I am so fucking frustrated right now. Family drama.

My mother's side of the family consists of 9 kids (wide range of age difference!). Her oldest sibling, my auntie, took in a foster child before I was even born. We all have known her our whole lives as our cousin, but were apparently unaware that a couple of our other aunts did not consider her a part of our family.

My cousin lived with my aunt until she was an adult. When my grandmother was alive, she had all of her grandchildren's pictures lined up on the wall in order of age. She was included. Until the day she died, my grandmother considered her a part of our family. The day she died, things blew up.

The aunties of ours that did not consider her family made a huge scene about it at her funeral. Since that fight, we haven't had a family get together that wasn't organized by one of my great aunts for the ENTIRE family - (think hundreds of people). My other cousins and I ignored alot of this babble, partly because we were all still kids (Even me- I was a freshman in high school).

Flash forward to the invention of Facebook. Now, flash forward to the invention of Facebook Groups (where you can add members of your friends list to a certain group). I made a group called family, and added all of my family to it that was on my friends list, not only from my mother's side but also my father's side.

Today, one of my aunts posted the following:

"XXX XXXX (name withheld, considering I think she's been humiliated enough) is NOT a part of this family."

This infuriated me, b/c frankly, I DON'T GIVE A SHIT WHO YOU THINK SHOULD BE IN MY GROUP! It's MINE! Key word is MINE!

But, I replied very nicely, and said, "I am not going to play the exclusion game here.  Sorry."

To which another one of my aunts replied back with a paragraph of how she thought this group was for "family" and not "family and friends and whoever else".

This set me off, along with a few of my other cousins, who assisted me in performing the bitch out of a lifetime.  I'm ashamed that these people are my relatives-- how is it that nine adults ALL over age 30 can't possibly figure out how to get along, when their children, totaling a number of 18 (and some with kids of their OWN even!) can ALL get along just fine?

It's just so disgusting to me that these people are acting like we have some sort of royal bloodline that needs to be preserved, and because my cousin isn't my aunt's birth child and my aunt never formally adopted her, that we should just forget about her because she's "not real family".

This really gets to me, because my father is not my biological father.  He is the biological father of my brother and sisters (except my youngest brother, who is my mother's and her ex's from after the divorce), but I was conceived before they were married, and my genes are from someone else.  This means that all the aunts and uncles on my dad's side I am technically not related to at all.  Even my brother and sister -- who are my dad's with his long time partner-- share not one drop of blood with me.  But all of these people are my family.  They are my brother and sister, my cousins, my aunts and uncles, my grandparents, and it hurts to imagine what it would be like if even one of them held the belief that I didn't belong because I'm not biologically his.

I feel for my cousin because of this, and I can't imagine how it must feel for her to really lack a strong family base, then be placed in a home where you are given all the love and attention you deserve to have, surrounded by family, only to have people decide that you aren't allowed to be a part of it.  My heart aches for her, and I feel like the least I could do is stand up for her.

She deserves it.