THE SHELBURNE CONDITION
Recently I started reflecting the question: Why do we ignore and accept awful — even violent — behaviors, generation after generation? In my family, these behaviors weren’t just accepted; they were enforced through silence, shame, and control. And when my family refused to uphold those unspoken rules, we weren’t corrected - we were cast out.
There are parts of my past I can’t fully remember. Trauma does that; it scrambles time, blurs details, and hides areas of your mind. But I do remember the patterns taught to me. The pressures to stay silent. The fear of naming the harm. The way everyone protected the aggressors instead of the wounded.
I might not recall every memory clearly, but I know what happened. I know what was expected of me at the time. And I know what chains I broke. This reflection is my way of tracing those expectations - packing the emotional ecosystem that sustained the harm and name the legacy I will no longer carry. This is a personal reflection of what I’ve come to call The Shelburne Condition.
These are the factors of The Shelburne Condition ecosystem
• Normalization through generational conditioning
• Fear of conflict or retaliation
• Denial and avoidance as coping mechanisms
• Protecting the aggressor
• Shaming those who speak out
• Prioritizing reputation over reality
I’ll be going through these factors with you in an attempt to explain them from my point of view. Give examples of how they showed up within the family, pre and post excommunication. You see, the farm my papaw raised my aunts and uncles on was split up while he was still alive to give his children land for homes. Great in theory and appreciated, but in practice it hasn’t worked out as sunshine and rainbows like everyone was hoping.
NORMALIZATION THROUGH GENERATIONAL CONDITIONING
When we are young and we notice something’s wrong, but we don’t always have the language for it; we just know it feels off. Silence that feels a little too sharp. A laugh that feels too much like a warning. You take that in, internalize it. Learn when to pick up on the clues.
In the Shelburne family, disrespect was brushed off with laughter. Threats reframed as jokes. Violence (when it comes) is justified somehow: stress, trauma, “you know how they get.”
Over time, I noticed the problem was not just the behavior itself; it was the way the rest of the family absorbed it. Rolling their eyes. Changing the subject. Excusing it. Teaching me to do the same, without saying it directly. The key take away: The most important thing is to get along. Be flexible. To not stir the pot.
In this ecosystem, the unacceptable was trained to be accepted. It became a family reflex: ignore, explain when need be, move on. Expressing that uncomfortable feeling meant you were too sensitive.
This the foundation, the soil, of The Shelburne Condition: where what should be alarming starts to feel familiar. Not because it’s right, but because we’ve been taught not to question it. And if you do you could be exiled.
It took a long time and a lot of self-growth, but at some point, I stopped going along with it. My parents stopped going along with it as well.
When my mom told my aunt that she couldn’t use our pool one day, after years of always saying yes, she cussed my mom out. Said hurtful things and still expected to be able to have access to our property after. When told she can’t speak to my mom that way, the verbal abuse got worse and the news spread to the rest of the Shelburne’s. It left us with the label of being “difficult,” “emotional,” “dramatic” - when the truth is, all we did was refuse to pretend it was fine.
FEAR OF CONFLICT OR RETALIATION
In some families, disagreement is uncomfortable. In the Shelburne family, it can be unpredictable. There is a quiet calculation before you speak. Is it worth it? Will this escalate? Will I be punished (not physically necessarily, but emotionally, relationally) for telling the truth? This wasn’t fear in theory. It was real and shaped every interaction. Speak carefully. Laugh when you don’t mean it. Tiptoe around topics. Keep secrets, even from yourself.
When someone in the family hold power; not through respect, but through intimidation. Everyone else learns to adapt. When you don’t adapt, when you name the behavior instead of accommodating it, you become a threat.
For The Shelburne Condition, this is the environment the ecosystem thrives in. Not just conflict, but the cost of honesty. When fear becomes the governing force in a family, truth become the most dangerous thing you can offer.
I know, because we stopped adapting. And once we did, the subtle punishments began. Coldness. Exclusion. Rewriting of events. Character assassination cloaked as concern. This change in dynamic started early for me.
In college, my free time was scarce and carefully scheduled. I would get messages from my aunts and uncles day of asking if I could come out to dinner. I would have to tell them that unfortunately I can’t, I’m studying for a test, writing a paper, or making a computer model. I would offer different days with no reply. On the rare days I had free time, I spent it doing something that brought me joy, often with friends. I’d post about it, not thinking much of it. This would be framed as me not wanting to spend time with my family, caring about my friends more, or never coming home to visit when I could. The truth was, I was just spending the little free time I had doing something that made me happy, and they could have planned something with me. But they didn’t want to plan something with me, they wanted the power to say I didn’t show up. A narrative they could control.
