How do you get through finding out your whole life wasn't what you thought it was?

[MiscellaneousAssortment]

How do you lay this stuff to rest?

Over the last 5yrs I have had my life's story rewritten again and again as I uncover unpleasant 'truths' that change what I thought happened, what I thought was my life, my sisters life, my family bonds, all not true.

And I'm not seeking out those truths, or trying to delve back into the past looking for answers. It's all raked up again and again because me and DS are still paying the price for it all, and our lives literally (actually literally) depend on it.

And my sister and fathers lives did depend on it, except they're dead.

I tried all evening to write a summary and it's too hard.

Basically, found out my parents always knew about the possibility of a genetic condition being passed down. They knew before they got married.

How can someone do this? Almost five decades of lies. The very foundations of my own life and the terrible tragedies that have hit our family again and again, reeling from the shock as a genetic condition slowly reeks havoc on the people I love... The lie was that anyone else was shocked and ignorant about what was happening.

Feel like the whole thing is some sick joke, and I'm the punch line.

How can parents endanger the lives of their children (sister died, I'm now severely disabled), one of themselves (dad died), and their grand child (DS may have it too)?

My mother in particular has behaved so very badly over the years, my dad was lovely though with his own problems, but kind and gentle and caring. Not very responsible though or he'd have intervened as my mother was a horrible horrible person, emotionally abusive we'd ca it these days. I can sort of see my mother doing this more than my dad, a stretch even for her, but she does have form for being breath takingly selfish and cruel. But even so, this means she was shouting and screaming that we were making it up to get attention/ doing it to upset her, how it was my fault that the family was poor/ she didn't work/ dads job was always insecure...all the time KNOWING what was happening.

She watched and bitched as her favorite daughter went through all kinds of hell, she watched her die with no diagnosis, no treatment, just terror of knowing there's something terribly wrong and no one will help.

How? I don't understand. She loved my sister so much, and my parents fell apart when she died.

And then to watch me getting iller and iller, not knowing what was happening, not knowing where to turn. Then having a grandchild, without ever thinking to tell your daughter the risk for him.

Then dad dying, they didnt tell the docs any family history, even though he was dying of what people with my condition die of. My mother behaved unforgivably at this time, cruelly and shockingly, which I thought was to hurt me (which it was but with a double whammy of being able to stop me being able to tell the hospital the family history.

I can't even start to understand how my dad went along with this?

It's like living in a snow globe and every so often someone comes along and gives it a shake, and my world turns upside down and resettles into a completely different shape.

What do I do with this? I don't know how to think or feel...

Misc, this post really is just to acknowledge hearing your voice, because for the life of me I cant think of anything else to say apart from Im so very sorry all of this has happened to you.

Misc, there are no words.
You have to hope there is such a thing as karma.

Thank you. Rubbish night, I was ok until I thought about it then fell apart - there's definitely something to be said for denial! Am going to take DS to see a film later. He is young enough not to realise what day it all happened so that's something anyway. Though tbh I didn't tell him for a few days after it happened as I wanted to be able to do it in the right way, and model the right kind of reaction as he may well remember it forever. Terrifying him by completely breaking down never a great thing to do.

It's the first time I've ever told anyone what happened, beyond the few people that knew as it was happening - like the NDN. I don't think I could deal with it and then the shocks kept coming thick and fast after and I just tried to plough ahead and keeping going for DS. So I left that particular scab to pick until now, I guess. Perhaps that's one of the many reasons why I let myself float along on others expectations about Xmas this year. Easier to let someone into your house if you're ignoring a massive part of the wrong they did.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, it's the first time I've fallen apart about this, thank you for being there, and am sorry I dribbled tears and snot all over the Internet last night.

Misc, its ok to have been upset. You've been dealt a rotten hand and its ok to be struggling with it. Its ok to be so beaten and ground down by whats going on in your life that you just cant get up in the morning and pretend your Annie. Have a good a day with your son as is possible and remember there is generally someone around here to pass the time of day with. You don't even have to make sense when posting, its ok to just get it all out and release the pressure.

