@w, thank you for sharing that here - I appreciate it very much.
As I move forward in my life now, I'm working hard on letting go of a lot of the crap from my family of origin that has really contributed to my unhappiness and I'm also certain, my ill health.
If you are familiar at all with adult children of alcoholics literature, I think I fall mostly into the hero role but also a little bit of the lost child - and either way, I have never been able to make my own feelings or needs a priority and despite all my efforts to please my parents and older siblings, to solve any problems that face the family, etc. in order to win their approval/love - I have never felt that I was similarly important to them and certainly their behavior toward me has only ever reinforced that feeling.
I'm at a place now - and the whole recent situation with my niece just served to remind me of this in stark clarity - where I realize that my family will always take and take and will never give back, and if I continue to make them more important in my life than all the people who do offer me love and support without question, I will always be fucked up and sad and never achieve any inner peace.
It really sucks when you have to acknowledge that most of the people you are related to by blood are selfish assholes, whether by way of addiction or personality disorder or whatever. But I've already lost forever some of the most important dreams I had for this life because of being caught up in the sickness of my family, and I won't lose anymore of whatever time I have left perpetuating the cycle.
This may sound stupid, but it really bothered me so here's just a small example:
Last week my sister called me in tears about her daughter's relapse and her mother's serious illness. I spent a long time on the phone with her, listening and comforting and saying positive things to build her up. At the time she thought her mother was dying - now it appears to be that she's taken a turn for the better, but I only found that out 3rd hand through my sister's brother's Facebook page (he's not my brother, we share only a father). Despite texting my sister and asking for an update, I haven't had a reply because you know, she's too busy - when she got my text she replied to say she was eating and would call after, but I never heard from her.
I know she's a busy person, but today she had time to take a picture of the soap she bought on sale at the grocery store and post that picture to her Facebook page to let a not even close friend know that the soap was on sale. But no time to update her only sister on anything as serious as her mom's health condition (and I am close to her mom, so I care, a lot).
Oh and then there's this: since I was diagnosed with a chronic and potentially very disabling disease 6 months ago, I have not been asked even once by any member of my family how I was doing with that emotionally, or how I was feeling physically. Only my older niece, who is an LPN, has ever bothered to ask about my health.
So yeah, I think it's time to write some folks off. It doesn't mean I don't still love them, but I'm tired of being the one who keeps in touch, I'm tired of being the one who gives and gives, I'm tired of being the one who cares so damn much and often feels forgotten for long periods of time in between. And that was all true way before my niece became a drug addict.
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.
~ Carl Sagan
