I Don't Know What To Do

This is hard to write but I need to get it off my chest and out there.

I am not a priority to my family.  And that really, really hurts.  Because family means so much to me.  And they often make me feel like I mean nothing to them. 

The latest occasion where this fact has been shoved in my face occurred this weekend when I had knee surgery to repair a torn meniscus .  I had been out to dinner last Friday with the family to celebrate my father's 84th birthday.  All the adults at that dinner were aware I was having the procedure done the following Friday.  Not one person remembered.   Or maybe they remembered but they didn't care to find out the results.  The day before the procedure my sister-in-law text me to see if I could pick up her kids coming home on the bus from college.  She did not remember I had the procedure scheduled.  But to her credit when I let her know of my conflict she did respond and wish me luck.   I did text her after my surgery to let her know it all when well.  She called me on Saturday, I felt like she was really negative.  It felt like she trying to have my experience compete against the identical procedure my brother (her husband) had had 2 years ago.  She made me feel like I was doing everything wrong and Don had done it so much better.  But the thing is, it went really well.  I was off crutches on Friday, and I wasn't feeling any pain.  But you would never know that talking to her.   But I have to give her credit, she was the only one to follow up and see how it went.   No one else called, emailed, or text; no one else did anything.   My own father couldn't be bothered to pick up the phone and check to see if I was doing well.  

It was almost 10 years ago that I tried to adopt a child.  The adoption agency rejected me with the reason that I did not have enough "family support".  At the time I thought they were wrong and while I knew that neither my brother Don, nor my sister Jane and her husband, ever got around to writing their letters for my files, I thought the agency was being unreasonable.   Now I can clearly see that I don't have family support; the agency was right.   To contrast this, my friend had a baby in October, and her extended family is taking the baby one day per week so that she doesn't need to make use of daycare.   My sister in law had repeatedly told me she wanted to have my baby during the day when I worked - and I believed her.  Now I know so much better - what she says and what she means are totally different.  I need to refocus her words to what they actually mean -- and again, I can't say this enough: she is one of the best in my family for caring and looking out for me.  I don't want it to sound like I'm picking on her. 

They did the same thing when I was getting a new pet.  They totally encouraged me to get a puppy with repeated talk of how much they would want to walk the dog, play with the dog, etc.   Well that is just about as opposite a message as possible from the reality of how they treat my dog.

And today its snowed - not a lot; we got about 2 to 3 inches of heavy wet snow.  The weather is getting colder this week, so you need to clear the snow now before it freezes.  My brother's family lives 10 houses away from me.  They know exactly how much snow I have on my driveway.  If the situation was reversed, I would have called over there to see if they needed any help in clearing their driveway.  They have an 8th grader and a senior in high school that are at home - don't you think it would have been nice if they had offered to have one of the kids help me?  I'm sure I could have called over and if someone had nothing else to do then they may have come over to help me.   But I'm starting to work on that hardening of my heart - I'm not calling them because right now I can't take the pain of having them reject my request for help.   Instead I went out and started it on my own and my very nice neighbor came over and offered to help finish it for me.  I'm truly thankful for that help.

Honestly it really hurts.  It makes me want to close and harden my heart to my family so that I won't keep getting hurt by their lack of interest and lack of compassion.

I do realize it hurts me more than it affects them if I would chose to block them out or drop them from my life.  While one type of pain would be reduced for me, I'd still feel the pain of not participating with them. 

I don't know how I can toughen my heart enough not to get hurt by them but still stay open and welcoming to them.  I just don't know how to do that.  I fully realize I need to protect myself but I don't know what to do. 

I don't know what to do.