Family problems and upbringing has left me feeling suicidal

[bettybean]

Hello,

I'd really appreciate some advice.

From around the age of 12 my family experienced numerous problems (Dad lost his business, we lost everything, homeless for several years, lived in poverty etc).

As you can imagine the problems caused the family to implode and the experience was especially difficult for my Mum who became the main breadwinner.

I have an older sister with a pretty intense and terrifying temper and a younger brother also with a temper.

As family problems set in, I spent a lot of time supporting and consoling my Mum who could spend hours crying, often telling me how much she hated her life, how she wishes she could die, how she felt about my Dad etc.

I spent a lot of time effectively playing switzerland and working hard to support everyone.

During my childhood I often thought of suicide as a way of escaping the pain within the family home.

As an adult, I've worked really really hard to build as best a life as I can but also to make my parents and my family happy be it taking them on lavish holidays, giving them money, creating special moments, being kind etc.

I have a big group of friends who I know love and support me.

I don't want to bore you with the details (there are many including sister is now an alcoholic and homeless) but I guess I've suddenly realised that no matter what I will never be able to escape the pain from my upbringing and I'm not sure I can live like this.

In fact, I see the only way to end the pain is to end my life...

I have so much I should be grateful and thankful for but for the last few months I have struggled... I feel I live with a permanent lump in my throat and just the ache.

It's all compounded by loneliness. I have good friends that I know care for me but these last few months I have tested them.... I just quite simply have too many family problems and they weigh me down. Being the one with all the problems is embarrassing and isolating.

My parents - rightly - are currently focused on my sister. As the "good one" they seem incapable of understanding how it has been for me (I was 12 when my Mum first cried to me and told me how much she hated her life and on numerous occasions she has told me she wanted to die) or willing to acknowledge my pain (my Mum is quick to cut me off and tell me my life has been easier compared to her).

The pain is overwhelming and affects me... No matter what I do, how hard I work and how much I try to help and support I am dragged down by all this.

I can't live with this level of pain, stress anymore (I'm in my 40s) and I have been thinking of heading to beechy head. I genuinely don't know how I can live with this and live like this...

The pain is killing me. My family problems take me back to the little girl who spent her family life from 12 onwards looking after everyone else....

My Mum has many wonderful traits but she is also a difficult and stubborn character. She is currently staying with me for 6 months in my tiny flat giving me no sanctuary to hide.

Three days ago I tried to tell her about my life and my feelings and was immediately dismissed (e.g. "you don't know anything!", "you think your life is hard? It's nothing! Mine has been hard, yours is nothing!!") and since then I've done what I always did as child i.e. I've shut down and dealt with the lump in my throat.

Being the "good one" means I have been fairly abandoned in many ways by my parents and siblings with little support.

On one hand I have no family member I can turn to or really on when I have problems and on the other I am the person they all lean on to solve their problems and to support them. I am the dumping ground for all their crap and I am the one they can all feel comfortable treating like crap. Be it my father using me for money, my sister doing the same, my sister attempting to beat me up, my brother threatening to kill me, my mother sharing every suicidal thought with me, taking out her problems on me and sometimes ridiculing me in a mean and malicious way.

My family are toxic people and give me nothing but take a lot. I am currently estranged from my sister and brother. I can't abandon my parents but the relationships cause me so much pain.

It sounds childish - I know - but I really wonder what it must feel like to feel well and truly loved and supported by your family. Instead of dragged down, suffocated, used and abused.

For example, I have had to call the police on my brother twice. When I eventually left the family home for my own safety my brother began to bully my Mum and kicked her out of her own home leaving her to have to check in to a shelter (while he lived in her flat and she continued to pay rent).

To this day, my Mum will side with my brother. According to her, it's my fault he threatened to kill me because I can sometimes be "a know it all".

I took my sister in to help look after my Dad in January (my Dad almost died so I moved him and cared for him for three months) and when it became clear she was using me, I asked her to leave. She threatened to attack me, I grabbed my phone and dialled the number for the police and she eventually left. Who does my Mum blame? Me. I was working 15 hour days, leaving my sister in my flat watching TV and eating me out of home (she couldn't even remember to keep checking on my sick Dad) and still my Mum sides with her.