Heavens, let it out. That's what we're here for.

Yy to the virtues of denial! Saves things up till we're as ready as we can be to deal with them - ideally in smaller chunks, although that doesn't always happen!

Sounds like you're doing an incredible job with DS. Hope you both enjoy the film (and it isn't too exhausting!). Despite everything, you're creating some lovely associations for him with this time of year.

Misc, it's ok to be sad, hurt, angry, fearful. All of these feelings and more are utterly valid.

Your mother took the decisions she took for her own reasons, they were and are nothing related to you. She had the facts at her disposal and chose to use them or not for her own selfish reasons.

Ultimately it did not change a thing where your dad was concerned and at least you got to see him in hospital. You know you tried, you know you wanted to know, but your mother wanted to make it all about herself. And she did.

Please stop trying to score your life by the yardstick she carved.

You can look yourself in the mirror and say honestly say that you did the very best for you, for your sister, your dad. You know you are doing the very best you can with all your heart for your son. He will never doubt your love, he will never face the revelation you've faced. He knows you love him.

You broke the chains, you've done more than you were raised to be, you are a good person. You won.

Your mother knows you're a good person, which is possibly why she wants to chip away at that. Jealousy.

Let 2016 be the year you make the steps to be free so you can enjoy live as it's supposed to be, free of toxic words and poisonous atmospheres

Turn the page. It's time to live. (((Hug)))

Misc, I don't know if I'm right, or if this will help you at all, but from my own experience I don't think it sounds like your mother's targeted you, or wanted to treat you like you're nothing. If she's anything like mine she's actually not considering you at all.

She sounds egocentric, narcissistic or similar and it's odd that like mine, her attention seeking is centred around medical issues and dramas, when really it's other people who are actually suffering.
I also thought about some sort of Münchhausen related disorder refusing to acknowledge your and your sister's genuine health problems because she wants the attention to be centred on herself. When my father was ill my mother commandeered the 'poor wife' and later 'grieving widow' role. She can't seem to acquire or keep any friendship based on her own personality or qualities that people usually look to relate to, so she's manipulated and dramatised since before I was born, all involving medical issues.

The hardest lesson I had to learn was to stop thinking about the mother daughter role and stop relating to how I feel about my DCs and being upset that I'd never had the same kind of experience. Sometimes you simply can't work out or resolve how other people are in life, even people who're your own flesh and blood.
Try to work on this and concentrate on your son and yourself. Start letting go of any guilt you feel about her circumstances now. You have nothing to feel guilty about, she's brought everything upon herself.

This is a new year now, make it the year you work on letting go. You've tried, enough is enough and you have more important things to be working out rather than constantly banging your head against a wall and being crushed when it hurts. Sadly we don't always get the love and protection that we need, we can't influence or control that, especially when it's been long term. We can only be responsible for the person we are and how we treat others.

I don't mean any of that to diminish what you're going through, please don't think that at all, you have so much to process and have suffered an awful shock.
It's taken me so long to type all that you have other replies this morning, please believe what they say

^ They all said it better than I can.

Misc I am so sorry you are having to deal with the anniversary of your father's death whilst the grief keeps washing over you afresh everytime you learn about a new piece of deceit related to his and your sister's deaths.

That your parents hid it from you initially is understandable in the blind hope neither of you would be affected by it. Once your sister's suffering was obviously linked to it and your own on going health problems (from as young as 5 if the shoulder dislocation is linked to the condition) were evident how your parents and in particular your mother couldn't come clean to doctors in order to alleviate their children's suffering and prolong their lives is unthinkable and unforgivable. And bizarrely it sounds as though your father couldn't admit it to doctors in order to prolong his own life possibly in case you got wind of it. I know you aren't sharing the name of the condition but I cannot fathom how any condition is worth this level of secrecy including allowing children to believe their pain isn't real and to allow your daughter to die in pain after a lifetime of suffering.

Your mother is clearly not thinking in the same way as the majority of the population (or is bat shit crazy to use your own words!) If her distorted thoughts are so ingrained I can offer the advice that's it's only when you realise there is nothing you can do to change her or the situation that you realise you can do something; walk away from her.

