here we go. i knew it wouldnt take long....(long post!)

[ThatVikRinA22]

I have a very complex background, but to cut a long story short i have recently got in touch with my brother after about 12 years.

We had a very very bad upbringing. we were neglected and abused. i ended up in and out of care, he ended up homeless and on heroin.

i escaped our abusive parents at 15, married at 19, and have built a wonderful life for myself, with lovely DH and my two much loved children. I feel very guilty that i left my brother there, but i honestly thought he would be ok, they were very different with him while i was there. It seems when i left he got it, (then when he left, our mother got it)

My brother has only recently managed to turn his life around, but is doing very well, is off drugs, married, and has a child whom he appears to dote on. He admits he still has some issues around alcohol and cannabis.He has been nothing but honest with me.

we havent met up yet, as he is undergoing chemo treatment for hep c, but the plan is to meet up at some point. We do speak on the phone. I am being very careful, and am mindful of my job (i am a police officer)

Up until now, the subject of our "parents" hasnt really come up, though i am aware that our father (my step father to be precise) is dead and our mother now lives alone. My brother has chosen to stay in touch with her. I cut contact many years ago and am all the better for it - i did try for years to engage with her - but she is hard as nails, bitter, has a sense of entitlement that galls me and takes no responsibility for our past, and basically when i had contact with them both, i got very ill with panic attacks - when i cut contact they stopped. That says it all really.

My mother (and step thing) emigrated and never bothered to get in touch - i went on to move house and change my phone number.

i did find out when he (step thing) died, and my mother apparently then came back to live in the uk.

My brother says that she was very angry with me.

Anyway - i spoke recently to my brother who states that she is not averse to making contact with me. (ha ha ha fucking ha.)

he says she sends her best. (whatever the fuck that is)

he appears to want me to bury the hatchet, and appears to think i should be grateful that she wants some contact or something. he reckons he has dealt with his demons, and im very pleased for him, but the truth is that my life has been so much easier, calmer, nicer, without her in it. She will not tell me who my father is, and i cant forgive her for the things she put me through as a child.

I want a relationship with my brother. i want to meet his child and wife.

But now, with this rearing its head so quickly into our relationship - well i am a little spooked.
would you continue down this path?
would you continue to try and build some kind of relationship with my brother?
Would you give this woman a chance?
i dont want to end up feeling sorry for her, and i will, i always did, she is manipulative, and i have no doubt now, that she probably cuts a fairly pathetic figure - brother says she is an alcoholic.
but really - i feel like i got past all this and now.....i just dont need it. I have been so strong for so long, and i dont want that to waiver.

im sorry for the length of this post....and thanks if you got this far! i just want to hear what others think.
DH says i must do what i want, and truth is i would love to know who my father is, yet she always held this over me, and would never divulge even the smallest details, i dont even have a name., but i think she likes the sense of power and i dont want to give her that, i want to be free of how i felt all those years ago.

i guess my options are to back away completely from the whole lot of them.
to state clearly that i dont want contact with my mother
or to bite the bullet and allow contact with them all.

thoughts please....

I will be thinking of you too.

oh god bad day....im making an absolute tit of myself at work - a colleague happened to say something quite mean about what sort of parent she thinks i am (childless colleague - thinks i molly coddle mine too much and thinks i would be a PITA pushy parent) and i had all on not to throw a really wobbly, i bit her head off. she apologised and said she meant nothing by it....

i have been a pushy parent, DS has 3 different disabilities and if i hadnt been a pushy parent god knows he wouldn't have been supported....im feeling so incredibly sensitive and im making such a fool of myself, the one thing i felt i could always pride myself on was my parenting of my children, and someone has just pulled even that down, though obviously she doesnt know anything much of my issues with my own mother...

ive got to get a grip before i alienate everyone.

i feel like a ticking bomb. id be better working alone i think.

aw jeesus....and now i cant sleep either. fucking hell. i would love to not give a shit about what people think of me....doesnt bode well for the counselling. ill be too worried about what impression im giving the counsellor.

The counsellor isn't just any old arsehole at work though. Watch some daft tripe on YouTube for half an hour and put it out of your head- you are going to counselling precisely because you don't want to lay yourself open to ambush by people talking shite and inadvertently pushing your buttons. Honestly, give it no more thought.

You don't comment on other people's parenting, particularly if you're not a parent. So she deserved to be put straight. You might have roasted her a bit but you've probably saved a lot of people - in the future she might think twice before sharing her child rearing wisdom.

thanks Bof....ill try. going to go to bed, feel a bit sick for some reason. going to go tomorrow with the mantra that tomorrow is another day.

nothing new to add - I agree with posters above.

