I don't know how many people think of this beforehand, but here's something I've run into a number of times. One way of coping w/ messed up events is to tone them down or explain them to yourself someway so that you can live with the memory. I have a harder time with this with my own family than other program vets, but I'm guessing a lot of people have run into this. 20 odd years ago, my brother and his wife first took me into their home and rescued me from going back to the Program and then, around my 18th birthday, calmly, gently told me I had to go. They didn't explain much about why I had to go, except that they said they needed time alone with my nephew in their home as a family. I accepted that and filled in the rest. For years, I just assumed that my mother was pressuring them, as she had a tendency to do, and I could understand that.
Years later, I was talkign to my brother again briefely. And I asked him what was going on in the background. He told me that, basically, they kicked me out because I wasn't following the program. I was LIVID! More than that, hurt, rejected, abandoned.... banished all over again. From his point of view, I was being unreasonably hostile and emotional about something that happened so long ago. But see, nothing else has happened in the mean time between us. I've been pretty much completely estranged, there never was any healing or reconnecting.
This happens each and every time I try to get back into the family. Not that they're trying to mess with me, they're not. Just that their view of me, of our circumstances and how things have unfolded is very, very different from mine. Every time I try to deal with them for any reason it comes up. Last time I saw my brothers and sisters, I wound up angry and crying, and that made everybody laugh real hard, even my mom. He told me he didn't have to put up with my craziness and banished me from his house, which is where they have their yearly family reunions.
I love them, I miss them, I miss being a part of a big family. But I haven't been a full member since I was about 6 or so and, yes, I'm scared shitless of the whole lot of them!