part 109, or "friends are the family you get to choose"

I'm feeling stronger about my past, about the things that have happened to me, or that I have experienced. My past is starting to feel more powerful and less incapacitating. It feels like I'm standing on a really ugly, but really enduring and formidable, chunk of metal.

Being away and out of touch with my mom and sister and brother has been very good for me. It has been really quite heartbreaking as well, but definitely very good. They were the last external reminders I had that I am crazy, or manipulative, or evil, or spiteful, or vengeful, or a liar.

I very much understand that I will not ever be able to say with certainty that I am NOT crazy, or manipulative, or evil, or spiteful, or vengeful, or a liar; these are all characteristic of human imperfection, and I'm an imperfect human. I am also learning, though, that I can define who I am. I don't have to take the words of mean and horrible people and accept them as who I am.

Mean and horrible people are mean and horrible. Does it suck that my mom and siblings happen to be some of those mean and horrible people? Of course it does. But they are still mean and horrible.

My mom is one of six children who are now all married adults. I have ten aunts and uncles who have known me since I was a baby, and who have known who my mom is better than anyone. Not one of them has even tried to contact me since I came out with the shit my mom did to me.

I also have eight cousins on my mom's side. I don't feel like I ever got to know them very well - we did not spend much time together growing up since we lived so far away from all of them. I don't know how well any of them ever got to know my mom, either, but for christ's sake - does every one of them actually believe that I am the monster my mom says I am?

Every one of my aunts and uncles and cousins has met my dad, and not one of them liked him - at anytime, ever. They all know my mom; my aunts and uncles know my mom, and they know what kind of kid she was. I mean, people don't just start being as fucked up and twisted as my mom once they reach adulthood.

My mom's siblings know exactly what kind of childhood she had, they know what it was like growing up in that house - they all know what it's like to not feel safe in their own home, or to not trust those closest to them will not hurt them.

I don't know exactly what it was like to grow up in my mom's childhood home, but I do know there is a lot - A LOT - of alcohol rolling around in our blood. I know there was violence and devastation before me or my dad ever came into the picture. I know there was terror. I always thought that I knew there was love, too, but now I am not so sure.

My mom has been on a bitch fest for the past thirty years about how we always had to travel to see her side of the family, and they never came to see us or stay in our house, or how her sisters hang out a lot more with each other than they do with her, and blah blah blah. As much as she wants to know intrinsically that she is an important part of that family, she seems to have a hard time believing that is true.

Why is that?

Why can't my mom ever really be happy for anyone, even for herself?

Why can't my mom be happy at all?

I have my theories, but I will never know my mom like her brothers and sisters do. I will never have the experience of being in the same time and place that my mom was shaped and molded into a person.

Maybe that's why I am very angry and hurt that none of that side of the family has even tried to email me, or show any other kind of support - they fucking know her. They know what kind of person she is. Is she really so intimidating and scary that not one of them will look past her and let me know that they don't think I'm crazy or a liar?

I've never asked anyone to believe what I have said about the abuse I've experienced. I know evil people can't hide the dark side of them for long. They don't know how to be happy, beneficent, empathetic people; they can fake it, but not to everyone all the time, because it is not real.

I've felt confident - and still do - that I don't have to convince anyone of anything. I can tell my story, share the truth, reveal things about bad people, and not have to worry about who believes me or not because I know it's the truth. They know it's the truth. They fundamentally know what they did to me, and what kind of people they are, and that happiness has not been taken from them - they've traded it in for some sort of twisted human pleasure at some time in their lives.

They know they are not victims, and anyone who spends any significant amount of time with them and who does not insist on having their heads shoved so far up their asses they can see the back of their teeth, also knows that people like my mom are not victims. Maybe they were at one time, but they aren't now.

My aunts and my uncles, and maybe my cousins, all know what kind of person my mom is. I've never asked anyone to stand against her, and I know they are her family, but they are MY FAMILY too.

Another thing that I know is that people who have been hurt like I've been hurt don't say out loud what happened to them because they know (or at least fear) that they will be ostracized from their family. Being ostracized by your own flesh and blood HURTS, and maybe some people don't think it is worth that pain to expose the truth.

But jesus fucking christ - there is a point in all of this that simply comes down to what is wrong and what is right.

I used to think of my mom's side of the family as the good side. I didn't really get to know anyone on my dad's side of the family - I haven't even met all of my cousins - but I knew my dad, and with nothing to show otherwise, I assumed his family was like him. But I was wrong. And I'm very grateful that I was wrong, because even if those people are virtual strangers to me, they are my family, and they have been so, so supportive of me. My DAD's side of the family - they are who reached out to me, even though they never really had an opportunity to know what kind of person I am.

My DAD's side - the side of me I thought was poison running through my veins, the side I hated to be part of so much that I couldn't stand the sound of my maiden name, even as a small child - my DAD's name. I've always wanted to feel more like I came from my mom's side of the family - they were the people I actually knew, and compared to my dad, they were normal.

But they are also gutless cowards, and if there is one thing I know I am not, it is a gutless coward. I could not have inherited my tenacity and determination and desperation for justice from my mom's side of the family - they have made it clear that their priorities revolve around what makes their lives the easiest.

And yeah, I am very hurt and disappointed about that. Very, VERY hurt.