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....

Vicar - sometimes I want to shake you and sometimes I want to hug you. Right now I want to do both.

Like I said in my last post, I don't want to say what I think you should or shouldn't do at the moment. You have a counsellor who sounds really good - you have made great progress today - in one session!!

Your son is right - believe him.

FWIW and it might not be much - I'd like to be your friend IRL. Try to hold onto the thought that they make you feel worthless - but your DH, your kids and lots of other people disagree!! I don't know how to make you believe that - but it's true and maybe if you read it often enough, you'll start to believe it.

I think you should ask not if you are for policing, but if policing is for you.

my rational self knows all this, but feelings just arent rational and thats the problem....

amyway, thanks again, i know i waffle biut im trying to make sense of things and i am a talker. (in case you hadnt worked that out...!)

getting my hair done today, should perk me up a bit. what i think i have to do is feel what ever it is i am feeling in the counselling, allow myself a bit of a wallow then pick myself up and get on with it until the next session.

i think im going to try and avoid the whole work questions thing until i have my private life sorted....too much to work out in one go. i am ok at the job, i get the same results, i just have a gentle nature but that works in my favour when people want to thump me

DH is a gem, i think he is stuck with me now after 21 years!

thanks again, everyone.

No feelings aren't rational - they just are what they are and changing them is very hard.

Talk away.... it's good to get it out :)

What are you having done to your hair? Cut/coloured/spiked pink?

Yes :) I don't think now is the time to debate changing career as well! Or maybe it is Just don't let the bastards grind you down

Oh & I'm sure DH is a gem :)

Just remember he's lucky to have you!!

hair cut and highlighted - not terribly successfully though - i used to be a blonde, then went dark, want to go blonde again but it will take a few goes with the highlights again to go blonde again judging by this....

i think the job thing is just because yet again i dont feel 'good enough' to do it - rationally - i probably am, its the ghosts of the past catching up with me again - if this counselling does anything for me i will be elated to try and stop doing myself down when god knows there are enough people out there who are more than willing to do that for me, i am sure. I got through the whole process of recruitment and so someone must have seen something in me that made them think i could do it...(eventually!!?)

at least i am being rational enough to realise what it is that holds me back. I am fairly sure that i want to aim for CID - i am also fairly sure that talking is something i am good at, people do open up to me, probably wont be a bad thing if i can get into a position where i do more talking and less fighting with people!

anyway, going to go and spend a bit of time with the family. thanks again all. Feeling a little stronger today than last night and its quite a relief to begin to understand why i feel this way so often, these feelings of worthlessness, while they dont stop me from having a go at things they do blight my life, constantly feeling as though im not worthy of the things i have achieved is quite sad and quite a revelation after one session of counselling.

i feel ready to tackle this.

Is it worth going back and seeing if they can do anything else or did they say it would just have to be done gradually?

I'm naturally brunette - I've always quite fancied going blonde to see if I like it, but it sounds like farrrrr toooo much maintenance for me, so brunette it remains!

Oh I am sure you are good at your job, very sure. You always seem to me to be the kind of person who should be in the police force. CID could be really good. How long would it take you to get into a role where you were doing more talking and less fighting?

It's good that you can separate what you 'know' to be true & what you 'feel' to be true - at least you can see there is a difference. That's a huge advantage over a lot of people who have had terrible upbringings.

You seem in a good place to deal with this right now and your C sounds like a good one!

On phone so 'scuse errors... Think re the hair it's gonna take a few goes.... Or else look a bit brassy and tacky... Oh well, never mind- it ll get there....re the counselling .... I do feel in the right frame of mind to tackle this, no idea what strategies I can employ re my feelings but hope I'm gonna find out, feels like the right rime to try and work through some of this though. I feel ready. Next appt is 28rh November, I'll let you know how I get on. Thanks again Everyone for such kindness, understanding and wise words. I got a tattoo on Monday, if I ever get another I'd like it to mean something, when I've finished this counselling I might get something that means worthy somewhere like my wrist, so that when I start to wobble I could look at it and tell myself I am. Dunno, flight of fancy maybe but would be nice to feel that way one day. Need to have a serious think re contact with brother, am going to put everythingon hold til finished counselling. Ta all .

How are you, after a few days, Vicar?

