Note to self: keep hating your family.

I will not decide I'm the victim because I'm sure none of us are. They say your family members are the only people you can trust, but really I think they're the only ones you can trust to be hurtful. Others will hurt too, but the family will hurt deliberately and unabashedly. What about love? Some ask. All's well and good with loving families, but there is no love in mine. There is only enmity, distrust, spite, aloofness, respect at best, no warmth where warmth there should be.

I know there are families out there in which parents have marital problems, abusive relationships, hatred for their children. They have it much worse than me. I am sure of that. I still dislike my family because I feel unwelcome here. It's my siblings in particular; it is likely they abhor me as much as I do them. I seem to have made an impression as "judgmental" when I'm pretty certain it's just a discrepancy in perceptions; what is "the passing of judgment" to them is only "neutral offhand commenting" to me--so it seems, from the conversation we just had.

In any case, I know I can be sure I'll be finding no comfort here when I need it. To get a picture of how we are--I have not hugged any of my siblings for literal years, likely a decade or more. Or patted them on the backs or engaged in any show of amiability. I have not comforted any of them for years either; they have not comforted me for years, a decade. When I think on the few times I voiced my woes to my sisters, I only recall accusatory statements being made in answer. Neither of the next two siblings in my family has ever praised me in any aspect. They have only ever had bad, critical, spiteful things to say--about my art, my writing, my music, my appearance, my habits, everything. I believe it is not in their natures to praise those close to them, those from whom praise will not buy benefit.

I'm more than certain they never loved me, and I know I do not love them either. It was a state that we slowly drew into over time; I might recall dimly a time when my siblings and I played together, but that's as far as our "love" went. I hate them; they hate me. That's the agreement we've come to.