Denial And Avoidance as Coping Mechanisms
Sometimes, denial is easier than truth. Not because the truth is unclear, but because facing it would mean doing something about it. And in the Shelburne family, action (especially the kind that disrupted the status quo) was risky.
Hard truths were softened, blurred, or buried entirely. “Don’t hold grudges.” “It’s not worth the drama.” “Let’s not dwell on the past.” These weren’t just passing comments; they were shields. Shields that protected us from confrontation, but also accountability. This avoidance, in the moment, feels like keeping the peace. But in reality, it’s just silence dressed up as wisdom. And silence does not neutralize harm - it preserves it. Beneath that “wisdom”, though, was fear. Fear of confrontation. Fear of fallout. Fear of what might unravel if we stopped pretending.
This is the sunlight that grows The Shelburne Condition, keeping sustainable. It teaches that emotional avoidance is maturity, and that anyone who breaks that pattern - who refuses to take part in the collective amnesia - is the real problem.
When we stopped, when we said thing plainly or asked questions no one wanted the answer to, we weren’t met with honesty. We were met with distance. With silence. With discomfort that had nowhere to go.
My Uncle is the executor of my papaw’s will and estate. This does not mean he gets to make the decisions for the three other siblings, they still have to sign off that they agree with where things are going (legally, it’s more nuanced than that but that’s the basic idea). When my family noticed that my uncle was over charging the other siblings for pieces of furniture from the estate, dad spoke up.
The first incidence was my aunt, different aunt from the one before, wanted a bedroom suit. My uncle requested she “pay” 4k from her part of the inheritance money to get it. Dad knew the suit was only worth 1k at the most, so he said no to the deal and brought up the money issue. Dad was seen as the problem in this equation.
The next incidence was the wood working equipment left in my papaws barn. Dad was willing to pay 5k for the whole lot. My uncle came back at 8k, when dad refused My uncle counter with the 8k being a “deal” and he was going to get it appraised. When the appraisal came back the equipment lot was priced at 5k. Again, dad was seen as causing drama. Stirring a pot that didn’t need to be stirred. As his brother was trying to charge him 3k extra for old woodworking equipment. He unraveled their picture-perfect sibling dynamic, but they still refuse to acknowledge it.
Denial does not protect the vulnerable. It protects the pattern.
Protecting the Aggressor
One of the strangest dynamics in The Shelburne Condition is how quickly people rush to defend the person causing harm. Not because they approve of the behavior, but because they are afraid of what might happen if it’s truly confronted. And so, the aggressor gets coddled, excused, defended. Their needs are anticipated. Their moods dictate the tone of the room. And their harm is framed as “understandable,” “That’s just how they are,” or worse the fault of whoever upset them.
Meanwhile, the person on the receiving end of the harm is expected to regulate themselves. Stay calm. Be the bigger person. Let it go.
Even silence is protection. Saying nothing is not neutral - it’s participation. It’s a shield handed to the person doing damage, and a warning to everyone else, don't make this harder. It’s backwards. But in families like mine, disrupting the emotion ecosystem is treated as more dangerous than the original harm itself, even when that harm is deadly.
Protecting the aggressor doesn’t just keep the ecosystem going – it's the rain that waters it. It tells them they can escalate without consequence. And it tells everyone else that the consequences land on them instead. The behavior continues not because it’s invisible, but because it’s guarded. And the moment you stop helping with that, you’re no longer “family”, you’re a liability.
We first stopped going along with it when my aunt wanting to use the pool cussed out my mom, we were not going to protect her. What my aunt did is not how a grown adult responds to a boundary. My mom is not obligated to let anyone into the pool no matter how many times she said yes before. And we weren’t going to allow others to try and talk us out of it. If my aunt wanted to apologize for the behavior and rebuild the relationship, that was always an option, but this was not going to be ignored, and she was not going to get away with it because everyone else had her back.
This next time is the one that I cannot wrap my head around. It’s not just a small tiff over using a pool. It’s not an argument over he said she said. It is a violent event that was caught on camera. An event that that could have turned deadly. My uncle hit my dad with a tractor three times.
Let me show you exactly what happens when a system protects an aggressor. The video starts with my dad off his tractor, phone out to document damage My uncle did to it prior to the video. My uncle swings the forks of his own tractor into dad and starts driving forward, the only thing stopping him is my dad’s tractor. Dad does then start hitting My uncle, allegedly breaking his nose. After this My uncle once again hits dad’s tractor with his own. Dad goes up to My uncle to get the keys of the tractor. This is when things get serious (as if they weren’t already). My uncle drives forward more, over top of dad’s leg. As dad is pinned, my uncle is heard saying “want some more buddy” and starts hitting dad. My uncle eventually backs off dad’s leg. Once dad is free, he is leaning against the tractor forks trying to catch his breath, my uncle then aims his tires at dad and hits him with the forks of the tractor, again the only thing keeping him from going forward more is my dad’s tractor.
