New Comics are Coming

Good Morning Family!

As you can tell from our lack of content lately things have been challenging the last few months. I wanted to take a second to talk about some of it as I feel sharing life experiences is how we relate to each other and build connections.

A few weeks ago our nephew contacted us out of the blue. It's the first time since he went to live with his mother last year. We'd previously been taking care of him and raising him as our son but after nearly four years that all came to a unfortunate end when he decided to embrace the dysfunction typical in our family history. For nearly a year we were dealing with police coming to our house at least three times a week. We tried counseling, talking with him, assuring him he's just going through a rough patch and we're here for him, even after we discovered his text exchanges discussing murdering us with his girlfriend. For a bit we thought he was coming around but then things exploded when we found out he was telling the police and his school that we were mentally and physically abusing him. At this point our therapist warned us his intentions were not positive and he was only going to keep escalating his aggressive behavior. I appealed to him one more time but he didn't back down. There's much more to his behavior but it honestly gets so obscene it's unbelievable; stuff no parent could ever be prepared for. This is when we made the heartbreaking decision for him to go live with his mother.

I honestly didn't expect to hear from him again. The level of vitriol he expressed towards us in the end was clear he wanted to be as far away from us as possible. So getting a message from him was surprising. He wanted to know if we could reconnect. I'm a firm believer in second chances, even more with people I love, however, this situation was so extreme normal rules couldn't apply. He set out to destroy us, literally making up story after story about us to try and get us in some kind of trouble. However, I still love him and want what's best for him so I did what our therapist told us to do.

When someone goes that far to hurt you, it's very important to have healthy boundaries when considering letting them back into your life. As much as I want to throw open the dms and start repairing things, the reality is that's not healthy. So I told him I was glad to hear from him and if he's truly sorry for his actions he'll demonstrate it with action. I told him we would have no problem opening communication with him under one condition; he gets counseling for what he did and we can set up a group call with him and the counselor so we can get professional reassurance he's working to prove not only that he regrets how he behaved, but to create a life positive habit of seeking counseling in times of need. 

As of now I've heard no updates and quite honestly it will break my heart yet again if he doesn't follow up. However, that hurt will be infinite less than letting someone back into our lives who is bringing their toxic attitude and behavior with them. If we just let him back in he'll think we've accepted it's ok for the way he treated us and that's dangerous.

As I said above, I believe sharing this stuff with each other helps us connect. I know a lot of you out there are dealing with some form of dysfunction or toxic behavior and the more we can share with each other positive methods and behaviors to help support each other, the better.

It's odd when doing the right thing feels like it's not the right thing. But I know I feel this way because of my upbringing where dysfunction/toxic behaviors and personalities were typical and accepted as "normal". Part of improving is challenging yourself to do better and that means behavior different from what you feel is natural.

I hope by sharing this deeply personal story, it helps someone out there be assured standing up for yourself is the right thing to do even when you're at odds with your feelings.

Thank you very much for being here for us. We truly couldn't do it without you. More comics are coming real soon.

Biggest hug!

-Bryan