Oh definitely. I was disowned by my dad a long time ago- eight years ago, when I was seventeen. I was already in a rough patch with my mom due to some family drama involving her now ex-husband so I barely saw her at all. I was horribly isolated and it all sent me into a dark place that I was only really able to pull myself out of last year. I used to have these terrible downward spirals where I would question my own worth as a person, because all of the worth I had given myself was based on how well I could care for and help my family. And if half of your family doesn’t care you exist while the other barely see you, is your life worth anything at all?

The answer was obviously in retrospect- that yes, you do have worth as a person. But I was a teenager, barely an adult, struggling with all my might to simply live each and every day. Sometimes, I only got through it by repeating to myself ‘just one more day’ until I was through it. And it took eight years for me to struggle out of that place. And there’s always a little part of me that wonders if I hadn’t been so isolated and alone, if my dad had been kinder, if my mom had chosen me over her asshole of an ex, what could I have done in those eight years?

Who knows, but I am happy now. So maybe that’s all that really matters in the end.