[Text] [Anonymous]

[icanhearscreams]

[Oh hey, it's anonymous sender time again. Jun's been doing some thinking in the last few days.]

What does family mean to you? Like... what counts? Is it your blood family? What if you're adopted?

What if you don't know you're adopted? Does family become something like a lie in that case?

Do dead people stop being family?

I don't really know what family means anymore. It's confusing and there's too many emotions tied up in it.

Comments

un: eudaimonikos; text

[eudaimonikos]

Why would people stop being family just because they're dead?

[icanhearscreams]

Because they're not around to really be a part of things anymore?

voice: un: vi

[faceblocks]

I ...think it all counts. I've had blood family, adopted family---

---dead family.

I don't think it can be a lie if you feel it? But that's complicated, too. I guess it can be a lie if someone's using you. Using the idea of family for whatever. But if you don't know that, or if you do and you don't care, then maybe it's still something like family? I hate it.

You're right. It's so confusing.

If you're enemies, or something like it, do you stop being family? I guess that's complicated, too.

[icanhearscreams]

How do you know if you feel it? It's confusing.

Maybe. I haven't had family turn out to be enemies at any point.

text; un: clarke

[romancekiller]

I would say all of that counts. It doesn't change how you care about each other.

[icanhearscreams]

But if you were lied to about being blood family, does that change things?

text; un: shiro

[shiro2hero]

In my experience - blood, adoption, close friendship, all of it counts as family. Doesn't even have to be legal adoption, here, anyway. I've seen all of it, been through all of that.

Does it matter, do you think? Knowing whether or not you're adopted? If you care about someone as a family member - would that change things for you?

[icanhearscreams]

if I cared about them that way, yes.

But when I got information about how I'd really come into the family, it changed things.

( text | un: alucard )

[ananym]

What do you want it to mean?

[icanhearscreams]

If I knew, I wouldn't be asking, now would I?

[ezra_of_lothal]

My birth parent and I were separated when I turned seven. I have a lot of chosen family. Death definitely doesn't change things for me. My feelings are the same.

In the end, it's up to you to define. Ideally, it's something you can discuss with whoever you're thinking of as family, and you can agree together that what you are.

Although of course that risks rejection of some kind. But not talking about can mean carrying around fear of rejection or miscommunication around, and that's not great either.

[icanhearscreams]

I can't discuss it with them anymore. They're gone. The only one that isn't... well, he's not here.

I don't really understand 'chosen' family. You're either family or you're not, right?

Text 🌹 un: Varré

[blessedwithlove]

Family is a term so broad as to be meaningless. The only ones of import are those who give life purpose.

[icanhearscreams]

And how do you find those kinds of people?

un: anonymous, text

[the_obedient_servant]

"The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb."

Of course, all family will eventually fail you, even the ones you choose. I find it's easier to leave them behind after they're dead.

[icanhearscreams]

It's hard. They won't really leave me.

And I know they'll fail you. Even if I was a terrible child, they still failed me.

text; un: naruhodo

[convene]

Family is a complicated thing, isn't it?
I believe family can be blood and who you choose - it just depends on the circumstance.
I would consider my friends my family, as I don't really have many blood relatives I would consider family.

I don't think I've put so much thought into it before.

As for adoptions - I'm not sure that's a fair question.
Does someone stop being family because you're not related to them?

[icanhearscreams]

I don't know. But it's a big thing to lie about, or to keep hidden.

text | un: asogi

[truerevival]

[This man does not know how to do anything anonymously, and this post is full of the trigger word "family".]

Family is what you make of it. There are those we speak of as family, though there's no relation, and...those that have left us and their time in this world.

I chose to consider my adoptive family as a second one; though I will always consider my father as my family, despite his passing. I was able to know him though, and that might make a difference.

I don't think it can be a lie, if people treat you as family and if you feel as though you are a part of it, adopted or otherwise. It's in the care you have for one another.

[icanhearscreams]

What if there isn't a lot of care, though? I mean I'm sure he tried his best, but... there wasn't a lot of care. My adopted sister and I were on our own a lot.

text post; un: peerless_hobo

[xiaoxiuya]

ugh, you poor kid. Look, ignore this if I'm overstepping, but...I think you need to hear this.

Family can be blood relatives, or they can be people you meet over the course of your life that for some reason you love and trust on the same level. What is a spouse after all, but someone you choose to bring into your family? In an ideal world, family should be the people you can utterly rely on: the people who take care of you when you're sick, help you when you're hurt, comfort you when you're scared and celebrate your triumphs like their own. And in return you do the same for them, to the best of your abilities.

But sometimes, reality doesn't match up with the idea, right? Maybe you have abusive parents, maybe your family dies and you don't have the good luck to live in a world with an empirically-determinable afterlife, maybe you get transported into another dimension and you don't know if you'll ever see them again. In situations like that, sometimes family can become a burden. Sometimes thinking about them brings you nothing but pain. In that kind of situation, I think it's okay to let yourself forget. Find other things to think about. Distract yourself with the moment, on figuring out what you need to do to keep living here and now, and whatever that thing is, you do it. And then find the next thing to do, and the next thing, and the next. Don't let your mind wander if you can help it. Just live. That's what I've been doing, since.

Well, I used to have parents and siblings, but not for a long time.

And if anyone wants to @ me for posting an unpopular opinion you can fuck off, I will fucking fight you in real life if I have to. The world is too complicated to cling to pat philosophies that don't even apply here, okay?? Nobody told Confucius about transmigration. ◔_◔

[icanhearscreams]

Who says I'm a kid?

