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My past haunts me
I came from a highly dysfunctional blended family and as a result I now have a love/hate relationship with my family. My parents separated before I was born and my mother abandoned me shortly after. I came to live with my dad when I was 5 1/2. He was mean, verbally abusive, and absent from my personal life. I was raised by my step mom who resented me because I was the product of his previous relationship. She was involved with my dad at the same time when my mom was pregnant with me and probably the reason why parents split. So when I came to live with them I had to have been a bad reminder of the affair. I always felt unwelcomed and she told me numerous times I wasn't her child. She said a lot of hurtful things and I know she resented me. So I had to deal with her as well as my father and together they would talk about how stupid I was because I didn't do well in school and didn't have a whole lot of common sense. I was always nervous and scared to talk around my father and when he asked me to do things I would freak out and freeze. He didn't understand how his temper had a negative impact on my life and my personality. He compared me to my half sister and brother but at least they had their mother to run to for protection. I had nobody because my step mom never held me like I was her kid or protected me when my father would yell. Eventually I accepted this type of treatment from them and by the time I moved out I convinced myself that they were my family and that they cared about me.
I spent 6 years in the Army and you can say that I used it as an escape from my miserable life at home. The Army was no place for a person like me and things weren't much better for me there than they were at home. I was not a confident person and suffered from depression and anxiety as well as bulimia that I developed when I lived at home. Still, I knew I had to move on so I got married and had my son before I got out. That's when I began to question whether the family I had grown up with really cared about me at all. My dad disapproved of my marriage, my son, my army career, and all of my other decisions. So with no reason at all other than what my dad had made them believe, everyone else in my family agreed with him. Nobody was there when I married or had my son, nobody supported us. I just accepted the way things were and never questioned it. Then my father and I got into an argument after he criticized me for having a baby while I was in the military. I stood up for myself and pretty much treated him the way he had always treated me and brought up some things from the past. He threw me out and I walked to a hotel alone with my 11 month old son in the middle of the winter in Chicago. We didn't speak for 3 years and nobody in my family wanted anything to do with me. I felt guilty and alone and it was one of the worst times of my life. I eventually called him and apologized even though I was still angry.
I don't think I ever got over it. The way I look at it is that he never really accepted me and that the only reason I was living with him was to ease his guilt for what happened between him and my mother. Then when I suddenly retaliated against him he threw me away like a piece of garbage. If I had been all that important to him he wouldn't have ignored me for 3 years, yet continue on with his life with my step mom and their 2 kids. Since that fight things have not been the same. Before I could at least visit and spend the night, now there's no room for me. My step mom's sister lives in the basement and my 22 year old brother and 26 year old sister still live at home. I grew up sharing a room with my half sister and suddenly there's no space for my son or me. It's not that there's no room for us when I come and visit that bothers me because I can afford to stay at a hotel. It's that the has no room for me in his life but has room for his own family and my step-mom's sister. When he tells me there's no room he is telling me that I'm not really that important. Yet when my step mom's side of the family comes they can stay the night at the house. So how am I supposed to feel when I see him treat me one way and everyone else a different way?
I call my family once in awhile, maybe once a month or every other month. But I really don't have much to say and it's me who calls them. They don't call to see how I'm doing or to talk to my son. They send Christmas and birthday gifts to him but in my opinion they're missing the point. They are not going to win his affection by giving him gifts and in the long run he's not going to have a relationship with his grandparents. If you remember the eating disorder I mentioned at the beginning, it was a very bad impact on my life. I developed it when I was 15 and my family as aware of it. It was so bad that the bathroom smelled pretty awful and my step mom threatened to stick my head in the toilet if I didn't quit. But I couldn't stop because it was like an addiction and I needed intervention. I take full responsibility for my actions and I''m paying the consequences today. But I can't help feeling betrayed that my family didn't try to help me and I wonder if I could have been spared the health effects from the eating disorder I suffer today if they would have attempted to help me. I also feel jealous that they put my sister through college, allow her to still live at home, and pamper her even though she's 26, the same with my brother. Yet when I wasn't old enough to leave home they couldn't help me with my depression.
I hate to admit it but I now resent my family. They are not the people who I thought they once were and I don't really think that they care about me. Well, at least not in the way they love each other. I know that I live far away and that I have my own family but I get angry when I think how my other siblings have a better relationship with my father than I do. My parents moved on with their life long ago and didn't think twice about their actions and how it affected me. On the other hand I'm alone, depressed, and hurt by my past and I've let it consume my entire life. I know I should let it go and I've tried but every time I speak to them or visit it brings me back to the past. They even remind me of my eating disorder and every other mistake I've made in my life. Now I'm a lot heavier and my father told me I better lose weight or else my husband will leave me. Why would he say this to me knowing I had a serious problem with my image in the past??? These are the kind of things i have to hear when I talk to him. When I talk to them I hide my pain inside even though deep down I want to scream at them and tell them how much they've hurt me and bring up everything about the past. I want to them to feel my misery. But I know that I can't do that because I'll never hear from them again and also because it's not the right way to deal with my emotions.
