I am having a rough time this morning, friends. My mom died six years ago, and afterwards my sisters and I had a falling out. I don’t fully understand my oldest sister’s behavior but she had her reasons for cutting contact with us at the time. The thing that baffles me is why the no contact still continues. There is a growing sentiment in our culture that if a relationship becomes too toxic or painful, the best solution is to break it off. In some situations this might be the right call, but in others it leads to more hurt and grief than is necessary.
No-contact should be a temporary solution in most cases. When things get strained, sometimes you need a break from someone to regroup. Recovering and focusing on your own life is good and healthy. But if you truly love someone and want to fix the relationship, you owe it to yourself and them to reconnect down the line and give it another shot. There are limits to this of course, but generally it is not a bad thing to give someone multiple chances. I hate this attitude of treating people we love as disposable or irredeemable.
In my line of work I see a lot of ugliness, some of the more disheartening aspects of humanity. Parents who fail their kids, grandparents who are ill equipped to take over. I see the results of drug abuse and its effect on the next generation. It has given me a certain perspective on my own family situation. My family never went through the wringer in the same way these families I work with have. We had our fair share of drug abuse, but I have worked very hard to improve myself. I am currently drug/alcohol free and living a vegan lifestyle. I moved across the country and committed to my mental and physical health in a way I had never done before. I told myself that I was going to figure things out, become the person I was always capable of being. Away from the distractions and family ties of the east. Despite all this, when I reached out to my oldest sister last year I got no response.
Today, I looked her up on a whim. I saw that she is running for office in the town she lives in. She is aligned with me politically, and has a website up that details her life and agenda. Reading through it brought up a lot of big feelings for me. This person who on paper should be accepting of a transgender sister, has cut me out of her life for no good reason. The last time we spoke, she talked down to me and insinuated that I don’t know what’s best for me or who is safe for me to have a relationship with. After I began my transition and we tried reconnecting once, she treated me like a curiosity. Asking me questions about my life with the clinical coldness of an anthropologist. Then she finally decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to keep trying to rebuild because I have a forgiving nature and give people a lot of chances.
Despite this treatment, I still miss her and her kids. I want to be a part of their life. I am being denied this opportunity and it sucks. My actions haven’t always been perfect, but my intentions have always been pure. I am the youngest sister of three, and transgender, which comes with a lot of infantilization and disregarding of my opinion. Part of the reason that I haven’t tried harder to get published is because of having my voice and perspective ignored and dismissed all my life. Nobody wanted to hear what I had to say growing up. Nobody listened. It’s why I love doing what I do now. It is literally my job to listen to queer teenagers and be a safe adult for them. I never had someone like that in my life as a kid. Even now I have been stonewalled and cut off from some of my last bit of family because I dare to have opinions on things.
I am so sick of my family’s bullshit and there aren’t even that many of us left. Any time I have tried to reconnect with any of them (aside from my other sister) I have been met with such a lack of empathy and the expectation that I will always bend to their wishes. Fuck all of that. I am promising to myself that I will never bend for these people again. I am done with tapdancing around their feelings because I’m afraid of sabotaging the relationship. It’s not worth keeping alive if so many compromises are necessary. I want to be around people who are safe for me and who I can be unfiltered around. Who don’t hover too much and expect me to take care of their feelings. I will provide some of the best support you can ask for, but I won’t coddle you anymore. Sometimes people need to hear harsh truths. Just say the thing that you’re worried will break the relationship. If it does, it’s not worth keeping alive.
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