I don't want to go to a family social at Christmas. I feel emotionally unsafe there. There are major problems in that whole side of the family which have never been addressed or at least I have never been informed or apologised to or included in any resolutions. I had my door kicked in, aerial wires cut and hammering on my windows for weeks. I have always tried to turn the other cheek and be there for the kids, now grown up, it was them who attacked my house because of the major problems with their mother. But they don't make any attempt at having a relationship with me. My parents think their son is law is wonderful and seem to forget all the troubles but I can not.

I started therapy and therapist says my problems are all from Low Self Esteem.

I recognise that the way my family treats me, even today, is what started to make me ill and the last 2 years I have been very ill and I want to start taking this seriously now, how ill I am, and I want to get better.

But I don't know if I should keep a contact with them all and that it would be my fault if I break this Christmas visit, which is the only time I see them, to try to keep some hope open.

But I am aware that allowing myself to go when there is never any discussion about the way they all speak to me, which there can never be as my dad will just put the phone down or walk away and will be condescending and rude to me whenever I say anything where he feels challenged, is me allowing myself to be disrespected and that is very bad for my recovery.

I make every effort to stay in touch but whatever I do for my parents is never right or good enough.

I don't know what to do.

How to help build your "self-esteem:"

Don't care if your parent's "respect" you or not. Worry about whether YOU respect YOURSELF.

You're their doormat because you desperately want their "respect." And they know it. So they stomp all over you.

I have been through that and found no answer.

You can't "make" anyone treat you with respect. Other people's behavior is beyond your control. What you CAN do is to draw a boundary in order to let them know what you will or will not accept.

I think that the first course of action should be to make a reasonable effort to get your needs met, i.e. "I would appreciate if you would quit talking to me in a dismissive tone of voice. I am your relative, I am doing my best to be polite and congenial on this holiday, and I expect the same from you. Do you think you can manage that so we can all have a happy holiday?" If saying something like that, consistently enforcing your expectations, doesn't produce immediate results, then there is no hope.

When you say something like that, the person should immediately be contrite and apologetic. Their behavior should change for an appreciable length of time. If this isn't happening, then by all means make alternate plans.

One thing I have found as a teacher is that some people are broken beyond your ability to repair. They need professional help, and even then, there is no guarantee. If your best efforts are not producing results, then don't feel badly for giving those people a pass.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2016 06:57PM by summer.

It sounds like you grew up wth very controlling parents. There are many ways parents control. Two examples--through shaming and by withholding love and respect. You may want to discuss these with your therapist.

As to your relationship with family and the holidays, it sounds like you've been deeply hurt and your health is at risk. No relationship is worth physical illness. Please talk this over with your therapist and strategize what you will do over the holidays.

I also heartily support what my friend Hie had to say about developing respect for yourself. Very best wishes! The Boner.

Ohhhhhh, thank you all, really comprehensive support and I really appreciate it.

Boner, I have to say, actually I don't know what to say. I had never made those connections, I didn't know that. Me feeling shame and not being able, totally not able like there is a restraint upon me, to love and respect myself has annihilated my life for decades.

I can't quite process the enormity of what you have written yet but I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart.

starting fresh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Ohhhhhh, thank you all, really comprehensive
> support and I really appreciate it.
>
> Boner, I have to say, actually I don't know what
> to say. I had never made those connections, I
> didn't know that.
>

When it comes to making connections, the Boner knows his stuff!


I was going to say (and am saying it!) that if you kiss their asses and never stick up for yourself, they will respect the hell out of you!

Hi Starting Fresh, I'm glad I shared something that may help. I learned about controlling parents during a very difficult time when my bi-polar alcoholic mother (of blessed memory) went into a drunken rage and told my dear young children that she hated them. I had to cut off all contact with her. I had been in therapy for years as an Adult Child of an Alcoholic but this was the final straw.

When my therapist and I discussed what had happened, we noted that I had a choice as to if I would forgive her, would I contact her, etc. In the end, it was my decision to initiate contact, but I set firm limits (in accord with what another wonderful friend, Summer, said above).

In the end, I held her hand when she died. I firmly believe that had the medical knowledge about chemical imbalances been known in her generation, she would have been a different person. I now bless her memory and the good times we shared.

I hope this gives you hope. Keep posting here if it helps. Boner.

