|
Post by persephone5 on Mar 29, 2008 21:16:12 GMT -8
yes, i agree. moving away was the best thing i ever did. i'm constantly amazed that people stay near their families to work this stuff out. i had to leave, i was sick all the time there. and pissed off. my situations' hidden blessing is that i was fostered in the family. every family knows i have problems with the other family and are quick to blame. everybody wants to blame someone else. i learned to think for myself and also to let others think what they want. that way i get some privacy to process new information. on the other hand, because both my parents incested me, i also have few attachments. and i don't really trust people, although now i trust them casually, but when it starts to get close my boundaries are such that i will take them there even if they didn't mean to go. and i will never know what their intentions were because it's already done. now i am the problem. i bring this sickness with me whereever i go. i had great teachers and rome wasn't built in a day. i feel sad and scared and mad. then glad because my parents will not experience the freedom i have earned and will earn in the future. or maybe that's their voices in my head telling me how lucky i am and i have no right to complain and i have no problems. now i just feel tired. or maybe i'm really really angry. i can't tell now.
|
|
|
Post by maxtsa on Mar 30, 2008 0:05:36 GMT -8
yes, i agree. moving away was the best thing i ever did. i'm constantly amazed that people stay near their families to work this stuff out. i had to leave, i was sick all the time there. and pissed off. my situations' hidden blessing is that i was fostered in the family. every family knows i have problems with the other family and are quick to blame. everybody wants to blame someone else. i learned to think for myself and also to let others think what they want. that way i get some privacy to process new information. on the other hand, because both my parents incested me, i also have few attachments. and i don't really trust people, although now i trust them casually, but when it starts to get close my boundaries are such that i will take them there even if they didn't mean to go. and i will never know what their intentions were because it's already done. now i am the problem. i bring this sickness with me whereever i go. i had great teachers and rome wasn't built in a day. i feel sad and scared and mad. then glad because my parents will not experience the freedom i have earned and will earn in the future. or maybe that's their voices in my head telling me how lucky i am and i have no right to complain and i have no problems. now i just feel tired. or maybe i'm really really angry. i can't tell now. ugh i still live in the same home, how old are you btw. and i would love it if i found out i was a foster child, i think it would ease the situation by somewhat distancing u from your adopted family
|
|
|
Post by portlander on Mar 30, 2008 16:07:10 GMT -8
yes, i agree. moving away was the best thing i ever did. i'm constantly amazed that people stay near their families to work this stuff out. I agree that moving away is a good thing. At the same time, I'm also in favor of doing so in such a way that doesn't "Burn any bridges". I moved away the instant I graduated from High School. I even graduated mid-year to do so. And then I had virtually no contact with my family until I was about 25, except for maybe a phone call a couple times a year. Being isolated from them solved some problems, but raised others. Mainly, because of the "covert" nature of the way my stepmom acted, I was never positive that that I'd been subjected to what it seemed like, or that it meant what it meant. Reconciling with them at 25 was my way of keeping everyone in my family accessible - albeit at arm's length - so I could verify things and/or discover the WHOLE truth.
|
|
|
Post by sadnesseen on Apr 4, 2008 13:55:32 GMT -8
gee. someone mentioned an elephant in the room. guess its true. went to visit my mother yesterday, as usual the visit turned toxic within the first hour. maybe its ALWAYS toxic. who am i kidding? it was toxic from the day i was born, which leads me to what my mother told me yesterday : I SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAD YOU. meaning: i was right all along, she NEVER wanted a third child, i was a MISTAKE, an ACCIDENT and i should have been an abortion. she always acted like i OWED her for simply being born. what a sick pathetic disgusting excuse for a mother is that? THAT explains why she kept me in her and my fathers bedroom for the first 9 1/2 years of my life : to keep my father away and use me as her new husband/defender/soldier/whatever. she uses the same old excuses : high fevers, fear of darkness whatever. never ever owning up to the fact to what she did was WRONG.this is a brand new low for me. but it is the same old feeling of DISGUST, HATRED and...actually, a brand new feeling of CONCLUSION / closure to finally have her say what i knew all along. she NEVER wanted to give birth to me. i must have sensed this all along since i was a child but she kept it carefully hidden with fake smiles, overprotection and strange talk about demons. yes, she is a devout catholic, the very type that gives jesus a bad name. no wonder why i'm not a very religious person in the traditional sense. oh well. as i type this, just makes me realize this entire incident set me EVEN FURTHUR away from her and that sick twisted family i came from. i need a bit of advice : do i need to disconnect TOTALLY to keep this garbage from happening over and over and over and over again [worse the past 4 years since my dad died] ?? i mean, i only visit every 2-4 weeks. i call every 10 days or so. why does this keep happening? do i have to face the fact that i will NEVER have a normal relationship with my mother? well........now that i typed all this junk i feel one thing...why am i wasting my time with this useless garbage? i have better things to do! thanks for listening. very very creepy people.
