When you are little, you always want to be a lawyer, a doctor or you dream big and want to be someone famous in Hollywood. Not me, I wanted to be a writer. I would watch the news with my grandma and act like the reporters when I would give her updates about her backyard. I would read magazines and dream of the day I could interview celebrities and see my name at the top of the column. One of my all-time favorite movies is “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” because Andie Anderson was living the life I had always dreamt about. Unfortunately, at 12 years old I lost the only person who made me feel like I was strong enough to achieve the life and goals I wanted and deserved. Everything between then and now is a separate story all on its own, and this is the start to sharing that story, my story. The one and only story that isn’t fabricated or altered to make myself look better than anyone else.
My name is Cassondra, I am almost 32 years old, I biologically have 1 child and a few that I will always love as if they were my own. My relationship status has always been complicated, but that’s a story for another day. I love with everything I have or not at all. I came from a family of racist bigots who are all damaged beyond repair and see nothing wrong with their actions or the need to fix themselves to be better for their grandchildren. I say “beyond repair” because at this point, they should know they need help and if they don’t see that by now, they most likely never will. Growing up, I always felt like the outcast. My stepdad that took to our family when I was 6, didn’t have any kids of his own at the time. I was too old to know and be lied to, but my younger sibling at the time was only 2 so we all just acted like they were his and moved on with our lives. Then came the 3rd and he finally had his very own. See, the problem with all of this, is that we all have different dads. My mom and dad were never married, and I later found out the many reasons why it never worked between them. Granted, they are both terrible parents but because my dad never wanted to make a hoe into a housewife, my own mother despised me entirely and went on to marry someone else, have a baby and that sibling was always the favorite in her eyes because they came from a “loving” marriage. Then came my stepdads first and only child with my mother, they got married and are sadly still together even though he deserves better. The only adult that ever loved me how I deserved was my grandmother. The most amazing, loving, pure hearted woman you could ever meet. She took on the world when she could barely fend for herself most days. She sacrificed her entire life for her family, and I always wondered if she passed feeling like it was all worth it. That woman will always be my hero and the only mother figure I ever needed. I don’t believe in God, but if I did, I would believe that he took her from me so soon because she taught me everything she was supposed to and to make me just like her, he had to make me a warrior too. Amongst finding different and new things about my ancestry, I found out that my grandma also did not like her siblings. There are people out there that have a whole history posted about their grandmother (my grandma’s eldest sister). In a moment of weakness, it made me think about how my child will have kids someday and my own grandkids will never know about my siblings because I don’t talk to them. My heart took over while suffocating my brain and I tried to repair my relationship with my siblings. If you are reading this and took this as a sign to repair your relationship with your toxic family, learn from my mistakes and DONT.
To really understand the level of petty that my family is, I would have to take you all the way back to my high school days. I won’t go too deep, but let’s just say that the middle sibling loved to steal my boyfriend’s/guys I liked from age 14-22. Mind you, they are almost 4 years younger than I am. It stopped at 22 because they came out as gay, and I was the only supportive person when the rest of our family disowned them, but that somehow ended up my fault and we didn’t talk for many years.
The youngest sibling has always given me a run for my money as the “Hot Mess” of the family. I lost out on $600 for a phone bill in my name that they couldn’t pay for but could go out and party all the time. When I had enough, I suspended the phone line and they left their day job to come harass me at my work, finding out it was my day off, so they went to harass my boyfriend at the time at his work. Instead of being an adult and paying me the money owed so I could relinquish the line to their name and get them off my plan, I got blocked and posted about on social media.