Trying to please people who don't like you and have no respect for you will not help your self esteem, in fact it will make it worse.

Start respecting youself which means don't take shit from anyone.
Stand up for your self, start believing in yourself.

Your parents are sick if they don't respect their own children,
quit trying to get respect from them and give it to yourself.
They will never respect you. They probably don't know how.

If you ever want to be happy, it is something that is very important for you to do. You are worth it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2016 08:11PM by saucie.

Hello starting fresh,

I am so sorry to hear of all you have been through and the sad effect it is having on your health. You are on the road to recovery with your counsellour and that is GREAT!!

It was not my parents who verbally disrespected me, but others in my family, and I do know how if feels. I cannot (and wouldn't presume) to tell you what to do. But I can say what my answer to some of it was.

In some cases I simply had to accept that the relationship was totally toxic to me and my health and walk away. It is difficult and I am always asking myself if I have done the right thing, but it is ME taking care of ME!!! The 'right' thing is taking care of my health first and foremost, as I cannot relate to other people if I am unwell emotionally myself.

On one occasion I told the person that I would open up and express myself and talk about my feelings, but if there was backlash I would not do so again ever. That had a bad result, he was insulted, said I had 'threatened' him, and so I carried through on my promise. I have a VERY surface relationship with him now, when we see each other we talk about him and his life not about mine (nothing really has changed there. but I can handle it now, knowing that I am protecting myself emotionally).

I want you to know you have my total support in whatever decision you make, and I encourage you to put your own health and welfare ahead of others. It is the way to better health.

I send all my best regards to you!

Step One: Accept that there is nothing you can ever do to "make" your parents proud.

Step Two: Take ownership of your own esteem and life. Do not live for your parents approval or acceptance of your life. YOU decide to determine your personal worth, choose and obtain your own happiness, and define healthy boundaries to maintain that happiness.

If you have already explained to family why you do not want to attend family functions, then you have explained. Do not feel the need to keep re-explaining or defending it. No IS an answer. They do not have to understand or agree with it.

What has happened in the past is done, but if acts of crime are presently committed against you or your property take it to your local law enforcement.

Your therapist may be right and certain episodes from your past may have contributed to your current state of life. However, you can now determine for yourself, what control your family has over you. You may not have chosen your beginning, but you can certainly change how this story ends.

DO not be afraid to eliminate toxic people out of your life. If they can not bring good(insert item of great value and importance to you here) then let them know you will NOT be having a relationship with them. Grief the loss of the relationship or the relationship you wish you had. But, let it go. Holding on to your past WILL hold you back.

Do not worry what they think of you or if they say "Its all your fault". (Which simply can not be true. Often people who lose control over what they want to receive from you will hurl insults to make you feel guilty or give in to their demands)

If your parents puts the phone down or hangs up on you. REFRAIN from calling or answering their phone calls. After some time passes where you are no longer man about it, answer a call and keep it simple and polite. Once the call is no longer polite, you say "If you keep (name the offense specifically) then I am going to (name your consequence and MEAN IT AND CARRY IT OUT!)

Example: Dad speaks condescendingly to you.
YOU: "Dad, when you say (point out the words or tone used) it makes me feel (insert the feeling). I do not like it and Im going to ask you to please not do that.
DAD will either agree and stop, continue, make fun of you, or end the conversation.

Instead of hoping for the most idea outcome, make a decision of what treatment you will NOT tolerate. Be prepared to calmly and firmly state what your boundaries are and that you will end conversations if you need to.

Worse case scenario is that you cut ties and go NO CONTACT with toxic relationships. It can be hard work..but VERY worth it.

Best of Luck!
RMM

I agree with the others, your family doesn't respect you because you don't respect yourself. The church deliberately cultivates the doormat mentality among its rank and file, because doormats are easily ordered around and taken advantage of, and are too beaten down to complain.

Your family is a stinking, noxious toxic swamp. I strongly recommend you do not dive into that stinking toxic swamp at Xmas. It will be something you do for yourself, not anyone else, and in spite of what anyone else thinks. It could be the first step in discovering your deeply buried self-esteem.

See, if you do visit your family, they will definitely make you miserable. But if you don't visit them, they can only TRY TO make you miserable. In this case, though, you'll be a little stronger for having already told them "no"; you'll find out it's not that hard, and also that standing up to others makes you feel better about yourself. And if they do blame you and look down on you? So what? They were going to do that no matter what. You lose nothing, and gain some inner strength in the process.

