I didn’t forget about last Friday’s post, I have just been debating if I wanted to write the post or leave it alone. I decided to go ahead and try to write the post and see what happens.
Family. One word with so many meanings, so many thoughts that comes to mind. I have a complicated relationship with my family. The family I grew up with I barely know anymore. I left home to join the US Army and I have only been home a handful of times in my adult life. I have four kids and one I barely talk with now. My brother thinks I only care about Daddy to get what I can get out of him, and my daddy himself has left the phone when I tried to call and talk with him. It’s been rough for me that’s for sure.
Two weeks ago I was dealing with some more menopause symptoms that prompted me to think about family in a weird way. I remember a cousin telling me that she and a few more of my female relatives had similar issues during their life at about the same age. I just think it’s my turn to deal with what she described. When I went to the ER to make sure it wasn’t critical, I told the doctor that it looks like it’s just something that my family deals with and so far no one hasn’t had any serious complications from it thank goodness, just something to tell my primary care when I can. This situation made me think about my family and boy it’s been a trip ever since.
I don’t talk much with my family. I had the traumatic experience that caused my PTSD when I was active in the Army at 19 years old. I was still so young then, and so because I was so young I just kept quiet about it and tried to pretend it didn’t really happen. As what happens with any victims, the guilt and shame made me not want to breathe a word of it to anyone because I felt it made me a bad person. Later as I got older I just didn’t want to worry my family since there was nothing they could do about it anyway. Now I am just at a point where I feel disconnected from my family to the point where they feel more like strangers than family and that feels so lonely. I have spent the years being angry that they never reached out, then guilty that I didn’t reach out to them. Worried that if I confided in them with what happened when I was 19 or anything since then they would not want to have anything to do with me ever again. I miss my family. I get so lonely thinking I no longer have a family as I watch events happen without me on social media. I have tried to reach out here and there but it never goes anywhere. This anxiety I have makes me feel like no one wants to deal with me and they only tolerate me because they have to, and my depression makes me feel like why bother trying it will only fail anyway. Yeah still battling these demons even 28 years later. Ah well