How do you heal from someone being cruel to you

[Marriner]

Someone was very cruel to me a long time ago. Ten years ago. And it was my own family, which was worse.

Looking back, I can see it happened because she was jealous. I was doing well in my career at the time, I was also a very nice and kind person. My cousin was not doing well in life at the time. She was on benefits and was struggling. I never looked down on her, but she was very jealous of me. She was also a colder person than me.

The last time i met her, ten years ago, she did something extrememly cruel to me.she genuinely did something bad to me and i didnt do anything to her. If i could describe us - she was cruel and i was nice. We fell out after what happened. She then lied about what happened - because she didnt want to say what she did. She lied to several of my other cousins about what happemed and they also stopped talking to me. I had got on well with all of these cousins before that.My elderly grandmother, who i had got on well with, also stoped talking to me after what happened.i know she cared about me but she was pushed into cutting me off by my cousin and her father. My granny died two years after so i never saw her again. She stopped talking to me because of my cousins lies.

All of those people, including my grandmother, were also wrong to do what they did to me

But my cousin was the instigator and she was a master at being very cruel and was very good at lieing and turning people against each other. I would describe this cousin as very extreme and destructive. She couldn't just have a small argument. She wouldnt rest until she turned multiple people against the person she was arguing with.

This all happened ten years ago. I keep thinking about the unfairness of her lying about me, about the relationships i lost, including with my own grandmother.

I was nice and kind at the time, and I feel that a bad person won. The world is not fair.

What's worse, is I used to be nice and kind. But I feel what happened with my cousin has hardened me. I keep thinking how it was so unfair, I didn't deserve it, i am suffering mentally over it, and now Iam turning into a cold, bad tempered, very angry person. I dont like the person I have become.

I don't want to be like this. I dont want my past trauma to make me become cruel and cold to others. I want to heal, But i dont know how to heal from it.

Has anyone on here healed from someone elses cruelty? Please dont suggest therapy because ive gone and it doesnt work for me.

I want to do self healing. Thanks so much for any advice

Have you been thinking about this for the last decade? Or has something propelled you to focus on it so much now?

docyou have a partner? Children? Work? Fitness? Fulfilled and happy?

So you lost a nasty cousin and an elderly grandmother who favoured aforementioned cousin?

Doesn’t sound like a loss to be upset about a decade later or even ten minutes later tbh

I was suffering over it already, but i had to meet this cousin and her father again at a family death 3 years ago and they were cruel to me again, and it has traumatised me again.

Im definitely still suffering over it and thinking about it a lot. I lost a lot of close family relationships. I keep thinking - my cousin ruined my relatinship with my granny and i never saw my granny again before my granny died.

That is a deep wound. I cant seem to get over it or to forgive my cousin. It is making me bitter and angry.

I was really close to my grandmother before it happened.

My granny was very elderly and frail, she was 89 when me and my cousin argued.

My cousin lived closer to my granny, and I know that she intimidated and bullied my frail and weak grandmother into not speaking to me.

It really hinges on what happened op. Family doesn’t tend to do a seismic shift and cut someone out unless something pretty major happened and if they all were led by one person to cut you out…. Well, they sound utterly spineless

what is your life like now?

. I keep thinking - my cousin ruined my relatinship with my granny

your granny played a big part in that

Yes but she was very physically weak. She was 89 and could barely walk. My cousin was a big strong woman. It was elder abuse.

And no other family member at all advocated for your granny

or your cousin overpowered and brain washed them all?

Families don't tend to just cut someone out.

healthy families may not.

Unhealthy and toxic familes do just cut people out.

I have a toxic family.

I know some friends who have lovely families.

I had a bad family. i know other people that had bad families. Anyone else that i know that had bad families, a lot of them have fallen out or cut each other out.

One of my friends also has a bad family. A similiar thing happened to her. She had a jealous and vindictive cousin who made a lot of the family stop talking to my friend . it can sometimes just be jealousy between cousins

I know another family where one sister made the other two sisters in the family stop talking to each other for ten years, over a lie etc etc

My cousin and her father and his wife.

