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BlackPoppet

BlackPoppet

Wise woman and Celtic sky person
Mar 7, 2020
991
Hi Everyone.
I stopped talking to my family almost 2 years ago. I have my reasons why. They've never visited me once in 22 years. I'm always expected to go to my County of birth, to visit them. Even after my disabled mother passed away, they still didn't visit. My father goes camping with my sister and her husband and my Nephew. My brother has driven 70 miles to see his friend. Still no visiting me though.
I know I've acted out and used to drink a lot ( self medicating my problems away) I was a wild child! I've reformed and don't really drink or do d**** any more. My family haven't forgotten or forgiven. They say they have, but I can tell they haven't.
I try to warn them about things that are happening in the world. They are not interested.
I'm sick of their apathy and ignorance.
does anyone else have this kind of family?
 
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Brick In The Wall

Brick In The Wall

2M Or Not 2B.
Oct 30, 2019
25,158
Hi Everyone.
I stopped talking to my family almost 2 years ago. I have my reasons why. They've never visited me once in 22 years. I'm always expected to go to my County of birth, to visit them. Even after my disabled mother passed away, they still didn't visit. My father goes camping with my sister and her husband and my Nephew. My brother has driven 70 miles to see his friend. Still no visiting me though.
I know I've acted out and used to drink a lot ( self medicating my problems away) I was a wild child! I've reformed and don't really drink or do d**** any more. My family haven't forgotten or forgiven. They say they have, but I can tell they haven't.
I try to warn them about things that are happening in the world. They are not interested.
I'm sick of their apathy and ignorance.
does anyone else have this kind of family?
I burned some family ties by drinking and doing drugs as well. I've cleaned myself up alot more then I was but I still get a cold shoulder as well.

Everyone makes mistakes though and if they aren't willing to forgive you then they probably aren't worth the time. Just keep doing you and try not to worry about it too much. People come and people go, family is no different.
 
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BlackPoppet

BlackPoppet

Wise woman and Celtic sky person
Mar 7, 2020
991
Thank you. There's so much more I want to say about this situation. I feel that when I warn my family about possible upcoming events that are happening in the world, they don't want to know. How can we stick together if I'm not believed. It's obviously because they see me as a one dimensional person, who will always be a moody, alcoholic. I'm the perpetual "see you next Tuesday" to them.
if they want to keep their heads in the sand regarding what's happening in the world , then they are sheeple.
"Those who give up liberty, for a modicum of security, deserve neither" that's them!
when the s* ** hits the fan, as far as I'm concerned, they better not come to me for advice or help, they will get neither.
Sorry I'm exhausted and ranting.
I feel emotionally abandoned by them. Basically.
 
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Remember to forget

Remember to forget

Member
Mar 6, 2020
98
I haven't spoken to my mum and brother for many years. It's a long story that I won't go over but sometimes cutting people out of your life is better for your mental health.
Reading your story makes me think that you just need to talk to your family. They may be a little distant from you but maybe they don't know how to approach you. My mum once drove past my village to see my brother but didn't even consider seeing me, maybe we just need to accept that people can be thoughtless and selfish but it doesn't always mean they don't care x
 
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BlackPoppet

BlackPoppet

Wise woman and Celtic sky person
Mar 7, 2020
991
I haven't spoken to my mum and brother for many years. It's a long story that I won't go over but sometimes cutting people out of your life is better for your mental health.
Reading your story makes me think that you just need to talk to your family. They may be a little distant from you but maybe they don't know how to approach you. My mum once drove past my village to see my brother but didn't even consider seeing me, maybe we just need to accept that people can be thoughtless and selfish but it doesn't always mean they don't care x
True, true. Yeah I love them, but I resent their apathy and treatment of me. I was emotionally abandoned by them. I feel as though they have contributed to my BPD. I'll contact them eventually. Even though a part of me says I shouldn't. I'm sorry your mum didn't visit you. My dad picked my sister up from Heathrow airport, when she came back from living in Western Australia. He drove from the Westcountry....all the way to London, because she couldn't or wouldn't travel back to Somerset herself. He's never driven to London to visit me. Nor has my brother and sister.
Im the black sheep of the family. Even though I'm reformed. I personally think they are also dubious about London.
 