Years ago, I treated my brother to a lavish holiday for his birthday. He got drunk one night, tried to attack me and I ran away. The hotel security called the police and the police begged me to say the word and they could take him away and lock him up. I refused - I knew my Mum would blame me - and guess what? My Mum still blames me for him losing his temper. Even though it was the security who called the police because they were alarmed by his behaviour and even though I spent £4k taking him away, still, it was my fault.

Having no one that has my back and being the family dumping ground hurts. Really hurts. I don't understand how being the "good" means I am always so badly teated.

What am I doing wrong here? What can I change?

I would love to hear from others who have had difficult upbringings and continue to cope/survive.

How have you survived? What do you do? How do you cope?

Just to flag, my Mum is currently here from overseas for the next 5-6 months and has nowhere else to stay so of course the burden falls on me. Until she leaves I'll be sleeping on my living room floor while she stays in my tiny flat.

So sorry for the long post. Any advice / feedback will be appreciated.

116 123 samaritans

Call them

Distance yourself from your family op...you do absolutely not owe them anything. Tell your mum your unable to have her stay over,she'll have to make other arrangements. Don't feel guilty about it,don't make excuses and consciously distance yourself from the lot of them and start enjoying your life. x

All that you can change is how you respond to them.
You are not responsible for the diabolical way that your family have treated you.
You need counselling, you need distance, you need your friends.
I'm so sorry you are going through this.
This was the first important step 💐

Very sorry to hear you are going through this OP, it sounds as if your upbringing has been horrendous.

I do think you need counselling.

If its of any comfort to you, I think you need to marvel at your own inner strength. Considering what you have been through and the way your family has treated you, you sound remarkably grounded and strong.

Please do talk to someone.

We all have good times, and we all have bad times, but no one else good/bad times should trump anothers. We all have different ways of dealing with emotions.

First thing, you have to stop enabling your family - and I never say this - go low or no contact. Send your mother home.

Get counselling. Block all their numbers and move on with your life.

Bettybean I am sorry you're feeling so low. I can empathise with a lot of what you say, and have struggled with depression for a long time, too. I would agree with others that you need some distance from your family asap, and I would recommend some counselling, too. But I realise when you're in a low period, making such changes can seem impossible, so perhaps try one little step at a time. Can you go away somewhere for a few days? Or at least cut off contact with your family for a bit? You need a break. Please be kind to yourself. There is life beyond all of this.

OP honestly I could have written large parts of your thread, my family are pretty toxic. They do, even now, occasionally make me feel like going to sleep forever wouldn't be the worst thing.

However here's what I've learned from being related to them. It doesn't matter how good you are, how hard you try or how much you do for them, they won't love and respect you. In fact probably the opposite. It's not your fault they are like this. It simply isn't and you have to find a way to make yourself believe that.

We're conditioned to believe that our families should love us. Some are lucky and have healthy supportive families but many don't, it's not the default setting. There's many emotional abusers out there.

Put distance between yourself and them. If your mother can't even listen to your concerns, she doesn't deserve your hospitality. It might seem hard to say the words to her, but it's easier than losing your sanity. Your true path to love is to love and respect yourself.

The world needs you OP, it needs people who are kind and giving and do their best against the odds. Don't let your family make you think you are worthless, you deserve a complete happy life.

You can be happy, you are swamped by selfish toxic people and you need distance from them.

Therapy will help too.

I’ve recently hacked at my garden and pulled up forests of weeds to find a rose bush. Since it has been freed of all those choking weeds, it has flowered - bloom after bloom. To my delight.

Don’t give up

Oh that all sounds awful

In answer to your question...you can only change yourself and how you respond.

Have you had any counselling? I really think you need it.

And you deserve so much more. You be done enough.

Give yourself permision to say ENOUGH.

Nothing you do will change them. You sound like a really good, kind person.

Please, call the Samaritans, get counselling and cut these people out of your life x

The problem with being Switzerland is that it leaves a child feeling unable to express their emotions.

When you’re a child, the ideal is that you have a rock solid stable family structure, and as you get older you kick against that to find out who you are etc. You are supposed to be able to tantrum as a toddler and have emotions within this safe structure. The family are not supposed to turn to you, it’s supposed to be vice versa

When a child IS the stable structure for the family then they are denied that. They end up being unable to express all the emotions they should have been able to. They haven’t gone through that growth and rebellion period and so they direct all their emotion inward. That’s destructive and leads to depression, anxiety and all sorts of trouble.They also have (justified) resentment against the family unit that did not meet their needs.

