Now they get to act offended about it for months or years <| sep |> But if you ' re praying then you might as well wear monks robes or pros <| sep |> I don ' t mind you asking , but it ' s a looooong story so I ' m gonna have to follow up with you later when we ' re done making the food and we ' re just hanging out EDIT For uSuperDan 488 , uNotThatEasily , and anyone else interested , here ' s the abridged version . Background My family is a little dysfunctional . My mother has been diagnosed with a laundry list of mental disorders , and uses it as an excuse to avoid work and live off of a combination of disability , child support , and whatever she can get out of her long line of abusive boyfriends , of which she seems to get a new one every few weeks . She ' s a professional victim , and calling her a bad parent would be a massive understatement . My father was a drug dealer in high school who got my mom pregnant when she was 17 . He also suffered from depression , and shortly after I was born he committed suicide . My grandparents on my mother ' s side are emotionally abuse , hyper religious Christians . More specifically , my grandmother has a difficult time having conversations without feeling like she ' s personally attacked . I remember one time when I asked her if she had seen my toothbrush , and she beat and grounded me because I was accusing her of stealing things . While my grandfather doesn ' t behave that way , he also isn ' t willing to stand up for anyone else for fear of being on her bad side , too . My whole family on my father ' s side was forbidden from ever seeing me , and I was told to never see them . Apparently this was because my grandparents didn ' t like my father . Regardless , my father ' s parents contacted me when I turned 21 and asked if I would do them the honor of giving them a chance and forming an opinion of them for myself . I ' ve visited them a few times , and though they ' re friendly , they live very far away and maintaining a relationship is a little difficult . Through my childhood , I bounced around homes . At first I lived with my mother and her parents . After a couple boyfriends , she found a guy she decided to marry when I was ten and had my brother . At that time she moved out with me to live with him . She wasn ' t happy in her relationship and he was abusive to both her and myself . Her unhappiness made her more manic , and she became ultra paranoid . She kept me at her side through my early teens and wouldn ' t allow me to go anywhere without her . Often she would take me out in the middle of the night during school weeks to tag along while she maxed out her credit card on things she never used . I ' d average two or three hours of sleep before it was time to get up for school . Eventually I had an emotional breakdown and told one of my friends I was thinking about committing suicide . My friend told my mom ' s parents , who always disliked the person she had become . They believed that her mental illnesses and later , my own were nothing more than repressed guilt for things we had done . They came in the middle of the night and took me from her to live with them . In my mid to late teens , I was still struggling with thoughts of suicide . My grandparents ' obsession with guilt and sin made it impossible to reach out for help . After a failed suicide attempt at 16 , they committed me to a psychiatric ward . There I was diagnosed and medicated and given the coping skills needed to live my own life . That ' s when things changed for me . I began thinking critically about my life and my family . I realized that them being my family didn ' t mean they were good people , and it didn ' t make them always right . I began questioning religion and asking myself about my own sexual repression . I realized I wanted to help people and that I needed to distance myself from toxicity to do so . I got a job and started saving money . As soon as I could I got my own cell phone , bank account , etc . At 18 I moved 4 hours away to a major city . I began working and moved up as a training manager within the first year . At 19 I was in a supervisory position in a field of business where 90 % of my peers were at least ten years older than me . Over time things changed , I experimented with job options , I found relationships , came out as bisexual , and began forming my political beliefs . Years passed . During this time I connected with my dad ' s side of the family . I also found out that my grandparents had supposedly rehabilitated and that my mom was in therapy . I still visited my mom and her parents during special occasions , mostly because I am pretty antisocial but didn ' t want to be alone on the holidays . My fiance encouraged me to reconnect with them to finally build a proper relationship with my brother . She was also worried that I would regret distancing myself from them in the future . A few more years passed as I tried to form a new relationship with them , but as an independent adult . I made clear to them my new religious views , my acceptance of my sexuality , and my political beliefs . These comments were met with varying degrees of it breaks my heart that you ' re going to hell . Regardless , I tried to build a new connection with them . Unfortunately , over the last year it became evident that they hadn ' t really changed . After a confrontation over the phone with my mother about the way she ' s treating my brother , she threatened to pursue a restraining order if I didn ' t stop talking to him . After trying to have a conversation with my grandparents about how the political climate is affecting my partner , an afrolatina woman , they somehow interpreted it as a personal attack , and after making a series of unfounded accusations about our lifestyle and emotional state , my grandmother said she didn ' t want to see us right now , especially during the holidays . Ultimately , it just reminds me what kind of life I had with them before . I ' m trying to be a person whose purpose is helping others , and just like when I was 19 , being surrounded by my family ' s toxicity makes that more difficult . This is an opportunity for me to live my own life and start new relationships with openminded and kind people , not sticking with what I know just because they ' re family . By the way , my fiance and I made our own Thanksgiving meal like ten dishes , and it was the best tasting Thanksgiving I ' ve ever had . Feel free to ask any other questions you want the answers to . I didn ' t really jump into any details , so I hope I told my story clearly .