I saw a picture of them recently. My mom, dad, and sister. None of them looked happy. That isn’t to say they didn’t have smiles on their faces, but their eyes were filled with sorrow. “That’s my fault,” was the first thing that came to mind. I realized then that this thought was a remnant of what I was always taught to believe – that their well-being was dependent on ME. When I first revealed the truth to them, when I first held up a mirror to our family, they screamed. First was my mom, who insisted that the reflection she saw was actually me. Then there was my dad, who looked into the mirror and saw my mom standing next to him. He saw pieces of the truth, but refused to look at his own reflection, and eventually just cast his gaze downward where it has since remained. Finally there was my sister, who refused to even look. None of them wanted to see. Instead, all three of them threw thorns of “It’s your fault” my way.

“This is really affecting your sister’s stomach.”

“Your mother is really sad.”

“I would never do what you’re doing to mom.”

“Your dad is really depressed.”

They made it clear that I was hurting them. By asking for respect. By asking to heal as a family. To them, pointing out dysfunction was a cruelty.

So yes, when I saw a photo of my family, I felt my heart throb with pain. When I saw their faces plastered with fake smiles, I wept. And yes, I thought it was my fault. But the truth is that they’ve always been in pain. Of course they’ve always been in agony. It is repressed pain that fertilizes the soil from which the twisted plant of dysfunction cracks through and enters hearts. Yes, they’ve always been hurting. But it has never been my fault.

Even if I went back now, their pain would not cease. Those vines have rooted themselves within and my presence alone could not rip them out.

No, I am not responsible for their happiness. And thinking that I was, thinking that somehow I could save them, is just part of the twisted message I internalized from being a part of that system. It’s not my job to save them. I can’t. But I can save myself. And the only way to do that is to walk away. Away from them, away from their lies, away from the burden they want me to carry. I set down this weight that I’ve been hauling my whole life – the burden of THEIR pain. I dust off its grime, I rub off its stink, I soothe the grooves it carved into my being. And I stand tall again. Their happiness is not my responsibility – but MINE is.