Everything is destroyed - relationship with my family, my husband, my friends. *Mentions suicide* Edited by MNHQ

[almondmilk123]

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.

Suddenly, now I've got a man, he's all over it. But as a punishment, mind you.

I think your intelligence is something that you use against yourself, OP. You create a narrative and then you work very hard to fit things into that narrative. When you can't, you enlist the help of others to make your narrative make sense.

Your narrative may or may not be close to the truth. I think it would help you to understand that this narrative doesn't really matter.

What does matter is that you are highly volatile, stressed, isolated, with a history of violent and dangerous behaviour; that you come across as somewhat manic, highly dramatic, and grandiose; and that you see any comments about your needing help as driven by anger and projection.

I've commented as I have on this thread because I see you as someone who is in need of urgent psychiatric help. I am not angry about it. I'm not dismissing the fact that this is a complex family situation and that there's all sort of history and nuance there, and that other people may also be mentally unwell or manipulative. I'm simply trying to express, as clearly as I can, that you need proper professional support. MN can be great but I doubt it's helping you to have lots of people exploring your narrative with you and giving you different angles and ideas to build that narrative up. I think it would help you a lot more to talk to a psychiatrist and work on the foundation of your own mental health.

I haven't got a history of violent behaviour. I once put a rope around my neck, that's it. You are making great points but you are also doing a bit of slamming judgement. You are dismissing my insight, which is present, despite my many problems. I'm actually already getting the support, but support isn't a magic wand - have you heard of the Lampard Inquiry?

wrongthinker i have a mentally ill sister who was violent - I think you may have confused us

With kindness OP.

You seem very fixated on people being right or wrong, good or bad and appear to have some very strong views about people with mental health issues.

Many posters on this thread are angry with me. I guess I am reminding them of the mentally ill people in their family who have been no doubt hugely destructive and left huge scars.

Or perhaps posters are just concerned for you and want you to get help?

People can be mentally ill without leaving destruction and scars around them, it doesn’t make them good or bad or a villain, it simply means that they have an issue that requires specialist support and help.

There is definitely some judgement here. This is mumsnet! And its almost a relief to do battle with it because i can't have those conversations with my dad and sister becuase they can't/won't talk about anything!

With kindness and curiosti, where was i fixated on people being good and bad, right and wrong?

in the above quote, I wrote 'i guess' and 'no doubt'.... i'm venturing, throwing it out there. I don't know.

We have not confused you with your sister and we all know that the suicidal gesture was two years ago.

You wrote asking for help but you are simply not able to accept the help that is being offered because it doesn’t come with sufficient “poor you! Your family sucks” sentimental head patting.

Your family sucks! How’s that? They are horrendous. Your father was a malignant narcissist who neglected you and your BPD sister and he favours the other sister and wanted to keep you all as handmaids until his death.

ok: now that this is out of the way perhaps you can address the fact that you seem unable to address issues of import to you, about your own life. You, and only you, are married to your dh. If you don’t like him you can leave. If you can’t figure out if you don’t like him:get help to figure it out.

Please stop seeing the counsellor and find a psychodynamic psychotherapist.

Your difficulties, both innate and circumstantial, are considerable and a counsellor simply will not have the knowledge, experience or support/supervision to help you even begin to unpick it.

Pikkumy I love this! This is a very succint and slightly funny description of all that is wrong with my position. I am genuinely wanting to find a more solid footing to get myself out of this - that's the only thing you don't seem to appreciate!

Trying to kill someone (yourself) - especially in the way that you did - is extremely violent. Not to mention dangerous. You could easily have hurt or killed someone else. I don't think it's inaccurate to call this violent behaviour.

I'm not doing any "slamming judgement". I'm just not feeding into your justifications, or downplaying the seriousness of your behaviour.

Again, I'm commenting because I think you need help. You say you're getting help, but earlier in the thread you said you wouldn't get help because you're too high-functioning to be referred and you don't feel like referring yourself. I hope that when you now say you're getting help, that is indeed the case.

I didn't try to kill myself. I tied a rope around my neck, that's it. Suicidal ideation i think is the term. The drunk driving I accept. You are completely right about that. It was 3am and I was very careful and not that over the limit, but even so. dangerous yes. But not violent.

