Last night I was awakened by overly vivid and engaging dreams with my female progenitor and her other offspring; at my mother’s funeral. And my mother was both alive and dead, like physically attending the ceremony as one of her own mourners. She stood by my sister who approached to hug me, crying, still dressed in all white, with utter sincerity and said “I didn’t want you to keep on thinking that you hate me”. I do not hate my sister (today). I do hate righteous hyprocisy, underhandedness, being bullied and shamed, having my children exploited and unnecessarily submerged in conflict and confusion. I don’t “think I hate that”. I know I #hatethatshit 100%.
Do you see the insanity of the dead and alive simultaneously along with my sister telling me I am wrong about what I think and feel while trying to hug and make nice nice. If only I knew the truth and reality like they all do. My life with them is this–“no, that didn’t happen and you don’t feel that way and it is not a big deal and if you talk about it, it will be worse for you”
I am reminded of a radio commercial lately about being intentional to help children grow up believing in themselves and what a positive impact that has on 
their future. I think this is diametrically opposed to erasing, invalidating, and shaming them for feeling and responding to life how they do. I never for a minute was allowed to believe in my SELF. I was reprimanded and banished consistently for how wrong I was either morally and/or mentally for feeling and thinking and speaking my own personal truth. What I came to believe was that life was scary AF 24/7-and that my tension over this was the only real problem. The people who love you the most are scariest of all and will hurt you and it will be your fault and you will be wrong about how it affects you. I did not grow up with nurturing, validation, boundaries, family traditions, God, respect for differences, Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, a sense of security and worthiness. I grew up believing that it can always get worse…and that it will be my own fault…I was raised on “You/he/she got what you/they deserved” as if we have the right to punish others. I lived and believed in that until I entered into spiritual recovery and learned healthier ways of thinking and being in the world. I discovered what it meant to be loved (love, the verb: kindness and nurturing). Once I came to know the experience of wholesome love, I could no longer tolerate the unwholesome kind that made me hate my life. When you do not know what love is, you also do not know what it is not and you will engage high risk and destructive behaviors and relationships, because it is what you know. When you know better, you do better. Doing better is wholesome and badass. It is too much for others who can only do as they have always done.
I am so grateful to learn that families with a black sheep are sick and use one person to dump all of their own issues–claiming the black sheep is responsible for all of the tension and bad behavior of others. I am grateful for all those with the courage to speak about this, because the fall out for trying to abandon that role extends farther and deeper than a person might imagine. Painful as it is, it is, NO CONTACT is a last resort…It at least bears some promise of something better—rather than the daunting promise of continuation. Staying in IT can make a person feel suicidal and then if you enter too deeply into that feeling, they be like: “see, tole you she she had issues!”, never stopping to consider that it is not possible to thrive or have good mental health under those conditions. Eggshells are not a suitable environment for raising healthy humans. Some do adapt better than others. I guess I am one of those who unknowingly chose authenticity over adaptation. Always.
