Heard from two aunts in one hour, one from each side of my extended family. My father’s older sister who absolutely adores my parents, and my mother’s younger sister, who can’t stand them. Nevertheless I had decided to drop out of the lives of my entire extended family without a trace, but my aunt on my father’s side texted me and I recognized the number as familiar but had no idea who it was or that it was a family member. So I thought it was some old friend and responded and asked who, and then when she said who she was I couldn’t just ignore her after I just responded, so I was stuck talking to her, and I kind of decided I could trust her a little bit and told her a few things about having CPTSD and ADHD (zero details) because she always insisted that I wasn’t schizophrenic or bipolar, so I told her she was correct. And then told her in a very urgent and admittedly somewhat crappy way that I am finally in a safe place and doing comparatively well and if she ever wanted to talk to me again, then she was never to speak a word to anyone about our conversation, not ever. That as far as the rest of the family knows, we never spoke and she doesn’t know anything.
I feel bad like that was manipulative and dramatic and wrong but possibly I’m being hard on myself? I told her that if my parents ever heard about any of the truth about the first 34 years of my life it would either devastate them (unlikely, because they’d never believe me), or it would drive an even bigger wedge between me and them than already exists. She told me my parents love me “and that’s basically the bottom line” and I ignored it and then she brought up my primary abuser (my childhood therapist) who she also is enamored with, and I immediately but casually said I had to go.
My aunt on my mother’s side (who knows the real truth to a greater extent than any other biological family member on either side) texted me at exactly the wrong time (when I was at my most distressed, texting with my first aunt), and got an enormous text (so enormous it actually opened another window!), very firmly and unapologetically setting about 5-10 boundaries that really needed to be set, and telling her that I am a whole different person, and telling her exactly how I see things and that as far as I am concerned I am related to her but no other of our mutual relatives, and if we are going to discuss them, we need to ask for the eachothers consent first. And that I love her and want her in my life.
I cried pretty hard while I was texting with my first aunt, when she gave me her word that she would delete all of my texts and that she didn’t know and didn’t need to know any details. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. If she breaks her word and tells my parents (possible, but not probable), I will catch h*ll soon enough. I felt pretty confident with the other aunt.
Little victories. I might be a viable human someday, after all.
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