Worried about my family

Post Reply New Topic

I have been in recovery for quite some time now. I used to hate my family with an intense passion. After all, they did subject me to a nonstop barrage of physical, emotional and sexual abuse when I was a child.

Now, I am recognizing some basic facts. How could I have expected them to give me a decent upbringing when they do not have any respect for themselves?

My mother is essentially afraid of me being successful in my life. She thinks of my pregnancy as being a mistake, and she resents the fact that I was even born at all, not to mention with a form of autism on top of it all. She claims to be a calm and spiritual person, yet she says a lot of the most hateful, racist, sexist things I have ever heard in my life. She claims to be taking care of herself, and that she is striving to be a healthy person. Yet, just a couple of days ago, I sat across from her at McDonalds, where she covered her food (which was astronomically high in sodium to begin with) with salt packets. She just had a stroke a couple of years ago because of her salt consumption. I seriously wanted to cry when I saw her treat her body like that, but I kept a calm exterior and saved that talk for my therapist and my sponsor.

Most of the people in my blood family treat themselves like that. There have been generations of abuse in my bloodline, yet the common way of handling it in my family is to deny that it ever existed and to sweep it under the rug. There is an elephant under the living room rug, it is very much visible, and I seem to be the only person in my bloodline that is willing to acknowledge it is there. My parents are resentful because of that; they initially supported my decision to go to therapy because they thought that it would teach me how to "get over it". Instead it is teaching me to work through it and to break through the denial.

I can grieve for the sad and pathetic situation that generations of my bloodline has gone through. I can also celebrate that I am taking a different path for myself today. I just really don't like seeing anybody have so little self-respect that they consider heinous abuse to be a normal part of their life. From childhood to death, they allow themselves to be horribly mistreated, and they horribly mistreat others themselves because they believe that is the normal way of going through life. They horribly mistreat themselves; if they were taught by their parents that they did not have the right to complain while they were being beaten and sexually abused as children, of course they are going to grow up to believe that they don't have the right to rise above the horrible feelings that accompany those horrific experiences.

I don't want to be codependent. They are making their own choices and living their own lives. If they are going to continue to ignore the elephant under the living room rug, they can't be helped. I have my own life to live. It really is depressing to realize that is the kind of environment I grew up in, however.

Sorry to hear about your family. I applaud you on being able to find compassion for your family and also respect for their autonomy. I also applaud you for choosing something different for yourself. I have been in recovery for a while from the same thing. The result are just now beginning to show in regards to believing on a deep emotional level that the abusers were at fault, that I am a good person, that I deserve happiness just like everybody else, and that it is my responsibility to make the best of my life. In regards to my family, I think it hurt too much to try to change them so I just accept them as they are, grateful that they no longer abuse me. I just try to be nice to them. When my family was sicker, I focused on loving them from afar. I can't say that I accept my family's insanity, especially my mother's but I am not longer wishing for things to change. I accept reality and try to play a positive role in the family. You know what I mean? Wishing you well on your continued recovery.

Thanks for the response.

I am coming to realize that there are a lot of things in my family that are very screwed up. Most parental figures in my bloodline take advantage of their very young offspring and demand that they take on adult roles. Children are not allowed to be children - they have to be strong adult support figures, and it is not uncommon that this "support" has incestuous tones behind it.

I know I talk about this way too often on these forums. Believe me when I say that I am making an honest effort to move past it. I believe the only way past it is through it. I have seen my family try to sweep it under the rug and "just get over it". That is not working for any of them.

What works for me is distance, and allowing your family to "own" their own lives. It's not perfect, but everyone follows their own path. It could be a way of sweeping things under the rug, but it leaves me with cordial family relationships, while staying away from the fighting and drama. I also have some unresolved anger, but honestly who doesn't? I choose to view this as my own issue, but it has robbed me of most comfort from emotional intimacy.

We're actually on the same page here. A lot of my relatives want me to stay at home and let my social life die out. It's kinda insulting actually, my cousin who I had a conversation with yesterday, indirectly asked me to stay home because I was somehow ruining the family reunion with my social awkwardness. And worse, he's actually younger than me.

Honestly, right now I am feeling a conflict between two different emotions.

One of them is a codependent need to help them out of the hell they are choosing to live in.

The other one is to dwell on how pissed off I am that I was born in a family where almost everybody is complicit in the face of intergenerational abuse, and I seem to be the only one who wants to notice what is going on.

I am discovering my capacity for healthy emotional intimacy through therapy and 12-step work. I have a LOT of unresolved anger, but I am working on resolving it. I am no longer avoiding it, and that is a start.

There are many people in my family that are weaklings. Ironic that it's the autistic one who takes the initiative to become strong in the face of generations of abuse and complicity surrounding it. My family spent most of my life telling me that I was incredibly weak and that I was pathologically incapable of forming any valid opinions. I do not believe their words anymore. They feel genuinely threatened by my progress in life now. I am no longer willing to submit to their narcissistic ways. Of course, I probably should be less confrontational about it; if they are perfectly comfortable in their realm of spiritual sickness, no amount of common sense will break them out of it. However, if I ever do become aware of any child sexual abuse going on in my family that is not protected by my state's statute of limitations, my family should not be too surprised if I make a call to CPS.