Is it possible for you to explore any of this in therapy? Real therapy - cbt is no good for this kind of thing.

I’d say a start point is that you must realise that you’re allowed to have emotions. Your emotions and troubles are as real as anyone else. How you feel? That’s how you feel.

Stop feeling guilty for feeling emotions. Did you ever bring a problem to family and have them wail that ‘oh no I can’t cope if you do x, I have enough to deal with ...’ ? That’s an abusive behaviour. It’s not your fault. You are allowed to feel that way.

Realise that your family of origin may never provide that supporting loving structure. Allow yourself to grieve for that. Then work towards finding it in your own domestic setup.

Get some psychotherapy if you can.

Go as low contact as you can

Try small steps to refuse to engage with drama. I’ve actively told my parents that I will not feed my siblings delusional life outlook - they can, but I will no longer participate in what I consider to be pathological behaviour.

Stop trying to rescue people. Distance, disengage and be non committed- physical distance helps. I also wind up phone conversations if I feel they are going down the drama route.

Time to concentrate on YOU. YOU are worth it, however much of a cliche that seems.

Be kind to yourself, always.

Bowl that's really fascinating. I was the child support and listened to my mother's relationship issues, heard about her affairs and money worries from about the age of six. I'd never really considered that it made me suppress my own emotions but I do find asking for help really hard.

My sister has serious mental health issues, she's a complete sociopath, is prone to psychotic episodes, I think she's probably undiagnosed bipolar. I recently for the first time ever after dealing with this alone for years asked my mother for some emotional support and she shut me down completely. She said she had no experience with mental illness and it was too much for her to cope with. I felt guilty for burdening her.

Your post was like a little window into my mind.

Call the Samaritans.

Start understanding that you feel the need to fix thigs you didn't break.

Believe that we all think you should start to distance yourself, start living your own life and that this won't make you a horrid person, just a person carrying a lot less of other people's stress.

But do start with the Samaritans. Hear a friendly voice!

116 123

toplanZ

I had some psychotherapy a while back for a specific issue (birth related.)
The funny thing was that the therapist did very little of the ‘telling me how it was’ stuff. It was all realisations I made myself when I could finally just talk in a safe environment and have someone bloody listen and not shut me down or be worried about hurting people’s feelings.

I would highly recommend it. And have a gentle hug from a total internet stranger - I get it, I do.

bettybean, i know your story well & can only echo what others have already said. call samaritans immediately to talk to someone who will listen to you & give you much needed support. distance yourself or go no contact with your family, get help in the form of counselling (not cbt) you need to talk things through. i’ve been exactly where you are weighed down by years of physical & mental abuse from my family, coming from all directions, the dumping ground for all their insecurities & ills, lonely, isolated, suicidal, depressed, anxious. things are so much better for me now as i put myself first, you need to try to learn to do the same, what you feel is important, you matter.

The thing that jumps out at me from your post is that it's all about your family, and there's not much 'you' in it at all.

You can't change your family my dear. They've let you down badly and will continue to do so.

That's not your fault, it's theirs.

You need to distance yourself from them and focus on what gives you joy.

Stop being Switzerland.

Thanks Bowl, that's really kind. I will definitely consider it, it would be nice to have your level of insight

Please get your mum to leave and start putting you first. You need a break from it all, you can not carry them any longer. Speak to your gp, ask for help, dont give up. Once you have space you might feel better. Lean on your friends, please let them know you are struggling. You cant change the past but give yourself a better future away from your family.

How have you survived? What do you do? How do you cope?

long term psychotherapy. It really can get better, OP.
For right now, telephone or email the Samaritans.

You sound like an amazing person OP, so kind hearted and good to everyone. You were so unlucky to have such an awful family.

Please follow the suggestions others have given, Samaritans and counselling. You can recover and heal, build yourself up, the lump in your throat will go and you will start to breathe and enjoy life.

In the short term your mum being there is not possible given the way you are feeling. You need to get rid of her. Could you tell her you are moving house? Eg to a flat share? Look after yourself

Hope you are OK OP?

Hope you are feeling a bit better today OP. Have you any thoughts about the best way of getting your mother out of your flat? Is she there already?

Morning OP

How's things going this morning, I hope you're feeling OK.