[FONT=""][COLOR=""][SIZE=""][FONT=""][COLOR=""][SIZE=""]I'm not really sure how to start this out. I'm 26 years old, and I have two kids, both boys. They're 7 years old, and 5 years old. I've dealt with a lot of family related trauma, especially within the last 8 years. I've posted a ton about it on here. I have always been the black sheep of my family, but especially after becoming a mother. My family wasn't supportive of me having kids, and when my oldest was 6 months old I took him & left with him because of the lack of support at home. Shortly after that I was harrassed by police, and DCFS on behalf of my family. Then, I was served papers to go to court over child custody. This lasted up to a year, and then the case was dismissed. I wrote about that all on here as well. I had to follow all kinds of rules for a year in order to show the legal system that I wasn't neglecting my child. I had to show medical records, and a letter of dismissal from DCFS. I had court hearing after court hearing. Because the better I handled it all, the harder my family made it, and the more accusations they came up with. Eventaully, it was over a year later, and by that time I was about to have my second son. I had a restraining order granted against my mom that I had lifted after the whole thing was over. I thought that everything would have changed for the better. I thought that me, and my baby being gone, and having NO contact with anyone in my family including even old friends for an entire year would give them a reality check. But, sadly I was wrong. Alot of what started all of this is that I got pregnant with my first baby, and then my sister got pregnant a few weeks later. She had an abortion, and that created a whole whirlwind of hatred towards me because I got to have the open doors that she chose to close. So, by the time I had my first son my sister hated me over it, and my mom stood by her. My sister, and my mom both hated me so much for my baby. My sister told me that I should have killed him while I had the chance, and that he should be dead. My mom agreed with her. Actually, my mom even used to tell me that if I had only had an abortion then I wouldn't be in the mess that I was in at the time. My mom also tried to convince to to sign over my parental rights, or temporary gaurdianship. Which I was STRONGLY against. This all happened in the first 6 months of the baby's life, which is why when I took him & left they took me to court over child custody, and beleive me my WHOLE FAMILY jumped on the band wagon. Then later on by the time my second son was almost a year old. Another arguement broke out over it all because by that point we court was over, and we were back in the picture. My sister then told me that she's proud of her abortion because that's the reason why she's better off in life than I am. You see? They just can't forgive me for ruining my life by having kids. My brothers girlfriend who has always kinda been a hot mess got pregnant on purpose this past summer, and had an abortion thinking that it would get my family to forgive her for having 2 kids that she hasn't been good to. Those 2 kids are the favourites in my family. They've always been favoured over my kids. Apperantly, it's considered to be a "family tradition" for the women in my family to get abortions. If you haven't done it yet, then technically you haven't been "initiated" into the family so you, and your kids aren't accepted. I guess all the other moms in my family have apperantly all had at least one abortion at one point so they've been initiated into our family, which means them, and their kids are accepted. They make it seem like somthing fun that they do as a way to bond, like "let's go get pregnant, and then abort our babies together". This past summer beleive it, or not I actually considered going off my birth control, and getting pregnant on purpose to get this abortion. So that I could be initiated into my family, and have all this nonsense overwith. I even called many different clinics, and researched a lot. There's a lot more to this story too. Like, a lot of my issue is that I let this stuff bother me because I feel like especially since i'm really financially stable at this point in my life I don't work right now, and it gives me too much time to sit around, and let this stuff hurt me. I'm married to my kids dad at this point, and we live in another state hours away from my family. I havn't been back there in years. I basically moved back to Missouri after that last argment happened when my second son was almost a year old. That was 4 years ago. I made a promise to myself, and my boys then that no matter what we would never go back to that mess. I wanted to move on for the better, and start over. I wanted to build a good life here for them so that we could be content with the what we have here to the point that we don't have to greive over what we might be missing out on elsewhere. My kids are both in school now. My oldest is in 1st grade, and my youngest is in Kindergaurden. They also have a daycare that they have been going to for the last 2 years. I put so much pressure on myself to have a stable life here so that we don't have to deal with any of my family drama. I wanted to be financially stable, and buy a house, and get my kids into a good school & daycare. I wanted to find a good church to reguarly go to even though I haven't been since I was young. I wanted to build good relatinoships with the people around me like neighbors, and co-workers. So instead of my kids crying over coming in second best the their 2 cousins they're busy telling me about silly things that their classmates do at school, and kids stuff instead. That's why when I was confronted with the ultimatum of either raise your kids without your family's support or have them legally taken away from you. I chose to just tough it out on my own without family's support. Because I knew that we would be better off doing it all the hard way without family support anyway. Any advice? Am I better off just letting this go, and moving on with the life I have now? What can I dop to start mentally & emotionally healing?[/size][/color][/font][/size][/color][/font]