Though dad wasn’t perfect in this situation, my uncle does not deserve support. But despite this, my aunts have decided to stay silent. My cousins have decided to stay silent. My uncle, married to the one who wanted the bedroom suit, has decided to be a witness for My uncle, despite not being there. The protection of the aggressor has gone too far in this situation. It is sickening. They are trying to blame my dad for a situation that was started and escalated by one person, My uncle. Dad had plenty of chances to escalate and never took them. Yet somehow, they are blaming him for getting hit by a tractor.
Shaming Those Who Speak Out
In families ruled by disfunction, truth-telling becomes an act of rebellion. The moment you name something that everyone else has been working to avoid, the entire system turns inward, not to address the harm, but to discredit you. “You’re being dramatic.” “Why are you trying to start something.” “You always make things worse.”
At first, you push back. You try to explain, to make it make sense. But slowly, doubt creeps in. Maybe you are dramatic. Maybe you did exaggerate. Maybe you’re the one who misunderstood. This isn’t conflict, it’s gaslighting. It’s being made to question your own memory, perception and emotional truth until the only way to feel safe is to stop speaking entirely.
In the Shelburne family, speaking out is often treated like the greatest offense. Not the threats, not the violence, not the cruelty, but the naming of those actions. This shaming isn’t always loud. Sometimes it’s a long silence. A cold shoulder. A “joke” at your expense. A subtle rewriting of the past. But the message is the same: we don’t say these things. And if you do, not only will no one protect you, you’ll be the one whispered about.
The Shelburne Condition depends on this emotional manipulation; it is the rot that provides nourishment. It turns the truth-tellers into the villains and the aggressors into the victims.
I had to be diligent with time, but they didn’t respect that. It’s become more blatantly obvious the further away from the dysfunction my family becomes. My uncle asking for more money than the equipment was worth, the family turning their backs or standing up as witnesses for My uncle, for an event they weren’t even at. But we are the theatrical ones who tore the family apart. We should have just kept quiet and let things go how they were going.
We should have sacrificed our education. Our money. Our safety. To keep the peace. To stay in line. For people who would happily turn their backs even when the wrongdoings are clear. Even when it turned violent.
Prioritizing Reputation Over Reality
At the core of The Shelburne Condition is a single, concrete value: how things look matters more than how things are. It is the air of the ecosystem, the breath that gives it life.
Image is everything. Outsiders need to see a stable family. A “tight knit” group. When the reality underneath is fear, manipulation, and violence. But that must be concealed to protect the illusion.
Truth becomes dangerous; not because it’s false, but because it’s unflattering. In this framework, truth is not just inconvenient, it’s a threat to the brand. Telling the truth becomes a form of betrayal. Not the person causing harm. Not the behavior that broke the trust. But the one who refuses to keep quiet.
So, stories get rewritten. Details are blurred. The “truth” becomes whatever protects the image. This is why speaking up feels radical. You’re not just confronting a person; you’re confronting the entire ecosystem that’s been curated to keep the truth hidden.
The Shelburne Condition treats discomfort as danger and honesty as disloyalty. But protecting a reputation at the cost of reality doesn’t make a family stronger. It makes it hollow. And sooner or later, it cracks.
That’s how I broke free. Not through conflict, but through clarity. Not by yelling, by saying something real. By not letting myself be stuck in a cycle where I couldn’t be myself and couldn’t rely on anyone to truly support me. I am worth more than that.
Conclusion
I can’t remember everything, but what I remember is enough to show me that it is a life I do not want to live. The tension. The hyperawareness. The sense that I have to manage everything; my words, my reactions, everyone's emotions.
I remember the rules, even if I can't trace when I learned them:
• Get along.
• Stay quiet.
• Don’t ask questions.
• Don’t make it worse.
• Pretend it’s fine.
• Don’t be the one who says too much.
But I started unlearning all that. I stopped pretending. I named what I wasn’t supposed to name. And in doing so, I lost a family that never really knew how to hold me anyway.
There’s grief in that. Grief for the relationships I hoped for. For the protection I should have had. For the stability that was always just a performance. And I’m not the only one experiencing that grief.
But there’s relief, too. Relief in knowing I wasn’t wrong. I wasn’t dramatic. I wasn’t unstable. I was right.
This is why I wrote The Shelburne Condition. Not because I need to rehash the past, but because I refuse to pass this silence on. I refuse to teach it. To carry it. To let it hollow me out the way it did generations before me.
It’s time to truly start protecting the family I built, not by blood, but by love and choice.