How can I stop feeling angry at my families lack of relationship and neglect

[Arren12]

Hi all,

Never had my dad in my life as a child. My mum raised us as a single parent and was pretty much always busy. We were low level neglected as children. We lived 5 minutes away from my dad and his family but never really saw them. I have never met my mums family as she was also neglected as a child.

I have my own children now. We live 5 minutes away from my family. I got back in touch with my dads side of the family in my early 20s but its not a solid strong relationship. My mum is ok but not interested in spending quality time with me or the kids. She only contacts me when she wants something.

My dh family were really great with him growing up and they continue to want to be involved in his and our children's life but they live far away.

We are considering moving to be be near them but its a difficult decision because my dd is autistic and its a huge upheaval.

We really need some support as we are completely on our own here.

The thing is I feel angry that my family especially my mum are so useless. I feel angry I was neglected. I feel sad for my dc that they don't have any relationships apart from with me and dh. I feel angry that my family see us struggle with the dc and have seen me have a breakdown yet don't help us and actually ask me to run around after them. I understand i chose to have dc and its not their responsibility but I can't help feeling this anger.

Has anyone had success in letting go of such feelings.

So sorry OP I've had this my whole life, totally neglected and abandoned by my own family and treated as a second class citizen being ignored for most of the time.
I decided as a gift to myself for my 60th birthday I was going to let it all go, I went for therapy and found out incidentally that because of the trauma I had complex PTSD, went on medication and let them go.
I'm so much happier now.
The only person it hurt was me and I didn't see why I should suffer for something someone else did. Of course I occasionally have a bad day but I bought this book: LovingKindness The Revolutionary Art of Happiness by Sharon Salzberg and live my life by it now.

@WholeClassKeptIn has very wise words. This is how I deal with my toxic FOO too.

OP you have every right to be angry. I encourage you to dig deeper and find the grief and sadness that is underneath it. Anger is a way to defend ourselves and to protect ourselves. I was very angry. I would never feel anything else except deep despair. I found the inner child work concepts very useful and was able to get in touch with the grief and cry properly and safely let it out (in private) over a few years.

Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, you don't do it for the people who hurt you, you do it for yourself.

I encourage you to go low contact and to live your life free of the past.

My past felt like a huge iceberg weighing me down. One day I imagined towing it to a warm tropical island and watching it melt to nothing. The tropical island being my life now with DH and DC. I return to this imaginary scene whenever I feel the past closing in on me or my mind goes back to those dark times. The reality is, the past is gone, we have only the present.

The book Power of Now really helped me start off on the journey.

Best of luck.

@Arren12, yes, I was raped at 14, in a place I ended up as a direct result of my mother's neglect. I put myself in incredibly risky situations up until my 20s. Mid 40s me looks back in absolute horror. I do know what I didn't have though, and what would have made the difference - love, care, acceptance and safety. I can give myself those things now, and I can give them to DD.

I think it is understandable that you are angry at your parents and family.

Have you ever discussed with her what it was like for your Mum, your Dad gone and her having to work all hours? She may also have a hard to reconcile resentment.

Your kids have much that you did not have: loving day to day support from both parents, one set of grandparents who love and care about them.

If you can manage a move with as much support as possible for your Dd I would go, with your eyes and focus on a family that will love and support you. Once there, settled and happy, the lack of your own family’s support may feel less acute.

Recognise the appropriateness and validity of your anger as a response to being treated badly.

Embrace the part of you that gets angry as a true friend who only wants to protect you.

Assure it you are a true friend in return by listening to what they say, noticing when they get angry etc.

Take appropriate action based on that angered (so stop seeing certain people, put better boundaries in place).

Also confer with them about anger. Explain you don’t want to see anything bad happen to them as a result of anger being misconstrued. This will help you act appropriately on anger.

Basically listen to your anger and use it to change your life in appropriate way. Don’t let it go, ignore it or suppress it.

Yes. I belong here too. Neglect by outwardly loving parents in caring professions. I find it difficult to trust that anyone genuinely cares as they were so good and looking out for others and maintaining an image of our family but I was so lonely and felt worthless in their home. I agree that you are fully entitled to your anger. Go to therapy to lean into that, not to let it go. There will be more in there and you need to regain contact with the neglected child within. I hadn't realised that the voices of my mental illness were the hard parental voices of my past. It is horrifying to me that we can't address childhood trauma head on in our culture. We still insist that mental illness is a brain chemistry imbalance and we never ask where the thought processes began. And this cycle goes on and on and we still ask why our children are so miserable. Until we face our own past and start looking at the areas in our own lives where we are blinded by our past we are affectively screwed. So many of us were neglected or abused in childhood and we don't even realise because we have normalised abusive behaviour and our children then bear the brunt.

So sorry OP and I’ve found myself in a similar situation with parents who have genuinely not lifted a finger to help me with anything since I was very young. My much older siblings basically raised me. To this day, my parents would struggle to tell you the name of the school I attended and neither have any clue where I went to university (I invited them to my graduation ceremony but they didn’t turn up.

I have 2 DC and in recent years my dad has decided to take an ‘interest’ of sorts, mainly so he can boast about them on social media. He is completely self absorbed and demands I bring them over to visit because he won’t deign to drive over to us. A few months ago I sold my property and was desperately struggling to find a rental. I asked my dad if we could stay in the family home for 4 weeks while I found somewhere. My retired parents live mortgage free alone a 5 bedroom house worth over £1.5 million. Dad said no, it’s not really convenient. Sums him up.

I understand completely. It’s worse when you have children as you feel sorry for them too and their lack of a relationship with a grandparent.

What can you do? Nothing, it hurts and I don’t think you get over the feeling of abandonment, you just try to figure out how to live with it.