Dysfunctional Families

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How many of you here have dysfunctional families? How has it affected your life, and ability to live on your own, or with others?

I get no support from my family. I'm the black sheep, because my borberline-ish (I say borderline-ish, because she's not officially dxed, but my councilor agrees that she sounds Bpd) has painted me black. She sends me random e-mails about how I ruined her life, and how horrible that I am.... I never hear from my dad unless I call him, and when I do it's all about all the negative things that are happening because of my crazy mother. I'm 99.9% sure that my brother is autistic, though more classically autistic then aspie. He has very little life skills, but according to my parents he's just lazy, and manipulative. They make no effort to get him any kind of help, or to provide a stable environment where they can support him, and teach him necessary life skills that he needs. There's nothing that I can do, because he's an adult and chooses to stay with them.

Sometimes, I think having a toxic family is harder for those on the spectrum, because we might actually NEED support that we are unable to find anywhere else. I'm unable to build a supportive network of friends, because I don't have any friends, and haven't even had a fair weather friend in over 5 yrs. I am very, very lucky to have found a wonderful supportive spouse, though.

wow, thanks for sharing your story. I am so glad that you have a supportive spouse, I was relieved when I read that at the end of your post because I can really identify with your struggle. There is nothing like being 'painted black' by a family member, it's something that people who haven't experienced it can't really fathom. I have by my father as well. He is NPD but has plenty of BPD traits, in particular he relates in ways that are particularly associated with women, which I only realized in the last few years, such as gossiping incessantly, running between me and my sister and telling lies about me, which he has done all my life and which has pretty much destroyed any chance of a relationship between the two of us (the whole point as that is how he controls people). I can't even tell you how many times he has lied about me to family members (cousins, etc) and people who were warm to me are suddenly cold and distant.

I don't think there is anything like the experience of having a borderline or narcissist parent, the most help and understanding I have ever gotten was from an amazing group on yahoo for adult children with borderline mothers. When I found it and started reading the stories it was like the clouds parted and the sun came out, and that is after years and years of twelve step recovery. There is such an onus on healing family relationships in twelve step since the addiction destroys them and I was pretty devastated that this indescribable and baffling behavior continued after I 'made my amends' about my own behavior, it was something I found *no* support for in 12 step addiction groups. You are supposed to put on a brave, stoic face about your family and excuse everything, because it was the addiction that was to blame for failed relationships. Within that borderline group I began to identify and relate to the experiences of growing up with harrowing emotional abuse and projection, and see how it contributed to me becoming an addicted person. I think being aspie really quadrupled the pain of it because I was & am sooooooooo gullible in terms of people telling me 'how I am', why would they say it if it wasn't true. That especially applies to my parents.

I am not clear on what my mother is. She grew up in severe abuse and has both NPD, BPD and some aspie traits. My siblings all marry either NPD or BPD people, and that has been tough to watch, especially in regard to seeing my nieces and nephews being inadequately parented.

It's interesting to think about the lineage of dysfunction. I believe my paternal grandmother had some kind of personality disorder, and she was neglected and abused as a child. She raised my father and I think it's possible her need to overcompensate for her own tragic childhood led her to be a dysfunctional parent for him. In the book for adult children of alcoholics it talks about how the things we use to survive a crazy, poisonous childhood do not necessarily serve us well in adulthood.

Well I suppose it was moreso when I was younger...I have blocked a lot of that out. I have ASish parrents to a degree, and when I was younger, I noticed that in comparison to other adults my parents were more like children ...
When I lived at home, my parents fought a whole lot..they both seemed to have emotional problems...so I guess that would count.

Hell Yeah! And I'm the black sheep.

Doesn't bother me too much though because I haven't seen most of them for 13 years and I don't care.

Vanilla_slice

My family's definitely dysfunctional and divorce was one of the best decisions my parents ever made. One or both of them with me in tow were on their way to the grave. Later things were better. I'm so glad I'm an adult now so I don't have to live according to someone else's rules and subject to their emotions.

Ditto what happymusic wrote.

amazingly im the only one without a police record

Look up "dysfunctional" in the dictionary, and you'll see a picture of my family.

They're horrible.

My family is picturesque at worst, really I feel like I hit the lotto when I was born into this family. The down side they are all NT but hey thats just fine with me. However its my extended family thats a mess and then some.

I can relate to a lot of what you are talking about, actually.Right now my family is only a little bit dysfunctional because of my sister (who I think is BPD, LOL) has just decided we are not living up to her expectations and I am at fault for everything. As far as my house is concerned, though, we are functioning well, even though my mom is bi-polar and physically disabled, possibly early Alzheimer's and I am somewhere on the spectrum with chronic depression. My daughter is happy and doing well in school, and we are able to survive by helping each other. My mom and I take medicines and have to be monitored by doctors. My sister should be on something really but no, she is always right and perfect (whatever). She is the only one who flies into rages over illogical things.

My childhood-very dysfuncional. My dad was a sick bastard and hated me, blamed me for all his problems (familiar thread here- he was my sister's step dad too) We were homeless for a year, living on the beach in VA in a car for a while. I had problems- if I were the same child now as I was then I would be diagnosed autistic, but in the 70s that was not really a common thing to be tested for.

While things are not perfect now, we are still a functional family unit (without my sis in the picture). I work hard to maintain that even if it is very difficult at times.

Alana Thanks for sharing your story, too. You're right that most people will never truly understand what it feels like to be painted black by a PD parent. Up until recently, no one really believed me when I'd tell them what was happening. Because my mom has a way of looking normal most of the time, no one would guess that she can verbally attack a person visciously. After I started standing up for myself, and drawing boundaries she really has become unhinged, as I was always the one that held everyone together. Part of beginning my own life where I feel free was that I stopped calling/talking to her. Now, when she attacks me it's by e-mail, or FB where I have written proof of it. Now, I'm not the one that's 'making it up' or exaggerating. A lot of times, I had myself convinced that I wasn't remembering things right, or something. I thought that I was the one that's crazy.


Poopylungstuffing I know what you mean about parents being childlike. My mother was always very childlike in regards to her emotions and how she went about life. My father is very spectrumey. I was the always the one caring for my mom's feelings, because he sure didn't/doesn't. Neither one could plan their way out of a paper bag, so any kind of routine, or order was out of the question. It was like living in constant unpredictable chaos.

Happymusic I completely know what you mean about loving being an adult. I spent my whole childhood longing for adulthood. I knew that my life would be so much better once I got to make my own decisions, and it is.

I guess I was just wondering if other people had to learn things the hard/long way, because their parents were either incapable, or too controlling/unwilling to teach them necessary life skills. Simple things like how to drive, going to the bank, balancing your checkbook, grocery shopping.. pretty much everything you need to know to be a functioning adult. Also, stuff that other people's parents do for them just as a matter of course was not always done for me while growing up. They made everything as hard as they possibly could for me to accomplish anything, because to them it builds character. They were overly concerned with me being too spoiled. My husband had to teach me most of the life skills that I have today(or else I had to learn the hard way by trial and error), and many I'm still learning.

that is interesting about 'life skills', I am woefully behind in that area. I am trying to catch up though.

Yep. There's the brother and grandfather who molested me (and that grandfather also tortured animals). The aunt and uncle who committed various forms of elder abuse against my grandparents in order to steal stuff from them (even though my aunt and uncle are the only rich people in my entire family and can afford that crap), the grandmother on the other side who hates her son (my dad) and is cruel to him and to our whole family, the uncle who would marry women ling enough to get them pregnant and then leave them (and who seems to hate my dad too), and lots of smaller ongoing dramas.