Make sure you protect yourself FIRST, and let others worry about their feelings!

You have made the most important step: you made a decision to take care of yourself. Yes, it is hard, and it brings up much pain that was burried deep, but it is for the better. It is like pulling a bad old tooth out - it hurts but only for a while and then some day there is no trace of former pain and suffering. Not even a scar.

But, as in any advance, we come to an intersection and wonder what is the right path to take. Should everyone know? How much should they know? How do you see your grandparents, but not your uncle? How do you protect your emotions in these hard times, and not hurt others in the process?

When that happens, when those questions start popping up, the golden rule is this: make sure you continue protecting yourself FIRST, and let others worry about their feelings. You cannot be responsible for something you didn't do. Try to repeat that sentence to yourself until it really sinks in. Also, you are not responsible for what others did or may do, in no way. They may say "Look what you made me do" but that is a lie. Therefore, we should all make sure we worry about ourselves first, and as for others - we just have to make sure we don't hurt them by lowly type of emotions like revengefulness or agressive anger. But simply stating what happened or that you don't want to do something, without even explaining "why", is perfectly OK. You can tell your family that you were hurt, or that something happened that you don't want to talk about and that is the reason you cannot come to the xmass party. Let them investigate (or not) as to what happened. Be prepared though: your grandparents or parents or everyone may feel partially responsible for all this, which means they would feel attacked and may retaliate by attacking you. First it would be with probing questions implying doubt, then with who knows what - most likely "discounts" of your emotions like 'oh it's not that bad' or even 'maybe you don't remember well'. In that case, do not go along with that. Stay with your feelings and what you know is true and refuse to be roused to anger or to even argue; or best of all - turn around and walk away. You have said what you wanted to say and that's enough food for thought for them. They should spend a lot of time thinking about what went wrong.

I don't know how old your uncle was when all that happened, but another option is taking him to court. Not to punish him, but to give yourself that feeling that - yes, you are protected, and there are people out there who care and something CAN be done.

On our path to happiness and independance, we are bound to become more and more lonely. Then we become more attached to those people who truly care about us and who we love as well, and we find it easier to break those ties which were based on superficial relationships or chance. In the end, you will realize that the most important thing between humans is sincerity, genuine interest and acceptance, rather then blood. Some people who are not related to me have helped me more then any of my relatives. As you clear up those types of relationships out of your life, better ones start coming in.

Bottom line: worry about yourself, do what's good for you, and let others worry about what they created (your grandparents are partially responsible for what happened too!). Tweet