1. be clear with your brother that this is non-negotiable and not open to discussion. if he wants contact with you, it must be on your terms, and that means no pressure or even mention of contact with your mother. And be strict about it - if you are on the phone and he brings it up, tell him calmly that you are hanging up because he knows you will not discuss this - and do it. Repeat until the message is permanently ingraved upon his brain.
2. i would be very cautious and slow about letting your brother have contact with your own family/DCs. he might be a wonderful person, but he is still a vulnerable person with serious issues and he is still caught up in your mother's world, and you would protect them by keeping them out of that. for now, keep the relationship strictly between yourself and your brother.
3. no facebook. Please - this is a minefield even in families with less complex issues. Imagine how you will feel when he starts 'sharing' your family photos and your mother comments on them, for instance, or when the inevitable passive-aggressive comments on his page begin to appear. It is a drama you don't need and have already risen above.

don't risk this lovely life and the peace of mind you have found. (good for you, by the way - you've achieved so much.)

well mildly....i dunno. i still think as a parent first and a bobby second....it was about a job, we disagreed, then encountered a parent from hell supporting her PFB who had battered his girlfriend and whom i had locked up...she told me the parent reminded her of me....which i resented. my eldest has only ever been a victim and yes i was there for him because he was the victim he is vulnerable due to his disabilities - he was mugged and then 6 months later assaulted by a pissed up stranger in the street, of course i was there for him - she doesnt know of the domestic abuse i encountered as a child - and she has no kids, but she has recently lost her mother and everyone is rallying around her (which is right of course - but i think she has the capacity to be quite cold and unfeeling of others) and i spent the evening trying to justify why i am the parent i am because of him being disabled etc etc etc....

stupid that im letting people press my buttons. this is the job. people are always pissing me off and usually i can just let it wash over me....not tonight though.
my kids are a credit to me actually and its not like i had a great role model.

contemplated sending the colleague a text but why the hell should i have to explain myself to someone so self absorbed. People look at me and think i am so normal, so together, that i have no problems and not a care in the world.

im annoying myself with this self pitying whinge....im off to bed. thanks all. im hoping i will feel ok again tomorrow.

(HUG) I'm sorry - I missed you restarting this thread :(

Your colleague sounds like a twat - you are a great Mum. Plenty on here would tell you that, plenty that know you much better than she does. She knows nothing, nada, zilch. Ignore. Kick her in the shins

I think it's great you are going to take the stone out. Please don't worry about what the counsellor thinks. You have 8 sessions - you need to make the most of them, every minute. Don't waste it on holding stuff back.

I'm holding back from telling you what I think you should do because you are going to see this counsellor - do you have any idea how hard that is for me???

Go and talk to him, take this stone out and kick it to the far side of fuck!!!

People who don't have kids always think they know what people who do have kids are doing wrong, and have no qualms about judging. Of course, they have no idea at all and are just idiotic, until they do have kids and then they become human like the rest of us.

Hope you have a better day today and got some sleep last night.

thanks all,

im just tired and im sure im being oversensitive. i have this burning desire to prove that people who think they have me figured out (in a rather unflattering way and within mere hours of knowing me a bit i may add) have it all wrong....which they do of course!

im alright me, considering, and with my two i must be doing something right, cos they are decent types.

i have also come to the conclusion that most (not all) bobbies are unfeeling insensitive arses...

i should be going for a run, or doing housework, or something else productive but i cant be bothered, didnt sleep well at all last night, and am in for a long shift tonight so going to curl up while i can and do bugger all until i have to move.

You need to develop a really good RL to accompany a kind of pfft/urgh noise and slight shake of your head... turn heal and let them get on with their stupidity - don't waste your energy trying to justify yourself to idiots.

I dare say you'd have to go a long way before you'd meet someone who disagreed with you about bobbies

Curling up sounds good - but would you feel better for going for a run first?

that she compared you to someone like that. I don't have personal experience of domestic abuse and I would have been furious if she'd said something like that to me.

She sounds like a nasty piece of work.

i know....i need to work on my humphy face a bit. dunno why i decided against the run - but have resolved to go tomorrow in the hope that i get a better nights sleep, working until 3am anyway so will go when i get up tomorrow, feeling a bit out of sorts with myself and a run probably would have helped but just on the off chance it might have left me feeling even more washed out i chickened out!

right, off to try and relax for a bit. cheers everyone. x

What a shitty thing to say to someone. I know she apologised, but still... I am the kind of person that would harbour a grudge . How dare she

I hope your weekend goes ok.

well - i have been for my first session of counselling today.

i feel like i made massive progress, just in this one session. What i have worked out with the help of the counsellor is that my core value, the one that touches a nerve for me is that of worthlessness and that in my brother not listening to me, and in my mother making contact, has made me feel worthless all over again, and that makes me feel like the child i was, because from birth, from being told that i should have been aborted, then adopted, it made me feel worthless, then that was just stamped home when SF became involved to make me feel even more wothless, she started it, he rubber stamped it and its stayed with me, so now, when i am make to feel worthless i am that child again, dealing with all those feelings again.

i cried when i realised, but i feel ok. i feel like its answered a question for me and that i understand myself a bit more.

counsellor says i have a decision to make, and he will just help me reach my own conclusions.

at the moment i feel that i have done the right thing in not responding to the message at all and i have retracted a little from my brother, which also feels right.

im going to have a cuppa and sort the washing now, but i feel good.

