I dont love my family. Cant even pretend.

[CantLoveThem]

Ive name changed as I'm embarrassed but I need to get it out.

I've never loved my family. The older I get the more it affects me, especially now that I'm a mother. I cant even lie and tell my family I love them, or even say 'you too' when they say it at the end of a phone call.

I had a pretty horrible childhood, lots of emotional abuse and humiliation. I have a younger sibling that was treated brilliantly and loves my parents dearly but has ended up like them and will take pleasure in joining in with humiliating me. I completely resent them all.

The problem is since I left home many years ago now they have been acting like different people, but I just cant trust them. Part of me wishes they would just show their true colours so it would be easier to say how I feel and cut them out of my life. Even when they are nice to me it makes my skin crawl and I cant stand them touching me.

I don't want to tell my whole life story but there's certain things I cant stop thinking about. I was raped when I was 16 by a boy at school. I came home hysterically crying and covered in marks and dirt and they just blanked me completely. I was sat at the table in tears and they were walking around me talking about their day. I'm humiliated to admit it but I was so alone and confused that I went back to my rapist and he continued to abuse me for a week.
They have said horrendous things to me in the past like if they had to choose who would live and die between me and my sibling they would choose for me to die.

Every time I have a complete breakdown over it and ring my parents my mum ends up in tears admitting how much of a terrible parent shes been and apologises. Then the next day its as if Id never said a thing.

Please tell me I'm not the only one to not love their family. I feel like a freak and its messing with my head. I'm worried Ive got something wrong with me and my child will feel the same way towards me. I dont know what to do.

Thankyou everyone for your responses and reassurance that my child wont feel the same way.

With regards to counseling I have seen psychiatrists since I was 16. In total about 6. I never seem to be able to get anything out of it as they don't ever give an opinion and really I need to be told that they are wrong for how they treated me. Sometime I don't want to have to be the one always talking.

I find myself wishing for something to rock the boat so that it gives me a new excuse to cut them off and not just bringing up things that have happened years ago.

I have tried sending them emails explaining how I feel and that I don't want to talk to them anymore as its affecting my health, but they wont stop calling and emailing and I get guilt tripped about how much I am upsetting them. Everyday I would come into the kitchen to see my mum crying at the table for hours and I just imagine that every time I tell them how I feel. I don't even know why I care, I feel like I'm still a child in trouble even though there's no real consequences to my actions anymore when it comes to punishment from them.

Sorry I meant to say I tried sending emails in the past, a year or 2 back. I've not brought it up with them since then.

Could you change all your numbers and block them on email? You don't owe them anything. Not a thing.

YOu are not the only one. And that goes for everything you have said.

Have a look at the stately homes thread and have google of toxic mothers/parents.

oh you poor sweetheart

the people that should have loved you, have made you feel so worthless

some much wisdom on here, SO PLEASE CUT THEM OUT

they are bad. the people that you trusted to care for you, instead made you feel worthless

cut, and lost of support and handholding with come your way on here

xxxxx

and YY to the counselling too xxx

YOU DESERVE BETTER

and YY to annie

your sibling will continue their fuked up ways

you can break free

cantlovethem, you poor love. I'm not surprised you don't love them, like annie said, it'd be strange if you did!

You've had lots of good advice here. One thing I would add, there are different styles of therapy. In my last lot of therapy, the therapist was quite opinionated and gave me a lot of clarity into my relationship with my family. Maybe try a different style?

In the meantime minimise contact - screen calls and delete emails before reading? I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about their reactions, you need to take care of yourself, because they never did, you need to put more effort into it now.

When you ask them not to contact you they don't abide by your wishes. It's all about how you upset them by not wanting to speak to them. All about what they want. All about you soaking it up, again.

Have you any idea why your mother cried every day? Did she say it was your fault? When you came home all battered and bewildered from being raped, why didn't she put her arms round you right then and cry with you and for you? Wouldn't you do that if your little girl was in trouble? Wouldn't anyone, even if they had difficulty loving a child, at least do that for a human being who needed it? Instead, they treated your distress as something not somehow to do with them - an irritant. And this is your fault how? You were a child!

Don't answer those questions, just think about it.

I have only just come across this thread. I had some terrible things happen to me as a child. I don't want to go into detail, but decades went by before I finally got help a couple of years ago. I wish I hadn't left it so long.

