Brush with Death

My sister and I were not close growing up. While we were both physically living in the same house, mentally speaking, we were living on different planets. It really wasn’t until after she graduated high school and went to college that I started seeing her blossom into her own person. I don’t hold any of this against her – we were both just trying to survive our childhood.

After cutting my parents out of my life, I worked on connecting with my sister. While my sister is still on speaking terms with them, it has been a strained relationship that’s not built on a healthy foundation. My sister even went no contact with them for a few years after my mom threatened to throw my sister’s college boyfriend off a roof – all because he told my mom my sister’s feelings were valid. To this day she still morns the death of the relationship. He’s married to someone else now, and that remains an emotionally charged topic my sister struggles to discuss.

I had previously gone no contact with my parents for a few years before coming back to them at the behest of my partner, claiming “You only get one set of parents,” pushing me to attempt to reconnect with them. Knowing this would not end well, I appeased by insisting parter in an attempt to quell any skepticisms surrounding my childhood. It wasn’t long until my parent’s character was revealed after lashing out at my partner that I went back to no contact. My partner no longer pushes for me to have a relationship with my parents, having observed their true nature.

Cutting my parents out of my life wasn’t the result of a singular incident – it was the climax. I have given them more chances than they deserve, explained how they’ve damaged the relationship and they’ve still expressed they have no interest in changing. The only way I could foster peace in my life was to hold them accountable for the patterns of behavior they’ve habitually refused to recognize, and cut them out of my life.

I got tired of being yelled at every time my parents saw me crying, being told I needed to “toughen up” and that “I’d never survive in the real world.” I got tired of playing peacemaker trying to end fights between my parents and my sister. I got tired of emotionally picking up my sister and my mom after every fight. Mostly I was tired of being bullied while being emotionally abandoned at home, preventing me from having healthy emotional outlets.

Between being bullied at school and my life at home, I became sensitized to picking up perceived threats as they seemed all around me during most of my childhood. I was left to continually be the overcomer of obstacles and the peacemaker of arguments. Without a doubt, I was considered to be the peacemaker of the family. I wanted the fights to stop. Sometimes they were so loud, they couldn’t be drowned out with headphones at maximum volume, despite being on the opposite side of the house. Any time I brought up my parent’s behavior, I was mercilessly refuted and challenged as they could not see the forrest through the trees. I was told to reflect on how much better my life was than those starving and living on the street, reminding me that I was living under my parent’s roof and that I should be grateful. While I never feared physical violence at home, this was not the case at school.

In additional to the emotional violence incurred at school, I was kicked, tripped, pushed, and even encountered a brush with death. One day in the gym locker room, two bullies approached me with a can of aerosolized deodorant and began emptying the can into my face. They raucously laughed while I recoiled, collapsing to the floor while I struggled to breathe. The assault persisted, adjusting the stream to meet my face in my new position on the floor. After some time the aerosol thankfully expired, otherwise my life would have.

#FeedTheGoodWolf