Wow, Lin... Came back here to elaborate on my brief post last night, found yours and, dingdingding! lol Arrow to the bullseye, as they say.
I've attributed many of the following issues to my grand cross involving Neptune, as well as my later-degree Scorpy stellium (plus 04-Sagg Saturn) in the fourth, all square first-housed Pluto...but yes, I see how just Neptune on the IC can account for lots of it, all by itself.
As I said, I never knew my father; he impregnated my mom on one of their few dates, her one and only intimate experience, promised to marry her, came and met her family, then abruptly left. (So much I could say here. lol) He was a hardcore alcoholic and druggie, very charismatic/brilliant, very dishonest. My mom was the youngest of eight, in a totally British/Victorian/Fundamentalist family. Yeeha.
I was essentially tortured into toilet training at the age of nine months, by mom's sister-in-law who was entrusted with my care while mom worked. This same sister-in-law did her best to make a case, to mom and her siblings, to take me away from her and with she and my uncle to CA when I was three, claiming my mom's hyper-religious family would only ***** me up totally.
Somewhere during her last few years on Earth Mom confessed to me that the only reaason she didn't abort the pregnancy (possible even in 1956) was because she was tired of having so many siblings as "bosses," and she thought if she had "this baby," she could be the boss of someone. Bless her precious heart. lol Little did she know I'd turn out to be someone who gave no quarter to external authority of any kind, even as a toddler.
I found out just a few years ago that my father died of cirrhosis and tuberculosis about five years after I was born, around 1961. His family was old Philadelphia Quaker; his ancestors bought land from Wm. Penn...then later generations had much to do with the founding of PA's biggest educational/penal institutions. So. Bigtime religious sublimation of authentic feeling in both genetic lines.
Having chosen the cosmic-enema Plutonian/Scorpionic emphasis I have this time around, it's been Transform or Die most of my life. Still walking that razor's edge, with some help chomping my heels from a late-stage cancer diagnosis in 2009.
Pretty intense self-aware spiritual path since early 70's; ended up as an astrologer/soulgrowth counselor for some years, until I found few people interested in exploring the shadow/egoic realms that's always had to be my focus.
Thanks so much for nailing this so well, Lin, and thanks to you, astrology02, for starting the thread...
Love to everyone!