[That... sure is a lot of words. He's trying to process it.

I had a family. Then I found out they lied to me. I tried to make up with my father, but I got taken away before the conversation could finish. I don't know that I really forgive him, but I wanted to try to make up before I went off and died. My adopted sister was already dead at that point.

text; un: lady

[dohaeris]

Of course your family is still your family if they're dead. That's the one thing that no one can take from you. If you ever loved them, you still have the same love in your heart as before.

And I don't think it matters if you have a sworn brother or a half-brother or a trueborn brother, but I don't think it helps anyone to pretend it's all the same. Pretending they're all your trueborn brothers is like saying that a half-brother isn't as good.

So I wouldn't think it was very kind not to tell children if they've been adopted, but it doesn't make anyone's family a lie. They probably thought it was the kinder way, and didn't mean to say that adopted isn't as good. They probably thought it would hurt the child to be told, and perhaps they couldn't bring themselves to do it. Not everyone always knows the right thing to say. People can be very stupid about their loved ones, and it can be very hard to speak a truth you believe to be hurtful to someone you care about.

[icanhearscreams]

I don't know if I ever loved them. It's... complicated.

I wish they'd told me, though. They kept it from me for so long, and I only found out in the middle of a battle...

[also anonymous]

[chickenchoicejudy]

I think it's people who treat you like you're family. and that can change and it sucks when it does, but...it doesn't mean you weren't family before? basically like, do they want you or do they want to say they have you?

but in the end you get to pick who you want to keep around and you don't have to stay with people who didn't pick you. you don't have to be family just because you're related to someone, and you don't have to be related to someone to be family.

[icanhearscreams]

I don't know if they wanted me or just kept me out of obligation.

How do you know who to pick as family, then?

anonymous (early august)

[grice]

You've got some answers that I would be repeating. What happened that's making things confusing for you? Can you say without giving yourself away?

[icanhearscreams]

I don't know if I can really say without giving it away.

I've just... been thinking about it a lot, lately.

anonymous (private)

[zib]

[Zib stares at this post for a long moment, before he then responds--however, Jun will find that it's been made private from the rest of the network as he asks a question.]

Are you the same anonymous person who posted last month? The one who asked about whether or not other people have died here before?

[Given the timing of this one and the last one, he couldn't help but wonder...]

[icanhearscreams]

[If it wasn't private, he wouldn't bother responding. But since it is...]

Yeah. I don't want people trying to pity me or something, that's why it's anonymous.

Text; UN: Filledwithsunshine

[onebadapple]

All my blood relatives are dead and my stepmother wants me dead, so all my family is very much those who aren't related by blood or marriage. So I suppose, I'm adopted in that sense!

But I don't know why it would be a lie just because you don't know. If you love them and they love you like family, you are one! Like my dwarfs and I!

[icanhearscreams]

He loved me the same way he loved his daughter, which is to say - not all that well. He wasn't really there for us. And she knew I was adopted before I was and didn't tell me until it was too late.

[He is... not going to even question the dwarf thing at this point.]

text; un: anon

[mehanizovati]

[for a few moments he considers not going anon but- yeah, easier. why not? a purely honest conversation then]

I admit I've wondered the same from time to time. Where I am from family is often chosen, it was who stood by you and protected you as you did them in turn, to the best of your abilities.

What makes that different from a close friend? I feel there must be some discernible difference, though what it is I could not say.

[icanhearscreams]

I know. They're very similar, at least from the descriptions I've gotten.

But what that really feels like, I don't really know.

text; @skywalker

[facultative]

When I was younger I was brought somewhere and told that this would be my new family.

I never saw them that way. I still don't. Family's what you make of it and just because I don't see them that way doesn't mean they don't.

[icanhearscreams]

But at least you knew that they weren't your real family. Or your blood family, whatever.

What do you do, then? If you're all alone.

Text; un: darkness

[survivalthroughhate]

Having experienced most of these scenarios, I'll try to give my perspective on it. It's alright to have many emotions because having a family brings up a lot of them, conflicting and confusing even at the best of times. For me, family are the people you bond with, those that you love and care about, someone you would willingly put yourself in harm's way for and who it distresses you when you see that they are sad or in pain either mental or physical. Here, I have both blood kin and those I have chosen to be my family here with me.

I experienced this with my blood family and never forgot them despite years of being separated from them. But I was adopted against my will by a man who was an absolute monster. I spent years trying to be worthy of his love only to finally realize he was as incapable of loving anyone as he was to prevent the suns and moons from rising . Despite trying to break away from his teachings, it is hard to consider him as anything other than my father, given I have known no other.

I wouldn't say that not knowing you're adopted makes it a lie, not unless the people in question only adopted you to manipulate or use you, as I just mentioned. Then it is hard to see yourself as anything other than a tool that was to be used by them.

As for the dead, no, they certainly do not stop being family. One of my brothers and my mother is dead but they are still as close to my hearts as when they were alive. The memory and feelings you felt towards your kin mean your ties to them are always kept and never severed.

I don't know if this will help or just leave you with more questions but it is my perspective on this subject.

[icanhearscreams]

I don't know that they adopted me to manipulate me. But they never told me that I was adopted. Which seems like a big thing to hide.

I don't know how to feel towards them anymore. I know my adopted father did his best, but his best wasn't very good.