[Kaliska]

It is so odd to go back to forums from facebook and not have to put things into 3-6sentences with a paragraph break every 2 sentences or you get complaints. I'm not sure what the current trend is on forums but I find I have built up a need to put all my thoughts out in a more complete form. Whether it ends up too long for even a forum post or not.

I feel like my life growing up wasn't just neglectful but borders on abuse. I find my mother's decisions so unacceptable that it finally led to a rift with my sister that ended in me saying I have no family in this state since she is currently over the border and my dad's whole family and half sister were in Arkansas. They have moved back recently but I have only seen my sister once and not my dad but that's an issue with my stepmother. My sister says she experiences ongoing issues and was so stressed she would throw up every day before school but then rationalizes it away as our mom did her best. That she gave us lots of things. Things is the problem though. My mom is so focused on successfully having a job and paying for whatever we wanted that all you got out of her was money. If she could throw money at it she was useful. If not.... I'm not sure "emotion" or "support" are in her vocabulary so definitely not combined.

My grandma probably understood me the best and was the most like me but she passed of breast cancer when I was about 11 years old after ignoring the symptoms until she was hospitalized and nonresponsive within a month of diagnoses. My dad is similar to me and we shared lots of interests that probably could have made us both happier if he had realized what I could do as I got older and stayed in my life. With my mom though he was always stressed and has his own problems of insomnia, fatigue, probably anxiety, and definitely depression with suicidal thoughts so he frequently exploded angrily over things while with my mom. They divorced when I was in about 5th grade and after he moved out of my grandma's house (anyone who needed it would stay in her farmhouse no matter the situation they were in with the rest of the family) he was too uncomfortable with coming to the house. We were supposed to spend every other weekend with him but I started showing horses on weekends and my sister started dance so sometimes it was not possible. He never came to our events. When I got a license and was allowed use of the extra truck I guess I was suddenly expected to know when we should go but I was spaced out with no concept of time so I'd just get complaints later that my youngest sister had expected to see us only to have us not show up. Visiting him was so inconsistent, my stepmom always annoying about it, and my sister I lived with really felt no connection to them that it never even crossed my mind while we were still teenagers.

I know my mom struggled to finish a college degree while raising 2 young kids as a single parent and occasionally lost her temper over things. Although rarely with us. There wasn't really fighting between the adults and I would know because our mom basically treated us as adults. We surpassed milestones for understanding things as children and even caused my mom to have to defend her position in her college child development classes because I would respond in ways I shouldn't for several more years. Everything was therefore an open book with her. Not that there was much to tell. I don't think she knew her own emotions enough to discuss that kind of thing and you didn't discuss emotion. With my dad removed now there was nothing but logic in my house. If you could rationalize it you were allowed to do it. It could be flat out illegal but if you could show you covered all possible consequences and there was something to be gained, even just personally, then she'd allow it. "Because I said so" was never a reason for anything. You could not discuss anything while emotional though. There was no anger, no crying, no frustration.... If you were too upset to talk calmly you didn't talk. If you felt too much emotion to simply argue rationally you didn't argue. Basically I got shunned if I was upset. Not as in go sit in a time out until you calm down but ignored, responded to as if I was overreacting to everything even if I had a good reason to be upset, and then she'd just walk away to leave me to figure out my pain alone.

My mom and my sister simply are incapable of being out of a relationship. I'm not sure about my mom but I know for my sister it has overlapped to the point of cheating. At least she learned like I did not to settle and kept looking until she found someone she really did want to marry. After breaking up the month before a 2year long wedding plan but it was the guy she got attached to when she left for college with no one around she knew. My mom rationalizes that no one is perfect and married my stepdad. He is certainly verbally abusive and nothing can be his fault so it's generally my fault. Nothing can be an accident so it's my fault. Other people can't forget to get something done or not realize it needs done even when not asked so I am a horrible person any time my mom did something he thought I should have gotten done. I wonder if he would ever stop ranting and coming up with degrading things to say if she did not stop him because he seemed infinitely capable of sticking words together as the minutes would add up and I would silently stand there because we don't answer emotion with emotion. I had no way to respond back to him. It wasn't done in my family. You ignored it. After a psychiatrist threatened to report him for verbal abuse it switched to simply disgusted noises whenever he saw me. Right before they married is when my grandma died so I was alone. I'd always been too active for my 4year younger sister to keep up and far too bold in my physical activities for her to attempt to follow when I took off on bike, foot, or horseback. We had separate lives.