Walk away from the mother who allowed her children to believe their feelings of pain weren't real. Walk away from the person who scapegoats you and makes you feel bad about yourself. Walk away from the mother who denied you access to information about your dying father. Walk away from the person who poisons every interaction you have with her.

I think Enrique upthread a couple of posts has hit the nail on the head. She wanted control of the narrative and your presence shifted the focus somewhat. She wanted all the care and despair and attention, the shock and unexpectedness of it all, and you risked taking some of that from her - as with all the rest of what you have said, she wanted it All About Her and was making sure she got it - everything she has said and done is designed to put her at centre stage as some poor tragic heroine of her own heartbreak film. Even her own husband didnt feature - it sounds as if she has deliberately misled the doctors because to have told the truth may have meant facing up to some pretty harsh questioning, instead of all the consolatory stuff she reaped - never mind if they started putting the dots together regarding your sister. I suspect your father did not say anything because he was as frightened of her as everyone else was.

Your grief and your anger are rightfully yours.

YY to Enrique and the others posting today.

Yes wise words again thank you I need to kept this thread so I can reread it and keep thinking about it (& remembering I can't get 'swept away' into happy happy families again.

No - could you screen shot in case you ask mn to delete one day and start another?

You can't choose your family and you can choose your friends. You are entitled to your thoughts and who you spend time with and you can help your ds find strength and safety in others outside the family. Of any age, if yswim.

you could climb abroad the stately homes thread on here? It's helpful. As well as having your own thread.

(I once C&P'd a huge thread after switching my preferences to 1000 posts per page, and made it into an open office doc. Probably a really cumbersome way to do it.)

Am exhausted, and drained. And back to working tomorrow, school for DS and juggling it all with hospital appointments.

Ugh. I'd like a holiday from this holiday before life kicks off again...

Hope work is straightforward and not too demanding.

Thanks Pausing, it's the kind of job where I have to be all 'on it' and clever sounding. Bah humbug.

Half my brain is being taken up with being not at all ok, then the other half of my brain is worried about DS, and the other half is worried about all the health tests... And so unless I have two brains, I'm already overflowing with stuff trickling out me ears!

I wish I had a few brains, possibly stuck in jars in my wardrobe for me to swap to when my current one goes mushy...

Maybe one day I'll be able to remember my dad properly, but at the moment, it hurts too much, and it's hard to find him amongst the awful stuff that happened. And i won't ever know what happened, why he made the decisions he did, and why he let his wife behave the way she did. But I kind of already know in 'big brush stroke' terms. He had a bad childhood and an awful mother. So he was attracted to the same. It wasn't him choosing between his wife and kid/s, it was him choosing the familiar and not being equipped to change even though his daughters needed him to be the grown up. I suppose I always saw him as a wonderful, amazing person stunted by his upbringing. Gentle, funny, eccentric, kind, clever. A gentleman and a gentle man.

I can forgive him (though it hurts), and in theory, it should be possible to see my mother in the same way. A damaged person not equipped to deal with the world and take on properly the adult roles... But I can't do it. I can't see her as the same. I see my father as essentially, a good man with limitations. I see her as a warped, unkind, selfish and cruel person. She may have had problems growing up, but nothing in comparison to my dads past, or indeed to the childhood she created for me. I can't see the good in her, or at least not enough to make myself see her as a flawed but good person. My sister could. My dad could. But I can't. She feels out of control and that scared me, I think she enjoys hurting me, making other suffer. She loves a good character assassination, gets a vile kind of pleasure through spewing hate. And I can't forgive the harm, the vitriol and the destruction. Even though it might be seen as the same weakness and reaction to past trauma? Just her 'symptoms' are less pleasant / socially acceptable. I guess I'm not very nice myself because I don't think I will ever be able to forgive her. Ever. Maybe that's my punishment.

Someone mentioned personality disorders a way back. Should I look at it on the Internet? Not sure.

