I have an unusual amount of hostility towards the concept of family. I understand very well that family is not just made up of blood and dna. Family is about showing up consistently and keeping commitments.

I have a lot of expectations about family.That’s my problem.

When people occasionally say things like, “I could stay with you for a holiday because I don’t have to visit my family this year” I know I am not family. Even though they might extensively (when it is convenient) talk about how I am chosen family. No I’m not family. You leave me behind when you go back to your family.

I suppose most people are used to having a “mothers side” and the “fathers side” and they don’t cross pollinate much so it makes sense that people think they can have me as “family” even though I am not integrated in any way with anyone else in their family. Noah has a great aunt who doesn’t talk to any of the relatives who live within walking distance of her house.

I grew up with my Auntie living in a house full of my family. They were my family. They were there. They didn’t take care of me much and mostly they hated me but they were actually there. I don’t even know how to describe what makes it so different. My “cousins” were related neither by blood nor marriage (though my cousin and their mom finally got married a couple years ago after more than twenty years together so now we are related by marriage).

They were around. I ate my meals with them. I talked to them. I dealt with problems with them. I didn’t like them and they didn’t like me but that is life. It doesn’t matter if you like your family you show up and do things to help them anyway. When I had spare weekends it was expected by my entire family that I would spend them at my sister’s house cleaning because she needed help. Family just shows up to make sure you don’t fail because you are too weak to handle everything alone. Family doesn’t need to be invited. They are just there.

Outside of registering for a school at some point I am pretty sure I will never again ask anyone for any kind of long term commitment to my kids. That hasn’t gone so well. It goes well until people are out of spoons and then my kids get dropped. Their needs aren’t truly “mandatory” for these other people, just me. I’m the only family my kids have. I’m the only one who will just show up and make sure they have what they are supposed to have.

I feel very sad about that.

It feels like it is all my fault. If I hadn’t been such a needy piece of shit…

Dude, my needs are nothing compared to the needs my sister had as a parent. She had aunts, uncles, her mother, and her siblings all show up constantly because she needed help. My sister didn’t spend a lot of time dealing with the problems in her life because there were always people there trying to help.

I’m not saying I’m looking for codependence. I think I have alienated enough people by not wanting their help that the door couldn’t even be opened for me at this point.

But I notice that when people are having a hard time with meeting their life obligations they are absolutely ok with just dropping the commitment to my kids. They weren’t the idiots stupid enough to get knocked up. This is my problem.

People have to put their own oxygen mask on first. I get it. But I’m sitting in a row where I’m the only one available to help my kids. So maybe I’ll get mine on first and maybe I’ll make sure my kids are ok first. Because if I don’t take care of them no one will. I am thoroughly ok with the idea of them surviving and having to navigate the world without me over the idea of me living and them dying. Oh fuck no. I won’t save me first. I wouldn’t be able to live with the loss.

I’m very scared because we need to update the custody paperwork stuff with our lawyer. One person who was supposed to be a point person for our estate up and moved to the East Coast and we don’t really speak any more. One person no longer speaks to me because she didn’t like what I had to say about her family in the first book. (Fair enough.) And the other folks are just getting… busy. They aren’t available any more. Sorry.

But if I want to call and chat that would be ok.

Wait… you gave me a lifelong commitment that you are now backing out on and you think I could call you to chat for emotional support?!

I’m sorry, have we met? I’m Krissy Gibbs. I have severe trust issues and if you don’t jump my hurdles then no we will never be having intimate chats about my personal problems. I can write them on the internet for anyone at all to see–that’s different.

I only sit down for intense one on one conversations when the person has shown a pattern of showing up for commitments and prioritizing me in their personal life. Prioritizing my kids is awesome and I’m grateful but it is different from prioritizing me. There aren’t many people in this whole world I have sat down and actually talked about my issues with.

People can’t handle it and I’m not going to open myself up for more rejection from someone who is already in the process of rejecting me. I’m not stupid.

I have to keep this train running. Whether any one else wants to help or not. That means that I can’t lean outside my comfort zone for something that for someone else would be support and for me just creates more stress.

I support other people managing their boundaries with me. By all means push me away when I get intense. (But do people really have to keep telling me, “I stopped reading your blog. It’s too intense.” Do you not understand that my assumption is that people don’t want to read it and I am shocked by the people who continue to keep up? You don’t need to tell me. That was already what I assumed.)

“Here confide your sadness and lack of coping skills while I flip you off with both hands the whole time.”

Err, I’ll pass. Thanks. I don’t exactly feel like I have a warm and fuzzy welcome.

I’m scared of the future. I feel it was inappropriate for me to have children because I have no where for them to go where they are actually wanted and safe if something happened to me. They have their choice of abusive biological families or my friends who don’t really want them. Some of my friends would do it if it meant keeping them from being abused but they don’t want them. And the joint custody stage is just over.

I’ll adapt. I always do.

