Something I've been reflecting on today is being estranged from family because it's so interesting.
I saw this video that prompted the thought where people will essentially leap to protect abusers.
To protect the status quo or to keep things the same.
A lot of our society's dysfunctions seems to stem from people sweeping things under the rug versus actually dealing with things.
That was very common in my family.
I'm essentially no contact with my family, as of almost a year ago, when they physically assaulted me again,
At that point, I was just like, "No, I'm done. I'm not willing to deal with this anymore."
Something that was wild to me was them starting to side with my abuser.
I think some of it was them trying to hurt my feelings and lash out, some was probably them coping.
Because if they acted how they did when they said what exes have done to me was wrong, then they would have to admit their own behavior towards me was also wrong.
And they aren’t ones to take accountability. They're very emotionally immature and abusive.
It was wild to witness them take things I would confide in them about and completely twist them in order to use them against me.
The things they were saying were 5–10% of the truth and the rest was all twisted to make me look like the problem.
After knowing an ex had sent me to the ER from abuse and knowing even some of the less abhorrent things I had endured from exes, just to cope they would then say “I feel bad for him having to deal with you.”
I'm not gonna really get into all that right now, but today I was reflecting on the connections.
I spent a lot of time wanting them to change, wanting them to grow, wanting them to develop an emotional intelligence, trying to educate them with everything I was learning on my own journey to hopefully be applied in some way to theirs.
So that we could begin to work through things and evolve, rather than just stay the same and continue the dysfunctional cycles.
But the thing is, we can't make someone change that doesn't want to change.
Our egos protect us, they want us to stay the same out of protection.
Change is scary, the unknown is scary.
Who are you if you don't continue the way that you're continuing?
Or if you decided to reflect on your beliefs and possibly change them?
Today, I was wondering is it worth trying to salvage these connections in my family?
I started thinking about it a little bit, and then it popped into my head of how the reason that I've become the Black Sheep is because I no longer tolerated the abuse.
I no longer tolerated the dysfunction.
I was calling out the horrible behaviors.
The toxic cycles,
Watching my sisters leap to defend and appease my family, to protect them, to keep the status quo was like the ground below me was shaking.
They had been saying similar things that I was calling out that we had talked about.
But when it came down to the moment of it being in the open, rather than holding their ground, they chose to lie, backtrack, and gaslight.
I could have gone back and found the texts and took screenshots but I knew it wasn’t worth it.
One sister said “it sounds like we had completely different parents.”
I said “I had wooden spoons broken over my ass.”
My sister meekly stated "Well, I didn’t experience that..."
No fucking shit.
And you’re confused as to why it seems we had completely different parents?
Most siblings in households have completely different lived experiences.
I would say in unhealthy households, but sometimes in healthy households as well, especially depending upon the age gap.
Because even in a healthy household, if a couple has a child and they're emotionally available, they're meeting all the needs emotionally and physically, and then they wait five years or ten years to have another child, the financial situation could potentially be significantly better for example.
So obviously that second child is gonna have a completely different lived experience in that same household, even though the parents are still healthy, the dynamics are still healthy.
But especially in unhealthy households, it seems siblings have completely different lived experiences.
The way we were raised with the parentification, the enmeshment, the abuse, the walking on eggshells, the appeasing, the emotional neglect, having a volatile parent, and an enabling parent, and like all of these different things.
And then the favoritism and competition, the golden child, the scapegoat.
And I kind of had this realization when thinking about it today.
Before I held a mirror to them, before I started calling them out with the intent of things to change, for repair, for accountability, and growth—things that are important to me for anyone to be in my life—they would claim they would never want me to be with somebody that would put their hands on me.
They didn't want me to be with any of my exes.
That I deserved better.
(And I did, but we accept the love we think we deserve and I had to come to that realization on my own.)
But they did the exact same thing that my exes did.
And it clicked in my head a different way.
Why would I try to salvage a connection that they themselves, when they claimed to care for me, would not want me to have, or that type of connection was not a connection that they deemed worthy of me?
Emotionally immature people will not hold themselves accountable.