I am so pleased. It sounds like you have made real progress.
(The police are also lucky to have you, a real feeling human being.)

thanks mummytime, thats a lovely thing to hear because i do question often if i am right for this job...

i am sure that the counsellor probably wanted to get hold of me, shake me and say what in gods name are you even considering letting this shower into your life for because if i were counselling me thats what i'd be thinking....

i suppose i am looking for a way to be ok with my decisions, what ever they are. the most likely outcome i think at this moment in time is that i will not have contact with my mother, and that i will somehow find the strength to tell my brother exactly what sort of contact i can manage with him and ask him to respect my wishes, but im finding that a very difficult concept to manage at the moment, still, there is no fire under me, nothing needs doing right this minute, and i will do what i need to do when i am ready.

i have another session of counselling booked for the end of the month, i feel that this could be the right time for me to make real use of it.

That is a brilliant result from one session of counselling. Hope it goes well.

Excellent start, well done you!

Vicar, that's really excellent. Working out what your 'role' was in your birth family sheds so much insight into how you see yourself deep down, and though it can be - usually is - incredibly painful to see it and acknowledge it, it is the Golden Pointer to your ultimate goal. In your case to change that feeing of worthlessness into the opposite. I'm sure your husband, your friends, your children, do not see you as worthless at all. I also think it very, very unlikely that your colleagues think that either. The people on here think pretty highly of you, too.

In the face of all that, you have every reason to value yourself, but nevertheless you don't, as the effects of your childhood are incredibly strong. You now have help to overcome those negative effects and I am so glad that you have grasped the nettle.

I don't know how you feel about just putting your brother on the back-burner for a little while? My own feeling about this is that you will have enough on your plate, what with your job as well, without contacting him and having a conversation with him at the moment where those feelings could be provoked, unintentionally even, when you ask him to back off. He is a victim of his childhood too, and his attitude has been shaped by it. You don't need it reinforced if you don't have to.

Guard against sabotaging yourself. It's a common thing with people that they think "I don't deserve to be successful/happy etc" when they have grown up among people who don't show them respect. That's why I think you should put off contacting your brother. Wait and see how you feel after you've had more sessions.

Look, Vicar, I'm not a counsellor and I don't know you, and you don't know me. Don't place too much importance on what I am advocating here. it is merely my thoughts and I am no better placed to advise you than anyone and a good deal worse placed than many. Just be aware that there areba lot of currents swirling around and I've pointed something out which may or may not be relevant.

I'm sure you will be considering your decisions very carefully before you take action.

Keep your chin up, be proud of yourself as you are definitely worth it.

Fantastic result Vicar.

Great post Jux.

Thanks jux on phone so just a quickie- your support and advice is very much appreciated. Will post proper when I can prise the laptop from DD....

im back, feeling a little tearful, but i guess this is going to be a bit of an emotional roller coaster

i read the msg from my mum again, and when i do that i feel that i do want to tell her how i feel, but i think i should hold off for now. i want to tell her that i do love her, but that i cannot manage what she is asking of me. (why do i still love someone who has the capacity to hurt me so badly? when that makes me feel so bad?)
anyway - i have decided i will not reply or even decide about replying until my counselling is finished with.

the counsellor asked me if i had a magic wand, what i would want, and even then i knew that what i want is unobtainable. i want a mum and thats not going to happen.

and i will back off from my brother - i had already done that i think - i let him think our meeting was on a date that neither of us could manage) and had already decided that i would not correct him - i will leave that for now i think, contact via fb or text will be ok for now. i feel like i can manage reading his mundane natter about on line gaming....nothing much more for now.

i am convinced he is aspergic as he has no regard for my feelings, yet i dont think it is malicious - more that he cannot compute how i may be feeling.

my son asked me today why i was in counselling. he heard me telling a friend. asked him if he felt that i had been ok as a mum, and he hugged me and said i was his friend and he said he was glad i had him young because i will be there for him for longer, he said that me and his dad had been great parents.

i love my children more than anything else in this world, so makes it tougher to understand a mother who doesnt love her kids enough to protect them.

the counsellor is bang on, i do feel worthless, i always have, no matter what i achieve, no matter what i do. i brush off my achievements. i side step compliments, i use self depreciating humour an awful lot, but its how i feel most of the time, i feel people put up with me, rather than anything else. how do i turn that around now? how do i escape the feeling that i am an imposter in my own life, my house of cards that falls down so easily. looks good on the outside but one blow and it all falls down. i have no idea where to start to believe that what i have is real or deserved.

i have issues with abandonment and worthlessness. what a great combo.

i told DH today....he said this wasnt a good time to tell me he was leaving me then.... he is a sick puppy but i love him.

he is indeed a sick puppy! He sounds like the perfect man. He will be there for you, won't he? With his sick humour that will make you, at the very least, put a grin on a post.

Counselling is not going to be easy, Vicar, because I suspect you will revisit your childhood and have to examine whether your feelings of worthlessness are valid (they aren't) or imposed upon you by others (they are), and looking at who those others are will hurt too. You will be letting go of some destructive illusions about yourself which you have held all your life, and that is frightening.

You will survive it and come out as a much stronger person with much greater belief in yourself, higher self-esteem, more confident in yourself and your decisions.

Hold onto that man of yours, he's a gem