Showing up for family isn’t always the same thing as being cared for.

So, what would you do if your family was grieving at Christmas, but being around them meant stepping back into years of feeling overlooked and emotionally shut out?

Would you force yourself to go for the family’s sake? Or would you protect your own well-being and stay home?

In the following story, one woman finds herself in this situation and is planning to stay home.

Here’s the full scoop.

WIBTA if I 46F stay home alone at christmas when I know my family needs me?

I never had great relations with my family, but ironically, my family had great relationships with me. I was always available, sympathetic, and understanding, but I was raised by a mother with severe pre- and postpartum depression, which impacted my integration with the family.

My siblings never learned to include me or talk to me with love, because they saw my mother’s treatment of me.

As a child, it wasn’t that big of a barrier. I was a rough child, having been through worse, and survived by my own strength. I dont think I even noticed before we became teenagers.

After her own crisis, things changed.

But when I had a crisis at 19, it became obvious that I was not even almost important. I wasn’t innocent in what happened, but it was also not foreseeable, and the outcome was so detrimental that any sympathetic person would have wanted to help me. My family let me slip into depression and isolation, acting irritated when interacting with me.

I moved away. It was never talked about again, and my siblings feel like strangers to me, but they still expect me to show up with a smile and a listening ear for special occasions. They have helped with practical things if I ask, but I learned early not to ask for anything.

I went LC with my mother and bio brother a few years back, and of my two (step)sisters, I only really talk to the one who has children, and that’s where the conflict lies.

She just doesn’t have anything left to give.

My stepfather is in hospice, it’s close, and my family is grieving and rallying close. And I have never felt more excluded.

On one hand, I realise very much that this situation isn’t about me, and I should set my own feelings aside, as this is one of my”familyyyy” and all that. On the other hand, I also went through grief, brutal and also life-threatening. And the stark contrast is eating at me.

How can I give what I didn’t receive, and how do I know that giving more won’t deplete me, when there is no one here (including myself) who stands up for me?

AITA?

Wow! It sounds like she’s been carrying a lot on her chest for years.

Let’s see what advice the people over at Reddit have to offer.

This reader suggests therapy.

According to this person, she already has the answer.

Here’s someone who thinks she should stay home.

Good point.

She needs to let this go.

You can only do so much, and it sounds like she’s done.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.