I can ask dd to draw Worthy in Egyptian hieroglyphs if you like? (Actually, there are websites which will translate anything you type in to hieroglyphics.)

hi jux,

im ok i think. actually quite looking forward to my next session because i am hoping the counsellor will help me with strategies to work on undoing how i feel. At work i have one lovely colleague who i can talk to - but im finding it quite tough because no one knows what i am doing, others on the group are going through difficulties but are able to be open about it so are being supported - i am keeping quiet, doing what i usually do, quietly getting on with it.

i had a friend request from one of my brothers relatives who i hardly know, i ignored it. I have to say if he were not my brother he is the sort of person i would probably steer clear of.

i look at his ramblings on fb and its clear we are very different people, and my mother is always putting stupid stuff on his status updates, it seems they have found a common interest in on line gaming....i count myself lucky to be a casual observer.

i am putting off what i need to say to him because i am a chicken.

Chickens are good!

There may (will?) come a time when you do feel able to tell colleagues what is going on with you, but it is early days; it's hard without RL people to confide in from whom you can get support, and you are holding up really well. Does this tell you something? Like, you are an incredibly strong person? It should. You are. Three cheers to you !

There is no need to rush into talking to your brother; I think you're so right in waiting. Have your next session and see what your counsellor suggests.

You do need to defend yourself emotionally from your brother, and, while I think you're a pretty extraordinary person, you would have to be almost inhuman to withstand the sort of pressure your brother may exert, after only one session.

Your brother is carrying a lot of other people with him - not just your mum - and you really don't want or need to have them hanging about in your life, albeit only on fb.

I am so impressed by how you're handling all of this. Be proud of yourself, you have good cause to be!

thanks jux

I suppose it was a bit naive of me really, im not sure what i was expecting of my brother because on paper it all looked so good, he has gone from homeless heroin addict to working husband and father, and i thought that meant he had "morphed" into someone i might have some common ground with - but we are poles apart and while i do believe him when he says the heroin is behind him, he still clearly struggles with other issues and is enabled to do that by the likes of our mother, because she is an alcoholic too, and he is clearly being used by her when it comes to me.

part of me was curious about our mother, and i didnt think i would have an issue in talking to him about her, but i wanted it left at that - and i thought i had made that clear. She is using him. He will say its ok because its got nothing to do with him etc, he is just the middle man.

he is also very naive and very child like, i suppose i thought we would have more common ground, but we dont and that would be fine if he were not pushing for things to move at a hundred miles an hour without any regard for what i want.

im sure i will work this out.
cheers again, best go do some work....

Vicar - most of us would have thought what you thought and done what you've done. Naive maybe, optomistic certainly - but you certainly aren't alone in it!!

As you say, your brother isn't the kind of person you would choose to be friends with and I don't think you'll ever get your brother without your mother and I think you are better off without either of them - but hey, you are paying a good councellor who is trained in all of this, so hopefully he'll help you to work out how to deal with it all.

Is it not possible to have your next session sooner?

cheers chipping,

not possible to get my next session any sooner due to my shift pattern, but saying that its ok, it gives me a bit of time in between to process and chill out a bit - i am trying to do the counselling sessions on my days off, but if i have a couple of appointments my days off just get eaten up and i get no time to relax before being back to work, the counsellor did offer me a session before an afternoon shift but not knowing how i feel afterwards i thought this might be a bit risky, dont want to go and blub all over everyone at work, and i think my Sgt has enough blubbing women to contend with at the minute for one reason or another.

so ill have the next set of days off to myself, then im only working a week before im back, and its quite a drive too, takes a good two hour round trip.

so its fine, and i find im up and down a bit after a session, then i even out, so by the time the next session comes around i will have a handle on what i found out on the last one.

i know what your saying re brother, but im not sure i want to cut contact with him altogether yet but it certainly doesnt help seeing his daft status updates on fb and my mothers comments all over them, so i think i will tell him i am coming off fb, i hardly use it now due to them anyway.

someone else to consider i think. Its not that i cant accept the way he is, more that i am happy to keep him at a distance at this moment in time.

well heres a funny thing....

i had a review with my serg last night, and it was glowing, positive, full of praise, shockingly good actually....my face was because i am pants at this job.

and the thing with reviews is that i know deep down its all bullsh*t, its about how well you can big yourself up on paper, and thats all i can feel about it.
Why can i just not allow myself to feel the smallest amount of credit for anything i do? its pathetic and sad. it would be nice to feel good about it however false it is, but i just cant find it within me to feel good about it, because deep down i dont believe it. i filed it in my folder and put it away.

i am running away from everything at the moment. I am avoiding FB because i cant bear to read the smooze between my brother and my mother. His little girl is in hospital with a chest infection, (she was born weighing 1lb 7oz - she is now 2yrs, but has lung problems so this isnt the right time to speak with him) (i say speak - speaking will be impossible seeing as he doesnt listen, it will be a message when i can find the right words) and i cant help wondering if they were off the heroin while she was pregnant....(do i have a right to don the old judgey pants? - ive not even met his wife, or his little one for that matter...)

