Do I have to love the ones I hate?

There are a lot of articles and blog posts out there about people who are narcissistic, sociopathic, psychotic, or just plain toxic.  Many, if not all, of these articles talk about removing these people from our lives and how it’s much healthier to do so.  What you don’t seem to find very often in these articles is what happens when a toxic person with any or all of the above traits happen to be a family member—either blood relative or by marriage.  It becomes a hazy shade of grey with a lot of “err, umm” going on when you ask the question, “shouldn’t we love and accept family no matter what?” 

I know, I know, people out there say that no matter what we should care for our family members because they’re our family members.  But, what if these people in your family are psychotic or sociopaths?  I’m not being facetious here.  Why do we have to like, love, or let alone, associate with people we don’t want to be linked to or have anything to do with just because we’re related?  We certainly throw around the words “like” and “hate” with people that aren’t related to us, so why not do that for all of our relationships in our life?  Why does family get a special “pass go and collect $200” card no matter what?

Over the last twenty years of my life, I’ve had the recurring thought about certain people in my family that if I wasn’t related to them, I wouldn’t be friends with them.  I finally evolved my thinking when I focused on the fact that I spent years (yes, YEARS) allowing toxic family members remain in my life and how I needed to stop allowing it because it was doing no one any good … well, except for the ones that were narcissists.  They seemed to always come out on top no matter how much they shit on you.  I guess they should since they’re standing at the top of that pile of shit, right?

There is a good part of this story and it's about how I cut out the toxicity like a cancer so it can no longer take and take and take.  At first you might worry what you’re missing out on in your life when you cut these people out of your life, but that quickly goes away when you find you have less stress and drama and you feel happier without them.  Some of you may be die-hard “unconditional love for family,” but you don’t have feel that way.  In fact, you should ask yourself if you have toxic family members in your life and if so, why do you continue to allow them to suck the life-blood out of you?  What would happen if you “took a break” from all that BS?  Take it and I think you’ll find you’ll be happier without them in your life, too.