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Originally Posted by Misterpain
I won't bore you with my normal speal about tis the season for toxic family, I will say my life has been much improved since I figured out I was an only child as an adult ,I am more than irritable lately I told someone today GTFOH well you still have parts big enough to bury ,at that point I had the feelling thats not me ,not who i am ,gas lighting ticks me off in ways that nothing else on this earth can. Remember to breathe ! Take care of you .
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*schpiel* ( love that word, by the way)
I agree with you that the holidays are the WORST time of year for toxic family systems, because it's like a Hallmark overload of branding the living-close family system together at Thanksgiving and Christmas -- all to sell retail merchandise. So effed up.
How did you separate yourself permanently (?) from your family? Do you have a support system like a therapist?
I hate gaslighters. My sister and brother are masters in gaslighting. I wrote in another thread that I feel like they became gaslighters as a defense mechanism against our parents' dysfunctional parenting (withdrawn and emotionally detached, neglectful father and a bipolar, borderline mother who stifles and invades and crosses personal boundaries with verbal and emotional abuse).
No matter how many books and journal articles I read, podcasts I listen to about gaslighting and narcissism and dysfunctional family systems, I can't find a way to get my brother and sister to change and treat me with respect.
All the assertiveness training and everything I've tried with my sister (since I'm estranged from our brother) doesn't work. She's stubborn as hell! She won't allow me to change. She won't accept me for who I am. She doesn't like me. I'll tell her this too, "You don't even like me."
Quote:
Originally Posted by bpcyclist
My life got way better when I finally wrote off my ********* brother and his ********* wife. You can have 'em. He isn't my brother. He never was. He's just some guy I share some genetics with.
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Sorry to hear bpcyclist. And I wasn't ranting at you in my other thread, so I hope you didn't think I discounted any of your support because I don't discount it. I want ranting about people in my life offline like my sister, distant acquaintances who won't let me feel bad about my situation, who want me to be toxically happy and optimistic.
How did you write off your brother and his wife? What happened? If you're comfortable sharing. And, kudos to you for putting yourself first. That's the hardest part about being the victim of toxic siblings/family members who gaslight the family member they target as weak or less valuable than (this is my opinion, how I perceive family dynamics -- like a pack of wolves who attack the perceived weak member of their pack).
You're correct too. They are just people we share genetics with. Does that mean we are bound to them or should defer to them? No, but I am the idiot because I KNOW I should walk away 100% from my sister and estrange myself from her like I did with our brother. I make excuses because I am afraid I'll never see or hear from her 3 children again whom I adore but already rarely see.
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Originally Posted by rechu
That's really tough. My instinct would be to write your sister off. But I understand that you don't want ot lose contact with her children. How old are they? Is there any way to have some sort of contact with them without your sister's involvement? Or, would that be posible in a few more years? I guess in the meantime, just do limited visits to maintain some level of contact. If she starts violating your boundaries, then I'd cut the visit short.
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Hey rechu. Yeah, my sister's children are the closest I have to children as an unmarried woman. My niece is a freshman in college, her younger brother is a junior in high school (he has autism and is my godson) and the youngest brother is in 8th grade.
Well, I've tried texting my youngest nephew and my niece to invite them to lunch or to the movies or some fun family-event around town and they never respond...or my sister will find out b/c they'll tell her I contacted them to ask, and she'll text me or call me up and yell at me for reaching out to invite them to hang out.
Even when I bring up to my sister, "You intentionally have kept me at arm's length from being a part of your children's lives, not inviting me to their sporting or after school activities, never inviting me to hang out, never accepting my invitations to hang out together." To which her response is utter silence. She has no response so she ignores my concern. She doesn't care.
That is the brick wall-- she doesn't care about helping foster a relationship with her children. She doesn't WANT me involved with her children outside of the rare annual Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter holiday gathering.
She violates my boundaries via text messaging or phone calls ALL the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MickeyCheeky
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MickeyCheeky, I already never see my sister's children outside of when my sister decides to invite me or I'm conveniently available to help drive our mother to her house for the holidays.
I definitely am trying to manage my life alone without my sister. Now, when I want emotional support I won't call my sister anymore which is what I used to do. I'll come here, or go to one of the walk-in clinics in my city and vent to a therapist. Or I'll distract myself with tv or grad school work, or come here and post, or job search.
I haven't changed in 20+ years so my life has been stagnant. That's my own fault. I need to figure out how to change my life's direction without the approval of my toxic siblings, now that our mother's in a nursing home with dementia. But how to do that, when I have no infrastructure of emotional support that is stable; that is the question.