It’s my Birthday.
I’m now 27.
I have an amazing roommate and some great friends I’ll be spending time with over the next couple days. I have a wonderful mother who I’ll see this Friday. I’m so excited for the next two nights of celebrating and I hope I can enjoy them. I so desperately want to.
I had a few of my family members reach out to contact me today, mostly from my mom’s side, and one aunt from my dad’s.
One distant and troubled relative called me a bitch and told me it’s no wonder my father hates me, in addition to many other personal attacks, because I asked him not to comment transphobic things on my page.
This all after I was ignored by my own grandmother, and cold shouldered by a group of relatives at my niece’s birthday party this weekend.
It seems that my family is very good at spreading gossip–but gets very mad at me when I tell my side of the story on facebook or twitter. I’ve never had my perspective considered by some of them, and it’s clearly not respected which is why I do share so much on social media. Like every other human on the planet, I need validation and company.
I still am not at liberty to say why my family is acting this way toward me because it is not my news to share–but it’s absolutely just a game they are playing to keep themselves from having to accept responsibility for who they are and what they’ve done, and further proof of the toxicity and dysfunction I pointed out to them years ago. Also, as much as I’d love to take responsibility for it (because at least if it was my fault I could fix it with an apology and self work, which I do constantly anyway), it’s absolutely not my fault, nor fixable by me–if at all.
There’s more shit going on now than has been going on it the past few years–which have been miserable enough as it is. I originally began the turmoil that hasn’t stopped because I demanded to be seen as the person I am and treated like I matter–I’m now being shut out by a few people and heavily gaslit by others–feeling burdensome to those who still put up with me because I see myself through the eyes of those who seemingly can’t stand me.
It’s my birthday, and I feel like shit about who I am–even though I know I shouldn’t and have no real reason to except that I’ve been told who I am is unacceptable and treated like I’m a fucking plague.
It’s my birthday–a day that I guess should be all about me–and I resent how much I’ve had attention pointed toward me because it means I have to look at myself and my perspective on myself has been super fucked up lately so looking inward isn’t a joyful experience.
It’s my Birthday, and I’m lost, very sad, and isolating more and more all the time for fear of who I am, who I might be, who might project onto me, and who I might hurt with my own baggage and projection.
It’s my birthday….
This day isn’t a joyful one for a lot of people. I never thought of myself as one of those people, but I am this year. And the sad thing is that the people I love still do not fucking care that I am in pain, that I ever have been in pain. If they do, they don’t know how to express it, which is much more understandable but still super painful.
I’ve kind of always been tagging along behind, a 3rd, 5th sometimes 7th wheel to my family. I don’t know why I care or need them so much but I do, and they don’t seem to want to treat me well or even have a conversation about what might be wrong or how they can help.
I wish, for my birthday, that this pain, this terrible pain, be assuaged. I wish for healing, and hope, and the rebuilding of relationships outside of my own pain and my family’s toxicity. I want a family, even if it’s not the one I was born into. I wish for love and relationships that I can trust. I wish for laughter and joy to come back someday. I wish to move on and life my own life instead of being dragged back into the family drama and blamed for literally anything. I wish to be able to give back to my friends how they give to me, and I know I sometimes cannot now. I wish to be able to work more, make more money, live more intentionally, and take better care of my self and my body and mind and heart. I want these things so much, and I think sometimes people forget (when they’re talking to someone in pain) that nobody WANTS to be in pain. If I had the ability to just “let it go” please know that I absolutely would. Why would I want this? Why would I volunteer myself for this?
I hope one day to be able to write the full contents and understanding of my life’s experiences for others to read. I think once I can look at this all in hindsight it will make more sense, be more resolved, and make a very compelling piece for new conversations and different understandings of how we interact and treat one another. I hope that I can turn all of this pain into something beautiful, something meaningful, something that makes it more than just absurd and unnecessary human suffering. But right now it is just a bunch of people in pain, who all have horrible coping skills, unable to rationally discuss how they really feel about one another and themselves. I am included in that mess because all the work I’ve done on myself goes by the wayside when I am around my family, as I get triggered back into a lot of old habits and patterns. I become the silent girl in the corner or the black sheep.
I have done enough writing and coping and processing tonight that I think I will be able to move on for the moment and find some joy over the next few days, but this has been a hell of a day, week, month, year, lifetime. I pray to all things and being in the universe which hold the power to bring change to me–please, please, please, allow me to feel some joy and some pleasure and some love. Please, let me life without this weight someday soon. I cannot carry the burden of this painful perspective of myself forever.