Watch yourself

Have you ever had someone in your life who keeps tabs on your life better than you do? I’m pretty sure we have all had something similar at some point in our life, whether the intentions were good or bad we’ve all been subjected to someone who was minding our business more than their own.

For some it could be their parents, a friend, a current flame, a jealous ex, a sibling, for me it’s been all of those scenarios. In my life, I noticed it easier with the ones who weren’t really a part of my life more so than the long time meddlers.

When my husband and I started dating I had several different people minding my business and relaying information to him in hopes that his view of me would be tainted enough for him to leave. He took most of the information given to him and either asked me about it or ignored it as if he somehow knew what was happening, this went on for years until we were so tired of it we walked away from everyone. It still happens once in a while. It was overwhelming sometimes, for me especially because it has happened my whole life.

Walking into family functions and only having half the family acknowledge me and the other half asking me questions about things they shouldn’t even know about. There were many family functions I’ve gone to where I questioned why I was even there due to rarely getting to talk to anyone about myself because they all seemed to already know who they thought I was.

The more I reflect back on my life and my childhood the more clearly I can see how my identity was sabotaged before I was able to create it. The only identity I truly had and still carry is that I was and always will be Guy’s little sister.

It’s extremely hard to try to be yourself in a group of people who have already determined they don’t like you because of something someone has told them about you, especially if it’s something negative.

Thinking as deeply as I can about my own family and my brother’s death, I am truly shocked I am still alive and am not sure how my brother made it as long as he did. He really did protect me from as much as he could and I am fairly certain that’s why I am still alive.

It has been about 3 years since I stopped talking to anyone in my family and not a single person related to me has reached out to see if I’m even alive. Not. A. Single. One.

It’s taken me a bit to realize, but my brother and I were set aside from the family when my dad left way back in 1979. God forbid anyone in my mothers family get a divorce, that would be cause for gossip and her family was not one to be gossiped about so anything that could cause the family to be viewed negatively by outsiders was swept under the rug. We were swept under the rug just like my grandmothers pregnancy was. The difference was her pregnancy could be “forgotten” about, the baby given up for adoption, out of sight out of mind. We were kept, and I can only imagine how our great grandmother would have treated us if she hadn’t passed away before we were born.

I miss my brother more than I could ever admit. I wish he was here to tell me all of the horrible things that were done to him, the things he tried to protect me from. I wish he was here to see how we are no longer a part of the abuse, how we stopped it and how we are slowly cleaning up the mess made by those before us.