Family.

Family. Now depending on what your situation is, this word will conjure up many conflicting emotions. Anger, happiness, resentment, love etc.

Family can be great, a wonderful home to retreat to when the world is slowly turning to shit around you. It can also be the source of all your woes and pain. When that is the case, what the hell do you do?

How are you supposed to turn your back on the principles that society has told you you need to have to be a good person?

Personally, I have always found much more comfort in my friendships. They are the family that I have chosen, they are a family that isn't based and rooted in resentment, obligation and forced experiences. I am never lectured about the importance of blood in this family, never made to feel guilty for loving but not liking my family members. It can seem almost impossible to get right with the idea that your family, the family you are able to thrive in, to be yourself in is not the one you were born into.

I know I have been dealing with toxic family relationships for most of my childhood, all of my teens and still in my early 20's. There is a big messy ball of anxiety and guilt and anger rolling about my insides at all times. My heart just wants peace but my head cannot cope with the bullshit and the hoops I have to constantly jump through to achieve it, fragile as it always is. It never lasts.

Whenever I have unburdened my family woes onto friends or extended family members, they are always sympathetic for a while but after a few rant sessions, the judgments rise to the top. I don't blame them, really I don't. I understand why they would think I was being hyperbolic at the time, all teenagers have a pension for drama. I find it so interesting now however, that when they ask for an update on my relationships with members of my family, that they are shocked to learn that very little has changed for the better. In my head I'm screaming I TOLD YOU THIS YEARS AGO WHY ARE YOU SO SURPRISED?

It is some small miracle that siblings can survive living together through hormones and shouting matches and groundings and come out the other side closer as a family. I think the same can be said for parent children relationships. Just because we are blood, we live in the same house, this does not mean we will be compatible as people. Often we are not and we are simply just made to grin and bare each other until someone moves out and we only have to do this shit at Christmas. Don't get me wrong, I am so unbelievably thankful for the family I have and I am grateful to my parents for all they have and continue to do for me with no expectation of gratitude BUT I know that there is one relationship within my immediate family that I would rather let burn. At least for now anyway.

It is important to note that this unhealthy relationship works both ways, I am no saint in this, that I fully acknowledge, it becomes difficult to rectify it however, when you are the only person in the sinking boat to notice that it's sinking.

People lose their minds when you suggest that a relationship that you are currently in, won't last forever. The very idea that you don't walk into every relationship expecting a ring and a promise is insane to some. And so you can imagine the pure look of horror on people's faces when I express that I would very much like to be as far away from my sibling as possible for the rest of my life. I used to waste time letting their judgment wash over me and seep in. Now I just shrug them off, not everyone will get it, I get it but they don't have to live with it and I do.

In a few years maybe things will calm down, I'll grow, they'll grow (hopefully,) and whatever civil relationship can be had will perhaps be had. Until then, I refuse to sit miserable, putting up with toxic and dysfunctional behaviour to make my parents happy. This is my life after all.


You don't ever have to put up with less than you deserve, blood relations included. If the limb is gangrenous, cut it off!

Surround yourself with people who make you a better, happier person, not a worse one.

Love,

The Girl in Blue
xoxo