It’s actually kind of funny. The people that “know” me don’t actually know that much about me. Growing up it really wasn’t ever encouraged to express anything except spite, malice and anger.

Hell, anytime someone pissed me off by continuing to push my buttons until I snapped I would get “You’re just like your aunt.” Or, if I ever did anything for myself was quickly met with “You’re just selfish like your father.”

Great so I am exactly like two people who have left so much damage in their wakes. My aunt who was sexually assaulted or statutory, I’ve heard multiple events, this happened when she was 12-13, yeah she was just a kid herself and this event resulted in a baby. Anyway, she started counselling and the therapist told the family that they cannot let her use this as an excuse for bad behavior and etc.

Fast forward to nowish, she is 51 and for the majority of my 26 years of existence she has been a raging cunt. Nothing but verbal and emotional abuse like “I told your mother to abort you.” out of the blue. Or forcing people to walk on egg shells because she would explode with rage for no reason. So you know that being told you’re exactly like her year in and year out will screw up your emotional responses or control. But unlike her, I am dealing with my bipolar granted right now I am in a low place but I’m not a raging cunt like her.

I haven’t spoken to my aunt since 2006 with the exception of my grandfathers funeral in 2009, where I decided my issues with her should not be the focus. It’s really funny, most of the family was on my side about finally telling her to grow up and deal with her shit instead of taking it out on me. But now, they have all changed their minds and I’m the bad guy because I don’t want to be abused anymore. So they are continuing to let her get away with being a raging cunt over stuff that happened 40 years ago but I can’t be hurt over being repeatedly raped and beaten for 3 years until I left her and she stabbed me nearly 6 years ago? Oh, right, she was assaulted by a man and I was assaulted by a woman. Right, right. I “could’ve stopped it” or they could “accept it if it was done by a man”. Yeah victim shaming is awesome when it is coming from the people “closest” too you. I don’t have an explosive temper, I will walk away until you back me into a corner and then I bite.

Shit like this makes me happy that I couldn’t remember being molested by my mother’s boyfriend when I was 6. But that was a lovely memory to come back at random. If I did let “the family” know, they would have “the reason why I’m gay” other than growing up without a father. Which is funny when you know my fiancee grew up with both parents and was not molested, yet she is just as gay as I am.

"You’re just like your father." So I am just like a cocaine smuggling wife beating alcoholic who was fucking anything he could get his hands on in the Philippines? Oh right he is " a good guy", which is the type of thing you want to hear when you’re little and wondering what you did to drive your daddy away. Or you know when he tells you that he now has a son and you feel like you’re not good enough to have a father. Kind of makes growing up in a W.A.S.P nest a bit difficult when all the kids treat you worse than garbage because you live without a father and live in an apartment. I was always treated like I was inferior because of that. Until we hit high school and all their parents started getting divorced and they couldn’t handle it.

It also tells you where you stand in someone’s life when your father causes a gas leak in the house shortly after your born then your mother comes to find out that he took out a million dollar life insurance policy out on her….. but not the newborn. Cool, so I would’ve been collateral damage. It gets even better 22 years later when his mother dies and in the obituary lists all six of her grandchildren but when you happen to be the seventh grand kid it still shows you where you stand. Yeah, I’m what they don’t talk about because it reminds them that their son has fucked up and hurt people.

But oh right, he’s “a good guy”. Know how that makes someone feel hearing that all of her life? You can probably guess. It’s funny, my parents have been divorced for basically my entire life. Yet, my mother googles him, my grandmother tells him all sorts of information about me oh and in the eyes of my cunt of an aunt “he’s a good guy”. With the exception of my aunt, I am told one new tidbit of information about him at least once every two weeks. I have memories of being 4 or 5 and my mother taking out her anger and hurt over the divorce on me. Did she ever hit me? I don’t think so. But I do remember her grabbing me and screaming in my face and calling me a “little bitch” and such.

Apparently my grandmother is his favorite in-law. Really? How about acknowledging that you have a daughter. And maybe stop blaming my mother for the fact that I don’t want to have anything to do with your ass? Or hey, maybe my aunt, mother and grandmother can actually respect my wishes to either stop talking to him or let it the fuck go. I could make a case that I am the one that got screwed over the most and yeah, I did do the whole cliche “father issues” thing up until I was about 17 and it hit me. Why the hell should I hold space in my mind or heart for someone that never once made an effort to me? He is not worth the effort anymore.

Contrary to some of “the family” there are worse things in life than growing up without a father. I know, I’ve experienced a few of them but according to them the worst thing in my life is a lack of a father.

Would’ve been nice if someone had noticed that I started self medicating myself when I was 13 with alcohol and then rapidly moved on to other items. How did I get the alcohol? My mother bought it for me. Why do heavy pain killers don’t affect me? Gee, spending 8 years of your life stoned on them tends to help you develop a tolerance. Oh and there was the self harm, yeah I cut but I also had a habit of never dealing with injuries properly. Hey, there was also sex, I can remember about 50 or so sexual partners. All women, am I bragging about this? No, I don’t even know why I am mentioning this part.

Fast forward to now. I have been in a relationship with the single most amazing woman on the planet for five and a half years. This is really the only healthy, fulfilling, loving and stable relationship I have ever had. She is the one who gave me that one final push to get help and sort myself out. Do I feel worthy of her? No, but that might come from constantly being told that you are not good enough no matter how good at something you are. I was actually told, after I won one of my first kickboxing titles, that it wasn’t an impressive win because I should’ve taken her out in the first round.

The amazing woman that has kept me for almost 6 years, for reasons I still don’t know, is the only person who has made me feel “good enough” or that I’m “worthy of love”. I trust her and that is a hard and scary thing for me to do.

Why do I refer to them as “the family”? Every family has some level of dysfunction, but mine feels like you’re in the mafia. Piss off the “don” or whatever and you get shot or in this case your entire sense of self torn apart. You try to distance yourself from them and they come after you.

I am just done. It is exhausting to be around any of them because all they talk about to me or my fiancee is me or my lack of father, or how “angry” I am.

I am so done. I am just done with it all. I just want to live my existence with the love of my life in peace and maybe figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

Is that really too much to ask for?