I have spent years thinking about the roots of violence. My youngest and I have been involved with the Alternatives to Violence Project. In workshops, we try to identify violence. Us against them, identifying them as the other, is a seed of violence. We are all us, but at different places, only doing as much as we can.
I think it feels middleschool, because it is. And I think that you are feeling that, because that was a time of damage. Something hurt you then, and a lot of the pain you feel now gets stuck on that wound. It's reactivating the pain, and will continue to do so until the pain has been identified, felt and released. I know it because I feel it. Someone posted a family photo on the infamous social network we're all addicted to. "My sisters." It's the four girls. We always seem to forget there is a fifth girl. I chalk it up to age difference. There was me, then the four boys - who were connected, and then you girls also connected. But it does hurt when I see the picture, because I wasn't included, I wasn't invited, I didn't know everyone else was making plans and was getting together. I don't think it was intentional, or meant to hurt me. It's just the way things are. Look at me in the photos from Dad's birthday. I am not connected. You can see it in my eyes.
Mom and Dad do not visit me. I was not invited to the recent birthday, either. But, I didn't expect to be...I've really allowed myself to be alienated from the family. I have done my quiet retreat and alienated myself from the family. I think it is my nature, but more truly, it is my way of avoiding pain.
I got an unvitation for a niece's wedding. After the wedding B#1 called to tell me I had been invited. The invitation came back, he said, because he got the address wrong. I had to laugh, because, obviously he had my phone number and email to call me after the wedding to tell me that I was welcome. These are the little barbs that erode family. And I am afraid of focusing on what was done to me, poooooor me, rather than thinking about the ways I have been inhospitable and unwelcoming.
I think we do talk too much. We analyze too much. We dig at the stories, trying to find the truth. And it is uncomfortable both for us and for those we are digging at. After your "I forgive you..." letter of about 7 or 8 years ago, Mom asked us to tell her how we were hurt. I believed she wanted to know, and so I wrote a long, heartfelt letter. She did not respond, and Dad didn't talk to me for 5, maybe 6, years. I called to announce the birth of my first grandchild. Dad heard my voice and hung up on me. That is the level of fear we are dealing with. We will sacrifice our connections to each other in order to preserve the facade of we're okay, nothing happened.
But something did happen. We were abused. We were sexually, psychologically and physically abused. And it's not okay. It is absolutely not okay. We have a right to know what happened, and we have a right to be furious. Our lives were made almost impossible because of the pain we have had to bear. And it is not fair. I hate it and I am angry. I just feel like I want to die rather than go on in this pain sometimes. I can understand why two of us have tried to kill themselves.
But then I have my grandson for an overnight. And he wants to come. He wants to be with me. And the world has hope again...I am creating connections...I want more. I want you in my life. I want to know your kids, to feel like I'm really someone's aunt. But I am so trapped.
Okay...I'm calm, sort of. You described the way your in-laws came together and bonded during the period after your nephew died. (I think it was about 10 or 11 years ago. He was the same age as my oldest son, who will be 30 in two months!) I think this is normal. This is how we differentiate from our family of origin and create our own families. We join and connect, then expand and experience life before touching home base again. The problem with our family, I suspect, is that it takes a major drama to rouse us to connection. We should come together and celebrate lost teeth and good report cards, passed road tests, new babies...B#3 has his first grandson. We are happy - he's a really cute baby. But we are not coming together - not dramatic enough. And they are kind of strangers...
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