Complex and long story.
THE BACKGROUND
There is autism in my family, diagnosed in my kids generation, undiagnosed previous to that. I am one of three sisters. One is severely mentally ill, BPD/autism spectrum, she is violent, no partner, no kids, supported by our dad. My other sister and I have had more normal lives.- she has no partner but 2 lovely kids, I have a husband and kids.
My 'well' sister and I both had sons a year apart. Hers was a year older. He would often hit my son and generally seemed to dislike him. I got upset, but my husband got even more upset. My sister dismissed it and told me it was my fault for inadequate supervision. Over time as the boys got bigger, the behaviour from her son got worse and the situation became intolerable. The two boys got on better, but he was still hitting my son, pulling his hair.
I felt unable to talk to my sister because she wouldn't hear it. To be fair to her I was in my head thinking the word 'psycho' about her son but I never said it, I was much more diplomatic. Her son nearly died after birth from an infection and I believe now that she felt as if my criticisms of his behaviour was somehow a threat to his life. I didn't fully appreciate how traumatised she was.
My husband is a mildly narcisisstic drama queen from a very messed up family. He has many good qualities and he's not an outright villain but I'm still trying to work out where the line lies. He got so ramped up about the situation that I felt completely trapped between him and my sister. He got very angry with me about not taking on my sister and putting her above our son. He had a point.
My sister wasn't listening, my husband wasn't listening.
When my husband decided we needed to move out of London, I went for it. I thought it would put distance between my son and his cousin, and ease all the tensions.
My sister was devastated that I left London. Very angry. We had horrific rows about all sorts. She would close down conversation about the problem calling it a 'powder keg'.
After we left London, my husband took it upon himself to work away from home and ended up living with my dad for a bit. My husband is very entrepreneurial and capable of earning money but has put us through a lot of financial strain, also just general upheaval (we moved house 6 times in 7 years).
My dad's anger at my husband's hijinks had been building up for a while and now it exploded in a terrible row. He couldn't see why my husband would take me out of London then return to live with him, my dad. I could see where my dad was coming from but his rage wasn't helpful, it was devastating.
Meanwhile son was being diagnosed as autistic - I believe this was partly why my nephew's behaviour towards him distressed me so much. Perhaps my nephew's behaviour was normal, but my son wasn't normal, he was more vulnerable than most kids his age. That wasn't my sister's fault and explains why she couldn't see it from her side. I didn't even know he was autistic so couldn't explain it that way. Should she have tried a bit harder to understand my point of view? I don't know.
My husband returned home and got a good job for a while, then quit that to do lots of amazing projects with interesting people that didn't really pay and put us under terrible financial strain.
I should earn my own money but I have been bullied in the workplace and fired many times and am probably on the spectrum. I would like to work - I used to work very very hard when I was young, I held down two jobs at times - but I have specific work-related trauma. The only work I like is hospitality but I'm 53 and my joints are caving in from the menopause.
THE INCIDENT
November 2022 I am visiting my elderly, immobile mother in law, and I'm bringing my daughter because my mother in law loves her. I plan to stay over with my dad as he's on the route. We've been getting on well, i've been loving hearing his stories of late, although he's clearly losing his memory. He doesn't give much of a shit about whether or not he sees my daughter but he is perfectly sweet with her. Thats just him, by now I've begun to suspect he's on the spectrum.
My dad tells me not to bring my daughter that night becuase he wants to talk to me about his will.
I say i must bring her because my mother in law will be disappointed not to see her.
My dad isn't really clear what the issue is. He's talked to me about his will before - its usually some phenomenally boring legal tweak. Or something about my mentally ill sister and how the will will deal with her.
I call my 'well' sister who is the main carer for my dad - what's going on? She says its fine, just go up there with my daughter.
I get there. My dad takes me into his study and tells me he's putting me on special measures in his will, the same special measures he's put in place for my severely mentally ill sister. It's because he worries my husband will spend all the money. He's very worried about our children and wants his inheritance to go to them. He thinks DH will spend it all. We will have to speak to lawyers to get any money from the inheritance. Even for small things. They will block it if they think it's not sensible expenditure.
I was worried about my DH spending the inheritance too, so I planned to put a deposit down on property for them in their name, which we can rent out until they need it. My DH is very keen on that too thankfully.
My dad says we are not allowed to buy property, it's a very dangerous way to invest money. This sounds outlandish to me.
I feel like I'm falling off a cliff but then my dad brings in my 'well' sister. He says she agrees with everything, that I cannot look after various practical aspects of my own life. He tells me various things that I know she thinks - criticisms of me - but he wouldn't know if she hadn't said them to her.
At this point I feel like the walls are falling in on me but my dad doesn't seem to notice. I wonder how I'm going to explain this to my DH, who gets angry when criticised.
I get angry and distressed. I feel like I'm being fired from my family. My dad tells me I'm behaving like our severely mentally ill sister.
All this time my DD is in the house.
Somehow I get through the night, get to my mother in laws, get home. I'm streaming with tears the whole time but I don't say anything to anybody.
I'm teetotal but on Monday I buy a bottle of whiskey and tie a rope around my neck. I drive drunk to macdonalds at 3am, buy a load of burgers, eat them and vomit them up.
Husband hides the whisky, by wednesday I'm sober.
But I can't talk to my dad and my sister. That has been established. They do not understand. They do not listen. I cannot bear to experience their incomprehension. I block them.
I carry on with my life, fantasising about hanging myself but knowing I won't. I'm not that far gone. But I'm in so much pain.
THE AFTERMATH
Almost 2 years later i have tried to talk to my sister but she closes down the conversation when it gets too difficult. She says my viewpoints are extreme and she has nothing to usefully contribute. She says she doesn't understand me, and she doesn't want to talk about these things.
My friends don't understand. It's too horrible for them, too shocking, too wierd, too unlikely, too complicated. Suicidal? FFS! What now! They've never liked it when i'm in the grip of big painful feelings, and now I'm like that all the time. I edit out that side of me, but I've only been happy enough to see my best friend once since it happened.
So my friendships are dying. Not all, I have one friend having mental health and marital difficulties I feel very close to. But some very important friendships are withering.
My husband is partly the cause of all this. He's done some very stupid things around money, said some very stupid things around money to my dad. Been a drama queen, been shockingly moronic.
He's now started a successful business (touch wood) but our relationship has been under terrible strain since it happened and I'm not sure we'll ever recover.
The fact that my relationship with my husband has been so affected makes it hard to discuss the situation with my dad with wider family. They would understand strains between my dad and I (and possibly even my sister) I but I feel too ashamed to open up about my husband's part in it.
EPILOGUE
Last week was my dad's 90th. In anticipation of it I'd tried to mend bridges with him and my sister and it was going well.
The party was thrown by my sister and there was a big presentation and speeches about how marvellous he was. I only found out about that the day before and felt unable to participate.
While it was going on, I felt as if I'd been ambushed again by my sister and my dad working in cahoots against me and around me. Irrational but I guess I was traumatised by the will incident.
"What about severely mentally ill DS?" I wanted to scream while it was going on. "What about how I was tying a rope around my neck 18 months ago?"
Instead, I stood by and cheered. The day wasn't about me.
The wider family was there - 50 people.
It was like a public divorce from my father and my sister, with my whole extended family on both sides bearing witness. It was hidden, it was implied not explicit, but it was happening.
I feel numb now. I can't talk to anybody. Not anybody. Thought I'd try mumsnet.