Toxic family

[SoThatHappened]

How do you cope with being alone.

Realising that your immediate family doesn't have your back. If you don't have a partner or your own family.

what are you supposed to do

It's hard to say without more information, they don't have your back in general or is there something specific happening?

Something specific but it's always there under the surface.

If Im ok and sorted and happy they want me there to dump my shit on. To sort out their problems, listen to them, pay for them, buy them presents, pay for holidays, etc.

If I need help and have been through a rough patch with life, as I am, they tell me to put up and shut up and that they have it worse than me and i dont have any problems. They deal with me by ignoring or screaming or insults.

It's hard to cope with knowing they are ok with me only if I am supporting them and if I cant do that they don't want to know.

By realising that sometimes family doesn't mean blood. It's the family you make not the family you are born with.

It sucks, and is unfair, but those relationships can be way more loving and supportive then the ones you are stuck with through accident of birth.

Have your own back. I have had to go NC with my sister because she behaves just like you described your families behaviour. Like the pp said blood doesn't mean anything. You owe them nothing but you owe yourself everything, educate yourself on toxic families so you're better able to handle it and free yourself of their toxicity.

I can't rate this book as I haven't read it yet but I am about to purchase - Surviving the Toxic Family: Taking yourself out of the equation and taking your life back from your dysfunctional family by Marina Williams.

They really dont care. About anything I've been through.

They didnt come near me when I was in a real mess and needed some help.

Now they're back only because word has filtered through that Ive begun to sort myself out and get my life back on track. So now they want contact only because they think it's fair play to dump their shit on me again now I'm over my own shit.

Me too. On the same fronts you describe. It's hard.

I've said on here before, when asked the same question, that God gets me through. It know I know it sounds so weird and cookie but tbf what else is there? That's not to say I get on with the church lol! I think bcs of my terrible family I find it extemely hard to relax in anything that has even a tinge of 'family'. I'm like a cat on a hot tin roof.

But one thing I have learned is that worrying about it, about my single, alone state, is so bad for me - probably as bad as the aloneness tbh.

No, this isn't my fault. It is a combination of many factors (our couple-centric culture for one). It's bad enough without feeling crap about it iyswim. I make an absolute point of having a good time, regardless. As cheesy as it sounds I have a LOT to be grateful for and to enjoy life with eg I can walk, see, hear; I live in the West...

Im a raging atheist.

I bought all my nephews and nieces clothes when my sister temporarily left her husband. She left alot of stuff behind and didn't have the money to buy more and didnt want to go back to the house to pick more stuff up. I took them out and cheered them up too.

I have not had one single word of kindness from her in my crisis.

Now it's warming up now she knows I'm almost all better to dump the next saga on me.

Im having none of it this time. I dont want to know.

There are very many seriously selfish people in the world and a fair proportion end up in someone's family. Your relative likely belongs in the 'selfish', category. These people don't see beyond the end of their noses when it come s to normal things like helping out, offering a bit of support, having your back ... and you won't change them either.
Unless they have an almighty epiphany, they're going to carry on regardless because they can and because its all they know.
You, however, can change the way you react to them by cultivating indifference. It takes time and it takes courage and it takes realising that if you keep doing the same old same old...that's exactly what you get back.