Family of origin issues?

[Loopylou00]

Just posting to ask if anyone has been in a similar situation and if this is where a lot of my 'issues' have came from. As an adult reflecting on my childhood it makes me really sad and a bit wtf.

It's hard to post about it and not drip feed but I'm concious that what I say here would mean it's quite obvious who I am (possible family on here, who knows)

Have always felt a bit different to others in my wider family, excluded might be too strong but definitely on the outskirts. Although I don't actively pursue the relationships now - hope to explain why.

I grew up in a largish family lots of cousins, aunts, uncles who were close. I learnt around the age of 16 that a huge secret had been kept from me, that everyone else had known about which involved one of my parents. A parent I didn't particularly have a great relationship with but never really understood why. I understand that my parent is their sibling/child (and I have no idea what their actual personal feelings are about this issue, they may have been sick at a secret being kept) but I am now realising what a huge impact this must have had on me. I can't help but miss the clearly close family unit they all are, but when I try to get close to it feel a bit anxious and paranoid and then avoid it.

I unsurprisingly ended up in a shitty relationship which I left after many years of abuse and met someone who I thought I could trust who then let me down. Friends I've made, close friendships too, have also ended with me being let down. Very badly too. Friend sleeping with my boyfriend etc

I feel I can't trust my own judgement on people so I've alienated everyone, but maybe they should be alienated because they aren't trustworthy? And round and round it goes. Do I need to unravel all this somewhere or is there support available?

Hello! I saw your post over on Stately Homes so thought I'd come over and reply here.

Whatever the family secret was it clearly was not your fault as you were a child, and it is particularly unfair that as well as suffering the effects of that secret and the other dysfunction that you mention, your extended family are closing you out. People are often quite shit at building unwelcome new information into their worldview and it sounds as if they've sort of decided it's easier to exclude you than to update their view of your parent. It's probably not even conscious, it's probably just an uncomfortable feeling they get. Who cares, the main thing is that it sucks for you.

You're in a difficult situation in that you feel that your lack of trust alienates people, but then you're aware that there are untrustworthy people out there, as your experience has shown you.

From what I've read and experienced, people who've grown up in abusive and dysfunctional families are likely to get treated badly by arseholes in later life for a number of reasons. First, because there are things in our behaviour that mark us out as victims, and attract awful people - and this also explains why sometimes we might have a friend who treats us like shit but is nice to other people: they read us as easy to abuse and they do it because they can. Second, we tend to stay in abusive or just shit relationshps and friendships because a) we don't recognise the red flags of bad behaviour, because they are so familiar to us b) we're used to not taking action even when we recognise someone is being bad to us and c) we believe that when we are being treated badly it's our fault for not being lovable enough, so we try to be more lovable instead of getting out.

In terms of unravelling it, I'd recommend any of the books in the Stately Homes OP - Codependency for Dummies is excellent as well. NAPAC are good for further support and the BACP is a good starting point for finding a therapist privately. I hope someone else will come on and talk about NHS therapy, there are some things available. And you're always welcome to come and talk to us on Stately Homes