WiseWomenUnite.com

I'm a 25 year old college student, and have been a Certified Nursing Assistant for over 7 years. On the outside I look like the average person my age, but I'm not. I am also the single mother of two beautiful boys and they are my world. Even that is somewhat normal these days, but most people I have come in contact with has no clue of how abnormal I feel. I'm the youngest of 7 children that comes from a pretty dysfunctional family. I didn't have the best childhood and I never had a sense of security. After my toddler years I never ever felt that I was nurtured or even felt important. Growing up my siblings were very mean and selfish, and I almost never felt like I belonged. My sibling closest in age to me is 4 years older and my oldest sibling is about 15 years older than I am. My parents had me when they were in their 30's, neither of them graduated high school, and my older siblings started having babies in their teens. My parents were always working to make ends meet I never had a close relationship with them because they were not involved. They also lived unhealthy lifestyles, and abused alcohol on a very regular basis. I hated seeing my parents drunk, it was like a different side of them, lots of fighting, arguing, and just embarrassment. I kind of got used to it over the years but I never thought it was acceptable. After years and years of this dysfunction, things somewhat got better. There was a little less fighting but lots of stress as my siblings never did anything with their lives and had many children which my parents were now helping financially raise, even though I was the only child of theirs under the age of 18. As I started to feel there was a glimpse of hope of my parents changing for the better I was completely caught off guard with what happened next. At the age of 17, during a time that I was scrambling trying to fill out college applications and gearing up for my high school graduation, one Saturday morning my mom was discovered unresponsive. After going to the hospital, it was discovered that she had a stroke in her sleep, and passed away three days later, the day before my high school graduation. Just a few months later, my father was diagnosed with cancer. After over a year and a half of treatment, and surgery to remove the tumor, things were looking up, until he started to refuse treatments and passed away, less than two years after my mom. These series of events were very traumatizing to me. I held off on college because I wasn't emotionally ready, I stayed to help financially and sometimes physically care for my dad when he was sick, then he just gives up. I was only 18 and both of my parents are gone. Now, I'm 25 and I still find myself longing to have that bond that I never had with my parents. I'm fearful that this will affect me for the rest of my life. I feel like I have this huge void. All of my grandparents were deceased by the time I was born except for one, my paternal grandfather, he was a fairly well off and uneducated man who disowned his kids to make his new wife happy. I saw this man every weekend and had no idea he was my grandfather because his wife wouldn't allow him to be involved in our lives. I also feel I'm a great mother and others do as well, but I have never seen how a healthy family unit function. I feel like I've not been properly guided and have no positive examples to refer to, which gives me anxiety. I recently got into a program that matched me with a mentor mom and I think it's a good program but my mentors example of getting to know each other is meeting once a month for an hour at the mall. I've been matched with her almost 7 months, we've seen each other only three times, and  I really don't know her on a personal level. As someone being mentored my needs and wants from the program isn't met. I'd like to do regular things like healthy cooking, doing some light exercise, crafts, activities that would help us bond and also teach me a thing or two. I don't know what to do about it, just as I was going to asked to have a different match after 7 months she has a mild stroke and now I just feel obligated to stay matched until she's better. I would like input from people who could give some good advice on these issues and if this void I feel pertaining to having no guidance or family will ever go away. Thanks.