There’s never going to be growth or accountability if they don’t want to change.
And when you try to hold them accountable, they tend to project and turn things around, especially abusive people.
I had experienced DARVO with abusive exes, but it was insane to recognize it in my own family members.
But then because it's family, we make excuses.
It’s so unnatural for our species to cut off family and not want to be around family.
A lot of people will say “oh, but that's your mother. Oh, that's your family. That's your blood.”
Blah, blah, blah.
The thing is, unconditional love does NOT mean unconditional tolerance.
We have to protect ourselves, especially if the people closest to us are the ones that are not protecting us.
No one is going to protect you as well as you can protect yourself.
There’s nuance there, I know.
But if you don't protect yourself, you’re more than likely not going to choose partners or connections that also protect you.
The dynamics of my childhood, the dynamics of my family, are the reason that I went on to choose partners that I did.
I recreated those dynamics as an adult in my connections, especially my young adult romantic relationships.
And I came to the conclusion, no, I'm not going to worry about salvaging the connections.
They’re not safe people for me emotionally, they're not safe people for me physically.
Sometimes it's sad, sometimes it's disappointing, but ultimately, my life is more peaceful without them in it.
And I can create my own chosen family, I can create my own community in the future, and hoping that things will improve with time.
When someone won’t hold themselves accountable, a lot of the times, silence and absence can be the best learning experience or wake up call for them.
It’s kind of in the sense of, if you have an ex..
I never tolerated cheating, but then with my ex, I was already in the addiction cycle.
So when he cheated on me, and he got teary eyes, begged me to stay, and apologized.
I did.
Then his method of repair was spending a bunch of money, rather than changing his behavior, only to then try to hold whatever money he spent over my head later.
But the unhealthy dynamics I was in continued, and he would just cheat again.
It's the same thing where what you tolerate will continue.
So tolerating nonsensical behavior from family just allows that to continue.
It doesn't hold them accountable in anyway, it just shows that they can continue to do it.
Talking to them when they're unwilling to hear it, unwilling to acknowledge it, unwilling to take accountability and only operating on their nervous system going into fight, flight, fawn, or freeze.
When you stop tolerating it, when you remove yourself, it protects yourself like you deserve, it allows you to focus on yourself so your life can improve.
You can maintain your peace, and a lot of times things blossom beautifully for you.
Abundance cannot grow where peace does not thrive.
But it also provides them an opportunity to eventually sit with themselves and hopefully reflect at some point.
I think it'll take a very long time for them to get to that point but.. ultimately, we have to stop tolerating the bad behavior in order for any kind of change to potentially happen.
And find connections that value us, that respect us.
I think similarly, that’s why certain abhorrent people are the way they are.
Their family tolerated their poor behavior. Maybe even enabled it.
It’s been shown to them as acceptable from a young age to display that behavior, so it continues on into adulthood.
Sometimes it never stops unless a very disastrous situation of some kind happens where they meet the wrong person that doesn't tolerate it and maybe puts them in their place.
But even then, it doesn't always work that way.
It's kind of like what's wrong with our society as well.
The paradox of tolerance.
Our society has essentially been tolerant of intolerance for a very long time.
Abuse has been swept under the rug, rapists get a slap on the wrist; dysfunction and all of these things have just been tolerated.
They're never held accountable.
And because of that, there's little growth.
Without acknowledging and holding something accountable, there's never going to be much growth.
We’re to the point in our society, because we've tolerated so much intolerance in the terms of bigotry, misogyny, and sexism—and by bigotry, I mean in any form, racism, homophobia—all of that is the reason that there are still people that way today.
Obviously, it's a sickness passed down from generation to generation, but it's also been tolerated because of it being passed down that people just viewed it as acceptable or normal.
No matter how illogical it is.
We’re kind of swinging deeper into it, or it’s seemingly more prevalent, because tolerance has made it seem normal, like having someone like Trump in office.
Hopefully the result of it being brought to light, people will move forward and unpack it.
Allowing bigotry in all forms to be eradicated and not be so prevalent among our society for generations to come.
But I guess we'll see.
