Family members detrimental to my well being

[PeppiPatty]

DEar @Aphrodite

I live with my absolutely darling husband who has quit all addictive substances to be with me. He's been slipping back on the smoking in the last two weeks. Then, he still has a couple of friends around him that are very bad drinkers. He had 6 beers on Thursday and it's like, he becomes a different person. 

So needy and argumentative. 

Im still feeling ill about my weekly stuff and he's .............not letting me .......

On your oldest sister: can I ask about the funeral? Where I went:  His best friend was furiously smoking outside and I went and spoke to him. I respectfully said that I recognised he was his best friend: so a whole lot of words were exchanged well. I felt there were other people there that had out of joint noses because they were not being recognised for being the most important person in his life. I was quite surprised but not.

Does this ring true for you? Did you see a ...funny power game being played?

For instance: his first wife kept on standing up, where she was sititing and sweeping away to go rushing outside and walk in 5 minutes later....she was'nt crying but......it felt like she was angry.........

I felt I was at a breakfast suiree where you stood in the correct places and even at one stage an older lady came to speak to me about how thrilled she was to see me and hugging me and telling me how delighted she was to see me. 

How did the family recover?

Was it together? 

[Aphrodite]

Thanks @Decadian - Your experience of your family sounds exactly what I would expect from my family - they would have no idea how to be supportive, and instead would say things to increase the hurt.  I would have left too.  

I hope you are having a nice evening

[Aphrodite]

Hi @PeppiPatty - I was addicted to marijuana for a few years many years ago, which I gave up in my early 20's, which then motivated me to put down the other addiction I had which was cigarettes - I thank god I don't do either today. I hope that your husband stays off.

Some of us attended a viewing of my sister, which obviously was very emotional - I have never cried like I did that day.  The thing I found was that it helped me the next day which was the day of the funeral in that I shed most of the tears the day before.  The guy from the funeral place said that suicides often bring up alot of stuff in families - I am not sure that happened as a family, but I think the girls in the family have each had their own crisis.  The oldest sister and second oldest sister both left partners they had been with for many many years, and it seems that we have each had our own personal journey since, but we did not recover together - I am not sure that I will completely recover ever, but I am getting on with life, and doing quite well for the most part, but I do have my moments too.

In answer to your question about power games - I can't say that I experienced this. I suppose what you saw in your friends first wife was quite possibly anger - I do believe all sorts of emotions can come up under these circumstances, and anger is quite common.  

Time for bed, which I am really looking forward to. 

Thanks for sharing @PeppiPatty

[Appleblossom]

Hi @Aphrodite

I would like to respond to a few snippets in your posts. Just sharing helps me a bit and hope it normalises and helps you and others.

1) When my sister suicided in 1986. She was 21 and it was very tragic for us all.

My mother's sister spat at her ( my mum) at the funeral. It was not needed and not called for but they had had a feud going for 40 years .. took a while for me to figure it all out ... apparently over the husbands ... the 2 sisters and their 2 husbands had met at work in the Housing Commission. One husband made heaps of money .. one died of pneumonia after 11 years of marriage (ie my dad).

2) I went to the viewing, it was my 2nd viewing of an immediate family member. I was 25 at the time. It was awful to see her all waxlike. Same with seeing dad when I was 11. I did not cry at the funeral parlour or the church ... I usually held it all together ... that stopped being possible a few years later when the grief crashed through my coping persona ... but I dont think it is fair to call it a mask .. it was never a mask .. I was not false about me or my life .. just a stoic and not very gushy ... but when the floods came ... it was a tempest and tsunami and much worse than a little flash flood ... took me years to stem the tide ... but I did it ... with some cost to my son and daughter ... which I tried to alleviate or compensate for.

3) Just after spitting at my mother this aunt came up to me and said that it was alright to cry.  What do you do?  I was grateful for the "crying" comment ... as my mother had always held her tears back ... family feuds are so hard to fathom ... 20 years later I spoke to my mum about crying and tears .. and she said that if she started she would never stop ... I believe her in that ... I did respect her right (mum's) to grieve in her own way ... there is no correct way ... it is all our own unique processes ... yes there needs to be some feeling element ... or affect will be blunted (pathological)... but how that should be manifest is INDIVIDUAL... my mother prcessed it all through classical piano ... and my son and I are still kind of "forced to follow suit.  The aunts and uncles never cared about our family ... just liked to point, look down their noses, be voyeurs and treat us like poor despicable relations. I actually did not fully realise the extent of their immaturities til in my 40s ...

4) The healing aspect of grief about my sister ... is important ... to treasure all the loving moments the shared moments ... the rivalry moments. ... but not focus on the ... negative just put them in perspective of the whole relationship.  I have photos on my wall of holidays I took her on ... in our bathers at the Prom ... crouched next to a tent at Eden ... she did not leave much behind ... I was mortified when a glass baking dish she gave me broke after 20 years. They are my reminders of the love in our family despite it all ...