To top it all off all the bullying in school started right as my grandma died, my mom married, and we moved out of town away from the 3 friends I'd had since 2nd grade. I dreaded every morning and woke up hours before my alarm after not falling asleep until 4am. I cried in the morning, I cried when I got home from school, I cried going to bed, and I couldn't let anyone see. My sister would tell you I never cried when I was never alone without breaking down crying. My friends were being bratty teenagers talking about plans to harass or pick on even each other when one of us wasn't there so I had no desire to bike back into town to see them. I haven't found a friend again from 12-34years old except boyfriends that to everyone's surprise I got married before my sister. I quit being part of the house. My room was mine, the horse stable was mine, and if I left those places it was to wander fields and eventually drive to the store for my own groceries. I'd slip out of my room, get a horse in the stable, lock it up, saddle, and then unlock the doors as I was ready to run off before my stepdad could see me or my mom knew where I was. I went from struggling to complete some assignments to completely failing to attempt any. A's were expected and I was always in the 99th percentile on standardized tests so they were not praised. Nothing was praised because it was expected. There was no rule against drinking, smoking, sex, etc... because it was expected we were smart enough not to do anything to excess or get addicted. Luckily my mom was right but there were so many things that what she expected was a huge struggle or beyond me and what she criticized may have taken a lot of work. I realize now it wasn't just that my best wasn't good enough but that expectations were so far off from who I was, what I wanted, and what I could do in some areas that she didn't realize I was trying at all.

If my best just got criticism or nothing, any artistic endeavor was questioned as how that was beneficial to your life and how was spending money on supplies going to make you any back, and no one understood my point of view I decided not to try. I also refused to answer any question I was not certain the answer was correct. I refuse to guess and see if I get a negative response. Someone on an adhd group brought up pathological demand avoidance and if it wasn't currently considered by many as part of the autism spectrum it mostly fits. Some of the reasons for behaviors don't entirely match me depending what sites you look at it but that's part of why I never agreed with an autism diagnoses used to get me a highschool diploma despite 1/2 an English credit completed. Really I couldn't write papers because I couldn't put my opinion out there or write emotionally due to how my mom raised me. It was safer to shut down. My brain sort of put in automatic emergency shut down switches that if a situation approached one of those that had a high probability of only ending negatively I quit thinking about it. No one could wait me out because while they were forcing me to sit in a chair until I did homework or not letting me leave my room until I did house chores my brain was gone. I was making up entertaining stories in my head. I was already riding horses in my mind or exploring new places outdoors. They were stuck sitting there not doing what they wanted. I had plenty of practice because that was basically school and then with insomnia I'd lay in bed for 8hrs just entertaining myself with no tv or light. It is utterly pitch black in the country and you are not going to read or do anything without light. I understood things so fast in school but got in trouble for going ahead and got in trouble for filling the time with something that I pretty much listened to the first 2 minutes of a new topic, spaced out, caught the topic change, listened for 2 minutes, spaced out, did papers put in front of me, spaced out.... My 5th grade math teacher kept giving me detentions for reading books in math class but at least by 7th grade my teachers didn't care about those things so long as I passed. I started not passing English assignments then and failed art because I can't free draw well and refused a silly assignment to make a cartoon drawing of a substitute teacher she tacked on the last day. Everything else she gave multiple assignment options and I was even there after school finishing them but she failed you for a single assignment not turned in so F for not drawing a cartoon after over and over insisting through the year I can't draw. English was much the same reason. They don't hold you back for not passing classes prior to highschool when you otherwise demonstrate the knowledge so no real repercussions happened and my mom was not forced to take any action besides some complaints to the school about bullying until it came down to me getting a highschool diploma or not. Math though they started assigning the same thing out of the book every day so while the teacher lectured on how to do it I started it and just looked back at the examples and short paragraphs as I came across things. I really should have been homeschooled but my mom thought it would take too much of her time when she worked at home as her own boss by then. Her teaching degree did not work out and she took over one of my grandma's businesses that had actually been making money. My grandma probably had her hand in just about every aspect of the small town but most of the money went into projects that weren't yet making money and if she had excess she started a new project. My mom cut it all down to only what made money and she could make $100,000 a year managing government owned housing with one secretary to answer phones and stamp papers for files when she had to be out of the office. I think now without us around to take up her time she has 3 or 4 employees.

