40 years of being 'the helper' taught me to value people by how they are and not by how they are related.
As one example, I lay in a hospital bed, breathing through an oxygen mask, and the phone next to me rings. It is 'relatives' calling all the way from their vacation home in Florida. The topic of their call? As usual, to tell me about all the 'chores' they have planned for me when they return from their lovely vacation
I knew then that I had to survive to get out of that hospital bed, close that chapter of my life, and open a new one. From that time forward things would be different. No longer would I keep my mouth shut, being just a 'helper', and let people use me, like my father before me did and his father before him. I decided I was not going down the same path they did, getting walked on until death finally released them from their life of 'helping', never receiving anything in return when they needed it.
Open a new chapter in my life is exactly what I did! I dumped all the users and have never been happier. I actually have time now to spend with the family and friends that make me feel good, I am able to fix things of my own, and do things for myself. Sure, there are many 'relatives' that view me as a black sheep, the oddball. But if warning them, and eventually dumping them if they don't heed my warning, when they are degrading the quality of my life by whining, lying, cheating, using me, or just plain bringing me down is being the oddball, then oddball is exactly what I am! In a family full of people that don't say shit even if they have a mouthful, then I guess 'black sheep' is an accurate description of me too. 'Love all around' is not the answer, no matter how well it seems to work out in fairytales. Love is not appreciated by, and is needlessly wasted on, people that only have selfish motives. Hate is something that they understand clearly.
There are those that believe the users' lies, at least for a time, and are frightened by their stories of me. But eventually those people get used over and over by them too and then they realize they have been lied to about me. The occasional one or two that never catch on to the users' ways are well suited to be enablers the rest of their lives anyway. I do not keep enablers in my life either, I have no respect for them.
