Stuck between here and there

It seems like a lot of family issues come up around the Holidays. It seems like we all can feel left out of the group sometimes!

How many people feel included or excluded in the "family" aspect of holidays?

How do we move toward feeling accepted by our relatives?

I been a family outcast my whole life. Most of them look down on me. Ones I don't like much I just stay away from. My other side of the family, my cousins wives are outcasts...so I just hung out with them and we just pick on my family. I hate all holidays in the first place anyway.

This year i'm saving the family trouble by not going at all...instead I am volunteering at the homeless shelter.

DBL

I feel like I would like to confront the issues that have built up a wall between me and certain members of the "family"...

People have been doing things to me for several years to knock down my self esteem--like indirect bullying and it is sort of a big and complicated issue.

I feel like others have pent up feelings about me, and i am such a wuss about confronting people in public!!

I do try and be choosy about what I do and say infront of them. My husband takes on the view that it is totally my issue, and he even adds fuel to the fire sometimes by stating things that make me look like I am lying to them.

I also have a right to my own ideas, and my own sense of self. Which I feel like they don't value. They don't see me as a good person. they only harbor resentment toward me, and it never goes away...

How can I begin again with them without looking like I am totally caving in to their long-held resentments?

My family is too arrogant and ignorant. I know I will never get them to change their perception of me. So until I die or they die...nothing I can do.

I don't know how your family is syster...so can't help you out on that.

My family is the same, the names are changed, but they are all bigger than I am, meaner. Less of an individual, more of a "role" that they each play in supporting the higher ups politically speaking.

I don't really want to play their games.