After leaving my family back in September I finally got a journal again. Maybe now I can process my thoughts and emotions better. Since moving a lot has happened and it was difficult to adjust. Especially to my new environment and fighting my environmental programming.

I’m still in great disbelief in what I accomplished in almost 6 months. I have left my life of absolute torment to try to live for once. I’m amazed at how I easily defended and had excuses for abusers for years. For years I had to come to know all that I went through was normal and death was a constant option I was ready to take.

But after finding someone to trust with my buried secrets, I was given new hope. With this new trusted friend, I was brought into the awareness of the death of my reality. Things I didn’t understand and events that hurt me finally had names. I for once had the language to express my world. From the grooming to physical and verbal abuse to the neglect and gaslighting, and even to the trauma I have no memory of.

Just writing this down is upsetting me in a way that I can express as pain and anger. All the nightmares I had suffered to all the close calls finally make sense. These people used me and then threaten to abandon me to get their way. Yet from my biological mother to these people, I call family, they all have given me up.

Everyone made it clear as day I was not wanted. Even when my birth mother had good reasons, it doesn’t change the fact she gave me up. Then my new family easily pushed me onto others when they didn’t want to deal with me. They went on family vacations while having my aunt and uncle watch over me.

These people, my new mother, pushed me onto her younger daughter. She wanted nothing to do with me. my father could care less. My new siblings were/are all much other than me. my parents never came to my aid when my siblings hurt me or would be there watching and doing nothing.

I hated going home and school. Especially since I was heavily bullied in and out of the home. What confused me the most was how I had been seeing a therapist since I was 5. All because my family stated they caught me before I hanged myself. Yet, therapy wasn’t helping. Since they told my parents everything that went on during my sessions and my family would use that against me. Proof that nobody cared about me. Proof that therapy was a lie.

Everything I went through made it hard to speak openly with all my therapists growing up. I got so used to it that I knew how to answer every question. I hate when they say I’m so self-aware. I hate it because I have to be to get through the sessions quicker. I hate this learned skill because I used it to go about plotting my suicide in 2017.

I had sought out therapy to get referred to someone who could give me medication. I went to great lengths to find a way to kill myself. And making sure it’ll be too late to save me. the amount of effort I put into reaching out for an ex to clear my guilt. I even wrote a note stating how everyone must be so happy to get what they always wanted.

It took an ex, who has hurt me, to convince me to live. At that, it was very hard to do such a thing. In a way I had my heart set out for death. I’ve lost a friend who I thought was close. and I had to destroy my letter.

Again, I was trying something new but wasn’t myself. Everything I worked hard to do was put down by the people around me. The days which should have brought me joy made me depressed. Graduations and getting jobs never felt happy. Especially with how horrible my family treated me leading to those special events.

I’m surprised I’m not a raging alcoholic or a mother with how risky I played my life. The fact it took me years to admit openly that I was lesbian. Even when my family seemed to accept that part of me, their side comments said otherwise. Even with the notion, I was non-binary.

After relying on my trusted friend, she helped me come to realize my sister was grooming me. My sister, the one I came to believe was my main abuser, was doing a lot of narcissistic behaviors. It was starting to finally come together.

So many years of questions finally answered. Yet I still don’t understand or am not sure if I want to know. All I do know is that I have a lot to process. Especially with the fact that my family had long abandoned me. How they easily made me the burden no one wanted.

Lucky for me that I finally found people who want me. And even accepted me into their home with open arms. Now, I must learn to care for this abandoned child and learn to be happy with myself.