Rebellious Scapegoat

HYPERVIGILANCE

"You are to be commended for getting out of the insanity and finding peace and serenity."

Let me begin by saying I have a distinctly different position on family than many people. You don't have to agree and you don't have to do anything but here's my thoughts....

Some families are just toxic and won't change. The individuals are not capable of seeing you as the world does. Rather the family system is based on you being the problem. Ironically the system, (not the people but the system of family dynamics) will work overtime to keep you in that role so the system has balance. This means that your family as individuals may also ever support you in this change and your new life.

Change in individual family members is always hard, so I always ask my friends to look at their family and see what is important in this relationship? What role do they play in your life right now? Is it that the interactions give them a chance to play out old stuff? Or perhaps it gives you that chance (of being put down and misunderstood and underappreciated). What is there, other than the blood relationship that keeps you hooked in.

I've never really understood the attachment that those in the rooms have to their families of origin. I hear all the time, "they did the best they could, so I've forgiven and forgotten'. Okay. But then I have to ask those folks, "What are you teaching your children?" that family can say or do anything because they're family? they can use you and abuse you and claim to love you because they're related?

I've never been able to figure it out. My family was toxic, so I stepped out of the relationship for a long time. my dad couldn't be trusted not to abuse my kids. Would I put them at risk? Hell no. So I stepped away and took my kids with me. Was it easy? no. Did people understand? Not all of them. In fact, many of the folks in the rooms tried to explain how I should forgive and forget and be the bigger person. But my take was that no one had changed, so if i keep putting myself in that environment, abuse just continues, over and over and over.

Ask yourself why are you in this relationship? would these people be friends if they were your neighbours? Are you harboring a hope they'll change and come to see you for the person you are, rather than who you were? Is that likely? What impact does their toxicity have on your kids? (dysfunctional people don't choose their victims, they use who ever is available).

I said these were hard questions and they are. at the end of the day, this is how they are. The Serenity Prayer says accept the things I cannot change (these people sound like that) change the things I can (either your presence or your reaction) and the wisdom to know the difference (the hardest part of the whole thing.)

Like I said tough questions that I don't mean to sound mean-spirited or nasty. But this is what I put to my friends and myself.

GOOD LUCK !