You may be wondering what terrifies me about going through the whole "healing and accepting" process, specifically in regards to the trauma of having such a broken and blended family. Well, for one, I don't want to rock the boat too much. I'm terrified of losing the people I love. I don't want to hurt or alienate or blame anyone for anything, even if I end up having every right to.
I'm not afraid of my estranged family attacking me, per say. I can handle that pain if it's only directed towards me, and I'm willing to fight back and defend myself if needed. I'm just afraid that the conflict will hurt others around me, especially those whom I love the most. Because, that's what happened when I was a teenager. In fact, I almost lost my entire paternal side of the family to that bullshit.
When I was fourteen years old, I stopped going to my dad's house because of how nasty my relationship with my stepmom had become, and also because my stepbrother decided he didn't want to be around his dad anymore (for reasons I don't know). Because of how violent and unpredictable my severely mentally ill stepbrother was when we were little, the courts stepped in and said it was unsafe for me to be around my stepbrother unless his condition improved. So, when my stepbrother moved into my dad's house full-time almost a decade after that ruling, having not improved at all, I couldn't be there anymore. Frankly, because of how nasty my relationship with my stepmom had become, I didn't want to go to my dad's house anyway. Though, I still wanted to maintain a healthy relationship with my dad, and feared losing him.
Problem was, I didn't just have my dad to lose. I also had a little half-brother to lose. I'm so thankful my relationship with my dad weathered that shitshow, but I lost my half-brother when I stopped going to my dad's house so my stepbrother couldn't hurt me. I've only seen my brother-from-another-father once since I was fourteen, and it was for my grandpa's funeral. My little brother didn't even recognize me at first. When he did, he sulked away from me as though he was afraid of me, despite my best attempts to reach out to him. I was just a complete stranger to him. I still am, and that eats me up inside every damn day.
I saw my stepbrother at the funeral too. He was so strung-out on tranquilizing pills that he didn't even seem human. He just looked right through people as though they weren't there, and pretty much sat in a corner playing video games on his phone the whole time I was anywhere near him. While he was much quieter than he was when we were just five and six, it wasn't a good kind of quiet. It was a deafening, depressing silence induced by a handful of extreme psychiatric drugs that just hurt to witness. His silence reminded me of my great grandpa Reuben when his dementia really settled in. Simply put, it was absolutely devastating.
My stepmom didn't even interact with me. She just glared and plodded away from me when I saw her for the first time since I'd left my dad's house. By then, I'd grown taller than her, and I was surrounded by family who would lay down their lives for mine, so I felt relatively safe even in the presence of my stepmom and stepbrother (at least, so long as a trusted family member was within arm's reach of me the entire time I was there. I only ventured away from family to seek alone time in nature when my stepmom and stepbrother were nowhere near the farm). Still, it wasn't a nice experience. It continues to mess with my head from time-to-time. Like when I saw my grandma Shirley dying of cancer, attending my grandpa Bob's funeral with my dad's household in the pew with me felt like a fever dream.
A really, really bad fever dream.
However, while that whole week was a nightmare I never want to repeat again (which is why I am so hesitant to begin to deal with the trauma stemming from my family situation), I came out of it even stronger and more confident than I was when I was fourteen. I realized that my step-family couldn't hurt me like they did when I was little, even if they wanted to. I was too strong, physically and mentally, for them to go after in any meaningful way. Even better, my stepmom didn't even try to assert any authority over me. All I had to do was give my stepmom the side-eye, and she would saunter away without a word.
In the past, my stepmom didn't just try to be a parent to me. She straight-up tried to replace my mom, and would tell me how horrible my entire maternal side of the family was every chance she had. When that didn't work, she tried to break my spirit and convince everyone around me that I was some sort of psychotic nutjob who posed a danger to everyone including myself, essentially projecting her eldest son's behavior onto me. Thank God, that didn't work either. So, my stepmom just resorted to good ol'-fashioned verbal and emotional attacks and gaslighting after that failed.
To this day, I still question my sanity because of that, and so much more that happened that I can't yet remember.
I'm only remembering this stuff now because I'm typing things down as the memories return to the surface. Despite the pain and distress this stuff makes me feel, the more I write about it, the less upsetting it is becoming.
Still, it makes me feel really gross. I almost feel like I dove into raw, untreated sewer water in order to barf all that stuff onto the page, and I'm now in desperate need of a shower. Indeed, my family situation is pretty much a cesspool. One that only God can sanitize.