Your father is a special case. He is an asshole and a bully. It's time for you to take control. If he becomes rude over the phone, HANG UP ON HIM. It will shock him. Doormats don't do that. He may call back; hang up again, as often as necessary, even (especially) if he's furious. He already treats you like dirt; really, what more can he do? You have nothing to lose.

I lived this part. I had to do this very thing with my own father when I was about 14 years old, so I'm not just blowing smoke.

Stand up for yourself. Many others have done it, and you can too.

To answer the question in the title: you can't. If your parents don't respect you now then it's doubtful there's anything you can do to change their minds.

If you don't feel safe don't go. It isn't your fault they treat you poorly, it's theirs. If they want you to be there they need to treat you better. If they try to guilt you into coming anyway tell them that.

No one is required to be around people who mistreat them. Not even if those people are family. You have a right to your own health and sanity.

Thank you so much. I am going to be reading this all masses of times. With the therapy, I have just had 2 weeks which was the assessment, I am being seen at a hospital, tomorrow it is setting goals then the next week it starts properly. So I can ask the therapist about this being one of my goals.

This is the usual pattern, the normal, not the big blow ups. Last week my mum had a heart procedure. I rang up the day to see how it went. The next day I rang up. Dad answered the phone. I talked to him about 3 sentences. It was fine. Did not mention mum as I was going to speak to her next. Then he calls mum over to the phone and while she is coming, he says in a loud voice to her but knowing I can hear too...''Isn't it nice when someone rings up to ask how you are''. He is the king of condescension.

It makes my heart drop and I get sort of tingling in my head and I feel panicky.

Then I think, he is 80 next year, I want to keep the contact, to keep showing them I do care, which is the opposite of what they think, so a couple of days later I rang up to tell dad about an amazing experience I had with a butterfly, which is important because my grandad kept butterflies, so it is significant to me. I was talking about the cost of one of them. My dad did not listen to what I was saying (and it was his own dad who had the butterflies). Dad just butted inabout the cost....''well so is a diamond ring expensive.''

And the thing that is hard is that when I was telling my mum how hard I work to keep the house and garden nice and cope with living in a challenging area with mu health and so on, she said to me.....I know you do, that is what makes it sad.

And I hate that she said that because that proves, which I know, that they don't like my house, they think it is beneath them to come to it. Dad refuses to take his coat and even once his gloves off in the winter. And that they have no comprehension of my life.

And the real tragedy is that I have believed them and wanted them to be proud of me, because they have every reason to be, but instead they demean me.

Anyway, thanks for reading. I think it will be tricky the therapy because already I am getting so much information and I have to be careful it doesn't make my depression worse, the loss in it all.

Tell you a funny thing! Last week I mention about my sexuality. So the therapist says, Oh, how does that sit with your faith? I'm like, ''it is OK, I'm OK, the literal words in scripture are a misinterpretation''. And I smiled, because I realised I actually was OK about it, and that was RfM and Steve in particular that helped me get there. :)

Thank you :)

I learned that they likely never would and didn't try to make them do what wouldn't happen.

They had to come to terms with having me stop respecting them and moving on with my life.

They're dead now and looking back I see that whatever grudging respect they gave me came after I no longer sought it.

I hope you won't continue to pin your self esteem to what your parents do and how they treat you. If they are unable to appreciate you, they are the losers.

You deserve better. You're a good person who merits self esteem and mixing with toxic parents won't help build it. I suggest you limit contact with anyone who consistently makes you feel bad about yourself. You can say goodby and hang up the phone on them if they are rude or mean. You can also cut your visits short and leave.

Find strength within yourself. Don't look to them for it. They didn't give it when you were a cute little vulnerable child, so there's no reason to assume they'll start being good supportive parents now. Perhaps they are too self centered and controlling to rise to the occasion. But in any case, it's too late to start being a good parent after a child is grown.

Come here or go to your therapist or to new non-mormon friends for validation or find it within. You deserve to feel good about yourself and that's how you will feel with effort and in time.

