Why children NEVER get over the trauma of seeing their parents drunk

Virginia Ironside, British journalist, agony aunt (British for "advice columnist") and author, wrote this poignant post for the Daily Mail. Here's how it starts:

Aged just ten, I certainly had no idea that my elegant, glamorous mother was an alcoholic. But to this day I still feel a tightening of my stomach, a nervous feeling in my core when I remember those evenings when she'd look at me and slur: 'You're so beeootiful, dahling!'

She would sway and stare and when I would protest, angrily, at her continued gawping, she'd always say: 'But why can't I look at my beeootiful daughter, dahling?', breathing fumes all over me.

It's almost 60 years on since those sad days, but as I remember it today my heart still starts to pound faster, my mouth goes dry and I feel consumed by fury.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2540175/Why-children-NEVER-trauma-seeing-parents-drunk-VIRGINIA-IRONSIDE-bears-scars-60-years-on.html