One day I'll forget everything and the next day I'm raging with anger and take it out on my husband. My 6 year old will ask me why I'm so sad when I'm sitting alone. He's brought me a lot of happiness in my life and I love him to death. But I also know that there's a part of me that is incomplete and that I'll never let people in. For example, I'm a loner and I can honestly say I never had one close friend in my life. I shut people out and there's something about me that gives off a negative vibe even though I don't purposely try to. Even my face looks unhappy giving the impression that I'm depressed (which I am) but it also makes people believe I'm mean or unfriendly which isn't true. Well I'm not friendly as in outgoing but if you talk to me I won't bite and most people say I'm a very nice and gentle person once they get to know me. I worry endlessly what people think of me and convinced myself that people don't like me when in reality it's me who is giving off a negative impression. I just recently realized that I'm the problem but I don't know how to change it. I want to meet other people and have friends but I don't really know how to socialize. It's something I should have learned in school but I had too many personal problems that I allowed to get in the way. I also realize that my my biological mother's absence from my life may be largely to blame for the way things turned out because she should have been there to care for me. But she wasn't and I never dwelled on it because I never knew her. You can't really be angry at someone who you don't know and didn't physically or verbally inflict pain on you. Yes, I question why she left and I'm ashamed of what she did but my dad's actions had much more of an impact on my life. I've thought about not calling my parents anymore because they don't call me. My siblings don't talk to me because they think I'm less than them; they don't realize how my dad brainwashed them. If you asked them why they don't like me they wouldn't be able to give you a sensible reason. I feel like ignoring them the way they treat me but then I start feeling guilty for not caring enough for them. But when I talk to them I'm feeling angry inside which means I'm not truly being honest and sincere. Should I just stop caring and stop feeling guilty and just not call? I know it's shocking to say this but I feel like I lost my family a long time ago, almost as if they are deceased because they are no longer really involved in my life. They treat me in the same way. So when they do pass away I'm not so sure that I will grieve because it feels like I've already gone through that process.
Re: My past haunts me
You really, really, really need some counseling to deal with the crappy way your "family" has treated you. It's severely damaged your self-seteem, and it's hard to make friends and have people like you when you don't like yourself.
It's okay to cut off all contact with these toxic people. You don't need to stay in touch because you're related to them--as much as you want it, they will never become the family you wanted as a child.
Agree with everyone else- please get some counseling. Your family sounds just awful. You did not deserve to be abused and you should feel no guilt over cutting them out of your life (I know, easier said than done). It might be easier to do that if you keep in mind that no one in your family has ever felt one shred of guilt over treating you so horribly. Your dad got angry when you stood up for yourself not because you were in the wrong, but because he wants you to be his emotional punching bag.
You're not obligated to put up with this kind of behavior just because you share DNA with someone. I've heard people say you can't choose your family, but I completely disagree.
There is a lot going on here, both in this post and in some of your other posts. You can work through it and get to a better place, but it's going to take a lot more than what strangers on the internet can give you. I cannot stress enough the importance of a qualified mental health professional in a situation like this. Your husband is still in the military, right? If so, take advantage of the free counseling available to you, or research whether your insurance will cover sessions with a provider outside of the military.
Definitely counseling.
You're expecting normal behavior from people who obviously arent normal and who you've never had a normal relationship with. I think counseling can help you with this.
~Benjamin Franklin
DS dx with celiac disease 5/28/10
absolutely counseling!! also i sense that you are still looking for them to change and treat you better. STOP! they won't. they've been jerks to you your whole life-why do you expect them to change now?
I am so sorry for your troubles.
I highly encourage you to seek out the services of a trained counselor. You need some help coming to terms with your story up to now, and it is not a story you want to repeat on to your new fledgling family.
Please be willing to do this for yourself. I promise that you are worth it.
Ditto
I'm sorry for everything you've been through, OP.
Good Luck to you.
Counselling. NOW. You're shattering your family's life over things that happened to you decades ago. GO TO A THERAPIST AND GET HELP.
It does not matter whose fault any of this is, or who was meaner to you, or how you felt or what the others say or think about you. All that matters is you are tearing apart your present family's life over what happened to you in the past. You are not going to get over this on your own, or you already would have. Do not spend one more day in this kind of misery; and do not inflict one more cruelty upon your child. GET HELP. Today. Now.
Do not tell me you cannot afford it. The mental health department in your county will direct you to free or sliding scale fee services that will help you enormously. GO.
So true. Sorry for what you're going through, but dirtyred is right, they will never be the family you need. Your husband and child are your family now, and they love and appreciate you.