Echoes of Silence
- Hannah L
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
In the house where echoes never fade
A voice rises, sharp and unafraid
She learned from shadows, a father’s tone
A symphony of chaos, all her own
Her words, like daggers, pierce the air
A tempest of anger, a storm laid bare
Yet beneath the fury, a child remains
Bound by the chains of inherited pains
She yells at her son, a mirror’s reflection
A cycle of hurt, a cruel connection
Grandparents’ wisdom, lost in the din
Their gentle whispers, drowned within
It’s not her fault, this learned disdain
A legacy of sorrow, a family chain
But still, my peace, a fragile thing
More precious than the hurt she brings
So I step away, a quiet retreat
From the storm of words, the endless heat
For in the silence, I find my song
A melody of healing, where I belong
I'm not quite sure where to start with this cousin of mine. So, her and I are the only blood relatives still living in Michigan who are related to my Grandpa. It's a blended marriage, and while his wife and her children are my family, we are not blood related. My emotions are constantly torn when it comes to this cousin. Growing up, I idolized her. I wanted to be like her. I respected her, admired her, and loved her so much. When we started hanging out over 7 years ago, she told me she basically hated me. She told me how annoying I was, how I, "copied" her all the time. She told me about a time when we were kids that my bathing suit was see through while we were on the beach. She was descriptive on how everyone could see all my, "child parts." She told me how her, my grandmother, and my grandmother's best friend sat there and laughed at me. She told me that's, "what I deserved" for choosing the same bathing suit as her. She also told me that's why she didn't go in the water. I remember this day. I remember swimming. I remember the three of them laughing at me and pointing. I remember asking why they were laughing, and I remember my grandmother saying, "you wouldn't understand." As my cousin was telling me how much she despised me as a kid, I remember being super triggered. Yet another person I looked up to, just couldn't stand me.
My cousin would proceed to tell me how spoiled, ungrateful and selfish I was. She talked about how my mother and I went on so many vacations and I'm just a, "spoiled little brat." This was shortly after my suicide attempt by the way, where I'm attaching to anyone and everyone trying to find a reason to stay alive. She told me I'm delusional for the things I say my mother did. She told me my mother sacrificed everything for me, and I am lucky to have her. She wouldn't listen to my stories, but made sure I listened to hers, about her father, my uncle. She basically told me over and over how much she hated me, couldn't stand me, etc. Yet I found myself craving more. Wanting her to love me. Eventually, I would tell her how I couldn't take anymore and seriously wanted to die. Her response, while I don't remember it all, basically told me how selfish I was again. That this "relationship" wasn't serving her." This triggered me into begging for my mother's love, who would say similar things when I disagreed with her.
There's a lot more I could say about this cousin here, but there will be a family series at one point, so I will save the rest of the stories and skip to what's important here. This cousin has lied to our family about the past 4 or so family functions. She tells us they're sick, unavailable, or some other lame excuse. Then, I would see her, or her husband post on Facebook about being at her husbands family. Fine, whatever, I don't really care. Family functions are crazy when she's there. They can't be respectful. They constantly swear, upset my grandparents, and you'll see our family raise our eyebrows when they talk about things they think are funny, but are really downright abusive, toxic, or just baaaaad. I realize our family is toxic. Which is why I'm so confused about this cousin, because I get it. I get why you wouldn't want to be around a bunch of judgy people. What I don't get, or do because I understand our family dynamic, is why our family, my cousin specifically, continue to treat the loyal ones like such utter shit. My cousin used to tell me how she's not included in anything with the family, how no one ever tells her anything, etc. I would always make sure to reach out to her and let her know. I listened to her stories despite her not believing mine. When the family decided something without her that I knew about, I let her know immediately. I would let her know information about her father, as she told me she wanted to know, etc. I always included her because I knew how she felt about it. Yet, I was the one she treated with the most disrespect out of all of them. I was also the one constantly defending her as the family was berating her. Like my mother, I feel like she knew she had my loyalty, but for some reason still wanted to dump all over me.
My Facebook is completely, and permanently shut down now. By the time this is posted it will have been shut down for several months, and there will be a later post as to why i did this. However, eventually you get sick of allowing people in your lives that for whatever reason have ill intentions towards you. I removed my cousin and her husband from Facebook. I didn't block them, because I don't really care about all that. I care about allowing access to people that not only share information with my mother, but use it against me. I'm sick of standing up for people who are constantly making my life harder. It's about my peace. I'm attracted to those kinds of people because that's what I'm familiar with. I don't want that anymore. I don't feel bad about that, either. People are going to judge you anyway. As long as you're not hurting anyone, do what makes you happy. Do what you have to do to keep the peace in YOUR heart and mind.
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