I don’t know what I’m going to do about my family. I’m kind of thinking that I need to completely cut off contact with them for the forseeable future because having them in my life is actively hurting me. I really don’t want to do it though. 🙁 Last night when I desperately needed support I went over and spent time with some of the people who have chosen to be my family. I was told reasons why I can’t possibly be as terrible as my bio-family claims. I’m trying very hard to not only hear, but believe. It’s hard. I have been internalizing messages about my complete awfulness for a very long time. I… I don’t really know what to do about a lot of it. I’m scared and even though I have some amazing and wonderful support I feel terribly alone. It is kind of ironic that this stuff comes on the heels of me acknowledging just how completely inappropriate some of my behavior is. It kind of seems like confirmation that I am really that bad of a person. 🙁 But yet–my family won’t acknowledge their problems. I got into a fight with my sister yesterday and I brought up several specific things she does that are highly abusive and she said, “That isn’t abuse. My kids deserve that because they are teenagers and are impossible to live with.” Did they deserve it in junior high? In elementary school? What about when they were toddlers? She has *always* been abominable to them and can’t see that. I don’t want to ever see that look of resigned defeat in my children’s eyes the way I see it in my niece and nephew or hell–in my own eyes. I don’t want to ever seen them just learn to cringe and prepare for the onslaught of screaming. I won’t do it. You know what? If I ever do lose it and yell at my kids I want them to be strong enough to tell me that I shouldn’t be doing it because they don’t deserve it. That is my goal. I want my kids to know just how much they are worth. And that is what the other members of my family can’t understand. They think we all deserve this.

No. I don’t.