this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
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[–] MrFagtron9000 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Now that you're pretty wealthy has your family decided to become your best buddy now?

[–] girltwink 29 points 1 year ago (3 children)

No, they refuse to speak to me to this day. My gf's family called her to wish her a happy birthday last week, and i cried quietly wishing mine did that too.

[–] JSeldon 5 points 1 year ago

(Very?) Belated happy birthday! Your family are the people you’ve chosen to accompany you at this stage in your life, the other one, the one you simply happened to be born into, don’t deserve you. Lots of hugs!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Happy Birthday. Better late than never. We are here for you.

[–] JigglySackles 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Happy belated birthday girltwink! 🎊 🎉

The older I get and the more people I meet and lives I understand, the more I understand that true family are the ones you choose. You can't help who you are born to. It's nice to get their love and approval, but in the end, if they don't accept your choices or even you, that's not on you. That's on them. If you've done your best to be a good person, then they should have no reason to turn you out but for their own selfish reasons. It may never stop hurting, but over time, I hope you can find that comfort from your chosen family that chose you back. I won't soapbox too much about it though. I hope you had a great birthday. :) Big hugs from an internet stranger!

As a side note, talking to a therapist can really help you accept things if you ever want to give it a try.

[–] girltwink 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Aww, thank you for your kind words JighlySackles 😝 I'm doing ok, all things considered. It still hurts a little, but yes therapy has helped.

[–] JigglySackles 2 points 1 year ago

I'm glad you're feeling mostly alright. That's a good place to be. Sometimes that's the best we get to be for a very long time too.

I think some things will always hurt. But it gets less. And it's not so crushing. It just takes time.

A great analogy I heard once is to imagine you have a box which represents a past source of grief, and in that box is a button and a ball. As we go about life, the box gets jostled and bumped by things that remind us of our grief. This moves the ball around and every time the ball hits the button it brings on the feelings of grief and sadness. The size of the ball shrinks with time though. When we first go through something traumatic our ball is very large, taking up most of the space in the box, so very small events bump the button, and it's going to hit that grief button a lot at first. But over time as the ball shrinks. As it gets smaller, the jostling and bumping doesn't make the ball hit the grief button so much. It might even graze it without pushing it. We may always have that box, and that's ok. And that button may get to the point it gets hit once after 20 years. But that's OK too. The grief gets less with time. 🙂