familyisnotalwayseverything

The last few years my birthday and the lead up has been really hard and its looking the same way again this year. Im currently estranged from my parents, by my choice, and to great benefit to my own mental health. but birthdays always remind me of what i have chosen to do, and the fact that my family is still there and still love me and they still reach out to me on my birthday. I use my new boundary skills to gently/strongly deflect their communication and not continue the interaction beyond the polite niceties.

Its just hard.

It reminds me what i have chosen to do. It reminds me how they feel about it, that they dont get it and cant understand why im not cheerfully back in their fold, making their family whole again, because thats what they want. Especially for a birthday. No matter about my own mental health, they want their 'perfect' family back. Birthdays reminds me of the gaping crater i have left in their lives. Birthdays mean members of my extended family reach out to me, believing everything is ok, or desperately wondering why it is not.

This year i am approaching the coming days knowing that i have survived these before. I have more skills and more solidity in my sense of self than ever before. I have a plan to reduce the impact of the flood of cheery birthday text messages, and a new mindset to try to build of what a birthday means to me now.

Birthdays are now an opportunity to celebrate life with people i want to live it with. Birthdays are now about simple. Birthdays are about sharing in joy, equally as humans together.

Please dont wish me happy birthday! Not this year. Maybe another year.

#MentalHealth #familyisnotalwayseverything
#individuation

To the person who i loved from a very young age
The person i vowed to protect
To the person who i loved with all my heart
No other could i ever connect
To the person i put above everyone else
The one i considered a best friend
The person i couldnt imagine being without
Without you i wouldn't see the end
To the person who secretly wanted my life
All along wished she were me
The person i thought loved me the same
The truth i was unable to see
That the person i would of given my life to save
Was secretly sabotaging me
The innocent girl i thought i knew was evil
It is now so clear to see
To the person who wanted so bad to be me
Well are you happy you have it now
Does it break your sleep knowing you killed me inside
Although i've made it through somehow
How do you live with yourself knowing the hurt
You have even caused to my boys
How do you look them in the eye knowing
You've been playing them like toys?
Only someone evil could do the things you've done
I can't imagine how u could!
But wrong were you to think i'd ever
Go down without a fight
You killed my soul i thought id never arise
Thank god i wasn't right
For i knew i was strong but after all i've been through
I know now i'm unbreakable
There's nothing more painful you can throw my way
You have everything takeable
So now that you have all that i once had
you are about to truley see
Exactly what you always wanted to see
How it feels to be me.....

Toxicity is one adjective of life that should not have place in yours; my life has most recently taken on a resemblance of a free bird; let go of from the toxic environment that is most painfully, family. My mom & I against this world together; us two shall not fail in the pursuit of lifetime happiness. #unhealthyrelationships #familyisnotalwayseverything #momanddaughterbondforever