Have you experienced someone who has committed suicide? I'm so sorry if so. I have. It's a very violent act. Very selfish.

I am seeing a psychotherapist, not a counsellor, to clear that up.

I’m glad you weren’t upset by my response @almondmilk123 .

I don’t for a second think your dad and sister are impeccable. Because not one of us is.

The will incident was 2 years ago but the pain is clearly very present for you. Being in pain and traumatised is enough reason to be referred for help.

You’ve said you are seeing a psychotherapist which is great but you may have an underlying medical MH issue which can be treated too.

You also can’t dismiss the impact of menopause on your MH - many ND women find their high functioning and masking shatters at meno and they have no resilience or ‘skin’ anymore to buffer the chaos in your life.
And so much of that chaos is coming from your husband. You need to feel as angry with him as you do your dad and sisters because he is the daily stress you have dealt with for years. Your nervous system is shot to pieces and the will issue was as you call it the hammer. Had you not had years of stress, you would not have had such a catastrophic response to it.

You don’t have to live like this. But you need to get well to build that life. And you deserve to be well.

But why does it matter what we “appreciate?” You have to deal with your life and be able to chart your own course regardless of praise or blame. Its hard. Of course its hard. But so what? If you want independence and self rule you have to take it. Its never given.

However I think you are wrong about that, actually. I think people who are taking the time to read your masses of text are showing you a lot of care and consideration. Is that not “appreciating” your hard work? Its just that we think the time for sympathy is over. The time for hard, sustained, work is here.

This is why the DBT suggestion was a good one. DBT does not allow you to waste time asking for praise or blaming other people. If you have a problem you are responsible for identifying it and solving it. This is the beginning of wisdom and the beginning of DBT.

thankyou - that really does sound like me - the ND and meno combining. I do feel very angry with my husband but that is a Whole Other Can of Worms. I feel like i almost need a different thread to discuss that wierdly.

Thankyou again xxx

interesting, pikkumy

Oh, OP, come on. That was more than suicidal ideation. You're downplaying it - why? Was it less of a suicide attempt and more of an attempt to get attention from others? Or is it more that you made it sound more dramatic in your OP and now people are picking up on it, you're backpedaling? Either way, it wasn't a good situation. If you don't want to call it 'violent' you don't have to, but it certainly sounds dangerous to yourself and others.

I'm sensing that I'm getting drawn in to your narrative-building, OP, and I don't want that. All I'm saying is that you need proper, professional, psychiatric help. Lots of people do at some point in their life. Whatever else is going on, you need to take responsibility now for your mental health. That's it, that's all I'm saying. Please don't assume that I have any ill intentions towards you because of that.

so much chaos is coming from your husband that is resonating

We're all narrative building, and drawing each other in to those narratives. You're trying to draw me into a narrative that you feel very certain of, that I'm violent and dangerous. Actually, I have conceded you are right about the dangerous (potentially opening me up to lots of trolling), so I'm hardly not engaging with your narrative. Certainly you make some very good points. I sense you feel my narrative is to be resisted at all costs and fair play to you. We'll leave it at that.

Yes I am thinking maybe my family is toxic and I need to stay away. That is one of the ideas that I'm juggling. It would devastate me though. How do you manage?

Oh. Ok. That’s bullshit. We are not “trying to draw you into a narrative.” This is not a class in postmodernism.

You have 99 problems but a hostile commentariat ain’t one.

You sound like a narcissist with a victim complex to be honest.

Everything is made to be about you, and nothing is your fault. Your reactions are completely oversized.

Your dad is doing the right thing in changing his will. You weren't important at his birthday party. People aren't fired maliciously from work multiple times - I'm afraid there's a common denominator there and it's you.

I'm not sure the psychotherapist is going to help unless they can take you out of yourself somewhat. I would think you might end up ten years down the road having spent huge amounts of cash for someone without any progress in your being able to navigate the world.

My strong advice is to find a highly trained psychotherapist, with medical or psychological qualifications, someone with Dr as their title. Counsellors have their place, but I think you need a higher level of skilled support.

I've been so polite to you....

I have got a psychotherapist. But began with her before all this happened. but thanks

Why are people swearing at me?