In my post the other day I asked, in relation to the recent family developments and my going no contact, if it is possible to feel grief and relief at the same time . I’ve been thinking a lot about that today, how these seemingly opposite emotions can coexist in the same moment, the same mind, and the same heart.
When I finally stepped away from this harmful situation, I feel an undeniable sense of freedom. Relief washes over me – relief from the constant tension and anxiety, from managing others’ reactions to my existence, from the exhausting work of trying to make something work that was fundamentally broken. There’s space to breathe now. There’s possibility ahead. It feels good, and I think maybe I should just try to feel good about it.
But alongside that relief is the grief. Heavy, aching grief that just won’t fuck off no matter how much I try to logic it away.
I’m grieving the loss of a real family and what I hoped these relationships could be. I’m grieving the years I spent trying to build connections – actual attempts at connection, not half-assed ones – only to have those efforts forgotten or dismissed when they no longer fit their narrative about who I am. I’m grieving the realization that the version of me they needed to believe in, the difficult one, the problematic one, the unreasonable one, was never actually me at all.
They never really got to know me, I’ve always been the different one, the outsider, the one who made them uncomfortable for just trying to be authentically me rather than who they wanted me to be.
I’ve spent years (with Gina at my side for a good many of them), even decades, trying to maintain these relationships, trying to build bridges, trying to keep things together despite the cost to myself – creating a family website no one used, organizing game nights no one appreciated, creating a family recipe cookbook project no one participated in – and then those efforts are seemingly erased from the story entirely? That erasure is its own kind of loss. It’s not just losing the relationship. It’s losing the truth of what I tried to do. It’s me being rewritten as the villain in a story where I was actually trying to be the peacemaker, until I just couldn’t do it any longer and tried to set some boundaries.
My grief isn’t just about losing a family. It’s about losing the acknowledgment that I tried. That I cared. That I showed up, again and again, even when it hurt. That I made genuine attempts to strengthen bonds that others now claim never mattered or even existed.
And yet, the relief is equally real.
Relief from the constant work of making myself small to fit into spaces that were never designed for my authentic self. Relief from the exhausting cycle of setting a boundary, having it dismissed, and then being blamed for the conflict that my boundary supposedly created. Relief from the cognitive dissonance of being told I am attacking people when I am simply trying to protect myself from harm.
There’s a particular kind of pain I feel very strongly when I am being fundamentally misunderstood. In this case, my self-protection is seen as aggression, my attempts to heal are seen as revenge, and my truth-telling is seen as troublemaking. I have to admit, when I finally walked away from these people who are determined to misunderstand me, the relief of that departure was fucking magical.
But it doesn’t erase the grief of realizing they were always determined to misunderstand me. That no amount of effort, explanation, or bridge-building was ever going to change that fundamental unwillingness to see me for who I actually am.
So yes, apparently I can feel grief and relief. Sadness and peace, and to make things interesting, of course I feel both at the same goddamn time.
I grieve what was taken from me. I grieve the relationships that could have been if honesty and boundaries had been met with understanding, compassion and empathy instead of hostility, threats, or even apathy. I grieve the erasure of my genuine attempts to maintain connection. I grieve the years I spent trying to make something work that was broken even before I started trying.
But I feel genuine relief that I no longer have to keep trying. Relief that I can stop managing their version of who they need me to be. Relief that I can finally prioritize my own wellbeing without being accused of attacking anyone. Relief that the parade of opposing armies fighting over that same hill in my head just got a little smaller.
Both things exist and both are valid. Learning to hold them together – the grief and the relief, the caged feeling and the freedom is my reality now. But now this is really all about my choice, my choosing, prioritizing me and what is true and authentic and genuinely me.
For years they chose him and themselves over me, fuck that and fuck them, Now I am choosing me!
I realize that this is all so messy and overwhelming, but I am committed to do the work to come to sort of peace with it all. I know they aren’t doing anything, they are rid of me and I am sure they are happy to continue to make me the scapegoat, it’s probably even easier for them now. I’m going to learn to be okay with that.
If I ended this by saying screw the scapegoat, I am now the escape goat! Would that be too cheesy?
Your thoughts?