abandonment issues maybe?...

well here goes, this is a topic that i have never discussed, not even in all the therapy i've had over the years. well the other day i was talking to my eldest aunt. and we were talking about the possibility of my mother giving custody of my brother to his father. my aunt tells me she cannot believe my mother would do this since mothers in our family would never give their children away. and my first comment to her was "hello, don't you remember that you raised 3 of your own grandchildren because your daughter gave them to you and my own mother gave me to my grandmother and aunt when she remarried when i was 9 years old? WOW! i had never discussed the fact that my mother let me live with my grandmother and aunt after she remarried. true that i wanted to return home to them since my mother and i had lived with them for my entire life prior to her remarrying. but she easily let me return instead of standing her ground and saying "hey your my kid and you have to adjust to our new life". i have never really given thought to how that may have affected my life and my relationships. i have attachment issues. as i have mentioned in previous posts, people describe me as being a very "cold" person. i define what they refer to "cold" as being very protective of my feelings. just wondering what anyone's thoughts are on this.

ive often thought about this myself coming from the situation i have (mother was an alcoholic - father into drugs).

i think this is pretty common across the board regardless of WHATEVER your childhood background is = you will always yearn for your parents to be parents, to be there for you and support you in your life even in the smallest ways.

i think the coping mechanism i built in my life was i actually looked up to a buddy of mine and what his family was like. i just took it to heart that one day i could have something like that if i worked hard enough for it. am i there now? nope. can i be? sure!

its hard to pick yourself up with your bootstraps all by yourself time and time again - i have gone through friends and learned just HOW MUCH is safe to say to people who aren't familly. boundaries are pretty much a given - and sometimes even to family. i've been blatantly honest with my mother about things now for years - it hasn't changed a thing.

so am i cold? you bet. to some people. cold as a nurse? no. so there is a line where i can be compassionate given that other peoples circumstances really don't effect me overall (but again being a nurse is emotionally draining at times).

i've learned to keep my feelings close to me except in special circumstances. being hurt is a part of life - but if you wear your heart on your sleeve you are just opening yourself up for emotional abuse (IHMO)

(((((agony))))) Both of my parents lost their fathers when they were young and virtually abandoned by their mothers.

I my mom’s case, her mother married a world class *** that had to travel a lot for his job. He brought with him a very spoiled teenager. My mom was about 14 and my aunt about 12. Both requested to go back and live with my great-grandparents. My mother viewed it as an opportunity to return to a loving stable home. My Aunt however felt that my grandmother just abandoned her new family (which in all reality she did) to her new husband, baby, and step-child. She felt that grandmother should have done more to make her feel welcome in their new home. She wasn’t wrong. My grandmother was embarrassed because both of her daughters were born out of marriage, and she was able to re-write her history when she married grandfather.

In my dad and his sisters case, after being shifted from relative to relative they ended up living with a crazy woman in town. Some days after school he would stop and see his mother; he was rewarded with beatings from the crazy woman. His mother only took them back in when she became sick and needed someone to take care of her, she died a year later. My dad’s response to this whole thing (he was the baby) was to idolize his mother, and he felt he wasn’t “good enough” and spent the rest of his life attempting to achieve perfection. His sister on the other hand was older and she knew what they were going through wasn’t right, she sought the attention of much older men (in their 30s) while she was in her early teens (like 14). My father kept his family together in a tightly knit ball, my Aunt has kids she has no idea where in the world they are, literally.

In the end, you have to ask yourself, if the decision your mother made to allow you to return to your grandparents home (whatever her motives) was the best decision for you. Do you think that you’d be the wonderful person you are today if you had lived with her? I’m a firm believer that things happen for a reason. I found out as an adult that one of my favorite Great-Aunts wanted to adopt my father, for whatever reason, his mom would not allow it, spite I think. But if she had, my parents would have never met, and my brother and I wouldn’t have been here.

i definitely that all things happen for a reason aaaaa. wow both your parents went through alot. i am glad that i lived with my grandmother and my aunt. as a teen i rebelled as many teens do. but i had other issues going on. being a victim of sexual abuse and some other things so that attributed to alot of my erratic behaviors. but ultimately i thank my aunt for the person that i am today. she has stuck by me through everything. she has been my true mother. and i will always be grateful to her for everything that she has done for me. and i also feel fortunate that i have her in my life.