Family is an interesting concept.
The definition of family is: any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins.
I find it hard to define what family means to me. Sometimes it means for everyone to gather around the dining table and eat a home cooked meal while joking and reminiscing on the past. Sometimes it means the stinging of memories much rather forgotten. If someone is related to you through blood (or marriage) are they inherently supposed to care about you? Are they expected to love you and treat you with respect? Or is family simply a bandaid plastered onto someone to attempt to make them feel more connected to a group of individuals. I'm lucky to have a caring family, but it's hard to find other people who do too. Now there's a friend who's been raped by their uncle or a friend who's grandmother is a meth addict or a friend who's cousin is pregnant at 14, the list goes on. It's almost impossible to find the picture perfect family, so much so that the word family starts to loose it's significance.
My grandmother was an alcoholic, drug addicted, domestic abuser. She was far far away from perfect. However she died when I was 6 so the family gets to pretend that there was never such a fuck up. But I remember her and in a family of plastic prodigies, I feel connected to her. While I may not have any specific memories of her in my mind, I think about her and I ponder her significance to me. She was a Latvian refuge who came to Australia seeking safety after the end of World War II. I have recently found out that she was also raped by an uncle when she was younger and her dad died in her arms. A great way to really and truly fuck someone up. She was always depressed, drunk, high and swearing. She knew how to use her words like daggers and she knew how to throw a bottle of beer at someone she loved. She ended up dying because she got hit by a bus when crossing at a red light, a very anticlimactic end to someone who was always building climax. My dad, uncle and aunt hardly ever speak about her and when her husband (my grandfather) died, she was hardly mentioned. She gets swept under the carpet and when you attempt to talk about her the subject is as quickly gone as it came. Despite not knowing her, I wish I could speak to her and hear what she has to say. I wish I could talk to her about politics, social justice and the nature of humanity. To me, she seems like a fascinating woman and I miss her everyday.
Even though she may be the cause for my depression (genetic proneness), I look up to her and I almost wish to become her. Despite the domestic violence and the constant shut down of her body because of all she put inside of it, she makes me think of beauty and of intelligence. This is something I strive to achieve. The life that she led was impressive, she was a nurse and she spoke so many different languages it's hard for my uncle to quite remember just how many. She was an avid reader and loved to ponder philosophy and the science of psychology. She seems to me like everything I hope to ever be.
Some may call me ridiculous for idolising a woman that in all senses was terrible, I have to disagree. My idolisation of this woman is far from an interest in her intelligence, it's a fascination with her life that was so full of stories (both good and bad). Coming from a war torn country where her father was kidnapped, tortured and forced into labour, her ability to have lived so long astounds me.
Now I said earlier on that I'm lucky to have a caring family, which in all senses is true. However we are far from a beautiful or loveable family. My father is a conservative Christian, a result of a tortured and depressed childhood (thanks to said Latvian grandmother; the abusive alcoholic). My mother is the most saintly woman you shall ever find, she has never done anything out of line, she was born a good Christian girl, raised a good Christian girl and I'm afraid will be a good Christian girl for the rest of her boring life. My brother is 22 and the epitome of a fuck up, many would describe as the typical drop-out, lacking in purpose shit head but ironically he is the smartest person I know. My brother is an interesting case, he went through his entire schooling career without straining a single muscle in effort, he never handed in assignments but always got straight As on his exams. This sounds ridiculous because he'd have both a mixture of Es and As on his report cards and his teachers would always take the time of day to remind him that he never applied himself to a goddamn thing. We all thought he would drop-out and never do anything but instead he completed grade 12 and finished with an OP7, quite an achievement. He's tried multiple University degrees at least 10 times and dropped out of every single one of them. He spends his days locked in his room getting high off of his ass and playing video games until the sun rises again the next day. He is a complete and utter fuck up but I love him with all of my heart.
Me (roll credits). I am quite the monotonous female from the outside. I have a regular body as any 17 year old and I smile when prompted and laugh when needed. I go to church on Sundays and I volunteer my time on Fridays to looking after the youth of the church. I am the prodigy from the outside, but then you look inside and you realise everything is not quite as it seems. I dropped out of school halfway through grade 10 and worked for 6 months until the end of that year. Then I started a high school degree and am currently trying my hardest to not drop out of that as well. I was diagnosed with severe depression and moderate anxiety when I was 15, put on medication when I was 16, I continue to see regular different psychologists and psychiatrists at 17. I had anorexia when I was 13 and first tried to kill myself on the 12th of August 2015. I could continue to list all of the things that are fucked up about me, but that's not what I wish to focus upon.
I want to focus on what impact that had on my family. My mother quit her job to look after me when I dropped out, as any second that I was alone I would use to find a way to jump out a window or slit open my wrists, that fucked my mother up largely as you need to remember she was naive and innocent before I ever came along. My father used to be a friendly but distant man, he would sacrifice himself for anyone but would never open up about how he was feeling, he would be warm when you needed him to be but was stone cold when he needed you. When I started trying to drown myself in bathtubs and getting my stomach pumped in hospitals, he went through a change. He started speaking to me about his younger years (given he would always relate his troubles back to how God had fixed them all) but all of the sudden I learnt more about him in a few months than I had in my whole life. He cried in front of me for the first time and he broke his heart when he had to physically restrain his little girl so she couldn't harm herself more before the ambulance got there. My brother was hardly affected by my antics, he had always been too drunk or too high to care but in the rare moments that he did he was the most loving and comforting person one could ever need or want. My brother promised me he would make things better as long as I never turned against him, one morning he had emerged from a shower to find his sister in a lock in their fathers arms as she was screaming and tearing at whatever she could reach with her nails. She yelled at him in her state, she said "you have never protected me. I hate you. Look what I have become, this is all your fault" and in that moment two things happened: two promises were broken and two hearts were shattered. We don't speak about what happened and we don't speak about the wounds that were gouged so deep that day. My family is supportive and they are loving and I'm so happy that they haven't thrown me onto the streets or sat back and laughed as I killed myself. I'm so grateful that they care and they put up with literal hell to keep me safe, they pay the bills for me to see fancy doctors and they hug me when I tell them I hate them straight to their faces. We are loving and we are strong but we are far from beautiful or perfect. I love my family how they are.
