Tweeted this sometime ago, but the best thing I did with my 20s, and now my early 30s, is to CUT TOXIC FAMILY OUT. I can’t stress how difficult it is in my particular indian context, how vilified boundaries are, and how of an outlier it has made me.
The guilt!!! The shame!!! But I now know it’s no longer mine, it’s projected to control and keep one in line. This may sound ~dramatic~ but it really isn’t. The way Indian families normalize toxicity and enable it’s perpetuation across generations is really is thru shame/guilt
Recently, I asked for your prayers bc my mom was in the ER on her birthday bc of a suspected brain aneurysm/hemorrhage that gave her thunderclap headacheS. It was a traumatizing incident for me 1000s of miles away, stuck, in a pandemic, waiting for results.
When I told some members of my family THE WAY SOME OF THEM TREATED ME...there was so little compassion, so much centering of themselves, such TEXTBOOK gaslighting/derailing/distracting and then shaming ME for not wanting to reach out to people who had actively made things WORSE.
“Be the bigger person!” “Mend things or else you’ll feel bad when xyz dies!” Etc. NO SIR. NO MA’AM. I will NOT feel bad for not being the bigger person. I don’t want to be the bigger person anymore. I JUST WANT TO BE A PERSON.
Entire conversations were reframed to plumb the extent of my disengagement, as opposed to any examination of their own behavior!! It was — really quite something. I can’t even articulate how much shame they want me to feel to bring me back in line.
I’m not tweeting this to “air out my dirty laundry” or to “expose my family” or for any attention. I’m doing this because this type of toxicity is COMMON where I come from. It is par for the course. We are not taught to identify it.
We are only told 100 times: family matters. Family family family. family this family that. And so we forgive them all their transgressions, all the SHIT, all the fucking expectations that you can never never meet. You will NEVER be able to do right by them. No matter what you do
If this all seems familiar to you, if you struggle with guilt and shame and you know it’s coming from your family: KNOW THAT YOU ARE NOT ALONE. I get it. I see you. I feel you. It’s NOT you. You can draw boundaries. You can keep yourself safe. You can STOP IT from passing on.
If you are in the U.S. and need help finding a therapist please reach out. The best part of all this is that I am BACK in therapy. Therapy makes you see things for what they are. People for who they are. And teaches you to protect yourself.
Do I think big happy families exist? NO. With so many skeletons in so many closets, it’s no wonder we all have so many bones to pick! Fuck the big happy family myth. Fuck it.
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