i told my serg the tiniest bit, because he asked, but i was quick to tell him i am fine (did not divulge that i was in occy health seeing a counsellor - didnt divulge much at all actually come to think of it)

i feel like i made a tit of myself this morning, (i came off nights at 7am) as a colleague i would least ever expect to get along with engaged in a spot of what i imagine would be the playground equivalent of pulling my pigtails and running away....a bit of tom foolery and practical joking involving a swivel chair and a corridor...but i think it may have had the parade room talking -as if i dont have enough problems (i am soooo weak willed...i grin benignly when i should be shouting "fuck off"!)

i have busied myself today being agony aunt to my good friend (and i suppose she is a bit of a mummy figure for me - she is in her 60's, and she lost her DD to batons disease in the 70's, she would have been my age now, so while i have no idea how she views me, i have always felt a massive amount of affection for her and she is the closest i have ever come to having a sort of mother figure)
and ive only had 3 hours sleep which probably doesnt help.

i was thinking of coming off FB, but i realise that i am allowing myself to be driven off it rather than it being my choice. I need to block my mother so i cannot read her posts (is that possible?) and i am asking myself if i am the tinest bit jealous of the relationship my brother has with her...? probably am tbh but it is being shoved under my nose with alarming regularity, so time to act. i am finding myself picking at the scab all to often. it hurts to read it, but i cant leave it alone.

i guess i am secretly feeling a little sorry for myself again today. blimey. glass of wine time and some telly i think. i know i will feel better tomorrow.

Why are reviews all bullshit? I can't say that's my experience; it's usually an opportunity for your boss to tell you what you're doing wrong.

Congrats, Vicar. You must be good at the job or you would have got a bad review. People do get bad reviews, you know. Take it into your counsellor and go through it. Show it to your dh and go through it. Look at it clinically.

Trebles all round, as they say! Here's yours, m'dear

You can definitely block her- click on her profile and find the block button. I'll post more tomorrow, as I can't concentrate right now, but you can certainly do this.

cheers jux and bof....i know someone (probably several - sorry) mentioned something about blocking earlier up the thread...it takes me a while to process stuff sometimes, maybe i just wasnt ready, but i am now. does it mean if i block her i wont see her status updates on other peoples (namely brothers) wall? that would be the desired affect.

i am hoping that through out this process of counselling and rambling i will come to a place where i can accept that good stuff is ok, and not to always feel like a fraud.

but i also suspect it is widely accepted that these review things are a paper exercise...our (new) serg is old school and seems to take it all rather seriously - most just write "agreed" and leave it at that....mine wrote war and peace
i also realise that just because i feel inadequate doesnt mean i always am. it would be nice to find a happy medium.

this whole situation is dragging me down to a place i dont want to be in and i need to take back some control.

i am finding myself checking brothers fb page often as his daughter is in hospital....
ive realised a couple of things today. his daughter was born of two heroin addicts at 27 weeks weighing just over 1lb, (and that this is probably not coincidence seeing as they were both addicts...)
his daughter now has lung disease and he is busily slating the NHS on his FB profile and my mother is busy agreeing with him about how terrible the NHS is, because brother wants them to release his daughter saying her stats were lower the last time she was released home....i suggested via text that perhaps the doctors know best and are looking after her best interests but hoped she would be better soon, to which i got a snotty text back.

i dont think i like him much tbh. i have tried hard not to judge, now they come as a pair (brother and mother) i think i have even less reason to continue with this relationship.

sooner or later i would end up saying something about their lifestyle choices. its all been quite polite on my part so far, even when he posts on his FB asking what else besides cider he can get pissed on thats cheap....

i really am starting to think that i would be better off out of this permanently. i tried. no one can say i didnt give it a chance.

If the pleasure outweighs the pain, then continue; if the pain outweighs the pleasure, walk away.

A friend told me that when I was in my early 20s and I wish I'd paid closer attention to it at the time; it's not always as easy as that of course, but it's a pretty good guide.

haven't read whole thread, but Vicar the reason you're probably brilliant at your job is that you have been through some rough times emotionally. That makes you human and believe me, in the police force, that's a good think

well i have finally plucked up the courage to message my brother with my thoughts.

does this sound ok? i sent the following message;

hi xxx
hope your ok and hope (his DD) is on the mend.

