I haven't spoken yet on my mother and given my take on things in that relationship. But if you've been following my posts you can probably gather that I don't have a good one with my mother. Nor with my father.
I was disowned by my grandmother when I was 20 years old. At the time I was still living at home. When I started going to college my grandmother's abuse got extremely worse. I would be harassed, threatened, and screamed at over every single thing you could possibly imagine. It was tough for me to be going to school and then come home to an extremely toxic environment. So I withdrew. There were other circumstances that added to that but I'll get to that in a different post. I was working full-time but still got the harassment. I couldn't do anything right. It was harming my soul. I was extremely depressed. I had no self-esteem. I cried when I looked in the mirror. The relationship I was in at the time was also not that great. But I made a decision to move out, and in with my then-boyfriend and his parents. I knew by making this choice my grandmother would never speak to me again. The day I moved out is the last time I had spoken to my grandmother. My mother was screaming at me the entire time, taking my grandmother's side, and making me feel guilty for leaving. But I had to go. If I stayed I probably would have committed suicide.
6 years later and I'm nowhere close to the person I was. I still have depression and anxiety. I was diagnosed with PTSD as well. But one thing I learned was that a flower can't grow in toxic soil. I learned how to be happy. I learned how to smile again. I learned how to appreciate the simple feeling of being happy.
I see posts and memes on Facebook all the time about "family is all you need. If you don't have your mother you have no one" and I suppose for a lot of people that's true. But it's not true for people like me who grew up in a very toxic environment where your family gave you mental illnesses that made you contemplate suicide. When your family leaves scars on your body and soul, sometimes in order to be happy you have to let them go.
I let my family go. I had communication with my mother when I was pregnant, but I am currently no contact with her as well, which will be explained in a different post. (I am sorry, I just haven't gotten the courage up to go down that road and relive the stories of my mother) So I am a self-chosen orphan. In my mind, my family is dead to me, because they never added anything good to my life. They just dragged me down into their own toxic lives. And I got to a point where I realized that that wasn't how I wanted my life to go. I wasn't going to be on my deathbed and relive my life and only see heartache.
So I chose myself.
It wasn't easy. It took me a very very long time to get to the point I'm at now. But looking back, I was so miserable. I was so depressed. I was so scared. I still have lingering scars. I can't handle other people's anger and I always think that I'm making someone mad at me. Even my own boyfriend who is one of the sweetest people I've ever met. He's been in a funk lately and all I can do is blame myself. Because I don't know how to not. And that's because of them.
This post is just a jumble of thoughts I've been having, but I'm going to try to summarize.
You can make it on your own. You don't need to keep family or people in your life that add nothing but negativity. We may share blood, we may share a last name, and we may share memories. But I refuse to live my life surrounded by a family or people who make me hate myself. Life is too goddamn short to not be happy. Too short to not be around people who are rays of light and warmth. Too fucking short to feel guilty over cutting your own family out of your life.
If you were in my position and had to make a choice between your family and your mental stability and happiness. Choose fucking happiness every time. It might hurt at first. But be fucking happy. Choose yourself. Build a life that you want and fill it with people and experiences that make you feel alive.
You have the ability to choose your own family, to choose the rays of light in your life. I promise. ❤
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