Sure she gives me $2000 on christmas and I am thankful. I don't treat her badly. I'm not angry at her. I kind of pity her own restricted emotional state and need to have a relationship that she can't take the time to find a good one. I just think she so badly screwed up raising me, kept a verbally abusive authority figure around, forced me into schooling that did not work at all for me and really was unnecessary but convenient way for her not to spend time directly, and never gave any praise or support while criticizing any endeavor she saw as pointless that I can't forgive it. I spent all of my 20s getting past my childhood. Mostly I am but my feelings have never been validated in my life. My husband won't approach such topics or give opinions on personal/social matters. He's not unsupportive but he has no experience with any such drama and doesn't really care about social matters. He could probably be considered a schizoid personality from his complete lack of need for social interaction and rare need for any physical contact. He doesn't dislike it and enjoys finding activities to do whether they involve other people or not with boredom and complaints if he can't go play tabletop games but you won't get an opinion on anyone's behavior or interactions from him. My sister's attempt to say we both dealt with our family growing up so we can discuss it together ended like I said. She rationalizes like my mom always did and my mom could probably rationalize murder so she just says our mom did her best and like has been done my whole life downplays my feelings and the results of our experiences growing up.

That's probably still the tip of the iceberg of my difficulties growing up and I can remember things from when I was 3years old so I could detail every stress caused to me through my whole life. Does it matter the finer details of every policy in our house, interaction of everyone, or everything my mom did to make me feel like my emotions and opinions do not matter if they resulted in so much harm to me? I think what I feel and the difficulties it's caused in my life should be plenty of proof and explanation of how wrong the authority figures around me were. How much I shut down with no one doing anything about it and how much I cried with no one ever realizing I even did should show the level my needs were ignored and I was let down by everyone I relied on. If I tried to talk to any of my family though I'd just get told I was truly spoiled, mom spent more money on us and bought us more things we wanted than she should have, and this is a spoiled child acting out and being ungrateful. I haven't been to a family gathering in years despite them being 50miles away and my grandpa terminally ill right now. I can't find the energy to deal with any of them and I am past doing things for appearances with people who's opinions don't matter. I just wish I had any opinions on things beyond my own that were reliable. I probably have some of my father's problems with insomnia and time spent depressed and I think my mom, sister, and I quite match adhd in many ways. These things can make someone remember the negatives far more than the positives or experience rejection sensitive dysphoria but just being able to throw out psychiatric terms from online conversations and reading seems like my mom's influence to rationalize and explain emotion in a clinical way. It doesn't change how I feel or how the people around me impacted me so I don't feel I am wrong about the division I have stuck between myself and my family or the things I say to my sister and dad about how I experienced my childhood. There's no one to discuss such things with though. My husband listens without answering, my sister and mom's side rationalizes it away, my dad just feels personally hurt for not being there to help, and my psychiatrist will give me more detached explanations similar to articles the internet spits out on psychiatric disorders. After 20years of trying I am done actively looking for friends. If I recover my physical health enough to resume activities I enjoy and happen to meet someone I can talk to and hang out with then great but I am not going out of my way just to find people and then try to make friends out of them anymore. That just leaves me and a google search engine to validate anything I feel.

[Skeezyks]

Thanks for sharing your experiences. I'm pretty-much thoroughly reclusive. I'm married. But I have no extended family & no friends or even acquaintances really... by choice. I simply prefer to be left alone. However in my case, since I'm old, it's okay... & to some extent even to be expected I think. Anyway... I didn't really have anything in particular to offer here. I simply wanted to let you know I read your post & I wish you well...

[Shazerac]

Thanks for sharing. I notice yournare new her at psych central so welcome

I hope you can find some helpful support here.