Outgrowing the People Who Raised Me

I’m learning the fucking hard way that blood does not equal family.

Blood does not equal loyalty.

& blood sure as hell does not equal trust.

That realization hits like grief. Real grief. The kind that sits in your chest and makes it hard to breathe, the kind that doesn’t announce itself loudly but slowly crushes you from the inside out. I’ve been going through a lot lately (more than I’m ready to explain, more than I even fully understand myself right now) but what I can say is this: my entire view of family has been turned upside down in just a few weeks.

& once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

For most of my life, I thought my deep, bone-level fear of abandonment was something I made up. Something dramatic.

Something I needed to “heal” or “work through” because surely it couldn’t be real.

I gaslit myself into believing I was the problem.

That I was too sensitive.

Too much.

Imagining shit that wasn’t actually there.

But now I see it clearly and it pisses me off!

That fear didn’t come from nowhere. It came from moments exactly like the one I’m living through now. Moments where I wasn’t seen. Where I wasn’t respected. Where I wasn’t protected. Where I wasn’t valued. Moments where I wasn’t trusted. Where I wasn’t given a fucking chance. Moments of silence.

& let’s be honest… silence is loud as hell.

Life is already hard enough.

Just existing takes effort.

Healing takes effort.

Parenting, surviving, loving, growing… it’s exhausting.

& doing life without your support system? That’s a whole different level of pain.

There’s something deeply fucking cruel about realizing that the people you thought would stand beside you… won’t. Or don’t. Or never actually planned to.

What hurts in a way I don’t even have the words for yet is knowing you can spend years growing, evolving, changing, and actively trying to be better and still be viewed as the same 17-year-old girl who didn’t have her shit together.

Seventeen.

A literal child.

Do you know how dehumanizing that is? To be reduced to nothing more than the problems you had as a kid? To have your entire identity frozen in the worst chapter of your adolescence while everything you’ve done since gets completely ignored? While everything that led you there … the trauma, the instability, the shit no child should have had to carry… gets conveniently erased?

As if that version of you just appeared out of nowhere.

As if context doesn’t matter. As if pain doesn’t shape people. You’re punished for the outcome, but no one wants to acknowledge the circumstances that created it.

That kind of rewriting of history strips you of your humanity. It turns survival into a character flaw and growth into something that apparently doesn’t count.

Can you imagine still being penalized for shit you went through as a child? Despite the last fifteen years you’ve spent trying to heal, trying to grow, trying to do better, trying to break cycles that literally weren’t even yours to begin with?

Because I can. I’m fucking living it.

It tells you your effort doesn’t matter. That your growth doesn’t count. That who you are now is irrelevant because someone has already decided who you’ll always be. & that realization? It breaks something inside you… quietly, permanently.

I used to believe love meant staying. That loyalty meant tolerating bullshit. That family meant swallowing pain because “they’re blood.” I believed if I just tried harder, explained myself better, proved myself more, eventually I’d be seen.

That was a lie.

People show you exactly who they are. & when they do, don’t fucking argue with it. Don’t rewrite their behavior to make it hurt less. Don’t minimize your pain to protect their image. Don’t convince yourself they “didn’t mean it like that.”

Believe them.

Believe them in all the colors they’re showing you…even the ugly ones.

Especially the ugly ones.

Because I didn’t.

I kept hoping.

I kept excusing.

I kept waiting for accountability, empathy, protection…anything.

& instead, I got silence. Judgment. Distance. & it royally fucked me over.

This isn’t me saying I’m done loving.

It’s me saying I’m done betraying myself for the sake of people who won’t meet me halfway. I’m done begging to be trusted. Done begging to be respected. Done begging to be seen as the woman I am now instead of the child I once was.

Blood may connect us biologically, but it doesn’t give anyone the right to hurt me, erase me, or hold my childhood over my head forever.

Real family doesn’t make you feel disposable.

Real family doesn’t weaponize your past.

Real family doesn’t abandon you and call it love.

& I’m finally learning that choosing myself isn’t selfish.

It’s survival.

& I’m not apologizing for surviving anymore.