker (Cyber Security Engineer). Anyway, my point is, most out people out there whom I have worked with, have always considered me very capable/dependable. So when they eventually find out that I come from a highly abusive background, they get taken aback... and some have even accused me of outright lying about it...( I can only assume that this is because "in their mind" you can't come from that kind of background and be anything other than dysfunctional...) Unusually, it's also often Women who have accused me of lying about this... and I am really not sure why... Guys tend to take it at face value (or even give me "props for not letting it affect me"). To clarify, my mum was diagnosed with Cancer when I was about 3, and my father was away on business abroad a lot, so I was only ever with her (watching her slowly fall apart), she died when I was 6.. my dad remarried, who I can only describe as a sociopath, she emotionally/mentally and physically abused me, gaslighting at every opportunity to make me and my father think we were loosing the plot.. I spent a lot of time believing I was having "black outs" because I couldn't remember hurting myself in the way she said..(because it was her). To this day I struggle a lot with trusting women.. I have to force myself to not assume the worst