I might regret this

This is the 3rd holiday season that I’ve been no contact with my family. It hasn’t bothered me before so why am I especially sad lately? It’s not like I miss them or wish I were spending the day with an idealized version of them.

Idk maybe it’s because this year I’m surrounded by more people who talk about their families. But that’s never bothered me before because I know I’m not missing out on anything.

Maybe now that I’m thirty I’m thinking more about the holidays I would like to have, with my person and then later with my own children. But idk, I don’t think holds much weight.

I’ve been feeling like this for a little bit and it barely occurred to me that maybe it’s because this is the first holiday season since I found out my parents were lying about something major for 5 years and we were still on speaking terms for several years after that.

Honestly, when I first found out about what my parents were hiding, I was really NOT OKAY. I've been through soo much, and on my own in this life, that whenever anything bad or traumatic happens now, I hardly flinch. I'm used to it, I learned to accept it. But this -- this turned my world upside down. And the only person I wanted to hold me, was M. HE understood. Sure, Y does in regards to my anger, but emotionally she doesn’t understand at all how and why its was as devastating to me as it was. It was a moot point to try to explain. M though, he saw my pain in a way I didn't need to explain -- he felt it with me. And that made me cry even harder at the time. Because the only thing that could regulate my nervous system, to have M's arms around me in silence, was no longer possible. If we had been on better terms, like in 2021 or 2022, I don't doubt he would have been there to help me with that. Just his presence, his warmth. Even with no other expectations, and no implications that we would be any closer to getting back together. He would have been there, as would I if his dad didn’t get into that cancer treatment trial. So, that was extra hard for me at the time because that was now so far from a possibility and that was all my fault. Even if we just put aside the fault I had for walking away from that relationship, but because in an attempt to make the separation easier, I lashed out at him unfairly. I'm not blaming my BPD, but it was nowhere near as under control then, and I really think that was necessary for me to open my eyes.

Anyways, going back to my family. I had soo many grievances with them. But I was not prepared for the level of betrayal and anguish I experienced that day. They never seize to amaze me with how horrible they are.

People always don't fully understand my decision to cut my family out of my life. Even if they think they understand the current circumstances, they can't wrap their heads around the fact that I would feel nothing when they pass, and that I would feel even less when I have my own children that they will never know them. Even if I were to potentially feel any guilt at all when I have my own family, that all went out the window that day.

And as A said (without even knowing the details), at least I got the closure I needed from that revelation. And he's right. If I were to feel any guilt or regret for being soo uncompromising in the future, that was all out the window now. It just reaffirmed that I made the right decision 2.5 years ago.

But the secret I found about was from 5 years ago. And the shame and pressure they put on me regarding that, even longer. Since before I had even graduated, my mother was always putting pressure on me to hurry up and graduate so I could take out a mortgage in my name so they could get a new house with lower property taxes. And she would guilt me that I wasn't able to help them now that their property taxes were through the roof. I carried this pressure deeply, and it greatly weighed on my already dysregulated nervous system. I was still looking over my shoulder everywhere I went because of my rape, and the related trauma, which was still soo fresh. Something soo life changing that my mother had shamed me for and told me to never let anyone know, all while she expected me to be her savior.

So when I was finally getting some control back of my life and my mental health, I met M. I had to juggle the stress of recently starting graduate school (because I tanked my last semester of college after the rape and was ashamed at my subpar professional career), working full time, the financial pressures from my mother while I could barely pay my own bills, and all the drama that ensued because I fell in love with my sorority sister's ex, and someone my best friend vehemently hated. It was rough, really rough at times, but I was navigating it alright.

And then M's dad got diagnosed with cancer. Something that is already difficult enough for anyone to cope with, but he had just lost his sister to cancer just a few years prior. The diagnosis came immediately after our first explosive fight. See, I would have walked through a thousand fires to be with him and as rattled as that fight left me, we never got the chance to return to the subject and work through it. Largely, that was my fault though, because I made myself and my needs soo small  -- because how could I do anything else when his father was going through this?

I did all I could to be there for him when his world was turned upside down again. There was a lot of unresolved trauma around his sister's passing, and his father's abusive past. I wanted to support him as much as possible, but I'd be lying if I said my resentment didn't slowly start growing from that day. I could have gone on like that forever though, because I would have sacrificed any and everything to be with him forever.

All of that was out the window over a year later when we got into a petty little tiff. He said something that cut into my deepest wound. Even though I was aware at the time that he had no clue about the gravity of his statement, I couldn't un-ring the bell in my head. Because what was the point of all this if the one person I was soo sure would never abandon me, would so flippantly threaten to with no explanation?

My life and my relationship were complicated enough on their own at the time. I already resented my mother for her reaction to the rape, for telling me they knew how suicidal I was a kid and they didn't care, but THIS -- adding to the stress of my life at the time was well past the tipping point. I made something of myself despite them, I found the love of my life and true happiness despite them, but I did not have the mental or emotional capacity to save that relationship at the time, and she made it worse.

So when I learned recently that she was guilting and shaming me for no reason, it shook me to my core. She was hiding that they did buy another house, and have kept it all this time alongside my childhood house. Two properties, two property taxes, all while putting me down for not doing more. That doesn't even touch the fact that they always refused to help me with graduate school or even co-sign on a car but paid for my little sister's grad school and helped her with her car's down payment. I was already aware of those things, among other things, when I cut them off but this takes the cake. Who knows what else they were lying to me about or hiding for my entire life.