My family’s history seems unclear. I’ve heard, though never confirmed, that my maternal great grandmother “stuck her head in the oven” at least once, but she was found. My grandfather was an alcoholic. He went to rehab in the 70s and didn’t touch a drink again, although he remained unchanged emotionally. My mother has had major depression for my entire life, but has never admitted it to herself. I cannot remember a time when she wasn’t paralyzed with depression, even before my dad died. A lot of anxiety, too.

Me, I severe anxiety when I was young that has morphed into the wonderful plethora of illnesses that I have today.

I know nothing of my dad’s side because he died when I was so young. We were never close with his side of the family. My two cousins that still live in the state are 10-15 years older than me, so we never had much in common. The other cousins live in Michigan. I’ve only met them in person once.

Honestly, most of the problems in our family derive from generations of abuse. I’m not sure how my grandmother was raised but I do know her mother divorced her father sometime during her childhood, which was absolutely unheard of, so I imagine some bad **** was going down. My grandmother, as sweet and loving as she is now, was extremely abusive toward my mom when she was growing up. I’ve heard stories about being forced to sit at the kitchen table long into the night until everything was finished on your dinner plate. Poking my uncle with a fork until he finished his cottage cheese and threw up. Hurling abuse at my grandfather while he just completely froze her out and read a book, purposefully ignoring her to get her more fired up.

And then my mom had us, and though she was never physically or verbally abusive, she was so emotionally stunted that she just never emotionally connected with us. She just stayed upstairs in her little hole and ignored us. We had basics like food and clothes, but after my dad died we had to learn to fend for ourselves. Often my dinner was chips or crackers or something. I can’t remember her ever making us a home cooked meal. Because she is a hoarder our house was always completely disgusting, until I finally figured out how to clean it enough so it was slightly presentable and wouldn’t get us in trouble with CPS.

My brother is completely ****ed up from this. He spent almost all of his tween/teen years getting high and drunk off of everything except heroin. According to his wife, who was the same way, they had “a little cocaine problem” earlier in their relationship. My brother still struggles with drinking.

And I absolutely despise my uncle’s family.

So my brother and I have come to the conclusion that it is better to cut ties with everyone except my grandmother and go low contact with my mom and just focus on our own families and breaking the cycle of abuse. That is why I am so thankful to have found RS; otherwise my son would have grown up in the same situation.