Family dynamics
 

Hello fellow Sr's

It always interests me the whole dymanic behind addiction - often set up in our childhood.

What was your home like growing up? What was your mom and dad like as people? How did it impact you? What type of environment was it? How would you describe the child version of yourself to someone?

My version: my dad died when I was ten, we were the 3 kids, I was the oldest(caretaker training hello!). My mom dated stepdad a few years later, had another child and got married.

My home life revolved around my mom. My bio dad and mom would fight almost daily - my mom was super jealous and argue her reason into a fight eventually. No hitting each other just constant tension and arguing. We also didn't do well financially so that was a sore point too. No one drank or used drugs in our home but love and control was her drug of choice. She is still like this to this day although age and life has toned her down a bit. I believe she displays some narcissism and is emotionally withdrawn towards us girls and is jealous of women in general. She thinks everyone is watching her like she won't take calls at work because the women there are listening in or she needs to have her roots done cause the neighbors are watching her.

She got worse when she got with my stepdad - she obsessed over him. Example She would phone his job not joking 5 times a day and if the receptionist answered she would badger him on why he was after the receptionist. If he was not reachable when she phoned she believed it was the "whores" trying to block there contact. She would pick him up but go in to see the women there so she can ask a million questions on who the "sluts" are. He almost lost two jobs and she almost lost hers once because the phone bill was crazy high. She never ever phoned us kids. Her kids didn't exist because she was running after him. She would send us to family so they could overnight together or go on a cruise just them too. No kids allowed. Or leave us overnight with some money for take aways.

She would drive 2 hours daily to take home him to a new work but she would be an hour later with no warning picking us up at school. She funded a small company for him but we never got new clothes or nice things. Sometime she would just leave a message with school receptionist to say we had to catch a lift home. My friends parents did not like my mom because they often lifted me. Me and my sister finished schooling eventually on our own because she just didn't care. My sister was sent to stay with a friend so she could stepdad and her closer to his new job. She never sent my sisters friend money promised to the mom and they threw my sister out after first treating my sister poorly because she was staying there with no money.

Her son with my stepdad however he gets anything he wants - new computers, a car this year, only junk food cause that's all he insists on, designer clothes, university this year.

If you brought anything up then she would say you imagine things or being sensitive. Or she would flat out deny and get angry. Still today she has a different version of events.

On a time she also lost everything financially. She did something wrong - I don't know exactly what. But we literally lived in a house with no funiture - nothing! There was no food for days. I made a soup out of an onion, tomato one day for me and my sister cause that was all we had. told friends furniture it was in storage. She kept moving every two months not to pay rent. She stole money from me. I worked since she never gave and would hide money all over my room. She would find it and claim she doesn't know what happened to it. She stole a cellphone a boyfriend gave me from my locked room. She would ask behind my back my boyfriend to lend her money.

One day I came home from a friend and she and my stepdad were still under the covers naked. Her face I can't forget. She looked so smug like she was a teenager caught with her amazing lover. It made me sick the way she neglected us and treated us and was so self involved.

My stepdad is really just a person to us. He is just around. Involved with his son. He's not good he's not bad. He's just there.

They divorced because she was too much and he had enough. leaving my mom with nothing - she basically lived out her car cause us grown kids didn't have sympathy. He now lives with her again because she has flat and she buys everything. He just watches tv all day.

I left my alcoholic husband and asked her for a place for me and my daughter - she said no the landlord says only three people allowed. It was only her and my half brother living there but she was keeping space for stepdad although he was not part of her life. How sad.

I suffered nightmares about my mombecause I had repressed anger and resentment. I would yell out in my dream from anger toward her. I do not do that for anything else and that phase of my life is over. Haven't dreamt of her in almost 20 years.

We grew up from infancy in a household where children were seen and not heard. She would tell us to go out a room if there was adult company. You had a place It was be quiet and don't ask anything. I guess that is why employers love me today lol.

Tjunction.....Wow....thank you for sharing this with us.
You were neglected.....and, you didn't deserve any of that.....
I wish I could give you a hug and cry with you....

We all have in common, I think, the need to be "seen" and heard, and to know that we matter...that we have importance just because......

