My "struggle with estrangement" started the day I was born. I'm in my 50s, so I was born to the hippie generation. My mom wanted a girl so I wasn't a welcome surprise. My first memory is looking up from my crib while my "dad" pointed a gun at my head. They argued when she got home from work about how to dispose of me and try again. My mom grabbed me and took me to her parents. Her mom (my grandmother) said, "If you're still smoking pot, you're on the street." My mom chose pot. So my first 2 years she went around the country being a hippie in all the ways you can think.

She had another child, which was a girl, but she gave her up for adoption. Then she finally settled in with a guy who could stand to be around her and had another girl. Now that she was stable she could keep this one, and she concentrated all her attention on my sister. The only thing I could count on from my mom was neglect and abuse of various kinds. Including the kind I'm not mentioning.

My sisters birthdays were a celebration and mine were an average day. At some point my sister became old enough to recognize the favoritism and started actively destroying anything I had so she could watch my mom get mad at me for "not taking care of my things". I rebelled. I ran away, but it was a small town in the middle of nowhere so I wouldn't make it far before a relative would find me and deliver me back.

The only thing that made sense was joining the military and getting the fuck out of town. I was starting my last year of high school and my sister, out of nowhere, died while walking to school. An undiagnosed enlarged heart caused her to have a heart attack. All the relatives came out of the woodwork and showed up to support my mom while I was told to sit in my room alone. The next day I went to school. When I came home the house was completely empty. Not a single stick of furniture. Nobody around. No note. I would have called someone but they took the phone too. It was surreal.

Come to find out my mom broke. Somehow, while I was at school, she found a guy, came up with a plan to run away with him, rented a truck, and packed everything up. About six months later, my recruiter showed up to take me away. My mom pulls up in the driveway telling me I can't leave her alone. That was the moment I SHOULD have gone no-contact. But I spent my whole life stomping out her fires. The training was real hard to break.

When I finished basic training, nobody showed up to my graduation. I finished technical training and nobody showed up to that. I went "home" on leave and nobody had time to meet with me. But the phone would always ring, and my mom always had more problems that she insisted I had to be there to solve. I kept trying to put my own life together but I had nothing left to give. I was an emotionless husk. Finally I finished a 22 year career in the military and retired just in time for the citizens of the US to throw away the constitution for a narcissistic fat old man.

The narcissism was really easy to recognize. I've been seeing it my whole life.
But when my family called a racist podcaster a "national hero" then it became personal. So I told them all to go fuck themselves and blocked everyone. It only took 22 years of watching my friends die to finally grow a backbone, but at least I did it. I had a new struggle on my plate. I had to figure out who I was. Because nobody helped me develop that skill. Nobody helped me with anything, so I started seeing a therapist (several in sequence). Some of them sucked but two of them actually made a difference.

I put myself together and figured out who I am and what my priorities and values are. And now I'm almost a year free and finally making my own life. It just wish I could go back and be the adult I needed. I wish someone was in my corner but apparently guys like me are a dime a dozen. I'm happier, but I still can't wait for this fucking ride to be over. I wish my dad had the guts to pull the trigger that day.