A lot has been going on lately. More recent is that my sister was hired for another job in Florida. Twenty-four years after leaving Florida to care for my mother who was diagnosed with salivary gland cancer, I am going home.

Florida is where I truly grew and healed some as a person. Life struggles continued from leaving the family and farm in Michigan breaking away from toxicity and abuse from 2 family members to live with my best friend at the time to her mentally abusive family. I was desperate. Then I met a person that was controlling and used money as a power influence my relationship with. I grew up in poverty and the influence from this person was mind boggling.  This same person cast me out on the street homeless after I moved to Florida in 1985. This resulted in meeting the best person in my entire life who helped me until his death in 2011, 100% through thick and thin, no judging, no mind games, and no abuse. Then, living through life with my sister after her college graduation and she relocating to Florida to live with me. This made my mother so angry at me. It made things between us very difficult, and she blamed a lot of things in life that she struggled with on me. I found this out through a close friend. Imagine how mortified I was finding this out. Then the biggest life change of all was being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1991, at 28 years old. The diagnosis happened at the same time as I was working for an extremely verbally abusive company and boss in a stressful job where I felt the stress escalated and jump started the MS symptoms. The stress from the job continued and I was not getting better, I eventually ended up leaving and relocating to a different part of Florida.

I have met so many people in my life, good and bad.  A few I am still friends with today. I am finally going home. The reason for the flashbacks of my life on this post is that something recently happened with me and another family member that just has me feeling a lot of anger, anxiety, and sadness. When I spoke with a family member, I started to feel a lot of anxiety because of what was being discussed, possibilities of moving near us, and there are a lot of things between us that were never resolved. After thinking about the conversation, I decided it was time to bring my thoughts and concerns up.  This resulted in family silencing my concerns and shutting me out once again. The family member, not wanting to discuss anything, especially about the seriousness of acknowledging what was really bothering me, I have been silenced once again. This is not healthy, caring, concerning, strengthening our relationship or making any type of amends for the continuous toxic behavior that seems to be dominant with certain family members. This alone caused a strain in my ongoing relationship with my sister. We had to have two or three serious discussions on what happened. I think we are ok, I just know I cannot talk about it anymore.

I am still bothered by the fact I was silenced. I have spent years trying to heal from the lifelong family abuse impacted by certain members of my immediate family and my mother’s specific family members, that began when I was three and on the farm. I am now 61 years old, and I have been silenced by a family once again because of what happened in a prior situation that happened about nine years ago and was never addressed and I brought it up. Why? Because what if this repeats again? I cannot subject my wellbeing and mental health to this behavior anymore. It truly affects the MS to the point where it takes days to recover and be able to move again with very little mobility I have left. This specific family member never acknowledged or does not think anything was done wrong and that alone speaks volumes. It took me a long time and many hours of therapy to cope from the years of crap and the last crap inflected by the family. Because I voiced my concerns and defended my mental health with the MS, I feel like instead of feeling ok I said something, and I am a horrible human being because I had to say something.

I was also told my blog will never ever be read by this specific family member. Again, to me, instead of trying to understand why and see how actions have impacted me by family, I was told NO, not reading the blog, not trying to understand, just flat NO. That’s ok, but I feel we cannot be close like before because I have changed. I was not well mentally for years because of the abuse with family and certain people I have met in my life, and I must protect my wellbeing. God says we must forgive and love our enemies. Forgiveness is easy; loving is a lot harder, especially now with this last situation. I am sad, but I need to take care of myself. I have made some drastic decisions on social media and that certain family member is blocked. Do not worry, the certain family member can still reach out to my sister if they want to know what is going on with me. It is no different than before, never really reaching out. I am ok with this, it is not a new feeling, just a constant rerun I am always trying to heal and just live from.