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Remember to forget

Remember to forget

Member
Mar 6, 2020
98
I can understand that, how it feels to feel abandoned and it never really goes away.
Yes maybe they are apprehensive of London but you are right it isn't really an excuse not to come and see you. Some people just don't realise how important their presence in you life is though hun. I think one of the worst thing about humans is their ability to think for you or think the worst. Maybe a heart to heart with them will help, maybe it won't but if its upsetting you already then you have nothing to loose x
 
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GoodPersonEffed

GoodPersonEffed

Brevity is my middle name, but my name was TL
Jan 11, 2020
6,726
I don't doubt that they contributed to your BPD. My understanding of it, based on having worked in mental health (not as a practitioner, but on the front lines, and having been close with many practitioners), and based on having had a best friend/roommate who had all the classic symptoms and maladaptive coping skills of BPD, is that it is PTSD based on repeated violations/negations of personal boundaries during the developmental years. I don't have BPD, but I do have PTSD, and I had to work out a lot of my own maladaptive coping skills. I have a lot of empathy for those who struggle with BPD, I've experienced what it can do to relationships as well as witnessed what it can do to the one literally suffering from it.

Some of your story resonates with my own experiences with my parents. My mom was physically and verbally abusive to me, and hugely controlling. When I moved out of state for better opportunities, she found all kinds of excuses for them to never come visit me in over a decade, in order to validate her personal grudge over it. It's possible you'll never be able to make sense of how you've been treated because it doesn't make rational sense. And even if you can figure it out, if someone isn't willing to look at themselves or to make changes, they won't. I've lived through that my entire life and it's utterly frustrating. I was even told by my mother when I was a teen and a child psychologist tried to intervene, "We're not going to change, you are," and my parents pulled me out of the therapy that supported me, and the physical abuse and craziness continued. Over the years, I bent some, but I never genuinely changed. I never accepted the family narrative that "It wasn't that bad" and, from my father, to "just get over it." When I finally had a diagnosis for lifelong back pain that indicated a severe physical trauma, and demanded my parents take responsibility and help me, my mother said in an email that they were tired of the "blame games," wished me well, said they'd always love me, and said goodbye from her, my dad, and their pets for fuck's sake. Then a couple of years later, I had to email her and shut her down when I lurked her Facebook page and saw that her profile photo was of her and I together at an event over twenty years ago, and in comments she was saying that she and I are still thankful to the person who threw the event. Just no.

I totally agree with the comment that sometimes no contact is best. It took me decades to get to that point, in phases. It's hard to do. It's hard to stop retuning to the slot machine of hope that never pays out the jackpot. I still love my parents, but the insanity is insurmountable as long as they're not willing to do the work to overcome it. They are not at all willing to change. Sometimes it's like they're in a cult, their ways and their beliefs are that twisted. To the outside world they are great people, successful in life, and very common-sense.

Anyhow, in abuse situations, someone has to be the scapegoat to justify the underlying hidden narratives of abuse and mistreatment. Those who buy into the narratives can't and/or won't see the victim as they really are, because then the narrative, the glue that holds the abusive family structure together, will fall apart. Those who most strongly buy into it will fall apart because they don't have the inner strength, let alone the will, to face themselves, their own root traumas, and the awfulness of the actions they perpetrated against another. In these situations, someone always has to lose, that is, the scapegoat, but really, everyone loses.

If you or anyone who reads this is seeking helpful recovery resources, after decades of therapy and self-work, these resources helped me the most, as well as The Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills Workbook:

https://sanctioned-suicide.net/threads/resources-for-learning-boundaries.30500/

Edit: And yeah, the ignorance you mentioned. Racism, judgmental, faith in abusive governmental leaders and power structures.
 
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BlackPoppet

BlackPoppet

Wise woman and Celtic sky person
Mar 7, 2020
991
I don't doubt that they contributed to your BPD. My understanding of it, based on having worked in mental health (not as a practitioner, but on the front lines, and having been close with many practitioners), and based on having had a best friend/roommate who had all the classic symptoms and maladaptive coping skills of BPD, is that it is PTSD based on repeated violations/negations of personal boundaries during the developmental years. I don't have BPD, but I do have PTSD, and I had to work out a lot of my own maladaptive coping skills. I have a lot of empathy for those who struggle with BPD, I've experienced what it can do to relationships as well as witnessed what it can do to the one literally suffering from it.

Some of your story resonates with my own experiences with my parents. My mom was physically and verbally abusive to me, and hugely controlling. When I moved out of state for better opportunities, she found all kinds of excuses for them to never come visit me in over a decade, in order to validate her personal grudge over it. It's possible you'll never be able to make sense of how you've been treated because it doesn't make rational sense. And even if you can figure it out, if someone isn't willing to look at themselves or to make changes, they won't. I've lived through that my entire life and it's utterly frustrating. I was even told by my mother when I was a teen and a child psychologist tried to intervene, "We're not going to change, you are," and my parents pulled me out of the therapy that supported me, and the physical abuse and craziness continued. Over the years, I bent some, but I never genuinely changed. I never accepted the family narrative that "It wasn't that bad" and, from my father, to "just get over it." When I finally had a diagnosis for lifelong back pain that indicated a severe physical trauma, and demanded my parents take responsibility and help me, my mother said in an email that they were tired of the "blame games," wished me well, said they'd always love me, and said goodbye from her, my dad, and their pets for fuck's sake. Then a couple of years later, I had to email her and shut her down when I lurked her Facebook page and saw that her profile photo was of her and I together at an event over twenty years ago, and in comments she was saying that she and I are still thankful to the person who threw the event. Just no.