I want to ask you to do me a favour and not to allow access to my facebook profile to anyone who isnt my facebook friend, - that means X ( mum) aswell. ive been mulling it over - I think you said she had been looking at my profile and my pics - that can only have been through your profile because of my privacy settings (i seem to recall you saying you suspected i would have been doing the same - not even possible to view her profile as she is not my FB friend)

I got her message. Its not the message of someone wanting to take responsibility i have to say.

i went a bit to pieces when i got her message, so i am having some counselling.

i dont expect you to remember what she was complicit in and its not your argument - her part in my abuse precludes you even being born and was not your problem, and i actually dont want to put you in an awkward position, so im going to ask that if we are going to try and build some kind of relationship that you respect my wishes in not bringing any pressure on me to contact her, because i am not ready. i hope you can see this from my perspective. (and i am feeling pressured - she is using you as a middle man) Im glad for you that you are friends with her - thats great and im glad for you, but my experience of her was a different one to yours, and its something i am working on with my counsellor.

I hope you dont mind me being honest with you, this has been preying on my mind. If you want to know anything i dont mind you asking, i am just wary of bringing you into my problem with her though, because i dont think that would be fair to you. no problem in talking about it though.

Really hope your little one is better and out of the hospital soon and that your get the new job.

take care and speak soon.

so i sent that tonight....i deleted my suggestion that if he couldnt do that we should scrap FB and stay in touch via email/text....it felt a bit like a threat. my next counselling session is a week away. i felt ready to send that tonight, and if there is a snotty reply i can work on it on my next session....or cut my losses and run. either way.

do you wise MN'ers think thats an ok thing to have sent? have i gone too far or not far enough?

thoughts please....thank you x

Frankly it's nicer than he deserves. I think after his reply to your text you can probably expect a terse reply to it though or a lot of 'she's changed' crap.

It will be very hard not to comment when he posts such utter shit. 2 heroine addicts, DD born @ 27 weeks and it's the NHS's fault. How to get pissed cheaply - cheaper than cider. Yep, he's really grown up.

See what he says - but I think it would only be a good thing to de-friend him on FB.

As for the review - GO YOU!! :) One day I hope you can accept that you are all of those things and more. That you are worthy of the comments. I wish you could see you from the outside and not the inside.

thanks chipping,

i just checked to see if i had had any sort of reply, which i havent, but his dd is still in hospital (they think she is coming out today) so perhaps the timing of my message wasnt brilliant (see, there i go again, worrying about offending or upsetting, i wish i could just do what i need to do without worrying about it so much....but still, i did it, so thats a start)

i may well still defriend him from fb, and you are absolutely right - he clearly has not grown up at all, and my mother just enables this stupidity by agreeing with everything he says or putting silly comments. They are both as bad as each other. i have resisted the urge to comment so far but was sorely tempted the other night to say something like "quit bitching or go and join BUPA..." but i didnt.

i think in hindsight this has all been a mistake, since our mother has put in an appearence on FB its all annoying me way more than it was, i was happy to have a friendly but distant point of contact with my brother before that, but she seems to encourage him, I feel "ganged up on" now they are both on there, even though they dont say anything directly to me, they views are so out of kilter with mine i find it hard to not take it personally....weird.

ill see if i get any sort of reply.

This is taking up more head space than i want it to at the moment. I didnt sleep at all last night (i got about 3 hours i think, but i went back to bed this morning which was probably a huge mistake...im worried i wont sleep tonight now but i felt quite ropey this morning)
im not sure i should have told him about the counselling but i think he needs to realise the impact this is having on me, though he doesnt seem to have much of a conscience.

I wouldn't worry about the timing of your email. He doesn't seem concerned about his DD getting the care she needs, just getting her out of there to minimise the inconvenience to him

You really need to stop attaching to his DD as well. I know she's your niece and she's a child - but getting attached to her is not going to be good for you. Not at all.

You have been restrained so far, but just how much more of that shit can you possibly read without asking him when he's going to grow up? and you don't need to be reading the shit your mother posts either. The pair of them are just so damaging to each other (which I don't care about) and to you :(

I just don't see how any good can come of keeping in touch with either of them - but it's something you need to talk about with your councellor who sounds good.

It is taking up a lot of head space - and for what benefit?

I'm the last one to advise on sleeping... I have terrible sleep patterns/habits!!

I don't think he has the emotional intelligence to understand the level of stress/unhappiness/anxiety/pain this is causing you. I think the pair of them are more likely to say 'mental that one is, even goes to one of them shrinks' and totally miss the point that they are causing it :(
x