Cheryl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I learned that they likely never would and didn't
> try to make them do what wouldn't happen.
>
>
> They're dead now and looking back I see that
> whatever grudging respect they gave me came after
> I no longer sought it.
>
> I hope you won't continue to pin your self esteem
> to what your parents do and how they treat you. If
> they are unable to appreciate you, they are the
> losers.
>
> Find strength within yourself. Don't look to them
> for it. They didn't give it when you were a cute
> little vulnerable child, so there's no reason to
> assume they'll start being good supportive parents
> now. Perhaps they are too self centered and
> controlling to rise to the occasion. But in any
> case, it's too late to start being a good parent
> after a child is grown.

What she said! If I were you, I would print out Cheryl's response and tape it to my bathroom mirror and read it out loud every morning! No one says it better than she!

We are nevermos in the morridor, but my husband went through a somewhat similar episode with his fundamentalist christian family who did not agree with his life choices. He told them that if they could not respect him, his lifestyle and his choices (like me), not to bother contacting him. Then, he and I proceeded to live our life.

They came around. Life happened to them, and they could see that our perspective and life experience and our kindness made it possible for us to help all of them deal with a big life challenge. We actually ended up with a very close relationship.

The result would not have been so positive had he not taken a firm stand.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2016 03:27PM by bordergirl.

If they have no self respect (most mormons don't) they are unable to respect others as they have no concept of what respect truly is. They have been taught to be master manipulators and when their perceived control of their charges fades, the resort is inducing guilt and other negative emotions to provoke submission to the blind obedience meme.

Sometimes, we need to recognise faults and weaknesses in others so we understand them and their behaviour more.

I get anxious, defensive and a bit hostile at even the thought of talking to my parents, mostly my mother, and even at the thought of interaction with my other tbm family members. I believe it is very common with board members here which is why there has been a lot of advice to end contact if necessary.

As others have so eloquently pointed out, you cannot make your parents respect you but you can respect yourself and you WILL start to feel better: much better. Your mormon family only respect obedience to church and anything other will result in social sanctions. They are conditioned like pavlov's dog (look it up) and it isn't completely their fault; they are responding to the environment which they helped create with a lot of influence from 'the church'.

Good luck making choices and sticking to them.

One of the biggest helps for me in dealing with people and learning to say no and stick with it is the book Boundaries by Dr.Henry Cloud. in the church you are pretty much expected to say yes to everything, all the callings, all the home teachers, all the bish interviews- everything and you are made to feel bad for saying no.
you can't make your parents respect you, but you can start respecting yourself by setting boundaries and sticking with them. It is hard, you will need support- this site is a great support, but you can start off with, "no, I will not be going to the family gathering"
you do not have to ever justify your choice- because it is YOUR CHOICE. If they start pressuring you, let them know, kindly but firmly, that it is not up for discussion and then physically leave the room if they will not drop it. If you are talking on the phone to them, draw the line with, "mom, I do not want to talk about this anymore, we can change the conversation or we can end it here."
this will take a while to work, They will push back and try and guilt trip you and make you seem like the bad guy. You are NOT the bad guy, you are ONLY responsible for you, how you behave and your actions. If family is dysfunctional, don't get involved anymore. It is not up to you to carry them, you NEED to take care of yourself first. You will be called selfish and unloving and all sorts of names. don't listen to that, walk away. You do NOT have to listen to someone who is trying to guilt or bully you into doing something that you don't want to do. Biggest thing for me was learning that it is okay to say NO and i don't have to explain myself to ANTONE! :) If you are still living at home or a teenager, this will be more difficult. Feelings will be hurt, but you are not in charge of how others feel or react to your saying "no", you are in charge of you.
read the book, get some support. you will live a much happier life once you learn to say no

Thank you all

The therapist said that not going to someone for validation is to overcome an addiction. I had not thought of this in terms of my parents, rather with other issues, but I do now.

I also think this is why people say to me that I am like a child.

At least I have a bit of insight now and some strategies.

A lot of great advice here. For the immediate dilemma of how to handle the holidays, I suggest this:

Set your boundaries. Your therapist can help you with that. Be super clear with yourself about what your dealbreakers are. Attend the holiday social if you want to, but have an escape route planned. In other words, don't rely on someone else for a ride to and from -- be free to dip out any time your boundaries are stomped on. Practice asserting yourself by saying statements in the mirror like "If you continue to treat me with disrespect, I will leave." And then just leave when you're ready. Or don't go at all this year, but make other plans so you won't be sitting at home by yourself wishing you were at the social. Or set a limit: I will only turn up for dessert, or I will go for one hour and then I'm out.