I totally agree with the comment that sometimes no contact is best. It took me decades to get to that point, in phases. It's hard to do. It's hard to stop retuning to the slot machine of hope that never pays out the jackpot. I still love my parents, but the insanity is insurmountable as long as they're not willing to do the work to overcome it. They are not at all willing to change. Sometimes it's like they're in a cult, their ways and their beliefs are that twisted. To the outside world they are great people, successful in life, and very common-sense.

Anyhow, in abuse situations, someone has to be the scapegoat to justify the underlying hidden narratives of abuse and mistreatment. Those who buy into the narratives can't and/or won't see the victim as they really are, because then the narrative, the glue that holds the abusive family structure together, will fall apart. Those who most strongly buy into it will fall apart because they don't have the inner strength, let alone the will, to face themselves, their own root traumas, and the awfulness of the actions they perpetrated against another. In these situations, someone always has to lose, that is, the scapegoat, but really, everyone loses.

If you or anyone who reads this is seeking helpful recovery resources, after decades of therapy and self-work, these resources helped me the most, as well as The Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills Workbook:

https://sanctioned-suicide.net/threads/resources-for-learning-boundaries.30500/

Edit: And yeah, the ignorance you mentioned. Racism, judgmental, faith in abusive governmental leaders and power structures.
thank you for this. I will definitely check out the Dialectic behaviour therapy resources. I was seeing a therapist specialising in Psychodydamic therapy. I had to take a break for a while......money problems.
I agree with what you are saying. All of it. I'm sorry that your mum treated you so bad. I resonate with your experience hardcore. My family members have disappointed me a lot. I'm just a piece of furniture to them. I can never be the person that they want me to be. So I stay away to maintain control, dignity and self worth. I will probably contact them in my own time.
I want to thank you for your help. You are right in everything you said.
 
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GoodPersonEffed

GoodPersonEffed

Brevity is my middle name, but my name was TL
Jan 11, 2020
6,726
I can never be the person that they want me to be. So I stay away to maintain control, dignity and self worth.

Yeah, I'll never be that person, either. Never was in the first place. They didn't figure out that it's not something they get to choose. Instead, they could have celebrated who I was.

Those are damn good reasons to stay away. My mother is incapable of accepting my right to self-control. I stay away for very similar reasons, as well as the sanity-supporting acceptance that they will almost certainly never change, since it hasn't happened in 49 years.
 
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BlackPoppet

BlackPoppet

Wise woman and Celtic sky person
Mar 7, 2020
991
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F

Final Escape

I’ve been here too long
Jul 8, 2018
4,348
I've completely lost touch with all family lol! It doesn't phase me because we have never been close and I can't say I really miss them much. I never felt like I mattered to them. Maybe my one half bro cared but nobody else.
 
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D

Deleted member 1465

_
Jul 31, 2018
6,914
I have issues with my remaining family.
After my mum died, my brother and sister and I were very close, closer than ever before.
I was made redundant and moved back into the empty family home.
When I became ill, after three years living there, my siblings wanted me out so the house could be sold. They were entitled to their share and thought I'd be better off in a smaller place.
They bullied me into signing power of attorney over my finances, ostensibly so the could expedite the house sale.
They made me sign it under duress under threat of abandonment.
Then they shipped me out as fast as possible saying if I didn't find a new place they'd buy one for me. They didn't want to lose the sale.
So I panic bought this dump I now live in. Don't get me wrong, I'm lucky to have somewhere, I just wanted to take a little time and make the right choice, but no, they wanted the cash.
They moved me so fast I lost all sorts of possessions. They chose what I'd take and what would be thrown away.
I was ill at the time and knew the move would floor me and I told them so but they went ahead. And it did floor me. My anxiety went through the roof, I practically stopped eating, I stopped sleeping and spent all my days pacing round the new place trying to stop myself jumping in front of a truck.
I eventually ended up in hospital with an impacted bowel but they chucked me out. I only survived because I bullied an out of hours gp into prescribing the medication I needed.
My brother lives close by and I still rely on his assistance. My sister is 200 miles away and doesn't call. I get the odd response if I email her but that's it.
I don't think they even feel guilt. Maybe the were entitled to do it and maybe they thought it was right for me but they did threaten to abandon me when I needed help if I didn't do what they demanded.
And now my sister just leaves me mostly alone just like I believed she would and she said she wouldnt.
I still love them. I still need my brother and I don't want to lose my sister. But I can't just forgive them. Whatever their intent, they did hurt me a great deal. My health has never recovered from how I dealt with the move.
I have reached out to my sister and left that door open to her. But it's up to her now. It's actually nothing to do with me anymore. But if we do talk, I'll need her to face her guilt.
And my brother? I don't know. I need his support as I have no one else and can't manage certain things. Id like to tell him how betrayed I feel but I don't think he'd listen.
Complicated.
 