|
|
|
Post by portlander on Apr 6, 2008 10:32:39 GMT -8
do i have to face the fact that i will NEVER have a normal relationship with my mother? I'm very hesitant to use words like "never". People sometimes do change, even abusers, and they go through good periods and bad periods. I try to be optimistic, but guardedly optimistic. Sometimes the situation just can't be salvaged. How did your mother act BEFORE your dad died ?
|
|
|
Post by sadnesseen on Apr 6, 2008 13:34:28 GMT -8
Actually, my mom may have acted even weirder before my dad died. But before and after his death, I was always expected to be her husband/servant/caretaker. She raised me to feel responsible for her and her emotional state. It is truly amazing I lived through the amount of emotional abuse that was done to me. I started realizing all that was done to me in my early 40s, around 4 years before my dad died. But things were NEVER ok, I just simply adapted to being used and abused. I allowed it to happen to me. My marraige threatened her relationship to me, and rightly so, she realized she could not use me anymore. After a while, my wife and I stopped going there as often because we were BOTH sick of being used and abused. And we were BOTH sick of her complaining about my father most of the time. My parents basically brought me into their sick toxic marraige. That old sick twisted cliche of ''i was all she had left'' and my father wanting me to stay also because HE TOO did NOT want to be left alone with her and needed me to be her husband as much as she did! They both raised me to be a part of their weird world. A child raised in his parents bedroom for 9 1/2 years of his life will NEVER feel right about his own existence. Then again, i've already accomplished the impossible : a 12 year happy and extremely fulfilling relationship with my wife. So maybe i'm VERY lucky after all. I think you summed it up best by saying : sometimes the situation just can't be salvaged. There are so many details it would be impossible to describe and write about here. There's just too much. Very difficult to describe the situation. Only my wife, certain friends etc. have actually SEEN the actual toxic garbage.
|
|
|
Post by sadnesseen on Apr 7, 2008 15:21:57 GMT -8
wow. just read my past few posts. really feel stupid i can't just let this stuff go. its simple for me compared to others with real hardships. i simply should NOT under any circumstances whatsoever have any furthur contact with my mother. its easy to say, but sometimes we still joke around too and its kind of difficult for me to hate her. i think i may feel sorry for her. i have extremely conflictiing emotions about all of it. i get angry and disgusted about how i was treated yet i don't want to be consumed by the bitterness and depression.
|
|
|
Post by Moriji on Apr 7, 2008 15:55:22 GMT -8
It's not a big deal. It takes a while to work this stuff through. People tend to go back and forth for a while.
|
|
|
Post by persephone5 on Apr 29, 2008 0:20:16 GMT -8
sadnesseen, i'm sorry your mom said that, it was cruel. you must be feeling a lot of shame and hate. please remember that victims of abuse carry the shame their abuser feels until you see behind the facade. some of the intensity of what you are feeling is hers. i hope that helps you understand more of what's happening. in my own experience, cutting a person off still hurts. i mourn the loss of what i hoped it would be or what it may have been in the past or what it could have beenin the future. however, my day-to-day peace of mind is preserved, and i have learned to guard this zealously! my peace of mind is PRECIOUS and i resent any intrusions on it, especially now that most of the abuse in my life is gone now and it stands out so glaringly when it happens. YOU have control over when and if you see her, and you don't have to decide right now for ever. try deciding for today whether you will see her and do that every day. if there's a time when she crosses the line for good, i think you will know it. therapy does wonders for learning what boundaries are right for you today. by the way, trauma bonds are some of the most stable bonds that humans develop. this along with the mind-f**k that abuse victims endure means that it can be very difficult cut off. total separation is always wrenching for a survivor, whose had so many losses already, even in the clearest of circumstances. good luck.
