Squeak

Everything I was told was a lie.

I not only believed it, I breathed new life into a dysfunctional cycle of deception. I was a pawn. I lived my entire life as a pawn. I thought that love was controlling and painful. I thought that I could only deserve love that didn't hurt if I was a better daughter or earned more money. I thought that maybe I would one day do something good enough to be loved the way that children on TV are loved by their parents. I could one day aspire to be an unexpected blessing to my family instead of the accidental burden.

The really fucked up part of all that is the idea that having no money to give back to my family for raising me made my life less valuable. It was shameful to be a child that didn't turn a profit for my parent. I truly believed that. Some part of me still does. It was hammered into me so intensely that I am now wracked with self-loathing. This is miserable. I thought about all the times when I convinced others who were down on their luck that they still had as much value as anyone else and felt like a huge hypocrite. I cannot stand to let someone else suffer through depression, but I will wallow in my own.

It comes down to this; some people have no business raising children. I am one of those people. My parents were also those people. My brother somehow met and secured a partner who is not one of those people and she has helped him to create my niece, who is also not one of those people. Life is mysterious. Sometimes a beautiful wildflower will grow amongst nothing but weeds. I'd always been told by people outside my family that I was a wildflower, but I'm at a point in my life now when I must consider the possibility that I may be a weed.