So here we go folks down this rabbit hole. Family what does it mean well as always Lord Google has the answer.
Google does not say much. But I think we all fail to realize that family means different things to different people for many different reasons. Sometimes family is the ones we are born into and sometimes it is the ones we build for ourselves. So, what happens when the families that we are born into are the ones we must be afraid of. What happens when the people that are supposed to love nurture and care for you are the monster’s hiding under your bed, the bogey man in your closet, the vampires slowly draining the light from your eyes, the ghost haunting both future and past.
Some bs scenarios got me thinking this week. Something usually does I have always been something for someone else. I could go through that long list but as per usual no one has time for that! My wife and I like to make a joke out of that line from The Color Purple – Alice Walker. It goes “All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my brothers. I had to fight my cousins and my uncles. A girl child ain’t safe in a family of men. But I never thought I would have to fight in my own house. She let out her breath. I loves Harpo, she say. God knows I do. But I’ll kill him dead before I let him beat me.”
I mean I am quite sure we all probably joke about it. To be real though that line is way too real. Like I be feeling it feels like that most the time. I feel like family is supposed to be the ones that protect you and make you feel warm and safe/ secure. Like they listen and understand and love you without condition or spite, nurture you, show kindness concern, teach you morals right from wrong, guide you, want you to succeed and be the best version of yourself. Maybe I expect to much but for the longest time I was to young to understand that I deserved those things.
I was alone always something for them but never something to them but a mistake. Like family is not supposed to put there hands on you or other things that I’m not going to get into because if I’m not even ready to even talk about it in therapy than I’m definitely not ready to put it out in cyberspace. I had to be for me what others could not be. Usually I brush that off and I’m like it is what it is and that’s true like I can’t change that fact; lately I’ve felt like I’m tired and exhausted and ready to live my life and be my best self. Which is hard because a lot of people in my life need help micromanaging their lives. While I am glad that I am someone that people can depend on at the same time I usually do not get the things I need.
I feel like people forget that I am human. I can only share what I know from experience. I do not have life all figured out. There is no textbook available for this bs called life. I just figure it out as I go and what works for me is not always something that is going to work for someone else. If I am helpful good great, I am glad and if I am not, I am not.
We all have needs and I am not talking about materialistic items. I mean things that we need on an emotional, spiritual, physical level. I had a conversation with my bestie the other day though like she cool peoples like bruh she through me for a loop. The conversation literally started off:
Me: “Hey you up”
Bestie: “I was drifting off but yeah why”
Me: “Oh my bad just needed to vent”
I do not need to get into the whole conversation because I am trying to get to a point. So basically, I start typing because its late at night and my wife is sleep and I am not trying to be rude and wake her up because I am ranting and raving. I do not know why I had to justify that but point blank. So, as I am texting, she starts trying to give me advice and, in my head, I recall saying I just needed to vent. Yet while I was willing to accept feedback because this was an open conversation that maybe I shouldn’t have been texting about because we are both terrible with understanding text messages and slightly terrible at reading social cues because no one uses punctuation anymore and uses bunched up series of letters to explain a whole mfing paragraph or my favorite you have to use frick frackin emoji’s to understand what mood someone is in because if not someone thinks your joking or otherwise angry. You could literally text “I’m depressed” and someone text backsideways laughing crying face like that ish funny.
So, through this she is giving me advice which was not what I needed at all at that point. I strictly remember saying I need to vent. That is when I realized that she did not understand that we are two different people with vastly different needs. When she calls me she usually needs someone to listen, she needs motivation, a confidence boost, someone to be blunt and honest, advice, an emotional eating buddy (yes this is a thing but not a good one we are trying to break that habit though). She calls me her conscience. Like I told her that night I hope you talk to me because you know I have an understanding/ can empathize and because lets be honest I’m hilarious not because you think I’m some Magic 8 ball you can just shake up to get some answer on which path you should take.
I do not have an answer for those things sometimes there are no answer and sometimes that is the hardest pill to swallow and accept. Anyways the next day I called her, and we ended up talking and of course I had apologized for snapping because that was not ok. We had a conversation and I asked her when she calls me, or we are hanging out what need is fulfilled. Of course, she asked me to clarify, I did and then she had an Oh moment and listed them. Then I was like well what do you think my needs are in our friendship. So, she listed the things that she needed. I was like really oh ok ohhhhhk because for some reason I must inexplicably repeat words twice like I cannot just say cool. My @$$ must be like cool cool.
That is beside the point. So, I looked at her sideways for a moment and was like bestie no not at all those are things you need, and I do not need the same things. I need a) someone to listen and empathize not pity me, b) sometimes I need validation, c) sometimes I need some advice but only when I ask for it because usually I’m good at problem solving, d) and sometimes it’s nice to have an emotional eating buddy (which I know needs to stop eventually because to be honest I have a bigger issue with that than I’d like to admit but am really self-conscious about it). I am not really that difficult of a person. We were cool after that conversation.
People tend to forget that I hurt and struggle as well as have a Mental Illness. Which is messed up since lately I have been having to advocate that just because you have a Mental Illness does not mean you have to be an @$$hole. Like that is a choice whether you realize it or not it becomes an excuse a crutch. People in my life make me look sane. I am sitting here hating myself for being not realizing how far I have come with everything I have been through. My mind literally exploded when I came to that conclusion while in a therapy session that I had last week as always on Thursday at 2:30pm.
So, on top of all my day to day trying to maintain stability and manage my life and routine. I am supposed to Micromanage, Schedule, and Plan other peoples. As the character Danny Zuko said in the Iconic Movie Musical Grease that came out in 1978 “Ha, Ha, Ha Come on Sandy, don’t make me laugh” and cut. No but literally I cannot always do it. I need to at least manage to be dependable to me. At the end of the day it’s me, my awesome amazing gorgeous wife, and Nova (the dog that apparently my wife gave birth to as she tells me yet I had no idea this was a thing that becomes a debate sooooooooooooooo…………….. yep).
At this point I am ready to start living. I lack direction in life and am never quite sure where I am going and sometimes how to get there. I know what I want though, and I know I cannot let my childhood monsters be an excuse to not live in the present or stop me. Ghost are meant to stay in the past where they belong and I deserve some happiness at this point in my life and I deserve not to settle and ask for what I need not justify it, feel shame or guilt. I want to find and build those things and make my own family and give what I was not given and feel full no void or emptiness. I guess that is it for tonight it is a lot more than usual. At least it is never boring at least, I hope.
I am signing off ladies, gents, unicorns, beings from another world or whomever you choose to identify as this is Teneshia La’Rae from Bipolar Daily!
