What is the definition of family? Is it the group of people whom you were born to and/or raised you? Is it simply the people in your life that you are closest to? If you don’t have family, who do you have? Do you have friends? Do you have someone else’s family to rely on and to think of as your own? To be there for you when no one else is? Will they be there for you long term?
How do you know when to take a step back and build a protective wall around yourself? When is the right time to say enough is enough? How do you know when the right time is to put your foot down and stick up for yourself and your feelings? Are there people that should get a pass in how they treat you simply because they are family? If you stick up for yourself and it causes you and your family to divide, is it worth it? Or should you have kept it all quiet and kept on taking the abuse? How long should you keep letting your feelings get hurt before you take it into your own hands and stop it?
Once you put a stop to being hurt over and over, what are you supposed to do if it means you can no longer be around your family? The family that has been there all along, even though it has been rocky? How are you supposed to get over the hurt of having to chose to let them go in order to protect yourself from the constant hurt and let down? You talk to therapist after therapist about letting them go and building the wall between yourselves, and they reassure you that you are doing this in order to protect yourself, but how do you let go of the guilt and the fear of not having your family in your life any longer? They remind you that family does not mean blood and that family does not mean they can treat you any way they please, but how do you get past that word, family? Haven’t we as a society been conditioned to put family on a pedestal? What if that family makes you more stressed, hurt, and anxiety ridden than happy? Is it okay to let them go in order to find your own happiness?
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