Reading this thread has been amazing for me. I haven't had contact with my mother for around 6 years, and at nearly 39 weeks pregnant, and with other family events, this sort of stuff has been at the front of my mind at times.
Its great to finally have a label for my family - I think I have an entire toxic family rather than just toxic parents!
I could probably write a novel about all this but basically the issues are mainly with my mother. Her behaviour has always been compounded by my father's workaholic tendancies. Trying to put it into a concise form is hard but I'll try not to ramble. From an early age I have vivid memories of being terrified while my parents had screaming rows. As we got older, these got worse, and we'd often (me, brother and half-sister (not that I knew that until I was about 8)) get dragged into them to explain our actions when one of us was being argued about. All this was made worse by my mother's leaving 3 times - once taking me and my sister, but leaving my younger brother(when I was 10), and the other times leaving all of us without word (when I was 16 and later at 19 when I was away at uni).
As a parent, she was inconsistent, sometimes playing wonderful happy families and devoting lots of time to us, other times ignoring us and wallowing in her own world (she was convinced several times that she was dying of various things and would sit around drinking telling me what would happen when she got really ill). She had favourites, lavishing attention and money on whoever gave most to her at the time. At times we were all very close to her, although my brother had trouble trusting her (and resulting behaviour issues) from when she left him behind with our father. When she wasn't happy with us, we suffered her criticisms and manipulations ("My god, you're ugly when you cry")
At the worst times, I think I echoed her behaviour, becoming depressed and (I beleive) making myself physically ill through this. When she left the second time, none of us kids wanted my father to take her back, but he did anyway. She went through a particuarly destructive phase, threatening suicide more than once. I have another vivid memory of (at 16), wrenching the carving knife out of my mother's hand as she held it over her wrist, and then breaking into the bathroom to make sure she wasn't trying to finish the job.
By the time I went back to uni, I had managed to get back on good terms with her, but as I revelled in my independence, I drifted away.
The last time she left, it was a performance, to say the least. She left for another man, changed her name (first and last) and joined a coven. By this time I'd had enough and urged my father not to take her back. When he did, I couldn't deal with it and broke contact with them.
My younger brother was still living at home, and a while later his girlfriend and her daughter moved in with them. My mother didn't like this and was confrontational and unpleasant, culminatining in threatening my now-sister-in-law with a knife (3 days before their wedding). To me, this was unacceptable, and I broke contact with my parents.
My mother he went into therapy (which she had done the previous time she left and convinced the therapist she was fine) and was diagnosed with Bi-polar disorder. As far as my elder sister was concerned, this was grounds for total forgiveness and acceptance, and when I couldn't face any more of the manipulations, I was constantly pushed to "forgive".
This was about 7 years ago, and since then, the more time I've spent away from my family, the more I've come to terms with it all. I'm extremely lucky that I have a husband (boyfriend from 18, married 6 years now) who has listened to me crying my way into the early hours of the morning to get it all straight in my head, and has been wonderfully supportive. Until recently, I felt like I had it all under control - Over the last couple of years I developed a good relationship with my brother and his family and didn't feel I was missing out. Recent attempts to bring my sister into this resulted in her screaming at me (in front of my 4 year old niece, and in public) that if I wouldn't accept that my mother was ill and have a relationship with her, I was no longer her sister. This really brought to mind the comments about being an adult, as I managed to remain calm while she screamed insults at me - something that would once have provoked me into a similar state.
Over this time, I thought my brother agreed with me about our family, but a few months ago it turned out that he had been cheating on his wife and has left her. I'm much closer to his wife and kids than to him (and am supporting them through what he is making a messy divorce), but it hurts that he's gone back to the rest of my family when he always assured us (when my sister accused my SIL and I of keeping him away from them) that this wasn't true. Since he left, he hasn't asked about how I am (or his neice or nephew - as I'm 38+4 today). I found out today that he claims to be upset my by not talking to him (he hasn't contacted me since he left) then received, out of the blue, a text message saying he was still alive and asking me to keep him updated about my pregnancy. I am bemused!
To me, that's very much it with my family. I've had enough of them. I find contact with them destructive, but worry about what my child is going to say when he/she gets old enough to wonder why he/she never sees the grandparents. I also worry about how I'm going to deal with it when they send presents etc.
Its wonderful to get all this out every so often (even if I have written a novel that nobody will get through!), and I just wanted to thank everyone for posting their stories on here. It makes me feel much happier that I'm not the only one with a toxic family - and that it doesn't have to be horrendous physical or sexual abuse to justify the effects they have on our lives.