I spent my entire life on the outside looking in. My mother made sure of it.

From the time I was old enough to understand, I knew I didn't belong - not to her, not to my brothers, not to the family she created without me in mind. I was my father's daughter, and that alone made me different. Unwanted. My mother had her favorites: my two older brothers, both products of a man who had long disappeared. They could do no wrong, even as they spiraled into addiction, violence, and destruction. I, on the other hand, had to prove my worth every single day, only to be reminded that I was less than them.

She never showed up for my soccer games or school events. She never asked how my day was or what I wanted to be when I grew up. She never cared. At fourteen, she told me to get a job because she didn't want to pay for me anymore. My brothers, meanwhile, were free to make mistake after mistake, to waste their lives without consequence. They were her golden boys. And I was nothing.

It wasn't just neglect - it was cruelty. She let my brothers torment me, use me as their punching bag, and threaten my life more times than I can count. When I tried to tell my father, she made sure I stayed quiet. Maybe he could have saved me. Maybe not. But he never got the chance, because she made sure to turn him against me, too.

My grandmother - his mother - tried to warn me. She's dangerous. She'll take everything from you if you let her. And she did.

My grandmother left everything to me - her jewelry, her belongings, her inheritance. But my mother? She took it all. Just like she took my father. She spent weeks poisoning his mind, whispering in his ear, until he believed whatever she wanted him to believe. And then, just like that, I was cast out. My husband, my children, my life - none of it mattered. The police were called. We were thrown away, discarded like garbage.

Then one day, the phone rang.

"Your dad is dead."

That was it. No explanation. No closure. Just those three words before the line went dead.

I collapsed into my chair, unable to breathe. The grief swallowed me whole. Weeks passed, but the pain never dulled. I had been robbed of everything - the chance to see him, to say goodbye, to even know what happened. My brothers, the same ones who had spent their lives making sure I knew I wasn't really one of them, suddenly acted like they had lost a father they cherished. As if they had cared at all.

Desperate for answers, I went to my mother's house. But she had none to give - only venom, only rage. She wanted to fight me instead. That was all she ever had to offer.

And my brothers? They took her side, like they always did. It didn't matter how much I had done for them - how I had raised their children when they wouldn't, how I had defended them, how I had stood by them when no one else would. The moment they had to choose, they chose her.

But I am done choosing them. I am done fighting for people who never fought for me. Because I have something they will never have - real love. A husband who has never abandoned me. Children who adore me. A life that I built.

Blood isn't always thicker. Sometimes, it's just a poison that runs through your veins until you finally cut it out.

And I have never felt freer.