Those of us who were raised in toxic homes and have parents with deep issues have a harder time developing "healthy" adult relationships because our parents are still a mess themselves.
I will give a recent example of what my 85 yo mother just did to my brother the other day... but first quick history of our alcoholic past. Father was raging alcoholic of the dangerous kind (firing guns over our head, pretending to commit suicide, running over pets with vehicles were just a few childhood traumas) and despite begging my mother to leave him she chose to stay because he threatened to burn the house down with us in it. My mother has an unhealthy attachment to things and the thought of her furniture and belongings being burned up and lost in a fire was something she simply could not handle along with a financial collapse with the seperation/divorce. So we three kids lived in a very sick, scary alcoholic home and all have lots of scars from that crazy time... as for my mother she finally figured out a way to get her "stuff" by getting an emergency court order from a judge to remove her things with sheriffs deputies standing by after we were all grown.
Fast forward... my mother is now 85 and I have been supporting her for over 15 years and recently bought her a new house and my brother now 44 years old is living with her and taking care of her. He was mowing the lawn (a 4 hour job as it a huge 5 acre yard) and he didn't see her gesturing for him to stop (she wanted him to immediately move all her National Geographics from 1950 forward from storage into her home). She assumed he was ignoring her and when he came back around on the next pass she was face down in the grass in his mowing path. As she is extremely frail with lots of serious health issues he assumed the worst and about had a heart attack running over to her yelling "Mom, Mom" and when he got close enough she picked her head up and turned around and with a mean look "Got your attention didn't I"?
When he told me that I realized her behavior was something our alcoholic daddy would do to her or to us... he is still haunting us from the grave (he died alone and with a drink in his hand pickled from top to bottom).
My mother is a product of her own dysfunctional childhood (child of an A mother) and living during the great depression and decades of a very sick A husband. She is incapable of a healthy relationship with anyone and too old to change and I am committed to making her final years as happy as possible and understanding that she is not capable of healthy thinking patterns or relationship building makes it pretty easy to keep myself from expecting too much.
If I don't expect much I don't get disappointed. My sister on the other hand is completely different.. totally traumatized by the fact that my mother never bonded with her as a child and the lack of a normal loving parent/child relationship.
With toxic parents you pray the serenity prayer, you smile and love them, sometimes from a distance or in my case up close... but always with a wise perspective and with sympathy as they are still sick and you are getting well spiritually and emotionally. And... most importantly you are breaking off what has been a generational passing along of toxic thinking, living, behaving and parenting and passing along healthy stuff to your own children who are watching and learning how you interact with others including toxic loved ones.
Lots of counseling has helped me cope with my own parents and learning how to parent myself without good role models ... hope my story helps someone when they are struggling with a difficult relative!
Oh... and humor helps a lot ... its not easy to laugh at crazy behavior when its happening but in time it you do begin to see the humor in it... or course, it may be because I still need more therapy