Yes, misc. Do look it up. Not often I say this because online diagnoses are usually irritating but in your mother's case, the pattern of behaviour is so destructive and seems so very, very deep laid that I think therés a good chance of a PD. Although, is she -capable- of change within herself if she wanted to? Far as I can see, if someone is capable of change then they don't really have a PD; its when they become cast iron rigid and always choose the same way to react, that's when they have a PD.

If she's got one, it does not mean she is to be pitied and excused by the way. Having a PD is not an excuse for being a deceptive shit who colludes in her own daughter's agony and death and her second daughter's disablement.

MIND has some info on PDs www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/personality-disorders/types-of-personality-disorder/

so does Light'sHouse www.lightshouse.org/about-personality-disorders.html

Whether or not she has one, Enrique's post made a lot of sense. Your priority should be yourself and your son now. She will only destroy you further.

I don't think not forgiving her makes you "not nice"!

I think it's protecting you from her. Stay away from the dangerous person!

This is the time for looking after YOU and DS.

If looking up personality disorders will help you cope, and get to grips with the fact that her behaviour is all about her and not in any way a reflection on you, then it could be helpful.

But if you're doing it to help her change, or to help you forgive her... these would diverting energy from the important task of looking after you and DS.

She's not going to change. Not at her age. Not when she's been willing to watch her daughter and husband die rather than step outside the world she's created. And she will watch you die rather than she change, if you give her the opportunity.

And while forgiveness is something that may come - or not - further down the line, IMHO it's something to do from a place of safety.

You've got a lot to process at the moment, and a life to build for you and DS without your mother. Once you're there, and she's no longer so important to you, it may be safe to look back and contemplate whether forgiveness is possible - or desirable.

Also, forgiveness is not the same as putting yourself in harm's way. Forgiveness needn't mean speaking to her.

I see my father as essentially, a good man with limitations. I see her as a warped, unkind, selfish and cruel person

From all you've said that sounds utterly reasonable to me

Do try as best you can not to beat yourself up about your feelings towards her; you've got enough on without burdening yourself with that too. Granted each parent may have had horrible upbringings, but a point comes where there's only so much you can blame on that - we all have free choices and have to take responsibility for them

As we've all said before, be gentle with yourself and remember that it's your own little family which matter most now

No I don't think she would change, she has never shown any type of indication that there could be something wrong with her, or any desire to develop.

I remember her coming home (when I still lived there) from a routine GP appointment fuming that she'd been offered counselling. 'That's for MAD people' she spat out in anger 'how DARE he do that to ME' etc etc etc...

It was only when I got a lot older that I realised that she probably was/ is very unwell, and probably upset/ scared about it hence the denial and over reaction.

She would call me mad, mentally defective, disgusting and unstable... For daring to swap a-levels and other shocking crimes of madness and lunacy. Sigh.

I'm not sure how personal or not it all is/was. I'm still working that out. Until the last few years it felt very personal. After all, she had a family of 3, and I was the only hated one. I was the one she made into her scapegoat and whipping boy. She definitely singled me out, and her personal attacks would have left mumsnet banning her all over the place (!).

No matter what happened, I'd be to blame. One of the constants in family life. And I thought I was inherently bad for many, many years.

I have come a way from that point though it's hard to shift the belief of a lifetime. I can see how cruelty can be very precisely & intensely aimed at one person, and still not be personal as such. In that, it could have been anyone standing here, being me, that would have got it in the neck.

A few years ago, I had a really good counsellor, only 12 sessions when DS had just been born and I was getting poorly, but remember them as a really pivotal moment.

Anyway, he really put his finger on it by looking at the whole family dynamics vs individual relationships.

It never did quite sit right/ feel the straightforwarda story of 'mother= abuser, me = victim. Though this last year, I'm finding that simple story more and more convincing!

Anyway, when opened up to broader family dynamics it struck a chord with me.

His idea was that I was never meant to be an actual person. Therefore how could it be personal. My whole personness was rejected so whatever and whoever I was, I would have always failed and be hated.

I was born to serve a purpose within the family, to serve a function. So every time I stepped outside of being a role, by, you know, being an actual person, I would be punished for my human-ness. So basically, I was born to fail.

