Is there much truth in the belief that your childhood (and any fuck ups in it) make you the adult that you are. So can you blame your parents if your life is shit?

[tiredemma]

This could be pretty long so I apologise in advance.

I have long blamed my mother for the way my brothers life panned out, most recently I have really tried hard to build a relationship with her, I know that she regrets a lot of choices that she made but I don't feel that she tries hard enough to make amends ( I dont even know what I would really expect her to do to make amends)

Brief history- in my family was me, my brother (3 years younger than me), mom and dad. We lived on a council estate ( not actually a bad place to live) but both parents worked (shifts mainly).
I have a large ( massive even) extended family and looking back on my early childhood, I have to say that it was happy. We weren't well off by any stretch of the imagination, Christmas would be payed for by Provident loans and likewise with summer holidays (caravan in Rhyl).

When I was 17 ( and my brother 14) my parents started arguing. A lot. They had always argued but always made up. My mom started going out a lot with our next door neighbour who was a barmaid.
My parents had an argument one night and my mom stormed out of the house and we didn't know where whe was for two weeks. My dad had suspected at this point that she was having an affair, so although she was 'missing'- we knew she was alive but with another man. She returned after two weeks to collect her belongings and left to live with this man.

A lot of things happened around this time, I got so fed up of homelife that I went to work abroad. My dad was left at home with my brother, having to work shifts to keep a roof over their heads ( my mom had also taken out a loan for 8k and left this debt with my dad). so he was working evey hour God sent to keep the house.

So my brother was more or less left alone to a degree. 14 years old, always closer to my mom, began truanting from school (no-one at home to enforce his attendence at school).Eventually (by the age of 16) addicted to Heroin, addicted to Crack by 18, Prison by 21. Various severe self-harm and suicide attempts. Lost I suppose.

he is clean from drugs now although is on a faily high dose of methadone, which if he reduces over the next few months, he can go into Rehab to become methadone free. Which will help him with trying to find a stable job

He cannot seem to cope with 'life'- my reason for posting stems from a conversation that I had with my nan on the phone yesterday, she said that he had turned up at her house on sunday night to visit her and my grandad and became very tearful, crying. Made her feel so sad and in the conversation she blamed my mom for how his life has turned out. I feel that I agree with her- but is it really that simple to blame my mom for how his life has turned out.

He is a lovely brother, i love him so much and often blame myself also for leaving him and going abroad when he needed me most. I alternate between feeling desperately sad and sorry for him, to feeling frustrated and angry with him as he appears to be going nowhere in life - I sometimes feel that my relationship is toxic, it causes me so much stress.

He seems to be 'stuck' at age 14, unable to make 'adult' decisions.

I try hard not to blame my mom for all this, really I do.

Sorry for rambling.

Some sad stories on here.

Emma, I was also going to ask about your dad's and your extended family's role in your brother's situation.

Mercy- My dad has been wonderfully supportive, my brother had almost to point financially ruined my dad - he stole from all of us before he went to prison etc. But my dad has always stuck by him, is also frustrated occasionally at him, but continues to be a great dad.
The only problems with my dad is that his wife (my Stepmother) has no time for my brother and sees him as a 'problem' (from how he was before prison - even though she wasnt with my dad then).

My extended family - this is really my moms side of the family, my dads extended family is small and we rarely see them. I have a wonderful aunt and uncle ( my moms youngest sister) who has two sons who were/are very close to my brother, they all went to school with each other. She is very supportive and my brother spends a lot of time with her family.

how you were brought up does effect your adult life (tell me about your childhood & all that)...but people survive the most awful of childhoods, it depends i guess on how you choose to deal with it..will i be a victim, or a survivor?

i would forget my past and move on...not always easy i know.

I have read the OP now.

You are not to blame for anything that has happened to your brother. You were still a child and not responsible for him. You had your own reasons for going abroad and you don't mention if your Dad and brother asked you not to go.

You brother clearly felt that there was nothing for him which is why he started with drugs. It sounds like he really does want to come off the medication completely but he is probably scared as it is the only thing he has known for a long time.

Where are your mum and dad now and how much family contact and support is there for your brother?

I had a terrible upbringing, really awful things that I will never get over but I still take responsibilty for my choices - even if I feel they were shaped by my childhood.

I wish you lots of strength for helping your brother but you need to take care of yourself too.

Really sorry to hear about your brother. It must have been heartbreaking for you to see him spiral as he has done.

Speedy post - just dashing out the door - but wanted to say it's likely both your mum and your brother influenced this outcome. Our pasts and childhood relationships unquestionably shape who we become - if they didn't why would there be so many personality disorders, mental health issues, therapists, etc? The "stately homes" thread has touched on this: how, if rejected in our childhood, we can go on to find great difficulty forming relationships in adulthood, since our fear of being rejected again influences our behaviour.

Anyway, something I did want to say is that the fact that it was your mum who left is quite key, I think. Quite often, our opposite sex parent is most instrumental in the development of our self-esteem: mums adoring their sons, dads loving their daughters to bits, etc. In my family, this is borne out: my brother has much more robust self-esteem than me, despite having a tough time at boarding school, which we put down to my mum being such a constant, gentle rock. I didn't go to boarding school so was about in my teens, and despite my mum being wonderful, I felt invisible to my dad; he didn't have a good word to say to me - at a time when I was an awkward, bumbling teenager who really needed a good hug and a bit of a boost from her dad. We don't consider it a coincidence. Then our own temperaments enter the equation, and we can either be tough cookies who say f*ck it, I won't have this shit get me down, or we might be sensitive sorts like me (I'm like my mum), who aren't as robust. So that's how it's bit of both - I think, anyway.

FWIW, I think your mum leaving likely had a big effect on your brother, especially if he's a more sensitive type. Most teenage boys need their mums around to boost their confidence, enforce boundaries, listen, give hugs, etc. I can understand you aportioning more than a little bit of blame with your mum.