familyrelationships

Visiting my family who are the main trigger for my anxiety and depression in a couple of hours. Every time I see them for days after I feel like shit. The last time I saw three members of my family (1 month ago), I had a panic attack and had to leave a family friend’s funeral reception. I have managed to successfully avoid them but today I have to show my face. I want to explain to them why I have been avoiding them but the minute I mention anxiety or depression I know it will be discussed outside of the family...something I don’t want. I’m psyching myself up....Knowing that I have people supporting me and sending love would really help. ❤️

I love my family . The farther away from them I am the more I love them. They tear me apart, they treat me like I am a second class citizen and remind me of all the things I have done that they can never forget. Forgive maybe but never forget. They only call when they need something from me. They make promises they never keep. Yet I am there for them whenever they need me. I have struggled to get back on my feet, all by my self. If it wasn’t for my church I would have no one. My brother told me that my church should be taking care of me I am an orphan. I am an orphan with 2 brothers and 3 sisters. I did not choose to be born last and had one of my still born sisters lived I wouldn’t even be here. My mother made sure I knew that all my life. When my first husband was beating me my brother told me to get out or shut up about it, because it was tearing my parents apart watching me go through it. When my second husband left me my mother told me that she knew he wouldn’t stay . I don’t know what Love looks like or feels like the love I have had in the past came with conditions, standards to be met and then only then was the love I wanted available. I never met the standards or the conditions. I have been through therapy, been counseled, read everything I can get my hands on. It’s just easier to hide the pain and say I am fine than admit I am the failure they all know I am.

Blood relation isn’t the deciding factor when it comes to family ties, but it most certainly is a wonderful feeling when you find that reassuring bond with those whom you do call “relatives.”
I’ve learned at quite a young age the concept of ‘building one’s own family.’  Having never really felt a sense of belonging or of having a place within my own family, I’ve been searching for my own tribe, so to speak…I still feel as though I’m searching, at times.  
Though, when I’m at my absolute loneliest, and truly do feel as though I am the stray cat of the family, I suddenly find myself in the contact & company of either one or two cousins who also seem to voice and understand the Stray Cat Condition that seems to plague & haunt me. When I find myself drifting a bit too far out to sea, or vice versa, we pull one another closer to land and remind each other that in the loneliness can be found solidarity.  And that, to me, is both messed up and beautiful.
That moment of clarity is so precious and rare to me, and something that I will never take for granted. 
If you are close with your family, may you never understand what it is that I’m speaking about. 

#Family #familyrelationships #familyrelations #findingyourtribe #cousins #alone #youarenotalone #Holidays #Grief #griefjourney #findingyourplace #belonging