I know you have had counselling, but perhaps it's time to speak to your GP again about the way you are feeling? I'm afraid I simply couldn't cope with the thought of counselling. I looked at CBT etc but I felt it would kill me to dredge it all up with a counsellor. What finally helped me was getting to the absolute end of my tether, when I realised that the agony would never be over until the day I died, which really frightened me.

I don't recommend getting to that point, but that was when I decided I really had to speak to someone and made an appointment with the GP. Basically I was surprised and relieved not to get the bum's rush. I started a course of anti-depressants and I've never looked back.

Perhaps I would have developed depression regardless of my history, but there is plenty of research linking adverse childhood experiences with depression in later life.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that you might find that cutting your family out of your life won't necessarily remedy the way you feel. The way you describe your pain really struck a chord with me.

Counselling may help, but severe, chronic depression is a medical condition and sometimes will only respond to medical intervention.

olgaga is wise.

Id also add my own experience - I think there is only so far therapy can take you. There has to be a point in your life that you "stand up to" the bad feelings ....in my case I needed to take back the control, as those feelings about the past were overwhelming me in the present...I needed to let go of the emotion associated with the memories.

I did this through a) therapy and then b) having the realisation that I would never be free of the memories, but I didnt have to cart around the feelings any more. Somehow, I consciously managed to rid myself of the sadness, the anger, the guilt, the self loathing. I think CBT can help this. My DD sufferd from anxiety and was taught a) distraction...when you start having the feelings, go do something that will take your mind off the bad things and b) say a mental STOP when the emotions hit you.

Its about changing the emotional trigger between events. SO when you remember the rape, you think feel ? betrayed, abandoned, scared, alone? - so now replace all of these with sadness and love for the young woman that endured this, and admiration for her coping. Whenever you think of the rape, think of the young woman and love her. Thus detaching your present self from those horrible past emotions, and allowing yourself to view them as if you are an outsider.

I also think that you need to accept that you have had the apology you desperately want, but it will never be enough. Your mum could be crying for a number of reasons - she could feel awful, or she could be a narcissist who loves the attention and "its all about me!!"

The key to resolving your feelings does not lie with them - it lies with you. Once you have detached from the emotion, you may choose to detach from the family, or you might find you are able to build a new relationship with them.

"You DO love your family as you recognise you were not loved...:(" kindly fuck off with that bizarre statement

What hattifattner has just put is really great, can second that entirely. I've also found self-parenting myself has helped me leave behind the pain and trauma of the past and relate to situations in new ways. I think you might find that kind of counselling helpful (perhaps you already have) just so can feel more in control, and so you can develop new patterns of behaviour with your parents and set them some boundaries.

Just because they are your family does not give them a right to access to more of you than you want to give. You are an adult now and you have the capacity to make your own way and own your own life, to keep it as private from them as much as you want to, and to not have to be a counsellor to your crying mother. Give yourself permission. It is not your responsibility to parent her (even though you do sound much more grown up and adult than she is.)

One of my counsellors said we all have tapes in our heads, repeating adages we live by. Some of these are outdated, or they are harmful to is, and are lies. We can find these lies by questioning why we overreact to certain things, and trying to find the cause of the pain, the fear or the anger. We can shine a light on the lie, show it up for what it is (this can feel all wrong, and humiliating, and it's exhausting to do a lot of this; really hard work.) In this way, we can cut the tape recording, and look out for when we replay yo ourselves those same lies and do that STOP thing that hattifattner describes. Replace them with helpful and encouraging truths about ourselves.

I am very sorry you are going through this. I wish I had the right words to comfort you. My mum has been cruel and abusive to me for many years. I feel like I must step very lightly around her, as she can say the most demeaning things when upset. Paradoxically, she is an adoring grandmother to my children.
Please know,Cantlove you are not a freak. This kind of behaviour is not a reflection of you, but a an indication of their flaws...

My DH once heard his mother describe his sister's rape as her 'comeuppance' for daring to break away from the family a bit. His father was in the room and didn't even flinch. It was one of the defining moments in his realisation that his parents were toxic.
Sadly his sister is still very much tied to them and bizarrely is (one of) the golden child(ren). This mistake of hers, to spread her wings, and her 'comeuppance' as my vile MIL saw it, was all apparently a good thing as now she will never 'abandon the family'. :(

I feel so strongly that if people are no good for you, you do not have to have them near you. I am so sorry you were raped and I am so sorry no one listened. I think no contact is the only option but only you can decide. Good luck and be gentle with yourself.