So, I've been sick most of the month. It started with a cold. Then there was a norovirus (I'm pretty sure it was one, I had the same stomach issues that I did last time I caught one.) that lasted for about two weeks. A few days after I was over that, I caught the flu. Again with stomach unhappiness. On top of all of that, we're still adjusting my medications and I'm dealing with seasonal affective disorder along side my other mental health fun. (Fun being said in the greatest of sarcastic tones.)
On top of all of this, the feelings of rejection are really hard. I am getting ahead of myself, however. I have a cocktail of mental health problems that have made my life challenging for years. It's been rough and I struggle with the fact that I am disabled due to it all. It is also hard for me to accept how it has effected the lives of people around me. Especially the negative effects.
I have bipolar disorder. I was diagnosed with it after postpartum depression lead to postpartum psychosis. It was handled badly by the people who were treating me at the time. It lead to other problems. Long and horrible story short, I wound up in the hospital where I got the bipolar diagnosis (with psychotic features when the depression gets
really bad). As I was in the hospital, I found myself basically talking about a lot of past trauma. From what I remember, which isn't much because of all the medications that I was on at the time, I talked about trauma from when I was a small child.
It was painful and, looking back, necessary to get that diagnosis. It was, however, probably one of the most dehumanizing experiences I have had in my life thus far.
The other diagnosis I have is post traumatic stress disorder. I can reluctantly live with this one because it is a diagnosis I have had for a long time. It was initially made when I was at college. I was having classic PTSD symptoms revolving around an abusive relationship I was in during high school. The clinician treating me had suspicions that there was additional things going on but I just wasn't read to hear it.
I reluctantly accepted that my childhood wasn't healthy at that time. Having more life experience under my belt and coming to realize that how I was raised wasn't "normal" lead to my butting heads with my parents. This made life in my parents' house problematic and I lived in fear of getting thrown out after a few confrontations. So, I went back to silent mode and did my best to get through college before they decided I was too much of a pain to deal with.
Cut to a year after I had graduated and I was struggling with my health. I lost my job because of health related absences. (I'm pretty sure it was illegal, but I was a broke college grad who had no means of reliable income to even think about suing the call center. And, honestly, at the time I was more concerned about what was going on with my health. Having asthma attacks so bad that you wind up leaving work in an ambulance is worse than losing said job after that ambulance ride.) A few days after I got fired from that job, my parents kicked me out. They said it was because I needed the life experience.
Fortunately, my grandparents had a rental property that I could stay in. My rent was based on keeping the place in decent condition which translated to cutting the grass and keeping things clean. Unfortunately, the location really had nothing for work and I relied on a part time retail job, food stamps, the generosity of my fiancee and my grandparents. My parents were outraged by this. That year was nothing but a mess on so many fronts. It's still hard to talk about it. But, aside from learning that my bout of near penumonia at college left me with scarring in my lungs, I had undiagnosed asthma, and developed a dangerous allergy to ibuprofen, I think the biggest transition I passed through was the realization that I had past trauma from when I was small and that my parents really weren't on my side.
The wedding planning was a fiasco in many ways that turned out well in spite of failures that happened. I have a lot of anger surrounding that. My husband and his family were awesome. My side of the family showed their true colors in a way that didn't fully hit me until years later. (For example, Mom and Dad took issue with the fact that I wanted to wear a dress that wasn't white, but Mom showed up at the wedding wearing a black sequined knock off evening gown. Black is worn to show disapproval of the union, if you're going by the same rules that said a bride must always where white.)
The years after I got married, I was busy with my own marriage and all the stuff that went together with being an adult living their own life. I got a lot of grief from my side of the family for not being around. There was some sense of insult over the fact that when I was unable to do something my husband went in my place to handle it. Apparently, they felt he wasn't good enough and I was too lazy. That sort of backhanded hostility has marked the entirety of my relationship with my parents and siblings (and some of the extended family as well). It has left me feeling like I wasn't wanted and a burden.
I also noticed a distinct pattern. I was supposed to go to them. They didn't come to visit me. They didn't call me to say hi or invite me over. I was supposed to court their good favor and be at their beck and call, regardless of what ever I had going on in my life. When I didn't do so, the reasons I had for not being there were never good enough for them. It didn't matter if I was sick to my stomach, I should have showed up to babysit. It didn't matter if I didn't know there was a big family dinner going on, I should have just shown up with precognitive awareness such a thing was happening.
I stopped talking to them after my second son was born because of insane behavior and outrageous threats that my mother had made to me. I called her on it. I made my father aware of it. And I was rejected by him because he said that "sometimes parents say things you don't like to make a point." So, I stopped talking to my parents for about five years. As I was concerned about my Mom creating a scene or doing something hurtful, I didn't go to annual family gatherings like the 4th of July party, Thanksgiving, or Christmas dinner.
Then I got the message from the dead family (because I really am psychic) that I was needed by the whole family. So I reached out to my parents (I had maintained contact with my grandparents the whole time.) and a week later came the cancer diagnosis for my grandfather. It was a long and painful year. Two years later, a few moths shy of my grandfather's death from cancer, my grandmother died. After that, I stuck around for my eldest niece to graduate high school and go off into the world.
I had thought that I was going to try to stay in contact with my side of the family beyond my nieces and an aunt. Then I got sick. I was really, really sick for months. When the holiday gatherings came up, I didn't attend and informed them that I was ill. They never called to see if I was well. They never sent me a letter.
That was when the decision to walk away crystallized. It's been a year. My maternal grandmother stopped writing me since I hadn't written her back. The last few letters were passive aggressive demands that I make nice with my parents because they were the only parents I have and it would make me feel better. I didn't write back a because those passive aggressive guilt trips had been coming in the mail attached to pretty much every other form of correspondence. It was when it was tucked in with one of the kids' birthday cards that I finalized that decision to go no contact.
It was my decision to walk away. I did it for my mental health. I did it to protect myself and my family from the toxic influence of problematic people whom I happen to be related to. It still hurts that they never bothered to call me. It still hurts that they rejected me with their silence. I never wanted this. I know that they tell each other that I only come around when I want something. They tell each other that I'm the broken one and I'm a coward. These are things they've been telling each other and me for as long as I have been alive. They're not saying it to me now, but I can still almost hear it.
And it hurts.
I kept silent about all of this because I was worried that my Mom was reading my blog here. I was ashamed of my failed relationship with them. Today, however, is a new day. And my self respect demands that I lay my cards on the table. I'm not going to tolerate emotional abuse, slander, or gaslighting. I had enough of that in the years before now. Aside from the holidays being hard and various points during the year when trauma anniversaries popup, I'm healthier now than I ever was dealing with them. I am going to continue to grow and thrive, even if I am disabled, because I'm not letting them hurt me anymore.
And, Mom or any of my other relatives reading this, I'm not answering the phone for you unless you're on the short list. And the people on the short list know who they are. And I'm going to block comments and other social media escapades from you as well, because you're unhealthy for me. It is you, not me. And I'm not apologizing for this.
