Hi! This one's a break from the usual important life updates. Just some thoughts I've had swimming around in our head for a while that I want to share. Was showing a game to a friend when we saw a scene involving characters' feelings about their heritage. It of course had me wondering about where we came from. So here's some backstory and feelings about our family tree. (CW: discussions of family and forced bonds, emotional abuse, the usual) Extended family Sunny and I have had a complicated relationship with our extended family for as long as we can remember, and it's been pointed out several times to me by friends how unusual it is. There's several moving parts to why we felt and feel the way we do, that I want to put down in writing. Ever since Sunny was little, there's been this kind of... bubble. Sunny was heavily incentivized to close themself off and only associate with their immediate birth family. Their friendships were looked down on by their birth parents, and they were disa