My independence day

The new me, feels like a new life discovered today as I throw off the shackles of familial contempt.

Grandmother died March 10th.

Thought of attending family #memorial service filled me with #anxiety & #dread for the COUNTLESS times that family used incorrect pronouns or made derogatory comments in public.

Deciding NOT to attend brought #peace & #tranquility

Toxic people ruin lives.

Getting away from the conditional love that has a bar too high to reach has given me a new level of self-esteem.

Walking away from the vitriol and hate of my family makes me feel happier and safer.

Absolutely certain that tolerating my family's abuse resulted in my being mal-adjusted at work, in public, in society and even on social media.

Social awkwardness is DIRECTLY correlated to the hardship that I had in coping with my own blood relations.

After-all: if my OWN family would not, could not accept me: what hope did I have in the workplace?

This is why I am an engineer and programmer.

People can be hurtful, machines not so much.

Leaving my family feels like a giant weight is lifted.

No longer caring what family says is liberating, peaceful and tranquil freedom.

I even feel different; like an awakening.

I even feel sorrow for my grandmother's loss in a more pure sense now; uncolored by fear, anxiety or dread.

Have never lived a life without fear, anxiety or dread before; never realized how much that I cared about what family thought of me until now.

Along with the loss of my grandmother: comes the loss of being shackled to the family and their disdain for me. It is the strangest thing. I am feeling things is a totally new way, a new awakening, a new everything. It is like I lived blind my entire life and now can see and feel something new.

#transgender

#pronouns