Made a lot of sense at the time though sounds a little bonkers now!

Everything revolved around my sister (which it did, even before she got sick). So it was always about my mothers relationship with my sister (golden child - except no jealousy here as she was actually very lovely not to mention she absorbed a lot of my mothers focus so took the heat off me)
Then my mothers relationship with my dad (& wow was that dysfunctional!).

Then me.

The family story is that they had me as a HV said that my sister needed socialisation.

Apparently it's not normal to have this in your family lore? Not sure about that but it made sense for me to be born to be a prop for my sister, and everything about me was defined against her and makes sense of the weirdiness.

I existed to 'bring her out of herself' to give her a friend, someone to play with, and of course a protector at school, someone to be more confident, less shy etc.

And why I had to have short and bloody awful ugly hair (as my sister had long beautiful hair), why I wasn't allowed to wear white or pink, or even anything very girly (as my sister was the dainty girly one, I had to be the tomboy), why I wasn't allowed to be good at X as it was my sisters special thing (my mother actually asked the x school to hold me back 3 years in a row so I didn't overtake my sister when she first got sick)... Etc etc etc.

Almost screwed up my alevels completely as I was only allowed to do Maths & Sciences as the arts belonged to my sister. When younger I was told off for getting (very) good marks in English, and sworn to silence/ sent to room. It took years for me to understand that the ht was joking when he 'told me off' for dropping 2% on my 11+ English. I mean literally I dropped 2%, got 100% maths & 98% English and I only remember that as I was so upset at 'having failed' which is what I thought had happened due to the reaction at home plus the teachers ill advised comment.

Same for every bit of my life, all strictly controlled and me always in the wrong. And woah, when I revolted at 17 and refused to sacrifice my future on the altar of 'don't be nasty to your sister' weirdness - & I refused to carry on towards my super low predicted grades & no uni acceptances.

That's when the awful screaming arguments appeared, with lots of threats of 'taking me to a psychiatrist' to either 'sort me out' or 'lock me away' (very Victorian), and much talk of refusing to let me leave home and making do a job on a local farm instead (err, yes indeed id be an asset to any farm ooh ahhh I would .

I joke now, I was fucking terrified.
But I got out. Thank fuck.

Anyway, without even going into the whole weird jealously stuff I think it makes sense, and why no matter what I did, I was always hated and vilified.

And the freakish twisted reversa Oedipal type awfulness from my mother who hated the perfectly normal father-daughter relationship, and did everything she could to destroy it (worked too for a very long time, and then again at the end I guess it worked for her again).

And so I know I'm up posting about it all late at night again, but by trying to put the pieces together, it helps.

It's hard to remember that its aimed at me but I could be or do anything and it would still be the same. It's hard to keep two things in my head at once...

Overwhelmed by the breath-takingly awful things she did to me last year. And then oh yeah, it wasn't aimed at me, except it was, in a way... And not in a way. Bleugh. Brain ache.

Hi Misc

Jeeeez you absolutely certainly deserve a fecking medal girl.

I haven't read all the posts but from what I have read you've been dealt the most shit hand haven't you. I think you're coping with it remarkedly well actually.

I'm glad that you've got a counsellor - I hope that continues to help you along the way. Your 'mother' will never change, you have to deal with the fact that you don't have the mum you always wished for. This is something i've also had to deal with. Whilst my situ isn't even half as traumatic as yours I decided over a year ago to go no contact with her and haven't looked back since. Yes its hard, yes I wish it was different but it's just not. I sat down with her and told her in no uncertain terms how I felt and what my expectations of her were and still she turned her back so ... I walked away with no guilt whatsoever.

How is your health these days and that of your DS ? I do hope you're both doing ok.

Do you have any other family you can reconnect with (sorry if this has already been asked). Perhaps that will alleviate the feeling of leaving DS with no one other than you?

Anyway, i'm thinking of you. Stay strong. There's a good book called 'Toxic Parents' it might be worth a read. xx

How're u doing misc? x