I went on to live my life, work a job that pushed me into a severe depression, and landed myself in a dead end relationship that pushed me to heavy drinking and suicidal thoughts. All while these siblings would pop their head in and out of my life at their own convenience. Not once did they ever ask about me, or care how I was doing and the youngest just always needed to borrow money I didn’t have. My mom dropped a bombshell about her health in 2018. Being the person that I am, I put aside my differences to be there for her. My siblings were all just ruthless and nasty towards her and wished her dead. I spent countless hours on the phone, listening to her cry and wish they would accept her apology and talk to her. I quit my job to tend to my mom and pull her out of hot water that the middle sibling put her in. I needed a break, but I pushed myself to be there for her and I spent months being emotionally and physically exhausted. All of it was for nothing because I found out that her health scare was a lie, and she just did it for attention. I pulled away from everyone so quick and blocked them all to focus on my life, mental health and getting myself back on track. At this point, I had a new relationship with someone who allowed me to heal myself at the rate I needed, and we love him, but he gets his own story because he deserves his very own post and to not be tied to my toxic family that he tried warning me about.
For the better part of 10 years now, I have blocked and unblocked every member of my mom’s side of the family. The family that I grew up with. My heart likes to think that these people have grown and learned from their mistakes. I always see the good in people even when they are to their core, bad people. I am always trying to fix people. I never stop trying and most days I do it without even knowing I put myself in that situation. I love to give to people less fortunate than myself and even in days where I have nothing to give, I will still find a way to help someone out. I have saved my siblings from drowning on more than one occasion and when I am drowning, they laugh maniacally and push my head under.
I turned 30 in the pandemic and decided personally that the next 20 years were going to be about me and fixing the mistakes I have made. Not just for myself but to be a better person for my son. Should he ever find himself in one of the many situations I have been in, I would be able to give him the advice he deserves and the ways to fix it or to simply cope with the decisions he has made. I had my son when I was 20. We essentially have grown up together because I was still a child when I had him. I do not regret it, because if it wasn’t for him, my life would have taken a different turn and I know I would have been dead a long time ago. I will never ever call myself a perfect mom, act like one or EVER shame another mom unless they are my own mother or an absent mother. My son and I already have a relationship that I never had with either of my parents. He is hitting a crucial time in his life that I have personally promised to protect him through and at all costs. From me, from his dad, and from the family that does nothing but call him the n word. I am a lot of things, and I have done many questionable things in my existence, but my son will never have to question why I didn’t help him when he needed it the most. My presence, love and dedication for my son is always there and always will be.
On this healing journey, the toxic in my life has tried to undo my progress but all they did was embarrass themselves by opening a bag of very stale worms that I keep for a rainy day. See, I was always the bigger person and never reacted to these people because that is what they thrive on. I have taken my losses and moved on with my life because they need their little victories to make themselves feel better about their meaningless lives. All that energy they have used to try and hurt me, they could’ve used for motivation to better themselves. Instead, they didn’t go to work while laughing about my “job” that they know nothing about. They called me a “fat cunt” when they actively weigh more than I do. They opened themselves for me to find their alarming Twitter posts and report them to their superiors because why would we trust a dysfunctional human like that to serve our country?
Politics aside, none of these people are good people in real life. They claim I have a fake life, but if you really look at the life these people lead, it just shows they act like proper human beings ONLY when they are paid to do so. In their free time, they get to be racist, homophobic assholes who think rules don’t apply to them. These people have no real friends because none of them can stand someone telling them that they aren’t mentally stable. I would have looked long and hard at my reflection before deciding to make a bullet point list of things that either aren’t true, stretched or happened over 10 years ago, to try and make someone look bad.
I didn’t claim to be better, but I am clever.
That being said, I labeled this lovely little hobby of mine “Relatable Trauma and Drama” because here is where I can connect with my friends and peers about how fucked up life is, the things we endure as humans, how hard it is to be alive when people are always tearing you down and parenthood being an endless roller coaster that we know and love. My story is relatable to many people I know. Maybe not the specifics, but they have left or rid themselves of toxic people, family and mentally draining situations. They are living their new and healed lives with their beautiful family and loved ones. This is my journey and story to share with all my fellow warriors.
More to come, talk soon!
Relatable Trauma and Drama! 