5) The surviving sister and I do not talk .. nothing - complete cut off  - she  is 11 years younger - was never abandoned and clung to mother and they formed an alliance that demonised the ones who were abandoned ... at first my brother , then my sister and then I guess .. me .. I did not understand it for a while and reached out for over 20 years but now am over it ... sort of .. you never can be .. I loved her too .. but this is her choice. Now I have more self-respect and am less desperate in my reaching out ... not sure if genuine reconciliation will ever be possible... but not self whipping any more.

Suicide is the most cruel and complex form of mourning of death to everyone. Best I can do is share my insight.

Take care @Aphrodite

[MoonGal]

@PeppiPatty, thanks for the mention. I posted something on this thread (that I know at least @Decadian or @Jacques mentioned reading) that was quickly removed by the moderators because it was too detailed about the abuse I endured in my family as a little kid. Yes, I had the brakes off when I wrote it - I wrote in a style/detail that meant the post was not really recoverable. I hit back in private at the mods because there is this thread through life of people with MI and in particular survivors of Child abuse/ Child sexual abuse that can be played out on National TV at the Royal Commission - but in the INSTITUTION of family will never be heard. I get it that the details I shared may have been triggering and THAT I am sorry for if it flicked the terror switch for anyone.

I would really like to write a book about my life, because the story is one of resilience and awesomenss really - so many of us have managed despite the depredations perpetrated upon us to stand clear and firm (sometimes) into who we are.

My family was family by adoption. My family were/are not my people my tribe. Through either neglect or actual abuse they hurt the being I was and yet I grew into a being who DESPITE them has done and acheived some amazing things. I would like to congratulate every one of us, every ONE of us for surviving the "detriment to our wellbeing" done to us by our families of origin, and all of us being here with care and love and interest, looking outward to others and holding hands, and providing shoulders to cry upon. What amazing beings we ALL are to even be here...

I have felt like an alien all my life, first in my family, then in the church, then school, then work, I am an "odd" person, odd one out, black sheep of the family... Yet, I still did all I could for my aged Mum and got her into the very best of care, managed to find a buyer for her house, helped her transition from alone, unsafe and angry to safe, in company and finally accepting of the situation. I worked every day in email, on the telephone or in person with the perpetrator of of some vicious and horrible acts upon my child-person, I did all that beng triggered daily in PTSD - having flashbacks, and adrenaline surges and developing gastritis, high blood pressure, anxiety, roaring arthritic pain in all my joints, my anxiety through the roof. I went to a counsellor for a few sessions, I had ramped into a hypomania and of course always LOOK and sound so together when I am hypomanic (in the first few days) and she decided we were 'done'. I agreed, because I was NOT IN MYSELF - and I then fell, fell, fell, like a comet into a sea of grief and fear and horror for days on end. I remade the appointment for tommorrow because I want to TELL her that I was 'presenting well' but that I was "not well" and as a counsellor she should KNOW that.

The telling of my story (in detail that was removed) helped me get it out there, the secrets betrayal and lies that are still told in my family hurt. It is the truth that everyone BLAMES me for being honest, and brave and telling the truth. Everyone blames me for shattering our family when I was the victim. My Mum still does not understand "how I could have said those things". The feeling of deep despair (and not a little anger!) that MY lived experience is silenced and erased in my family was compounded by the silencing and erasing of the moderators by removing that story. (However I DO know why that was done and it is the forum rules I was in breech, and for that I AM sorry, but conflicted too... where the hell do we get to TELL our stories?)

But I get it, I get that everyone of us who have lived through it must not tell it to others who have lived through it - we must only tell counsellers and psyche professionals because who knows if we all shared the gory, hairy horrible details and held each other through it... we might get well.... (bitter much, sorry).

[Decadian]

Hi @MoonGal

Thanks for writing your story again - I have to say I have forgotten what you wrote earlier but it must have hit a chord if I replied - I am really interested in the Stolen Generation and I am aware of another Royal Commission into Indigneous Australians in Institutions - I think that's what it's called

So if I answered you probably know that my adopted son was found to be of Aboriginal Descent - and although the birth papers did not indicate anything - at the age he was when I finally received some birth informationl he was old enough - say 15 - to know that the putative father was not the birth father - and indeed after searching for his birth mother I did learn the truth about the aboriginal father

I have never felt badly toward my son in any way knowing that his birth father was aboriginal - but he was brought up in a home that would have given him any education that he wanted. However he was a disturbed child from infancy - and how does this work out - for him - it was an Aboriginal Death in Custody during the Royal Commission.

And I still have all the hard copy of the info into all the background regarding his death and other juvenile deaths in Custory during that period - and it makes for terrible reading

What you are writing does need to come out - but I know how hard it is to write a book like that - where do you start? What do you include? How do you make it reading people will want to read?

