Hello,

I have an issue that I am really confused about.  My immediate family that lives in the area near me is extremely dysfunctional.  There was a lot of domestic violence and abuse (toward me) and I had to cut loose.

Over the years, I had maintained contact with my extended family who live a couple thousand miles away.  I would visit every year or so since about 2006-2008 until about 2019.  I would visit them approximately yearly both before I stopped spending holidays with my immediate family and after.  My cousin (the extended family member) knew that my immediate family was abusive and that there were incidents. She encouraged me to not participate in this.  We didn't talk about it a lot, but we would keep in touch by phone occasionally, and I would visit here and there. My last visit was in early 2019.

Since the pandemic, she refuses to speak with me.  Occasionally she will answer texts back, but the last time that I spoke with her via phone was March of 2020 when this whole thing started.  I had some unanswered messages, so I didn't keep pressing it, this was in late 2020. Now here we are about two years later, my therapist said that maybe the pandemic was bothering her. So, I gave her some space. Two years of space is an awful lot.  I don't have any family left. So, with some hesitancy, I called again today. Didn't pick up, again.  Didn't return the message I left late last year.

I feel really devastated. I don't want to be over dramatic, but this has been happening consistently for quite some time now, and so I'm left to ask myself, what are my choices. Or, do I have a choice?  Probably not. My one option appears to be to give up.  TBH I'm totally baffled.  After my boyfriend dumped me in March of 2020, I was so upset, I thought, "well at least I have my family to talk to."  As a few months into the pandemic wore on, I realized, no, I don't. I have no one, nobody, nada, period.  I have a few friends and that's it.  My ex cut me out of his life and now my extended family is cutting me out of theirs and I have absolutely no idea why.  I'd say it was because of the abuse that happened in my immediate family and they took sides with this, but that was long known-and that was not an issue before.

So why am I constantly judged and excluded and put at arm's length by nearly everyone in my life except for a few friends.  I'm honestly baffled. I work, I better myself, I stay out of trouble, I'm an honest person, I've done a lot of work on myself in therapy, so what gives? I am the last on seemingly everyone's priority list.  If I invite people places, my calls don't get returned or there are always these excuses. If it's something THEY are interested in, they are right on it and it's top priority.

I am honestly baffled and devastated. On my dad's side, his sister cut us off like this 20 years ago and would refuse to speak to any of us no matter what.  I gave up, and continued to resume relationships with this other cousin.

It's happening all over again.  I honestly don't know if I can handle this.