:)

When I was very young, even before I can recall, I was assigned a job in my family. All of my siblings were also given lifetime jobs.

One had the job of being the family go between, one was to be the favorite, another was assigned to be the smart one. My assignment was to be the scapegoat. If there were any problems in the family, I was the one responsible, no matter what.

The problem was, I didn't know for years that this was my job. When I was told (in oh so many ways) that something was my fault, I came to believe it. I thought it was all my fault that my entire family was such a dysfunctional mess. If only I was a better person, they wouldn't have to do the things they were doing! All I really wanted was acceptance and approval. It seemed like it wasn't meant to be. No matter how good I was, my family was still a mess.

By the time I was a teenager the family dynamics had become self fulfilling prophecy. I tried several times to be the best, but nothing ever seemed good enough. Then, as fate would have it, I moved 2000 miles away from all of them.

Imagine my surprise when nobody else seemed to have a problem with 'how' I was. In fact, people actually LIKED me. They would compliment me on my talents instead of telling me I was evil. I was confused, but I liked living like that. For the first time I started to feel good about myself. I went into therapy to resolve some other issues I had.

That was where I found out something that was a huge shock and revelation to me. I found out that it didn't matter what I did, I was NEVER going to be good enough for my family. I could get a PhD, walk on water, and many other fabulous things, and it didn't matter. Not one bit. Why? Because I wasn't the problem. Their problems were not mine to fix.

Living 2000 miles away from the madness was the best thing that ever happened to me. When I stood up for myself, or called them out on their mistreatment of me, they got pissed. Really pissed. They ramped it up. I cut them out of my life. It was the best thing I ever did for myself.

That was about 30 years ago. There's more to the story of course, but that's the basic outline. The next best thing i've done for myself is cut the mormon church out of my life. The church was treating me the same way my family did. It had to go. It has some major problems, and they aren't my fault and they aren't mine to fix. I can no longer allow that kind of abuse in my life. Nobody should, it's not good for your health.

"I don't want to go to a family social at Christmas. I feel emotionally unsafe there."

You already know what you WANT to do--You want to skip the family social.

The question I would ask is why you can't just do what you want? Is it guilt? Obligation? Fear? Is it wanting to please others? Or something else?

My suggestion is that you start taking care of your own needs and wants, and figure out why that's hard for you. I get it, as someone who has a hard time bucking expectations of others. But ultimately, your attendance at this social will affect you more than it will affect anyone else. If you need to, plan something else, and tell them you won't be available. Life is too short to stress out over hanging out with toxic people.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2016 02:27PM by imaworkinonit.

If I were in your place. I would write parents (cc'd to siblings) expressing where I was emotionally and saying I just cannot take [the specific things that happen in the group] anymore. That you are opting out of the upcoming Christmas social. That you are working on it. That anyone who doesn't do any of those things is welcome to [continue calling, texting, come over --- whatever they are]. But otherwise you just aren't going to take it anymore.

Then sometimes, I would go and try to make it work, walking out immediately if they start up things that aren't okay. Hanging up if they start being disrespectful on the phone "Seems like this isn't a good time, I'm hanging up now." [Click].

If they want a relationship with you, they will learn to control their actions, when you refuse to put up with it by immediately walking out or hanging up, without being unpleasant about it. It might take a while, but it is likely they will eventually get it.

This will require advanced planning so that if your self-sufficient kids want to stay they can. Your spouse should always join you in leaving in solidarity. Your kids might want to do that, but if they are well grounded and can fend for themselves, you might allow them to remain so they can have relationships with their cousins.

I think we should be nice to older people, especially parents. But when kids reach adulthood, the job of parenting wanes. At the point where everyone in the room is an adult, there's no longer a need to obey anyone.

Adults must all be responsible for themselves unless someone is suffering a handicap. No one has a right to boss others around. Parents of adult children can advise them if they're open to it, but no one must mind the other anymore like telling them to stay out of the street or not eat cookies before dinner. As adults we must live with the consequences of our own decisions. It isn't fair to expect us to live with consequences some other adult foists on us.

I second the above thoughts, mostly. I wanted to add something.

