Chapter 9: A Real Family - The Divide

“When everything goes to hell, the people who stand by you without flinching—they are your family.”

— Jim Butcher

Imagine a young tree adjusting to the ever-changing winds. When subjected to stress, it sways and cracks because it lacks sturdy roots. However, it can withstand any storm because of its strong, deep roots. Family is meant to be these roots—our anchor in life's chaos, our foundation for growth. For a child's developing mind, especially one wired differently like Alex's, family shapes more than memories—it molds the very lens through which they'll view the world. Every moment of joy, every moment of sadness, every moment of approval or disapproval imprints itself on their developing awareness. At the same time, family can also be the source of our deepest wounds.

When Alex was left in an environment that treated his differences as defects, the contrast became unbearable. It's one thing to never know warmth; it's another entirely different thing to have it stripped away. The truth about family lies in this duality—its power to either nurture or break you. For Alex, this truth would become a matter of survival, as the space between what family should be and what he was left with grew into a mental anguish which threatened to swallow him whole. Before Alex's brain could even begin to comprehend the shift, his body had already registered it. Every time he visited his youngest granny’s flat, his guard fell, shoulders lowered, his breath became deeper and his stomach unknotted. With these younger relatives, barely his seniors, he found what his psyche craved—authentic connection. Each visit sparked joy rather than anxiety, his ADHD-mind finding natural rhythm where his divergent thinking was celebrated, not condemned. Within the confines of his grandmother Senele's paneles' home, time moved differently and with genuine warmth.  But even in this haven, darkness fell. His stepbrother's calculated distance and unwillingness to engage with Alex’s part of the family and other family's jealousy created an undercurrent of tension. Each visit reopened deeper wounds. At first, the heart would flutter with anticipation, but that flutter would soon turn into fear. The body reacted first: muscles tensed as if bracing for the inevitable, breathing grew shallow and heavy. The stomach twisted into a familiar knot—as if to remind that nothing had really changed.

The contrast between worlds grew starker with every farewell. Then one day Alex was told that his well-respected grandmother and her children were no longer there. Simply, they moved away. His home environment—the "torture flat"—drained color from his world. Alex still didn't want to believe that his grandmother, uncle, and aunties left without any warning. He persistently visited the flat, but there was no one to answer the door. This silence carried a threat; walls seemed to close in, and his body automatically resumed its defensive posture. He was left all alone. His teenage years brought new challenges as social connections frayed. The geographical distance to school friends became an emotional canyon, his ADHD complicating social navigation. Depression deepened, his character fading like an overexposed photograph.  The physical toll mounted and he suffered from recurring headaches, chronic sleeplessness, slackening shoulders and tense muscles.  There was no more eye contact and an endless cycle of avoidance and isolation.  He was feeling anxious all of the time, while his stomach refusing to accept any food.  And Every time he looked at it, the leather belt in his closet became a symbol both a threat and a perverse comfort—an exit door always visible in his peripheral vision. Living under his stepfather's arbitrary moral code, Alex's authentic self-eroded, his body a neurochemical battlefield of competing stress responses. His only sanctuary emerged in quiet night hours, when only radio was available. The music created a magic barrier of peace between himself and toxic reality. But even this relief was temporary, each dawn bringing renewed questions of existence and belonging. How much more could he endure before completely losing himself in the chaos?  He couldn't grasp why he could not stay with the family members that he felt comfortable with the explanation that they had to leave, or why he needed to be with people who hated him. In the silence of his room, Alex wrestled with a sense of emptiness and longing, questioning the meaning of it all. The cheerful facade he had maintained throughout the evenings for others gave way to a profound sense of sadness. It was as if the departure of his aunts and uncles had stripped away the layers of distraction, leaving him alone with the inner turmoil he had been hiding. The echoes of laughter from earlier days and evenings seemed far away and unreachable as the nights grew darker and Alex's playful demeaner gave way to a heavy heart. The paradox of the situation weighed on him—the joy of their presence had turned into the ache of their absence. It was a sobering reminder of the complexities within his tender young heart and the fact that even the best of times could fade away, leaving behind lingering shadows of sadness. 