Of course this has scarred you - I can read that - but as soon as I started to read I understood

I wish I could be more useful - but I think my son's story says this at least - he was brought up not knowing he was of the Stolen Generation - but turn out to die like one - and he was one - and I have the written proof

So I hope this helps at least - you are not alone in this world with all you have in your heart - I also have some of that in my life and my heart

Decadiab

[Aphrodite]

Hi @Appleblossom - Thanks for sharing your story - I was very interested to read it, and it does help me to share and have others share with me.  Wow to be spat at by your own sister the day you are farewelling your own daughter under such tragic circumstances must have been very traumatic for your mother, but I suspect you may not have seen the affect on her - I felt so hurt for her reading it.  I do not understand my sister not liking me - I have so much love to give, and would have liked nothing more than to have sisters who were there for me and I could be there for, but for some reason she just has to not like me - I just do not understand it because I have never done anthing to her.  Like you though with your sister, I doubt that in the future, I will have any kind of relationship with her, because she never tries to make contact, and i make no effort to contact her because I don't think I will ever get over the terrible things she has said to me, which were destroying for a while there - just so hurtful - I don't understand it at all. She lets me know that she doesn't want any relationship with me as she does contact my other sister and supports her. I just think that it is very sad for my son, as when his aunts have been around, I can see that he looks to them for love.  The other sister is in a bad way mentally, and again I am feeling that I am not able to have a relationship with her - I have tried to support her, but she is constantly angry, aggressive and nasty and I have decided to not be around because I have struggled to sit there and listen to the way she treats our elderly mother, and when I tried to defend our mother, she became hysterical attacking both me and my son - I don't wish her any ill, and I know she is unwell, but nor do I want to be around her.  I make time to spend with my mum once a week, which has been a big adjustment for my son and I as we used to see my mother almost every day, and my mum is missing us around her, but I have made the decision to not be around as it is the easiest way to go.  I spoke to a friend today who lives quite a distance from me, and who knows what I deal with with my sisters and I told her how I just dread the thought of when we lose my mum because I think about the funeral and how my sisters will be together, and I and my son will be on our own - I have let my girlfriend know that I will need her to be there for me and my son, so I feel comfort in knowing that she will be around to support us.

It has been quite some time since you lost your sister - I wonder when I will ever stop mourning her.  It is 3 years on, and I still cry when I think of her, and feel a terrible sadness, but as you say, I also do reflect on the fun we had together before she became too unwell to laugh.

Yes, suicide is an extremely difficult thing to come to terms with - I am not sure what it is I can tell myself which will give me peace, other than, she no longer suffers.

Thanks @Appleblossom - take care too 

Content/trigger warning

Content/trigger warning

[PeppiPatty]

DEarest @Aphrodite

I really am grteful to writing to you about this and thank you.

How is your son tonight? 

I've never been addicted to drugs but smoked when under high stress, most of my life. I kept on choosing men highly narcassistic and slighly pathelogical; similar to my Mum. When my youngest son was diagnosed with a malignent brain tumour, my already scary marriage fell apart. It felt like I had no support from ANyone and I started Psychotherapy at the age of 24 years old. 

He survived. The tumour stopped growing. I did'nt become mad like my Mum tells all I am and life rolled along with no dramas. My oldest son spends time in mental ill health: some terrible things have happened to him: and as he lives in another state: we don't speak often. But in the main, I think he likes me. I think that he is taking medication......  I miss him dreadfully. 

So for years and years, this was mainly the only support I got : from inneffectual Psychotherapists except then I met my good Psychotherapist over 13 years ago. I then met my husband, broken, weathered and .....dangerous and the support I get from him.....strange but it works. It's good. 

And Sane Forum helps me tremendously. 

I cannot believe I'm writing a story !! 

I might even get it published .....yeah in about 7 years...I've only written the first chapter....

Slightly egodriven I KNOw but check out Prince on my favourite song: if you press the blue here

Night night

PPxx 

[PeppiPatty]

Dear @Aphrodite

This is so easy for me to write when my sons have moved on from high School and the other day, I was looking at my son's Uni papers, immediately checking out the marks he got. I checked myself and sat down thinking: he's at Uni, he studied, he's having a break, I need to let this mark go........

The most important thing about your son @Aphrodite is that he is very loved at home. He gets given integrity and good social skills from you so he finds his own group of friends. 

My son has a HUGE support group. This is what is seeing him through. My oldest son is completely different. 

What does your son do for support? Have you taught him to get to know the Guidance councellor or the chaplin at High School or who is the support person?

My oldest son would spend all his lunch hours at the Guidance councellors rooms when he felt insecure. 

I need to get to work then running off to help some old high school friends move up to PErth from down South, I'lle write tonight, 

these are not really my friends, my husband has kept in contact with all our old high school friends all his life....we used to go to high school together........

thanks for the messages,

PP

[Decadian]

Hi @Aphrodite

I really understand what you are saying about your sister - I have one I don't understand at all

She is really strange imo - and I think terribly unhappy and about the terrible things she can't seem to help saying -

As much as this is cutting and hurtful - I have to keep my distance - and whether we like certain people or not - we can't help loving them - and I loved it when I had a baby sister and remember running home from school at lunch time to tell her what I had learned that day

I taught her to read and helped her with her maths - and she seems to have no memory of all of this

But after all these years I have accepted that this is here life and her issues and her unhappiness - and I have left her to her perfect life

So along with @Appleblossom and you there are other's here who have difficult conflict with their family members and this is sad - and we have to leave people like that to themselves

But still - I am unhappy about this - and it's okay - I can be unhappy - but I won't let it corrupt my life

I hope you can find some peace but understand how hard this is

Decadian