soulsurvivor

i posted earlier about being separated from my family because my brother and mother hurt me but hurting my son... to be specific.. my son and niece N nephew have been raised like siblings since they were born, all a year apart..
my brother got mad at me b/c i told him he hurt my feelings and my punishment was that my son was no longer allowed to see his cousins... ........
this was last august.. its been a 14 months...
my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer a few months ago..its 4th stage and fatal.. my aunt called me to tell me the nursing home he is at..
my grandmother, his wife... who also supports my bro and Mom for what they did called me for the first time in a year to tell me I SHOULD GO VISIT GRANDPA. .. i'm like ya I will.. she said she didnt want ME to have any regrets.. I REMINDED HER I DDNT HAVE ANY REGRETS.. I LOVED HIM AND TREATED HIM WITH RESPECT WHICH IS MORE SHE AND MY MOM CAN SAY.. ... didnt call to say i'm thinking about you.. love you.. want to talk..ect.. just what i SHOULD DO.. i've been visiting him weekly..
Guess what.. my Brother called twice to ALSO tell me grandpa is in the hospital.. I DID NOT ANSWER,, HIS MSG WAS VERY ALOOF AND CAREFREE, like nothing was wrong..
my Dad calls and says you Brother says your not answering your phone and he is Trying to give you impt info about your grandfather.. ARENT YOU TAKING THIS DRAMA TOO FAR!!?? really??? its my fault AGAIN???
no offense.. but even though my grandfather is dying.. doesnt make what they did disapear..!!! once again lets just SWEeP everything under the rug.. and act like nothing happened...
I will not go to his funeral.. i know I will Be CAst of EVIL like the scarlette letter.. but funerals are to pay respect to the living.. and I have NO respect for any of them...
some ppl say i should let this drop and recognsile..
14 months have past.. no appology.. no acknowledgement of what they did to my son.. NO one stood up for him and SAID OK THIS CRAP HAS GONE TOO FAR... NO ONE!! but NOW I"Mmmmmmmm the one taking it too far..
I hate all of them so much.. i think of all those days, weeks, months. of my son crying... begging me to call his cousins .. wanting to play.. me calling my brother.. begging him to let the kids talk and NOTHING>>!!
BUt I"M taking it too far..
I feel like i'm gonna explode!!!

Iwanttoheal

Hi SoulSurvivor

How ru doing?

I'm sorry to hear the hurt, anger and pain in your post. I know that feeling of "what about me?", "what about my son" all too well. I had this expectation of how my family SHOULD treat me, I knew how I WANTED my family to treat me. I am learning to let those expectations go and the anger is slowly going alongside the expectations. I am recognising that if I don't let the expectations and anger go then my family will still have the power to hurt me.

I am changing. I am moving on. My family are still in the same place repeating old patterns.

It helps me to think what do I want to do. How do I want to feel. How am I going to achieve that on my own so that I am not dependent on others for my actions or feelings. At the moment you are responding and reacting. Can you set some boundaries on telephone conversations eg I'm sorry we are not having this conversation. I hold my own hands up to not being any good at placing and keeping telephone boundaries. I always got drawn in and before I knew it the barbs were finding their mark. For me, for peace and serenity, the only answer was to change my telephone number.

Take care of yourself, IWTHxxx

soulsurvivor

thanks.. ive been thinking about how i never really had a mother. she was very young when she had us..17 & 19....and came from a very abusive alcoholic home... I GET THAT! but at what age do you stop being a victim and seek help!!
a therapist friend of mine told me that once I start to bring all the things that have been brewing in the dark..to the light.. they will actuallly bare down more and hold on to the dysfunction Harder.. thats exactly what they did..
it sucks.. i never had a functioning loving mother .. never had a concerned protective father or older brother... Dad was an addict,, brother started using at 10 and became the emotional twin of my mom.. it sucks.. but I KNOW IT IS WHAT IT IS.. and if they dont want help.. dont want things better.. then I have NO choice but to move on....teach my son differently and hope and pray one day he dosent run back to be a part of that dysfunction...

takincareome

I wish I knew. My codie mother is still the professional victim to this day.

I'm sorry to hear about your grandfather, and I know this is painful to you. But for what it's worth, I think you're doing a lovely job of "keeping your own side of the street clean." You can't change their behavior, but neither do you have to react to it and perpetuate the drama. As my therapist always tells me, as long as you are proud of the way YOU have behaved, you can't worry about anything else. Of course that's easier said than done but I find the more I repeat it to myself the better I feelt!

Hugs to you. You're hanging in there and you're doing just fine.

dothi

Hey soulsurvivor, if you can figure a way to make this work, see if you can learn how not to engage. Your mom was baiting you - putting it on you (as though she were so inconvienced by your existence that she "needed" to make sure you weren't so stupid or thoughtless). Whether you actually said these things or not, your brain took the bait.

Soul, as long as you are still hurting over the relationship you wish you had with them - one that by all means you certainly deserve and have done nothing to warrant what you ended up with - interactions with your family will continue to hurt you. Your post suggests that you still want to trust you mom and family because it sounds like each interaction results in you re-hashing what you didn't get from them. Ask yourself: how many times do you want to keep reminding yourself of what you don't have with them?

There are certainly ways that you can pay your respects to your uncle without going through the circus. You don't need your family to recognize this.

soulsurvivor

thanks Dothi.. I KNOW.. intellectually.. a therapist once told me "my emotions need to catch up to my intelligence".. I fully believe that.. I just need to learn how to LIVE that..
a few months after all this happened my mom emailed my SIL and asked how all of this could be resolved.. my SIL said if I say I'm sorry and acknowlege that I did all of this and OWN all of it.. she would think about forgiving me...????? MY mom thought this was Wonderful.. SHe was giving me a chance to appoligize.. WTF!!!
I DDNT DO ANYTHING WRONG..!!
I told my mom I wanted to sit down with everyone and talk about all this stuff. Im sick of covering everything with a band aid and then wonder why it all comes back months or years later.. my mom said "nothing will ever be resolved if you INsist on REHASHING everything all the time.. :0 I really feel like i'm in Krazee world...

takincareome

No. You didn't do anything wrong and you have nothing to apologize for.

Try to work on some nondefensive responses and don't take the bait. "I'm sorry you're upset." "I understand you see it that way." "You're entitled to your opinion." Don't engage. In these instances, I try to visualize being engaged in a tug-of-war, and then "dropping the rope." If there is no resistance from you, your relatives can't fight the battle on their own.

You can do it. It's so very hard to get our emotions caught up with our intelligence, isn't it? Those knee-jerk reactions that we've been trained to have are so hard to stop. You are in my thoughts.

soulsurvivor

thanks.. i have been silent for the most part for the last year... unfortunantly, HERE in KrazeeVille... even that (silence) is my fault..like when i wouldnt answer the phone when my brother called to tell me about my grandpa.
then its "she ignoring all of us,, shes keeping the drama going.. blah blah blah..
i KNOW intellectually, the only thing I can do in there minds is give in.. to the madness I mean.. but this time my feet are firmly planted in the ground.. NO BUDGING<<<!!