My uncle is also a very big cruel, nasty man. So is his wife.

My cousin gets her bad behaviour from her parents.

To you it sounds unbelievable.

To me, it happened!

Some members of my family are that cruel and nasty, yes.

So you don’t want to divulge what your life is like now?

So…. Good riddance

I’ve read very small amounts about the ‘let them’ theory, if you can’t influence something or somebody it’s about letting go of their effect on you. There’s a podcast apparently.

Also look up acceptance.

I feel its really mentally damaged me.

It feels like it hurts worse because its family. Family are supposed to love us.

I was just reading nick carter's book. He is in the backstreet boys.

He had a cruel family. His parents didnt love him and used him to make money. after the abuse, his siblings went off thr rails and Three of his siblings died young.

Nick carter wrote that he was a mess for many, many years.

Its not that easy to get over family abuse.

At least i got this far

I think its sad that you wrote

"Family doesnt tend to cut someone out" because i think it means that you are from a healthy family.

If you grew up in a toxic family, you would know that toxic families do cut each other out.

Onw of my friends hasnt spoken to her sister for twenty years.

So it wasn’t just the cousin
it was lots of relatives

one way of looking at it is that you’ve saved yourself a decade of drama

Yes it was lots of relatives.

I guess.

There is a nasty gene in my family too.

You need to view it as you cutting them off, not the other way around. Don't have anything more to do with them. Take the high ground and leave them down low. If they've not got you to pick in, they'll choose someone else, because it literally is them, not you.

I did have one small chat with my uncle about it at a distant family funeral, before he was nasty to me again and we never spoke again

I did say "Why did you all cut me off i didnt do anything"

He said "oh my father influenced us into thinking that kind of thing - was okay".

My uncle's father, (my grandfather) had moved from another country to the UK during world war two, and when he moved, he apparantly cut off all his brothers and sisters that he left behind, and never spoke to them again. I don't know why

My uncle was saying to me that they seemed to think it was normal in the family - to just cut people off and never speak to them again.

Intergenerational patterns i guess

It sounds like it all stems from one person's lies though, yes the others were wrong to not investigate further but if they believed the lies then maybe its understandable to cut you out. For example if the cousin said you were a paedophile, extreme example i know.

You'll need to tell us what the cousin did OP and what the others believed what you did

I have family like this.
I totally believe you and am so sorry.
I still suffer 20 years on. The lies (blatent and maniplative lies) are incredible.
I also think "is there something wrong with me?" Or I feel incredible shame. None of it is my fault. But I knowothers will always question it.
I moved countries but it is always with you unfortnately.
Sending understanding and love

No it wasnt anything extreme like her saying i was a criminal or a paedophile or anything.
Well as far as i know, she didnt!

It was just a lot of minor lies about me and saying that i was a bad person. And that's only what i managed to hear about what happened . She may have told worse lies about me , i dont know. Maybe she told my granny that i hated my granny and that i said to my cousim that didnt want to speak to my granny again. She could have done that. And maybe my gran believed it

And she was saying to people in our family that she would never speak to me again, and if they wanted to be friends with her, and her dad, they couldn't talk to me again.

And she is better at manipulating people and lying, than i am.

The nastier people usually win in arguments - as they are more crafty and deceitful, i find.

Ah thank you so much!

The cruelty hurts doesn't it. Especially when its family

Thanks for your post

You are describing a situation so close to my own, it's uncanny. 2016 was a shit year for me.

Several posters have mentioned it but I basically rationalised that if they would do what they did, they weren't worth being around anyway but there is also a massive massive up side to you being NC and it is simply this. These people won't just be treating you badly. There is no chance they are all sweetness and light and they pulled this stunt on you and you alone. Their shitty personalities are still intact and going strong and, crucially, they will be doing this sort of thing to other people. Had you been in contact with them, they would still be blaming you but they will have had and still be having other victims now because of your absence and I guarantee other decent people around these pricks can see the pattern.

We withdrew from a horrible situation similar to yours really early, in order to let nature take it's course and it absolutely has and that is how I keep my head up. That and the fact that I know I did nothing wrong.

Stay strong. You've got this.