Every year, the growing emptiness within him cried out to be filled, and with the passage of time, he sought solace in various ways. A growing divide distanced him from his teenage friends, as their perspectives drifted further apart and the distance between school and home increased. All his friends were more or less living around the school district. Over time, their communication waned, exposing the unfixable fractures in their once-solid connections. Perhaps it was best to forego communication altogether, for it seemed that there was nothing more to discuss. As he ventured deeper into adolescence, the dynamics of his friendships shifted, leaving him all alone and yearning for companionship and connection.  The stigma and scorn of his "anti-social conduct" followed him into his private sphere. His friendship group shrank, along with all interest in extracurricular activities, and he isolated himself from the school and his school community.  His stepdad bullied him to make friends; his mother demanded he find something he enjoyed doing instead of sitting home all alone all the time; and his elder brother teased him about being a lonely loser' and not having any friends. His antisocial behavior was becoming more and more visible for everyone, but for reasons no one could comprehend.

At thirteen, Alex seemed to split into two realities. Neither was entirely real, but both were equally unbearable. His identity melted like ice in acid—to fit in, he became almost invisible, a stranger even to himself: unknowing, tense, perpetually vigilant. This was a defensive adaptation that, instead of protecting, wrought long-term psychological damage.

Logic retreated—only pure emotional reaction remained. Alex’s mind, long unbalanced by the clamor of thoughts, became both tormentor and silent witness to his slow descent. His hyperactive brain processed trauma differently than most—it carried it like a slow explosive, always searching for a safe place to set it down, but never finding one.

Some of those effects:

Ø  Amplified emotional intensity

Ø  Rejection sensitivity heightened

Ø  Time perception distorted

Ø  Cognitive executive function paralyzed

Ø   Hyperfocus on negative patterns

Ø  Dyslexia compounding his isolation

Ø  Written words swimming before his eyes

Ø  Poor school performance

Ø  Erosion of self-worth

Ø  Academic anxiety mounting

Ø  Growing disparities in communication as there was a clear difference between positive and negative family dynamics:

With his extended family of grandparents, aunts and uncles.  He experienced:

Ø  Authentic connection;

Ø  Acceptance of neurodivergence

Ø  Space for authentic expression

Ø  Validation of emotions

Ø  Understanding of differences

Ø  Celebration of uniqueness

In contrast to his home environment:

Ø  Toxicity

Ø  Punishment for ADHD traits

Ø  Mockery of learning difficulties

Ø  Denial of emotional needs

Ø  Enforcement of "normalcy"

Ø  Rejection of authenticity

Alex became a walking study of contradictions—a young man with an old soul's pain, desperately seeking his place while simultaneously retreating from the world. The absence of a solid father figure left a template of male guidance unfilled, creating a hunger for approval that seemed insatiable.  Those few moments with his aunts and uncle became a flash of light—through them, he understood what healthy love meant. And yet, paradoxically, he had to return to a home where love was a luxury and rejection the norm.

His neurodivergent brain, designed to feel more deeply than most, could no longer withstand the emotional blows. His personality began to fade—like a photograph left too long in the sun: colors vanished, contours blurred into the sickly environment, until finally he became almost invisible and hard to understand even to himself. In the growing darkness, even the stars seemed to turn away. His ADHD mind, once a constellation of possibilities, narrowed to a single dark tunnel. Dyslexia wasn't just about struggling with words anymore—it became proof of his perceived worthlessness. Alex started drowning in an ocean of despair, slowly sipping the waters into his lungs because it became harder and harder to keep his head above the waters. The thoughts of ending his life weren't abrupt or shocking; rather, they crept in like nightfall shadows, encroaching on his world until the abyss felt like home. And his existential questions stopped seeking answers:

Why bother? (Nothing ever changes.)

What's the point? (There isn't one.)

Why am I here? (Not for