Peanut Butter and Jelly

There are two types of people in this world. The ones that thrived with  full-frontal, functional family support and the ones that survived through severe dysfunction and adversity. That's not to say that each individual person, in each individual family hasn't had their own custom-made struggle, because everyone's meant to. However,  the frustration and angst that comes with standard growth, normally nurtured by love of course, and the  disheartening pain that follows instability, loneliness and chaos are NOT one in the same. I'm learning though, that no matter where you fall in on the spectrum, you should be grateful for either situation.  Simply because,  putting aside the fact that no matter how shitty you may think your life is, there IS someone out there who has it worse than you, each of these upbringings are capable of cultivating very strong, driven overall wonderful human beings. If you come from a family full of love and support, then you've been conditioned from birth to love yourself, believe in yourself and know that no matter what, even if everything completely falls apart, your family has your back. That's pretty much as excellent as it gets, because you are whole-heartedly aware that you don't have to go through anything painful alone and you're going to make it through to the other side, relatively unscathed. Having unconditional love can get you through pretty much anything. On the other hand, if you come from a family full of dysfunction and chaos, although you may not have been conditioned from birth to believe in yourself, surviving on your own from young is condition enough. You already know that whatever comes your way you're going to demolish it. For no other reason than the fact that you've been demolishing obstacles your entire life, all by yourself. Sure it may hurt not to have that warm fuzzy feeling that being surrounded by your family gets you, but nothing beats the feeling of swelling pride, knowing that you literally battle the worst situations, and have been knocked down too many times to count but you're still standing. That is a warrior's lifestyle. The greatest thing about the two types of people that come from these two very different lifestyles is that they usually find each other. Compliment each other. Help each other grow, help each other heal. Those who have grown with love can show the ones who haven't how good it feels to be accepted/cared about and reassure them that they won't be cast away again. Those who have grown having only themselves for support, can help their opposites adjust to "grown-up" life. Comfortably living responsibly, without the safety net running to their parents for every minor setback. I believe that these two groups need eachother to balance out every  crazy circumstance that life is capable of. They just fit well together, two peas in the same pod, like ying and yang, or Netflix and Chill.