Yes, I'm Angry

Thinking last night and this morning about my family. I have a big family, lots of aunts and uncles, lots of cousins. A few days after I told about the abuse, I went to a psychaitric hospital (due to self-injury and suicidal thoughts). I was there for about three months, in part because the state was trying to figure out where to put me- family? Foster care? Group home? Two days before Christmas I was put into foster care with a family who I didn't know, in a place I wasn't familiar with. Granted, I was 16 and old enough to handle this, but I was a little scared. It's a little upsetting, a little sad, that I couldn't have lived with any of my aunts or uncles. I don't think anyone offered, I don't think any of them tried to say "Hey, wait a minute, she might be telling the truth." There was one aunt and uncle close to us that was being considered, but they didn't want me there because they "didn't want me telling lies about them, too." When I was in foster care, and in the few years after, I sent holiday cards every year, with nice notes and little updates. Did I get any in return? I think I got one from my grandmother. That's it.

I felt shut out, I felt like no one cared, I felt alone, I felt that everyone had believed my dad's story (that I was crazy or had been "brainwashed" into thinking up the abuse, or that I was just coldhearted and wanted to ruin the family), and I felt angry. Last Christmas and the one before, I did get Christmas cards from some of them. But it still hurts that for a few years, no one was there.

I'm working on letting go of this, what was anyone supposed to do, really? And recently, thanks to facebook, I've sortof gotten back in touch with a few aunts and uncles. And cousins, who've been more than kind. I'm thankful for this.