Who is your family?

From the time we are born, to the time we take our last breath,"family" is primary in life.  Even when disconnected by distance or detachment, family threads run through the fabric of ones personal journey.  Those with good fortune experience family love, respect and a supportive home life for childhood development.  Others struggle to understand insensitive members that block the natural essence of love.  This type of struggle creates enormous friction, frustration, anxiety, and helplessness. It can elicit the survival instinct to "escape and define oneself".
Some break the bonds. Some can not.  Being independent is a life choice few make, as the upward battle to go it alone is only for the fearlessly determined . Those who stay "home" and struggle to survive may fall to the grave. Those who fight their family for recognition, position, love and respect can suffer severe consequences. What if there is no light in the darkness? Indoctrination into the family can lead to the demise of one's lofty dreams of freedom and leave one subject to never ending threats of rejection.  Love and self respect have been sacrificed for acceptance.  Depression, medication, lack of intimacy and loss of oneself to another can be experienced. Maybe the dangling carrot of money, inheritance, family position and power is the new path to happiness.  Eventually the "fallen" become the "initiated" by stealing the confidence of others instead of creating healthy loving relationships.  What is happiness?  Where is one's true home?