You spoke of "trying to keep some hope..." Why? "Hope" is the ENEMY. "Hope" is the longing for something that is NOT REAL and, in most cases, not something that YOU can control.

"Hope" is like booze--something to guzzle because we can't stand being sober. You have to be sober--free of addiction to your family--sooner or later. Might as well be sooner.

Kill "Hope." Stab "Hope" in the face with a pair of sharp scissors. Live life as it comes, as it is, not as you wish it to be. Your wishes are irrelevant, beyond mere symptoms of your illness.

Even though I know that rationally it was not my fault, I feel bad for the fact that my niece and nephew had the worse of upbringings. I wish I had been more available to my sister and perhaps that might not have happened. By the time the emergency social worker brought my niece to me when she was 17 (because my sister had been charged on counts of child abduction in trying to take the children back to a foreign country where my niece had been multiply raped) it was, it seemed too late for a relationship. I had a precious few hours. I was meant to be looking after her overnight and it was precious, but my sister was released. No one let me know. So at 11.30 pm my sister arrived and started hammering on my door. I did not open as my niece was on a child protection order and I was trying to do the right thing. My sister kept hammering and screaming her daughters name. My niece was screaming at me for not opening the door. A taxi driver in the road rang the police. I rang the police. It took ages. When they came they did not shout it was police, I saw men through the glass door and was terrified it was someone with my sister who was going to knock the door in. But it was the police. They came in, rang the social worker who said they could not keep my niece against her will as she was almost 18. So she just left with her mum. Her mum screamed at her for wearing some of my clothes, that I had given her as she was cold. I wish I had just opened the door and let her go. My niece blamed me. It was her and her friends who kicked my door in weeks later, cut my aerial wires, and hammered on my windows in the night. My nephew had been charged with arson. I had anti arson fitments put on the house and a special bullet proof film on my window. I slept with the front door braced and a crowbar under my bed. At no point did my parents emotionally support me. I eventually got an apology from a detective for the fact that I had not been informed my sister would be released and I should let her daughter go when she called for her. I was going to the social services meetings, I tried hard but.........

Then she was pregnant and in a facility for teenage mums. I visited and tried to be involved but she did not want my involvement. I was tbm then. I prayed protection on my great nephew. I took presents.

Then she has another child. They have a social housing house now. The childrens father has some form of autism and his own problems. There are problems there. I can't function in it. I have spent the past 2 Christmases praying I would not see something I would have to report to child care agencies. 2 years ago they were giving my great nephew alcohol when he was around 2. Last year they left the baby in a room with a bottle propped in her mouth, she was only a few months.

All the information I give can/ would only be given by me as no one else there to see it or who would report it.

My sisters estranged husband has never taken responsibilty and in fact is putting up a teenage girl in his house where he lives alone, a girl from another greatly challenged family.

Hope is a huge driver within me. I want to bring good. I want to be the auntie that can make it better for my niece. I have spent decades with the spare room ready for her and it is ready for her today even with her 2 little ones. I sure her relationship is abusive. But I can rarely get her to answer her phone, she does not reply to texts, I don't know if it her partner controlling her, she has been poisioned against me all her life by her mother. I write to her but I don't know if she gets the letters. But sometimes she goes to visit my parents at least.

If I was stronger, I would just turn up at her house but the thought of it causes me so much stress I just can't do that. Christmas is the only time I see her but last year she spent a lot of time upstairs in her old room anyway. There are not many seats, I sat on the floor so she could sit down, I am confident I have consistently over recent years told her I love her and am available for her but she might not be able to access me or I don't know if that is making excuses for her.

I don't know how to exist if I do not hope. And I am racked with guilt and blame myself for not being a better aunt for her.

Guilt, obligation, fear...all of them and hope for a freedom from all this and if I stab hope with those scissors, then I leave my niece there and I am dead too.

OK, That is the intense version. What is calmer to say is that I wish to hope whilst at the same time accepting reality and not having unrealistic visions of how things are or of how they might be.
Thank you. That touched a nerve. :)

So other people have gotten themselves and their kids into messes, and you want to fix it. But when you've tried, it bites you in the butt, and instead of appreciating your efforts, they blame you and traumatize you.

Honey, it's a losing game. You have zero control over what goes on in their crazy lives. You can't fix this. You can't undo the damage they've been raised with, or disabuse them of the lies they've believed about you.