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M

mouseteeth

Member
Dec 2, 2019
65
Most of my family treated me like absolute garbage for most of my life, even to the point of trauma, and somehow still the onus is completely on me to have to maintain some sort of relationship.
It's hard to feel guilty for not caring enough to do so and I do, but seriously, why? Why am I the bad guy here?
 
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BlackPoppet

BlackPoppet

Wise woman and Celtic sky person
Mar 7, 2020
991
Most of my family treated me like absolute garbage for most of my life, even to the point of trauma, and somehow still the onus is completely on me to have to maintain some sort of relationship.
It's hard to feel guilty for not caring enough to do so and I do, but seriously, why? Why am I the bad guy here?
I resonate with you on this. That's exactly how my family expect me to be. I have to stay in my lane and act how they want me to. Plus do all the calling ( but not too often) and all the visiting. Spend an hour getting to the coach station. Spend 2 and a half hours on the coach. Then wait for my dad to pick me up .....!he is usually 40 mins late! To add insult to injury. You are not the bad guy. It sounds like they are projecting their insecurities onto you. In my humble opinion. That's what my family do to me.
I have issues with my remaining family.
After my mum died, my brother and sister and I were very close, closer than ever before.
I was made redundant and moved back into the empty family home.
When I became ill, after three years living there, my siblings wanted me out so the house could be sold. They were entitled to their share and thought I'd be better off in a smaller place.
They bullied me into signing power of attorney over my finances, ostensibly so the could expedite the house sale.
They made me sign it under duress under threat of abandonment.
Then they shipped me out as fast as possible saying if I didn't find a new place they'd buy one for me. They didn't want to lose the sale.
So I panic bought this dump I now live in. Don't get me wrong, I'm lucky to have somewhere, I just wanted to take a little time and make the right choice, but no, they wanted the cash.
They moved me so fast I lost all sorts of possessions. They chose what I'd take and what would be thrown away.
I was ill at the time and knew the move would floor me and I told them so but they went ahead. And it did floor me. My anxiety went through the roof, I practically stopped eating, I stopped sleeping and spent all my days pacing round the new place trying to stop myself jumping in front of a truck.
I eventually ended up in hospital with an impacted bowel but they chucked me out. I only survived because I bullied an out of hours gp into prescribing the medication I needed.
My brother lives close by and I still rely on his assistance. My sister is 200 miles away and doesn't call. I get the odd response if I email her but that's it.
I don't think they even feel guilt. Maybe the were entitled to do it and maybe they thought it was right for me but they did threaten to abandon me when I needed help if I didn't do what they demanded.
And now my sister just leaves me mostly alone just like I believed she would and she said she wouldnt.
I still love them. I still need my brother and I don't want to lose my sister. But I can't just forgive them. Whatever their intent, they did hurt me a great deal. My health has never recovered from how I dealt with the move.
I have reached out to my sister and left that door open to her. But it's up to her now. It's actually nothing to do with me anymore. But if we do talk, I'll need her to face her guilt.
And my brother? I don't know. I need his support as I have no one else and can't manage certain things. Id like to tell him how betrayed I feel but I don't think he'd listen.
Complicated.
:hug:
 
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P

PaYo

Experienced
Jul 28, 2018
225
I have the same my family left me. Two guys i was the closest with. The sister son and son of brother. Have me in deep ass. The second one even forget about my birthday. Today after talk with him i think he did it on purpose.
Im rying to be tough... Like i dont care. But ... It huuuuuuuuuurts
 
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BlackPoppet

BlackPoppet

Wise woman and Celtic sky person
Mar 7, 2020
991
I can understand that, how it feels to feel abandoned and it never really goes away.
Yes maybe they are apprehensive of London but you are right it isn't really an excuse not to come and see you. Some people just don't realise how important their presence in you life is though hun. I think one of the worst thing about humans is their ability to think for you or think the worst. Maybe a heart to heart with them will help, maybe it won't but if its upsetting you already then you have nothing to loose x
Thank you! Yes maybe I will call them at some point. So much time has passed, that I don't really know how to approach the situation. I'll have to give it some thought. It's not going to be easy.
I have the same my family left me. Two guys i was the closest with. The sister son and son of brother. Have me in deep ass. The second one even forget about my birthday. Today after talk with him i think he did it on purpose.
Im rying to be tough... Like i dont care. But ... It huuuuuuuuuurts
Yes it does hurt.... a lot! I'm sorry you too, are going through this. Big hugs!
 
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