I was a kindhearted child. I got mad at a classmate once for stomping a caterpillar. I attempted to hatch eggs from the refrigerator. I tried to be a good sister. I wasn't even mean to the kids who were mean to me.

And I regularly and sincerely wished my father would die.

I know supposedly that's a fairly common childhood wish in response to punishment, but this wasn't about that. It was about wanting an end to his unending abuse.

And yes, I was old enough to understand what death was.

I do not remember feeling guilty or conflicted. It was a straightforward wish that he be gone forever.

Because his life took more from me, my younger siblings (the older ones had already left home), and my mother than it ever returned. There was no equity.

He was the center of our home life because everything was about trying to keep him calm, which was impossible.

Maybe my mom experienced honeymoon phases. I don't know. I only know I did not. There just was "terrifying outburst" or "waiting for terrifying outburst."

Never for a moment did I feel safe or secure near him. Never once did I feel that he loved me or anyone else but himself.

I learned to stay quiet and stay out of his way (and exhorted my brother and sister to do the same) and sometimes even that did not work.

Once, he and my mother had some blowup and he left for several weeks. It was easily the happiest time in my childhood. Just to be able to draw free breaths was a miracle.

But then he came back.

More than once he told my mom that if she left and took us with her he would find us and kill us all. I believed him. So did she, I could tell.

So. I wanted him dead. Because I understood that as long as he was alive, there was no such thing as happy.

But he didn't die. I lived in the same house with him until I graduated high school, at which point I made my escape.

I was 19 or 20 the last time I spoke to him.

He was a miserable man, and although I held out hope till the end that that would change, it never did.

I have been harmed by many people. That's just part of being alive and having relationships. I know I've done harm as well.

But never in my life have I wished harm on someone for being a fallible human and making mistakes, only for unrelenting, inescapable abuse.

So maybe don't lecture those of us who can identify those with an insatiable appetite for power over others about the importance of norms.

It's not wrong or bad to want the only thing guaranteed to stop your abuse from hurting you.