I could be biased because I know someone who tried for years to be emotionally supportive to some kids raised in a toxic family who didn't appreciate her, but somehow still had plenty of expectations of her. It caused her a lot of pointless pain that she should have disconnected from YEARS ago. When kids are raised in that kind of environment, they trust whatever the mother says, no matter how messed up she is. They HAVE to, just to get along. And the kids end up broken, too. The only way to save YOURSELF is to step back and disengage.

Your first responsibility is to YOURSELF in life. You have to protect yourself from people who would hurt you. Losing hope for them doesn't mean you have to lose yourself. You can go on and find more healthy people to relate to, people who will be supportive to YOU, and not just takers.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/24/2016 07:46PM by imaworkinonit.

Yup. There is a Polish saying, "Not my circus, not my monkeys." Your niece, nephew and sister don't sound like very nice people. If somebody kicked down my door and cut my aerial wires, I would not bother to keep up a relationship with that person. Both your sister and your niece owe you a big apology.

Do yourself a favor and find something else to do over the holidays. With family like this, you don't need enemies.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2016 12:58AM by summer.

summer Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> Do yourself a favor and find something else to do
> over the holidays. With family like this, you
> don't need enemies.


I second this.

There are many charities looking for befrienders to help young, ill or elderly people from becoming isolated or just to lend a bit of needed emotional support. Direct your hopes and cares towards people who will appreciate it and you.

Some young mothers who were raised in care desperately need an older woman (mother figure) to provide them with the reassurance that they are coping with their new child(ren).

some hospitals have schemes where charities come in and visit long term patients with no relatives or other visitors.

You could find something much more rewarding to do at christmas this year than have a re-run of every christmas past.

Thanks. Now I feel like reiterating the post a guy put up ages ago asking how people got to be so together.

About a year ago I posted about something else and every single person told me one thing, to let a situation go else it would harm me. I thought I knew better. However, every single person on RfM was right.

And that year is what has led to my total crisis now.

So although I can't understand it all, I will do what people say here because I trust what people are saying.

And my mind is opening and all everyone has written is helping me.

I am going to ask the manager where I volunteer if I can go in over the Christmas season.

starting fresh Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> About a year ago I posted about something else and
> every single person told me one thing, to let a
> situation go else it would harm me. I thought I
> knew better.


you only thought that because you have a good heart and, as you said, never want to give up "HOPE".



>
> So although I can't understand it all, I will do
> what people say here because I trust what people
> are saying.
>

that's a nice thing to say as some of us have never been 'trusted' before by our nearest and dearest birth family.




> I am going to ask the manager where I volunteer if
> I can go in over the Christmas season.


I hope you find great fulfillment this christmas season - spread the season of goodwill to those who, like you, still hope for better things to come.

Take back your life, tell your family you are providing cover for colleagues with young kids and thereby doing something worthwhile - they may assume your intention is to sound holier-than-they, which they may mock behind your back but who cares? It's august and you are already suffering over something that is 4 months in the future.

You deserve better.

Thank you :)
Yeah, 4 months away, I know! But it came about because I want to be prepared and now I am, and starting from this discussion on here is a really good base for my CBT and I feel different already.

I have had a lot of grief over the past couple of years. I was looking at a Christmas catalogue and there was a beautiful 6ft white tree with pale pink, purple and blue LED lights in its structure. It is stunning.

I have ordered it and I will plug it in right away. It is going to be a tree of light and life. It will remind me that I am surrounded and infused by the love of those that I have lost through death and it will remind me of the beauty in life and be very magical and wonderful for me in my house.

And it will remind me that I send love and light to all those I love even when I can't actually physically do something because they have passed or else because of circumstances. It will help me let go and just radiate love in a healing to me way.

OK, so now I am thinking I am going to have the most massive of candles in my house, funny, but I really think this is going to help me :)

nice :)

have a wonderful christmas when it comes: the tree sounds lovely.

I have the appointment in 90 mins to speak to the manager where I volunteer. Keep your fingers crossed for me :)

If they don't 'need' you, some other charity will - even if it's feeding the homeless a christmas dinner at a shelter or helping meals on wheels (or the equivalent) or helping out with kids in care away from, or without any, family. I am sure you will find something rewarding to do with your time and energy.