While I was at school, I had problems making friends, due to being quiet and a bit anxious. In primary school I mostly hung around with my cousin of the same age and their friends. In secondary school, it took me a couple of years to realise that the girls I thought were my friends were actually using me. I ended up with some good friends who I still keep in contact with. The problems with my family started with these new friends.
I shared a locker with one of my friends, which we had to pay the school for. Once, I forgot to ask my mum for the extra money the day it was due. Having never had a huge appetite, I didn't worry and just gave my friend some of my lunch money. My older cousin found out and her and a friend cornered my friend in a toilet the following day and accused her of bullying me. A friend I made in school choir was deemed by a younger cousin to be "weird" because she wasn't a fan of pop music. I tried to ignore my cousins, but, when we went our separate ways for college, contact did dwindle for a few years. This was mostly from my side and due to my cousins telling me that the people I called friends weren't actually my friends.
Fast forward a few years and we got Resident Collie. The breeder's daughter added me on Facebook primarily so she could keep up with Resident Collie's antics as she had been a favourite pup, but over the next few months we became good friends. The following year, my mum died and my friend was there for me, looking after Resident Collie for a few weeks while the funeral was organised, letting me stay with her overnight. In return, I invited her to my older cousins hen night and paid for her drinks.
My older cousin saw this as my friend taking the mick and ended the night screaming at her in the middle of town, that my friend was a disgrace and should stay away from me. After this, the hostility of my cousins to my friend only intensified and, in 2014, we drifted apart for a few months. I stopped mentioning any friends I had to my family and things seemed to calm down.
Recently, my father passed away and all the animosity has reared up. My older cousin gleefully reported to me that she had sent a message to a friend demanding to know why she hadn't been at dad's funeral. None of my friends came as we talked about it and realised that, given how my family had been towards them in the past, they would stay away, and we would have a celebration of life party later in the year that my friends would attend that. I tried explaining this to my cousin but was called disgraceful for staying friends with people who obviously didn't care about me and ungrateful for "everything we have done for you over the years." My cousin then blocked me on social media and got her younger sister to send me messages saying that I was ungrateful to my family, my late father was hated by one of his SILs for his behaviour when mum died, and that they would report me to the RSPCA for having an aggressive dog. To my knowledge, my father didn't do anything worthy of being hated following mum's death. He was heartbroken, but it seems he was expected to sit looking at the body of his late wife until the porters arrived to take her to the morgue instead of going home to grieve. Resident Collie can be nervous around strange people or if I'm anxious about someone, but she isn't aggressive.
I have tried walking away from my family before, but it has resulted in people shouting and screaming at me in the street, coming round banging on the door and shouting for me to come out and face them, and being dragged out of my house by one of my cousins. In that incident, I was accused of assaulting them when I tried to push them away to get back inside, and they were backed up by their mother who had been indoors at the time, so I am worried about doing so again.
Would I really be so unreasonable to walk away from them and make it permenant?