My Fantasy Family - By Aviva K.

My Fantasy Family
By Aviva K.

I know I can talk until I turn blue to my therapist about the thing that causes me the most pain.
I know talking won't change a thing. My problem is that I do not belong to anyone's family.

I'm so tired of being an outsider looking in. I don't know if you could understand how painful it is? I hate going to strangers homes and them asking me all the questions that get asked.

I keep trying to let go of the fantasy I have of who I want to pretend my family was. My made-up family was definitely something that has held me together while I was growing up. I never could tell anyone that I was having sexual relations with my older brother and my father.

I feel no shame in saying I am a survivor of emotional, physical and sexual abuse. I want to scream at the top of my lungs that my biological family is toxic.

Should I be embarrassed to say that whenever I communicate with them I become suicidal, even if it's just on the phone?

Do I have to tell everyone that I've had to move as far away from them as I could, just to remain sane?

I want so badly to be a part of something, but as of today I'm still just an outsider looking in. I thought I wanted to be observant, but for self-preservation I've had to give up on that dream. It's just been way to difficult.

Every Shabbos it slaps me in the face. I am reminded I don't have a family. I do have some very good, wonderful friends. I do feel loved and cared for by them, yet I am an outsider looking in. I am almost always welcome in their homes for Shabbos and Yom Tov meals. I'm also almost always welcome in my rabbis home for meals. They are all very kind for doing this. In so many ways I am a part of all of their families, yet in so many ways I'm not.

There are times I'm given the hint that "this Shabbos is for real family members only." I do understand. I am a stranger, an outsider.

Of course there are various celebrations that I'm not invited to. I do understand, I am not a blood relative, but I'll be honest -- it leaves my heart aching. No one knows of how many tears I've shed in secrecy. I don't know how to make this pain stop. I don't know how to get over what I've never had. I don't know how to stop my jealousy for what most other people have. Will this period of mourning ever end?

Walking away from the observant world saddens me a great deal. But the pain isn't as sharp. It doesn't leave me double over in my bed crying for mercy.

Just once I want to know what it feels like to be normal. I want to know what it's like to take it for granted that I am unconditionally a part of a family. That I am expected to be present for family functions. I hear all the time that all Jews are family. I guess that doesn't include me.