T, wow... thanks for sharing. Your bio "mother" sounds like a truly horrible human being. Reminds me of the movie FLOWERS IN The ATTIC. I think there is definitely some NPD going on. Are you in therapy?

Hi refiner

No therapy.

I too broke and was too busy trying to fix my marriage and the alcoholic to work on myself but I definitely knew something was not right in my life. Came out of my fog only a few years ago. It was like a ray of beautiful sunshine of out constant darkness to finally put my finger on the issues.

I'm an avid reader and I love psychology in general along with law and crime as an interest as well as related tv shows. I must have read about 200 book by now working daily on myself and also for my precious daughter. She needs the best mom and home environment I can give her in an emotional and psychological sense. I cannot go through a day thinking of her ending up as miserable as I was. I am not perfect but I try my darnest at least.

I will still take a few minutes each day and Google / research if emotions or an event bothers me. The Internet is amazing resource and I'm so glad it is there now while I'm working on myself. No travel needed to old school library haha. And quicker.

I have compassion for my mom she had her own path in life that lead her to be the way she is. But importantly I take care of my needs first. I set limits with certain aspects and allow grace and kindness for others. I live for me in my best interest and not because of her and she treated me.

I still keep my mom and my daughters father in my daughters life but with an open mind and watchful eye when I see I need to step in. She comes first over their behavior. She deserves her loved ones outside of my experience with them and I hope she will someday have the relantionships she needs from them if all goes well.

Tjunction, welcome. I have been finding your posts so insightful and compassionate.
Yet also sensible.
Thanks.

I had an okay childhood, pretty normal. My dad was a heavy drinker and not very available emotionally. Product of his era and upbringing. Mom was and is great. I have an alcohol-dependent sib who drives me carazzzy, and an older sib to whom I am close.

^^^^^THIS RIGHT HERE^^^^^ So, important. I had a childhood with an A father and did not feel loved by either parent and did not like myself at all as a child or a young adult. I made the decision not to have children to spare them of ever feeling the way I did... but I think I replaced that with loving for my pets and I treat them like royalty and they show me unconditional love in return, so it works for me. It sounds like you have a VERY good and mature and selfless head on your shoulders!

I find family dynamics fascinating. I've spent a ton of time analyzing mine after I realized I really don't care for much of my family. I am the oldest child. My dad was an emotionally unstable pill addict. My mom is so codependent she lacks a personality. I love my mom and she's a sweet woman, but she was not able to adequately parent children. She was almost a child herself in some ways. She has zero boundaries. My dad was actually, and still can be, a great father at times. The problem is he's unreliable emotionally so I never know what I'll get. I was extremely close with my grandparents. They were more like parents. They gave me a lot of stability but they had some mental health issues. Same dynamic: codependent woman, emotionally unavailable man. In my extended family I see a lot of manipulative behaviors. I was often times the scapegoat. So many times people were calling me crying about what I did to them or how I hurt them and it was often really minor stuff. Highly emotionally unstable and dramatic personalities. So now I find it impossible to share any type of feelings. If anyone wants to talk about their feelings I get extreme anxiety. I could go on...and on...

Hi Maudcat

Thank you.

I want to share with the world my new(ish) found information lol - those who are going through what I did but in a way that is helpful hopefully even if its just thinking in a different way as I myself had no resources in money, people or information but I sooo desperately needed it.

I enjoy Sober Recovery as I am with those who get the struggles on all sides and get the triumphs. So refreshing from my everyday life with "normal" people haha. They just don't understand me like I do (tongue in cheek).

My parents were devoted to us, but they drank way too much when we were teens and it caused a lot of unhappiness. Even with the benefit of adult perspective I think they dropped the ball for those years.

This didn't stop me developing a drinking habit in my 40s-50s but thankfully the kids were gone by then, and didn't have to live with it. I was mainly drinking on my own.

I hate to say it, but I came from a "Leave it to Beaver" household, with an annoyingly functional family. Not terribly demonstrative, but that's the Nordic culture, I think. No addictions or mental illness to be seen.

Yet I wound up in two marriages to alcoholics, and became a nicotine addict and alcoholic. Sometimes sh*t just happens.

I'm sorry for how your childhood went--sounds like an awful way to have to grow up.

Leave it to who?
Kidding. i remember the beav and wally very well.