Dear Nichole:

I started my 3/11 post to you with my concern that you will give money away to your younger brother. In your post yesterday you wrote about him, your younger brother, if I understood correctly: “he is very aggressive and mean… he was my best friend and the one person in my family I thought I could trust. I am still struggling with this… I feel like people need me.. “- my concern is that if your younger brother is suddenly nice to you, you will feel so elated that next thing that happens is that you give him money.

Please don’t- save the money you work so hard to make, use all of it for you. Don’t give it away.

“I feel so guilty for standing my ground. I feel like people need me. I have always been stronger and helped people”- you derived some sense of self worth as a child helping your struggling family members, but it is time now to help yourself.

Think of human worth- you are not less worthy that anyone else, your well being is no less important than your brother’s. Turn your attention to yourself, do stand your ground, be strong and help yourself.

“I am still struggling to accept my family as it is. It is my biggest trouble. I want nothing more than a support system with them”-

-take deep breaths, and as you feel calm, form the intent in your brain to give up the delusion that there is a support system in your family, for you. Your parents supported their drug addictions, your brother supported his sexual needs as he abused you, your younger brother is supporting his girlfriend (and her children, if I remember correctly), and the kind words and kind acts in between the major neglect and abuse of you do not amount to support. These are like little drops of water in a dry desert, not nearly enough to quench your thirst.

So move away from the desert to a place where there is a stream of water that really can quench your thirst. It is  not easy to do this but you are on your way of doing just that by working two jobs and saving your money, planning to move elsewhere, away from your father and younger brother, to a place that will also be away from your older brother.

I understand that your ex boyfriend was cruel to you, regardless of the label. He was not that stream of water that you need then. You need people who will not be cruel to you, but kind instead, and not just sometimes, in between acts of abuse, but persistently kind and never cruel.

“I realize how hurt and damaged these people really are. To be so cruel as my ex he must be so hurt deep down inside. This bothers me”- attend to your own hurt, to your own damage. Heal yourself best you can. As you do, you will see that it is very possible to be hurt and damaged and not hurt and damage other people.

A good person does not hurt and damage other people, be one of the good people and let the bad people experience the consequence of hurting you, which I hope is, not having you in their lives!

anita