|
|
|
Post by sadnesseen on May 26, 2008 21:08:44 GMT -8
It has been very VERY difficult for me to communicate with my mother and there have been larger gaps of time in between visits and phone calls. Every 2 or 3 weeks. My mother is an expert at pulling subliminal manipulative guilt trips on me. I'm always on the defence. The more she mentions my sisters name, the less I will call her. The more she brags about what nice things my aunt or her friend does for her, the LESS i want to call, visit, or do anything for me. The more she expects, however little that is at this point, the LESS i am capable of giving at all. Does this make sense? Because she's used me as a soldier against my father since i was 2 years old, because I lived in her bedroom for 9 1/2 years, she has long ago obliterated any boundaries whatsoever. Now, i just feel sorry for her because shes always been a mentally sick person. What human in their right mind would do this to a child and then blame the child by saying : ''you were just born sensitive'', ''you had high fevers, you were afraid of the dark'', ''you have demons around you'', and so on. and now i am mentally ill because of what she and also my sister have done to me. my father i can forgive because hes always admitted his mistakes and he's dead now. my brother blames everything on karma, so thats his easy way out of facing the truth. he bathes in delusion and denial and believes that we choose the family we are born into before we are born. interesting take on dysfunction and such a handy defense mechanism. so i don't expect validation from any living family members thats for sure. i have some good days. but after a simple phone conversation i find myself repeating all the crazy things she said to me over and over again for days after, getting really sick and depressed about it. how i'll never have a normal mother, or a normal sister whom i havent spoken to in over 3 years and probably will never speak to again. i'm wondering if every 2 weeks is too often. maybe i should try every few months. every few years? if only i can completely disconnect but that doesnt seem to happen. i know she was just lonely probably just wanted my wife and i to visit but i do not feel COMFORTABLE there. i wiah i can just erase that entire crazy family out of my brain forever. i'm starting to have toxic flashbacks again. i'm slightly bipolar and i have crohns disease also. i do not need this toxic junk in my life. whew! wow. what a rant. thanx for letting me vent. i feel a little better now. thanx again
|
|
|
Post by sadnesseen on May 26, 2008 21:26:29 GMT -8
i have the type of mother that believes ''a mother gives you life, brought you into this world, a mother is more important than your wife''. can you belive this???!!! just that statement is so sickening! i replied to her ''well mom, i'd much rather sleep with my wife than sleep with my mother'' and of course that blew her mind so she had to agree with it. i told her that her ''mother theory'' about loving the mother first breeds psychotics and serial killers and she said yes thats true and that she'd rather be hated. such extremes. i've dealt with this garbage my entire life. funny though, her ''friends'' don't get to see this side. she keeps it carefully and almost diabolically hidden with a phoney plastic smile. don't forget, i was the baby of the family, i was not supposed to get married. my purpose in life was to ''take care of mommy and daddy''. what a sick joke. and i fell for it. so i moved out and got married in 1997 i've had a fantastic 12 year releationship to the girl of my dreams and NOTHING will EVER change the REALITY of THAT. my mother even tried to sabotage that in the beginning to no avail. a lot of this seems like comedy now as i read this, sometimes rarely i have a way of turning a melodramatic tragedy like my self absorbed mess into COMEDY! Thank you, you've been a lovely audience. Good night.
|
|
|
Post by portlander on May 26, 2008 21:30:16 GMT -8
i'm wondering if every 2 weeks is too often. maybe i should try every few months. every few years?
I don't know that there is a "right" amount of time in such situations. I've been all over the spectrum myself. In my 20s, I went for 7 or 8 years and only spoke to my dad and stepmom once or twice a year. I also went through a period where I made it a point to talk to them at least once a week. I can't say that going in either direction actually 'fixed' anything.
|
|
|
Post by sadnesseen on Jul 22, 2008 16:00:01 GMT -8
oh well the distance has done us good, my mom and i have a much better relationship now. i guess that ''elephant in the room'' thing will always be there but i've learned to try and let that stupid stuff go. BOTTOM LINE : I WAS ALWAYS TOO CLOSE TO MY PARENTS BECAUSE I LIVED IN THEIR BEDROOM SO I WAS, AM AND ALWAYS WILL BE SAD THAT I LOVED THEM WAY TOO MUCH, NO MATTER WHAT MISTAKES THEY MADE. Sorry for the caps, but it is my ultimate and final conclusion to my whole dysfunctional family history/insight. My parents never physically incested me, so i do not feel i have the right to complain and feel embarrassed and ashamed/guilty that i complained AT ALL. So many people had it so much worse than I have had it. I'm sorry.
|
|
|
Post by portlander on Jul 23, 2008 11:57:21 GMT -8
Of course you had a "right" to complain about your parent's behaviour; no need to ever feel sorry about it.
Whether or not it was worse than anyone else's is irrelevant. It was obviously "bad enough" to have a negative impact on you, otherwise you wouldn't be here in the first place.
I'm glad to see you're moving forward with it. One of the good things about moving forward is that you reach a point where now it just doesn't seem as bad as it used to seem.
|
|
|
Post by sadnesseen on Aug 25, 2008 20:46:21 GMT -8
Yes thanks, it obviously had a negative impact one me, I keep ending up in the same place sometimes, i.e. nothing will ever be truly totally resolved and even though I had some laughs and good memories w/ my parents, there will always be resentment about how I was raised in a strange somewhat confusing atmosphere that sometimes still confuses me. I had another flashback about sleeping in my parents bedroom and waking up in the night by my mother yelling at my father. I think those incidents were the root of my ever existing sleeping disorder. So, no matter what, bottom line is : I WILL ALWAYS RESENT LIVING IN MY PARENTS BEDROOM AND NOT GETTING A BEDROOM OF MY OWN UNTIL I WAS 9 1/2 YEARS OLD. My sisters room was available and empty since I was 4 years old. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE WHATSOEVER. If a social worker were to see how I was being raised, there is no way that would continue. I can't believe relatives/brother/sister ALLOWED this to go on!!!! Sometimes I get really angry and disgusted that NO ONE even intervened and made an effort to GET ME OUT OF THEIR BEDROOM. Although i DID like it when my dad slept in there with my mother [he sometimes slept in the cellar though], but it always felt weird. I DID NOT want to be in there and I'm still so sickened by it that I was there. The memories go away, but then they come back and I get really confused why I can't just erase it all. I can't change the past. But I think I can change how I deal with it. Maybe its just a slight relapse. Thanks for lsitening.
|
|