I have this fantasy, that I get DNA results from my heritage test and find out I am not related to my birthfamily.  That my results are from some country that my birthfamily isn't.  And that my actual blood-related family is some kind of loving couple with an amazing extended family filled with awesome aunts, uncles and cousins and I have brothers and sisters who want to know me.  And I find out that I was never supposed to be adopted.  I then tear into my mother's house and tell her exactly what I think of her and be done with her.  Since I was never supposed to be her daughter, I can just make a clean break of it and go back to my real family.  Back to where I truly belong.  My hubby and kids and I can just leave and go be with them and finally have family we can count on to love us and we can love them.

Because the families that we have right now?  Suck total ass.  Obviously you know about my family right now, but my birthfamily is no different.  Narcissism runs through their bloodlines as well.  As is my husband's family, as is my ex-husband's family.  How can that be?  How can my life, in every single incarnation of what could have been or could be, be this awful and full of narcissism?  Why?  Did I do something terrible in a past life that would end up with some really shitty karma in this one?  What?  Was I Joan Crawford in my last life?  And why punish my children?  What did they do?  They are in the same boat as me: nobody cares about us but us.  Hell, their grandma didn't even call my oldest on his 19th birthday this year (my ex's mom).  And hubby has the same issue.  We are all stuck with the four of us. And that's it.  And while I wouldn't trade my family for anything, it would be nice to have extended family (and parents) who actually love us and care about us.  If you're reading this, you more than likely know exactly what I am talking about. 

As a child, I fantasized about having a family that loved me.  About having anyone at all that loved me.  Now, I have my children and hubby that love me, but we all only have each other.  Some of you out there may have had a grandparent or an aunt or uncle or even a father that truly loved you.  You may have had a shelter from the storm.  But we have had no one.  Not one person who is capable of caring more about us than themselves.  When we used to run away from my dad who was abusing us, my grandparents would send my mother and I home.  "He's your husband, you need to go work it out with him."  But he's beating my mom, and her parents didn't give two shits.  So apparently my mother is in the same boat as me.  Too bad she treated me like shit, otherwise she'd have me to lean on.  But hell, she can't even admit he beat her.  It's like I am the only person carrying around this abuse--she's made up an entire backstory of our past life that never happened.  At least I realize my fantasies aren't real.  She lives inside hers.

And some of you have amazing in-laws.  Probably not most of you, but some of you.  I feel really happy when I hear about that.  I run a support group for adult children of narcissistic mothers and some of my members have this wonderful thing.  But most don't.  Most are in the same boat as I am and some are worse off (as they are married to narcs).  Why are we being punished?  I know that's not the truth...I know nobody is punishing us, it's the luck of the draw.  As an atheist, I don't believe in a higher power planning out our lives for us.  BUT I can totally understand why others believe...how nice it would be to blame someone else for our circumstances.  Or to think there is a reason for why we are here, enduring this bullshit.  It makes sense and it feels good to believe there is a plan.

But to me, there isn't a plan.  We're just stuck in a bad situation that we have to choose to make the best of.  WE have to be the ones in charge.  WE have to choose: walk away or stay.  WE have to put ourselves in scary situations, such as leaving a bad home life or a bad parent for something better--it's scary because we have no idea what will come next.  But that's how we grow and become better people: by choosing better, for us and our children.  I walked away from my narcissistic ex-husband for an unknown life and almost immediately found my now husband (I wasn't even looking for a new man).  We were very lucky.  WE have to put ourselves in charge of our lives.  To me, there nobody else pulling our marionette strings.  It's just us making our own choices: stay the same or brave the unknown and change and find something better.

I know my fantasy will never be a truth.  I will get my DNA results back and learn what I already know and then learn about my birthfather's heritage (as I don't know who he is).  And that will be that.  But the best part will be that it will give me some sort of anchor to who I am without my mother or her family.  I can have an identity away from being only Swedish (I know I am part Swedish, but the rest, I have no clue).  But it's fun to fantasize about this amazing family I have out there, one who loves me and my family as much as my husband and I love our own children.  To pretend for a moment that we belong to something greater than ourselves.  And I can see that's why people are drawn to religion.  But I am drawn to this earthly realm and what we can do for one another as humans.  Which is partly why I write this blog.  A large part of it is me feeling better by venting about my life, but another large part is that so you understand that you're not alone, dear reader.  That other people feel like you and are going through the same things.  Because I get it.  So many of us (TOO many of us) get it.

If you're interested in joining my support group, just leave a comment and I'll get in touch with you about it.  

And if you have your own fantasy of the perfect life, what would it be?  Tell me about it below and possibly we can create that fantasy life into a reality by creating our own destinies.  We can be those loving people to our own children or to someone else who needs a stable loving person in their world.  We may have been dealt a shit hand, but we can make the lives of others better because of what we know and understand.  Use our crappy experiences to better the world.  Even if just for one person <3