I want to write an essay about it all dating back more than 40 years but how can I make that short enough for the good people of Mumsnet to read? It is now, finally this year, making me extremely sad but if I were to put it all down it would literally be an essay.
So - TLDNR - a half sibling (same Dad different Mum) has gone non contact with his Mum (my step Mum) and we are a very very fractured family now with low contact in all directions and lots unsaid.
Sibling has complex mental health problems (PTSD and BPD among them he says) so I guess his choice to go NC is based on this. I sympathise but it's so difficult and horrible. There are 5 siblings in the family if you count all my Dad's children and this sibling is the only one who has such a problem with his mother (my step mother) that he has gone NC with her. But the rest of us are fractured and a bit broken. I feel I now have problems with my other half siblings and step Mum.
Sorry if that sounds dramatic! I have reasonably robust mental health but this occupies my thoughts so much. He probably has no idea.
If I have contact with my other half siblings and step mother obviously a lot of our conversation is about this horrible rift, or else it's an elephant in the room, so now we seem to have all huddled away in our smaller family groups and avoid each other. It's heartbreaking.
Our Dad died 10 years ago.