This is a letter to my entire family. My maternal side and my paternal side. To my grandmothers, aunties, uncles, cousins, my father and my 3 older half siblings. I will also address my mother in this letter but she's not to be put next to the rest of you. My entire life I have been surrounded by chaos. I have never known security, love, nurture or kindness. To the paternal side of my family, why did you lose interest in me once I hit puberty? I never really knew my father so I held onto the concept of a loving extended family on his side. That was short lived. I distinctively remember discussing my battle with anorexia to my grandmother and aunty, the only people I had admitted it to and you never helped, in fact, when I told you, well that was the last time I seen you. You actually showed up for my younger brothers birthday but not for mine 7 months prior. I don't have much to say to you except that I completely disown you all and take great pride in the fact you have had no impact on the good person I am today. To my maternal side of the family, every family gathering has been met with fist-fights, alcohol and drugs, I must ask you all, why do you think it is acceptable to expose young children to this? Do you not understand how crucial it is for children to grow up in a loving, secure environment? There are so many scary things about the history of your side of the family, it is full of lies, physical and sexual abuse, emotional neglect, overdoses, teen pregnancy and murder. I am so completely glad to be free of you all. There a multitude of things wrong with each and everyone of you and I find it hard to comprehend how you all can even look each other in the eye and pretend you are normal. I truly feel sorry for any children my cousins have, being brought up in that family. As a child who escaped and survived it, run, run now and never look back. Life is too short to have people who call themselves 'family' make your life hell. I will never have anything to do with any of you, because to put it simply, I am better than all of you put together. I don't want to sound narcissistic but it's true. To my father, I have very mixed emotions about you. I have heard nothing but horrible things and half-truths about you and I may never know the truth of past events and to be completely honest, I do not care. The reason I do not care to know is because I hold onto the goodness you gave me as a child. Certain things like teaching me how to tie my shoe laces, to ride a bike, to write and small lessons like that. Sometimes you were too forceful and yelled a lot, but you took me to the beach and park often, you gave me nicknames and made me feel as special as my little brother (something my older siblings never did, you see, he was the golden boy) I hold onto these things because there are terrible things I do remember about you, things I will never forgive you for. You took a certain innocence and trust away from me. I remember how you flogged into mum and the dog and cat. I remember how we had to be locked in the house when you were threatening to burn it down, I remember being essentially held hostage by you and kidnapped after school. But the crazy thing is, I felt more love from you than I did from my older siblings growing up. This doesn't excuse you from the pain you have caused me, I never want anything to do with you but I will hold onto those good memories for the sake of my inner-child. To my older siblings, I am so very sad that you have each turned out the way you have. I look at you and see sad, bitter, resentful people who cannot own their mistakes but instead must put it onto our mother. None of you have excuses for the way you are, everyone goes through terrible things but you 2 (my sisters) have made it your identity and are miserable because of it. My oldest sister, when I was younger I was actually close to you and would defend you against so many people, but now as a mature adult, I see you for who you truly are, a sad, horrible mother and a bitter mentally troubled person. I want you to get help, truly. You have some big problems that need addressing, unfortunately it's a little too late because you have already destroyed your 3 older children. Congratulations, you are just like everyone else in mums family. To my second oldest sibling/sister, over the past 3 years I have seen you morph into the worst person. You are an alcoholic and drug-addict so I shouldn't expect much else from you. I have a lot of things to say about you and the way you made me feel growing up, but to be honest, you are not worth the energy and I will never waste another breath on you, I completely disown both my sisters. To my older brother, I have mostly respect for you but we aren't close, we never have been and I just ask that you keep your children close, try to love them, it's something you have never been good at. To mum, I wish you held me more as a child, I wish you told me you loved me, I wish you spoke to me and taught me valuable lessons that instead, I had to learn myself. I wish you let me change schools when I was being relentlessly bullied so I didn't have to wag and drop out. I could have graduated mum. I would envy the relationships my friends had with their mothers, there was so much love. From you I felt mere tolerance. I wish you never took my tragedy as your own, I wish you done as I asked and respected my grieving process, instead of gossiping with shop clerks and family about it. I wish you didn't have to make me feel broken and incomplete. I wish you let me have my grief as my own and got me the help I needed. I wish you didn't push my in-laws away. You still bring it up as if I don't think about it every single day, you question my healing process, you try to use it as a light conversation topic and I see you try to break me. Little do you know, because of what happened, I am strong, I am brave and I have come to a paramount stage in my healing. I'm grateful for what happened because it turned out to be the biggest wake-up call anyone could ever receive at such a tender age. I have learnt lessons most people don't learn in a life time. Because of my tragedy I have grown wiser. I will be a better mother than you. I have the strongest relationship with the best man in the entire world because of it all. So, you can try to make me feel broken, but I am the opposite of that. I am lucky to have the sort of man you never, ever found. My children will be lucky to have a father you could never provide us with. I am over the lies, hurt and drama that come with this family, so I am saying goodbye. You see, I have a new life growing inside of me and I will never introduce them to the disorder of my 'family'. They are the single most important thing in the world to me, next to their father. I am creating my own family and from lessons learnt, it will be a family full of trust, honesty, love, kindness, nurture and support. Lastly, to my younger brothers, I love you both and I will forever protect you.
Sincerely,
Finally free.
