Consultation 32.

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“God, how do I make my family love me again?”

“What exactly did you do to make them not love you?”

“What I did… do I really have to say it?”

“Of course. How can you expect to earn their love back when you can’t even say what it is you’ve done for them to no longer love you?”

“I… understand.”

“You see, my mother recently got remarried. I got a stepbrother with their marriage. After my mother remarried, as I grew older, I was labeled as a disappointment in life, smoking, doing drugs, hanging out with the wrong people, having sex with any random stranger that was down to fuck, failing and dropping out of school, breaking the law, etc. Anything you could list as being frowned upon by society I’d probably done it. However, in spite of all of that, my family still loved me.”

“Oh, they loved you even after all of that? That’s pretty surprising. How’d you manage that?”

“I… blamed everything wrong with my life on my stepbrother. I falsely accused him of raping me so my parents would feel pity for me and take my side on everything wrong I’d done. I played the victim card. My evil stepbrother forced me into all those things. That’s how I spun the story.”

“My, that is truly quite the awful thing to do. So, what happened?”

“My stepbrother lost everything. His own father believed my words over his. He was sent to prison. The woman he was engaged to broke up with him. He was kicked out of one of the top universities in the country that he worked his hardest to get into. He was an extremely smart person. He had a bright future ahead of him. And I… ruthlessly took it all away from him because I was jealous.”

“Oh? Did you feel guilty over it?”

“At first I didn’t. I thought serves him right. But eventually, what I’d done to him started to gnaw away at me on the inside.”

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“So, as the ‘victim’ in all of this, what did you do for your family to stop loving you?”

“I… eventually came clean. I thought that they would still love me even if I fessed up to the truth as long as I fixed everything and set things straight. However, it didn’t work out. My stepbrother had already been stuck in prison for several years and the damage done was irreversible. Both my parents disowned me and kicked me out of the house. They told me to never show my face in front of them again.”

“My stepbrother was released from prison, but he’s like a soulless hollow shell. He doesn’t eat much. He locks himself inside his room vacant, despondent, and unresponsive. When he does say anything, he lashes out in rage toward his parents.”

“You really have the audacity to want to be loved by your family after everything you’ve done?”

“I… do.”

“Why? Because you know full well that after what you’ve done no one else in the world could ever love a selfish bitch like you?”

“Yes.”

“To be honest, there really isn’t much you can do. The only thing you can do is to face them. You need to bow down and prostrate yourself in front of their door every day for years and pray that they find it in their hearts to forgive you for what you’ve done. Even if you do this, there is no guarantee they will forgive you for what you’ve done, but this is really your only option. It’s more likely that they still won’t forgive you.”

“Starve yourself as you prostrate in front of the house. Repent with all your heart day in and day out no matter the weather. Be it rain or snow. Under the scorching hot sun during the day or in the freezing cold snow at night. Even if they come out to kick and beat you down. Even if they call the police to take you away. Keep returning every day like this. Even if it means doing this for years.”

“The time you took away from him will never return, thus you can only offer up your own time in return.”

“You must also work and save up money. Pay the cost of living for your stepbrother. Your parents shouldn’t be the only ones compensating your stepbrother by taking care of his living expenses. You should be the one to shoulder that burden more than anyone as the one who caused all this.”

“This is really the only option I have?”

“Yes. It is the only one. If you thought suicide was a means to achieve your objective, sorry, death only shows you’re too selfish to suffer the same thing your stepbrother has gone through; being unloved and scorned by your family. Death is taking the easy way out in this particular case. Running away from the problem you caused. No one would forgive or love you for that.”

“If you wish to be loved again, then experience what true suffering is. Suffer through a fate worse than death engulfed by guilt. A life far worse than the one your stepbrother is living. If you can’t even do that, then you don’t even deserve a second chance.”

“I… understand. Thank you for your guidance, God.” She exited the room with heavy bags under her eyes. It had really eaten away at her.