Sometimes I draw great comfort from the fact that whatever things happen to me at this point–no matter how unfortunate they might be–I have been through worse and I ended up on top. I will continue to reinvent myself to be whatever I need to be.

Yeah, I will always have rocky periods. I will always struggle with general self-worth, I’m afraid. But I will keep going and I will keep changing whatever I need to change about myself in order to meet the carefully very small list of things I have agreed to do.

Under promise and over deliver. That’s my motto.

I have a great network though. And talking about my issues with the word “family” is probably pretty alienating. There have been a fair number of people who have told me they consider me “family”. My response, “Really? And just how many of your “family” functions have I been at? None. Yeah. We aren’t family.”

We are friends. We can be tribe. I love the word tribe. We can be contacts. We can be a network. We can be part of a community together.

I love and respect you and think you are doing as well by me as you should be to some random friend. But you don’t treat me like family and don’t demean me and your family by conflating the two.

Friends share what they have left over. Family keeps giving whether they have “extra” or not.

My aunt didn’t take me in to live with her because she had extra spoons. That was not a woman who had a spare *anything* in her life. She took me in any way. Even though I was violent and reactive and difficult and I acted out sexually all over the place. She let me live with her until *I* left. She never asked me to leave. Auntie never withdrew her support. That was all me.

When Auntie was sick she fucking got out of bed and took care of everyone anyway. That’s what you do. (As I got older I sent her back to bed and I did her chores. Because that is also what you do.)

It is hard feeling simultaneous gratitude for what people have given me and sadness that they are done. It is hard dealing with the bitterness of being told I’m family and watching as I’m dropped. That’s what you do with friends when you want to do the slow fade because you don’t have the ovaries to say, “I want to end this relationship because I can’t handle how crazy you are.”

Fair point. No one needs to handle how crazy I am. I get it. I’m sorry I have impacted you so negatively. Please take care of yourself.

I need to stop looking around me for the help that will not come. I’m it. Whatever will be rests on my shoulders.

I don’t feel bitter about that. I feel kind of sad. I had quite a group of people I used to spend a lot of time with. I was told adamantly how they would all “be there for me” when I had kids.

Don’t listen to what people say. Look at what they do. Many of my friends are faaaaaabulous occasional babysitters and they’ve made very careful sure that they never even hinted at being available for more than that. They are under promising. I could probably ask for more help in an emergency but they haven’t promised me a god damn thing because they are smart.

I think that my fascist attachment to “but you promised!” probably makes people feel bad. They meant it when they promised it but they didn’t understand what they were actually promising. They meant it for a while and then life circumstances changed and they can’t handle it any more. There is probably at least some piece of shame or inadequacy or disappointment or sadness or something in there. When folks have those kinds of feelings the standard response is to look around and see who you can blame for them. I kind of assume that’ll be me. I shouldn’t remember and hold people to promises. They didn’t really mean it and I’m being a control freak asshole by bringing it up.

Geez. Don’t I understand that they are just available when they have nothing better to do? Geez.

Raising kids is hard. It doesn’t wait until you have nothing better to do. It is the better thing you have to do.

I can no longer plan my life around the idea of having breaks provided by other people. Well, I can hire the neighborhood kid for babysitting. I’m going to be doing more of that. That is one of the only options that is close to within my control. But I won’t think of it as a big break either. It’s an hour or two off at a time so I don’t lose my fucking mind.

“I can see you are struggling and I don’t want to watch.”

Story of my fucking life.

You know what? For all of my struggling I’m still here. I’m not dead yet. I may swear a lot but I don’t hit people any more. I have completed life phases successfully. I have set a lot of goals and met them. I have done what I have said I would do.

The next thing I need to do is get a handle on the yelling in this house. I’ll do it. I’ll find a way. I can’t handle that as a trigger any more, not without anxiety medication.

I sat Shanna down and started talking to her about what coming off the medication means and that I am doing it right now.

“A long time ago–way before you were born–stuff happened to me that kind of changed the chemicals in my brain. I get TOO angry. I get TOO sad and I have a hard time calming down. This is not your fault at all in any way. It is just how my brain works. It is really hard for me to have patience. You know the medicine I take? That medicine gives me more patience and helps me not feel so angry or so sad. It has helped me to be patient while you were a baby and you just flat needed my patience. But every medication is good and bad at the same time. This medicine is hard on my body in some ways that aren’t good for me in the long run. I can’t take it for the rest of my life. I have to come off it. It’s going to be hard to adjust as I have less patience and I feel more angry and more sad but we will have to find a way. Step one: no really you can’t scream in my face any more. I’m afraid I will hit you out of reflex because I am no longer taking a medication that gives me extra pause. Hitting is wrong and I don’t believe it will ever be ok to hit you. We can’t do this screaming any more. Stuff has to change.”

So I’m reading up on screaming in children and adults. I will make plans upon plans. I have to eliminate the screaming. I’m going to break every wall in the house if we don’t.

It will all be ok in the end. If it’s not ok, it’s not the end.