Coming to terms with my unhealthy family

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In my family, parents are not interested in raising their children. They are interested in using their offspring as a crutch to satisfy their narcissistic "needs". That's how my parents raised me and my sister, that's how all of my cousins have been raised, that's how my parents, aunts and uncles have been raised, and that's probably how my grandparents were raised.

All my life, I was looking for some sort of validation from my mother and stepfather that I might be doing something right once in a while. While my peers at work and my friends are telling me that I am making a lot of progress in my life, all I get from everybody in my family is a nonstop string of criticism.

At age 34, it is starting to sink in that this treatment is all that my family is capable. They cannot give me what they do not have themselves. They really are apprehensive when I validate their feelings these days, which should not be surprising - they refuse to take anything I say at face value, and that most likely is never going to change.

I want a new family. Screw this.

The loving nurturing family is a myth we all have to let go of as a part of maturing. The norm is people wanting their children to be a "success" by the parents' definition, whether it's a football star, a straight a student, or the popular kid.

Unconditional love does not exist except in very rare instances. The worst families are the ones that sell the kids to pedophiles or beat them to death, so understand your life might be a dream for some people. I don't say this to discount your feelings. Understanding the way the world and families really are helped me a lot, in both healing old wounds and in trying to be a better parent myself.

yup, build your own family, folks you can count on. there's nothing stopping you. you don't have to abandon the original family entirely. just don't go to a dry well for water.

Some people just shouldn't have been allowed to have children. It took me years of trying before I realised that my mother is just a waste of space, and only interested in herself.
I used to make a huge effort with her, and finally just got worn down by it. Now if she phones (usually about once a year) I'm polite to her, but it's just too hard to do any more than that. If she made any effort herself it would be a different story.

My advice to you would be to get some good friends, and don't let your family drag you down.

Thanks.

I have a few close friends that I hang with on a regular basis these days.

But I still feel this overwhelming desire to do something grandiose to prove to the world that I have some worth in one area or another. This leads to me taking on way more than any human can possibly have on his plate, and burning out within a month, then feeling intense self-pity for a while before the drive to be somebody who is worth something comes back again.

I can't live like this forever.

Oh, this sounds sooo familiar I think you've just summed up my life in those sentences there. I am finally learning how to deal with this one, and the first step is to recognise the destructive pattern. Then, when you get the overwhelming urge to take on more, resist, resist, resist. Tell yourself that it is healthier to give yourself time to relax, and if after a few months you find you're bored (which I am pretty sure won't happen), you can always take more on later.

This is the first year I have got the hang of this, and although it's not perfect, I have probably got more done than usual, because I haven't hit the 'crash and burn' phase in such a spectacular way.

Start small and then dream big

I can't offer any advice since I live in a similar situation with my dad. He's kind of like a Japanese Hank Hill who is more obsessed with his idea of "values" than caring about his son. Then my little sister cares more about her fiancee than her child and I am being saddled with childcare. But its hard to deal with parents who just don't listen. I have no grandparents I can go to, and most of my first-order relatives care more about their job, Christian fundamentalism, or golf than about their relatives. So, I'm feeling like a rebellious teenager who is very emo right now (when in fact I am at my first semester of graduate school). I can't even begin to elaborate on how strong my hatred is for certain members of my family.

BTW, I found out you live in the Sea-Tac area, I may be moving there in a couple of years.

I find this helpful too. Thanks you two.

Think what would you do if you can never please the world? In the end there is only one person you can and should please, that is yourself. Let the rest sort itself out, you can't ever please everyone, I tryed too aswell. Sometimes you just have to accept that the people who are suppost to love and support you never will, they have there own issues to deal with, it took me so long to figure all of this out.

Appropriate thread for me today.

I am 42, homeless (but working) for the 5th time in my life. I have just been disowned by my mother who I have been begging for help.

My dad disowned me at 17 and kicked me out of his house for smoking pot.

At the same time, I am going to be homeless because my best friend in the world lied about his plans after engagement. My friend was going to rent me a room, I have been living in hotels and my car for 14 months, waiting for some kind of living situation to develop.

People just don't care about each other, family or not.
NT's just do not care for anything but their money, their toys, their whatever.

I'm so sad, I had potential, I needed a good family not the one that adopted me.