I'm going to start off by telling you about me and then I'll explain my problem.

I'm a divorced 24 year old mother of two who lives in an apartment with her boyfriend. We smoke weed.(not around the kids) I'm not asking for judgment or ridicule as it helps with my arthritis so I can actually do things like, hold my daughter's hand. I work a successful, high-paying job, sometimes with long hours, and said job is based out of my own vehicle. I like to go on vacations, but only when I've saved or planned well in advance for them. I have a cat, a fish, and a hamster. We both pay our own bills; on time, every time, and we don't ask for help. Ever. It took us a long time to get here because we both started from absolutely nothing because we both grew up poor and the "family" members that do have money are not willing to help the ones that don't .

Now to my problem.

I love my family. Most of them. I do. But I have never been able to be without my family, my whole life. And its not for lack of trying. My family is crazy. Some of them are bigoted a-holes, and some have more money than sense. My father is a sad excuse for a father, so that problem is just gone out of my life.. My mother, I know, loves me and wants the best for me, and she's obsessed with my kids. Lovely. I get it.

But I am learning about this thing called privacy, and its something I've never had from my family before and its driving them insane. They won't leave me alone. They keep trying to get me to go places and do things with them, all so they can ask questions like "what are you doing with your life?" Or "why do you have to smoke that weed shit ITs BaD FoR yOu", "do you really have enough money for your bills?" and my most favorite recently "are you pregnant?"

It makes me not want to be around my family.

I'd love more than anything to feel comfortable enough around them to just be me and be happy, but I can't. I can't bring myself to go around these people that call themselves my family but cast more stones of judgment than they cast out words of encouragement. I feel more at home with his family, who have been nothing but loving and caring and showing me what a real family is supposed to be like, than I have been with my family since I moved out when I got married in 2015 and had my daughter. Its making me really depressed 😞