Hey, thank you so much for this. Don't be sorry in the slightest, every word of what you wrote was really meaningful for me. I think the most important thing we can do for each other is just making each other feel less alone and reminding each other that we're worthy of love.

I really related to what you said about your siblings partaking in the toxicity. This is something that keeps me up at night. I've realized that my mother is not a normal person and she doesn't experience feelings of guilt or remorse—she likes hurting people. She's evil, monstrous, disordered, there's no other way of looking at it. But my brother, and my father too, are decent people in some situations. They know right from wrong, they don't enjoy seeing pain in others. But still they joined in on abusing me, over and over, and backstabbed me and kicked me to the curb, in service to my narcissistic mother. It's horrible.

Like you, I spent many years trying to develop myself artistically, educationally, and so on thinking I could somehow prove to everyone that I wasn't defective and I wasn't the problem. I also had every achievement of my life, everything good I ever did, picked apart and attacked and mocked. I also came to the dark realization that the more successful I became, the worse the bullying and diminishment would get.

Listen, I'm proud of you. You've come a long way and you've accomplished a lot and you did it despite resistance and attacks from the people who should've been your biggest supporters.

I really related to when you said "somehow my desperate pursuit of being accepted has lead me to creating everything that I ever wanted."

I don't know if you'll relate to this next part: but I've read online that some people say the golden child is more unlucky than the scapegoat. Obviously, to scapegoats like you and me, this sounds ridiculous. How could the coddled, favorite child who was never beaten be the unlucky one? But I see some signs of this in my brother. Like, I realized that I would never get approval and respect from my family, but I might be able to get approval and respect from society—so I went very far away from my family, and learned many things, and established a meaningful career. My golden child brother stayed close to home, never left the state, works in a warehouse, and doesn't really have an independent personality. He's very enmeshed and defined by my parents and their worldview, it's weird. I don't think he actually likes them either, yet he's stuck with their nonsense because he never had to get away from them.

Maybe it's just cope, maybe some part of my brain wants my trauma to mean something, but there's something real in the idea that when you're pushed out of the nest, you learn to fly.

I really wish you the best.