You know some people will never understand what it feels like to be thrown away, discarded by your own family, for reasons you will never understand, because they blame you for things in the past that were never your fault…things that I wish to this day could have been different….but when you are kid there’s not much you could say or do to change the outcome of things that you have watched happen for years while you grew up……..but then years later tried like hell to change because you didn’t want to be the victim of parental alienation, or a child that came from a broken home.
Years later, the things you always wanted to say, you never had the courage to say, or got to say, and you wanted answers. You needed to understand why. Years later, you feel like you’re reaching out for what you wish you were: loved, accepted, cared for. Years later, you find yourself trapped in emotions because you feel guilty about lacking what you had as a child. You blame yourself because you feel responsible….although you weren’t. You want to make right the wrong they did and rebuild the family you wish you could and should have had. You want that picture-perfect family concept, but you know it was never there. You want to have the two people in your life who should matter the most, because without them you don’t feel whole.
You swallow your pride, accepting what is will never be different. You try to smile, but the pain will always be there. You tell yourself it’s a bad dream, but trying to force change to happen only hurts you more. You stand up, you’re strong….you know you tried, and you say enough is enough, no more pain. You make yourself a priority and you worry about yourself because that’s what matters. Only time can heal wounds….or does it? Only you know the truth deep inside you. Listen to your heart. Tell yourself it will be okay. You will make it in life. It’s your life and story; only you can determine the outcome.
I just wish it didn’t hurt as bad, and I wish my family knew how much it pains me that they do not include me, and show no effort to make things better, but instead tell me I need to show them that I care. Things will be the same, and my family will do what they do. Ultimately, it is up to them to put in the effort. If they don’t, then it’s no longer me who should be hurt because they are the ones who have to live with their decisions. When you make it personal by sending me messages, how am I not supposed to take it personally? I only wish they knew that it hurts that how I feel gets completely ignored when I speak up and try to say something. I just got to a point where I guess I won’t because it clearly doesn’t matter. I’m tired of being the only one to make any effort.
I am tired of being the only one trying and the only one who gets hurt. I just wish they would understand what it means to go through life not knowing their support but it just means that I guess I don’t need them and that i can be proud of myself, because clearly I’m not a priority for them, and that’s not going to change, so that’s their loss. It’s time for me to start focusing on myself, my happiness, my dreams, and my goals. So my counselor gave me an assignment to try to process through some of my trauma to better understand it and forgive myself. So here goes, I will give this a try.
Dear self,
You knew life behind closed doors was anything but the way it should have been, and although you wish you could turn back the hands of time, fix things or erase the past, it is just impossible. I can’t change the memories I want to have been positive and memorable, but I can change how I react to those memories moving forward. I was a child who experienced what no child ever should have and it changed my world in a way that caused turmoil, heartache, and grief. Growing up, you knew the fighting, arguing, yelling, abuse, and violence were not healthy and you knew in time how it would end. Although no family wants to be shattered by divorce, it was a means of closing the chapters of negative moments in time that made me afraid of my home. It was for the better so we could move forward in separate directions.
The family relationship was not a safe or healthy bond and needed to change. Looking back on some of those memories, you knew things were not your fault, and you know that it was not you who made your dad choose alcohol over his family. You didn’t put the bottle to his mouth and tell him to drink. He made that decision. Young teenagers in the world, at the time, didn’t make the best decisions, and I’m sure we processed things very differently and didn’t understand the impacts of our reality. We made sense of how things were as we knew them, according to how our minds understood them. So in some ways, I can’t fault my sister for how she processed and grieved through her feelings in her time. After all this time, my sister could not give me what I needed and i need to realize that her and I need our space and we have different way of dealing with things and we need to live our lives independently.
We are probably handling our trauma differently from each other. The healing is different for both of us; it will take time for us to process everything. Yes, I wish my bond with my sister could have been better, and I wish we had a friendship or relationship. Still, honestly I think that being able to focus on myself and my future apart from her without having the pressure of living up to the expectations I once felt pressured to, does make it easier for me to follow my dreams and goals. I only wish my sister knew how much I needed her growing up, and I wish that as sisters, our bond could have been stronger. I wish she knew how much I could have looked up to her. I wish she would understand that I had to close those chapters of negativity, abuse, resentment, abandonment, betrayal, and memories of toxicity to begin the healing process.
I didn’t want my memories to eat me alive and leave me carrying the weight of the burdens I have felt all these years. I needed to be able to be from my emotional pain so that I could let myself forward ready in time when I was ready. I think that now the toxicity doesn’t have to rule my life or define me, I can move forward and focus on my future successes and the great things ahead of me that mean so much to me. With graduating college on the horizon soon, I can focus on my dream and purpose of making a difference in the lives of others so that they make mental health a priority and know that they have access to resources in their communities.
I also need to focus on my relationship with my husband, so that one day we can get married and continue our lives together, by uniting our two hearts as one. I want our relationship built in solidarity, trust, love, respect, and keeping each other’s interests in mind. I want us to have everything I could not have had as a child and for it to be about making our love stronger and foremost alive so that we can work as a couple to build our memories together, and let our lives be a shining example of making it through trauma and adversity. You deserve this, we deserve this and you’re destined for great things, now all you have to do is continue the journey to where you want to be, realizing how far you have made it. It is time to achieve everything you have ever dreamed of. Be proud of who you are, what you have accomplished, and what you want to accomplish. The opportunity is yours to take, so make the best of it.
Depression | Operationiam 