(See–I never said I would stop judging. I said I would work on not shaming. DIFFERENT)

My niece just posted on facebook about the $6,000 car she just bought. Well, I guess that means she won’t be moving out at the end of the summer. *sigh* If she doesn’t get the #$@# out of my sister’s house soon I sincerely doubt she will ever do anything with her life. If you spend all your time with drug addicts who STEAL MONEY AND FOOD FROM YOU then you really aren’t likely to ever have much. She has admitted just how difficult it is to study in that house because there are always people over partying till all hours of the night. I offered to give her the down payment on an apartment if she saved up enough money to have two months of living expenses in the bank so that she could get-the-fuck out. I have also offered to pay for her college education. I see the chances of that actually happening going down the drain rapidly. I feel very sad. 🙁

I don’t think you have to ‘turn out like me’ to have a good life. Far from it. I think that you need to not spend all your time around loser drug addicts who steal from you and destroy your belongings and future in order to have a good life.

My sister called and I rolled it to voicemail. I really don’t want to have a conversation with her before my niece’s graduation because she will make the whole day hell.

She wants to know what is going on because I am ignoring her. She also wants to know why I blocked her on facebook and what is going on with my pregnancy.

I…

This sucks. 🙁

It went well. Auntie made an effort to understand why I feel the way I feel and that’s a big deal. Her comments started out with, “I can’t see how occasional contact would possibly be a problem” and ended with, “Ok I can understand how lying like that is a problem.” That’s kind of a little tiny bit HUGE!! Dude. Strangely enough it is the constant lying (by my mom and sister) that she can really wrap her head around rather than the abuse. It was interesting to try to explain cycles of abuse to her. Once I was done I think she understood. At the very least she said she was willing to support me when I finished saying, “I don’t think they are bad people. I don’t think they engage in this behavior for malicious reasons. I think they were both abused so much for so long that they don’t understand how fucked up this behavior is and they are unwilling to admit they are abusers so they can never change.” She was very sad. I told her I am sad too. But I have to do this for my daughter. When I made the decision to have children I did it in full knowledge that I had to protect my children and ensure that they have a better than average shot at ending up happy, healthy people and that requires that I put up very strict boundaries around situations that will hurt them. She tried to say, “But if Shanna only sees them occasionally it won’t be as bad as it was for you.” I repeated what she said. I asked her how she feels about the fact that she can say, “as bad as it was for you” about my childhood. I asked her if she really feels Shanna deserves to be exposed to *any* bad.

It went very very well.

Today I am going to go see my auntie. I’m going to try to explain to her why I am going no contact with my sister and my mother again. I would like to maintain a relationship with her though, and that will require that she understand why I don’t want information about me passed on. It’s going to be very difficult for me to explain to her things about the cycle of abuse. She is not the most self-examining person in the world and she’s in her 70’s. Not usually a time of rapidly expanding ones horizons. I really love her though and I think she is a healthy, good person. She’s just… very much an enabler. She doesn’t want to get in the middle of things.

I’m nervous about this. I’m not sure she can understand and in my “I desperately want approval” sort of way if she just completely doesn’t get it I will feel invalidated. I shouldn’t need her understanding. I really shouldn’t. But I feel like I do anyhow. I’m somewhat tempted to bring the checklist of abusive behaviors. It wouldn’t help at all, so I won’t, but I feel so tempted.

I feel like I am fighting a current of whitewater rapids in standing up for myself. I desperately wish that my family was capable of acting like decent people.

My sister sent my brother a horribly rude, inappropriate, awful letter. I can’t believe her. Well no, that’s not true. I totally believe that she did it. She has no sense of responsibility and she has no fucking boundaries.

But you know what? My brother sent it to me. And he talked to me about it. And he wanted comfort and community with me around how crazy she is. I really hope she will leave him alone again, but I’ll take the outreach. It’s amazing how talking to him affects me. I start to shake. I’m so terrified of doing something or saying something wrong and having him shut me out again. That’s actually a pretty terrible manifestation of the overall abusive nature of our relationship. If I feel that way while talking to him it’s not healthy at all. And the way I crave his approval is also seriously unhealthy.

God I can’t win.

I called my sister to find out when he is coming over tomorrow. We spent a bit talking. She told me how she is baking cookies today because, “After all I [my sister] am now the elder female in the family and somebody has to do it.” This is when I blink and look at the seven varieties of cookies on the counter, all of which have several dozen each. I also looked at the bowl of rising cinnamon roll dough. I more or less said, “Sure. Uhm. Yeah.”

My sister’s view of herself lately cracks me up. She thinks she is going to replace Aunt Vonnie as the one who hosts everything and does everything for everyone. Near as I can tell the only one who goes to her are her children’s drug addict friends. Good job there, sis. Oh, and I can’t remember her hosting a Thanksgiving or Christmas ever. Not one time. I’m 13 years younger and I’ve done it a number of times.