Does anyone else deal with family dysfunction?

My Mom is poor. Very poor. Her mother favored the eldest sister of my mother. We are the black sheep and shes a millionaire. The inheritance has always been in limbo. Grandma is crazy, 91, and still crazy.  Mercurial might be a better word.

Dad's in the nnursing home with no legs. He was dclared brain dead once. Hes doing better. He's on medicaid dispite working hard at a business which fizzled out.

They dont tell you about dealing with your ailing parents when you grow up. It's like the middle age surprise.

the stuff that no one wants to talk about is the most valuable stuff. there's too much small talk and surface level bs in this society. kind of sick of the fakeness tbh. 

  On 8/13/2016 at 12:59 AM, marf said:

My Mom is poor. Very poor. Her mother favored the eldest sister of my mother. We are the black sheep and shes a millionaire. The inheritance has always been in limbo. Grandma is crazy, 91, and still crazy.  Mercurial might be a better word.

damn that's intense. i can't imagine the black sheep / favoriting thing mixed with socioeconomic conflict. that sounds like a unique struggle. i wish you and mom the best and hope it gets easier. 

lately, I've been feeling those fleeting moments of, if i just had xyz dollars, i could manage my life better in this area, or me less susceptible to anxiety cuz of reason xyz. I know that for the most part, that's an illusion, but i will say that having self-sufficiency and comfort (not necessarily living in luxury) goes a long way to ease certain types of stress. So yeah I can't imagine poverty mixed with dysfunction. that's a real low and hope that no one i know has to go through that. for all the soldiers withstanding those conditions, i look up to them. 

  On 8/13/2016 at 12:55 AM, Lane Visitor said:

 

  On 8/13/2016 at 12:38 AM, cwmbrancity said:

My family is a bit of a sanctuary tbh, you can tell em anything, from weighing in on relationships eg: "your gf is a cunt", to any help whenever it might be needed (often pre-emptive), to telling you you're also "a proper cunt, cos of X, Y & Z". Directness guaranteed.

 

The old man is dead. A bear of a bloke, but gentle, wise & exceptionally funny. He could rip the piss in any situation, even his own monstrous end. Me Ma did ambulance duty during The Troubles, so not a lot phases her. She rarely drinks & is prob 1 of the sanest, sharp-minded people you could hope to meet. 2 younger bros, both matured well barring the odd wobble.

 

Far far more ups than downs & may the gods keep them all safe from harm.

 

 

That sounds like a solid fam, definitely don't take that for granted. :)

 

oh believe that, i think the only reason none of us have ended up permanently institutionalized is because we been through so much as a unit.

if we'd all played whatever roles as individuals @ specific key times, given the outrageous levels of cuntery experienced through an intense amount of wreckage, we'd all be pickled.

  On 8/13/2016 at 12:59 AM, marf said:

 

They dont tell you about dealing with your ailing parents when you grow up. It's like the middle age surprise.

^^^^

this

my grandmother has dementia now, and I can see the early signs of it in my da (or maybe I'm just being paranoid), not looking forward to dealing with that in the years to come. maybe they'll have a cure by then if we're lucky.

  On 8/13/2016 at 1:05 AM, Lane Visitor said:

 

  On 8/13/2016 at 12:59 AM, marf said:

My Mom is poor. Very poor. Her mother favored the eldest sister of my mother. We are the black sheep and shes a millionaire. The inheritance has always been in limbo. Grandma is crazy, 91, and still crazy.  Mercurial might be a better word.

 

damn that's intense. i can't imagine the black sheep / favoriting thing mixed with socioeconomic conflict. that sounds like a unique struggle. i wish you and mom the best and hope it gets easier. 

 

lately, I've been feeling those fleeting moments of, if i just had xyz dollars, i could manage my life better in this area, or me less susceptible to anxiety cuz of reason xyz. I know that for the most part, that's an illusion, but i will say that having self-sufficiency and comfort (not necessarily living in luxury) goes a long way to ease certain types of stress. So yeah I can't imagine poverty mixed with dysfunction. that's a real low and hope that no one i know has to go through that. for all the soldiers withstanding those conditions, i look up to them. 

 

yeah man, I had a wonderful anglo child hood at my Grandma's house in D.C Step GranDad was a captain in the navy.. Wonderful house.. pool. Go to the movies w/ cousin and sneak in to different ones all day. Dignitaries and high society parties were a norm and a glimpse into the ww2 greatest generation. Had a great time until high school. The time when career planning matters. uh oh.,  I was going to a shitty penec ostal church school. No real education. We were in a cult for a few years, but i stayed at the school (the devil you know). It affected my navigation in the career world to say the least. We always knew we were the losers. Mom's older sister and her son went to Ivy league schools. We had to borrow money to save our house.. Never let us forget it. My grandmother has affected my self esteem (and a shitty high school).. She married very young and felt insecure about her intelligence. She married a naval officer so shes always been upper income level. Great great gandma gave her a good inheritance AND helped her in down times without complaining, ironic .

I didnt speak to my Grandmother for 10 years. My sisters wedding brought us back together due to my A type demanding bro-in law/ Annoying situation there too.  Im never sure if being around her would help or hurt the situation. It has been a chess game. Im only sorry my other family members had to take the heat for my absence. Im sensitive and prone to anxiety and depression and i decided i couldn't take anymore mind fucks from Grandma. 

My real grandfather who she cheated on left and right with neighbors got ALS around my birth , my most feared disease.

Oh, and the favorite sister. Who was similar to grandma. (i dont like to talk about the dead)...Recently developed Pick's disease. Drove 3 hours from her home in nevada into a ghost town in the desert. Got into a ravine and died. She was found by hikers a month later.

I was kicked out / left my parents household at the age of 15 after a very bad physical altercation with my father that left me with two broken ribs and an eye that was swollen shut for almost a week afterwords. My parents, being freaky swinging hippies and all, didn't know how to deal with some of the things I did becoming a teenager. Both are heavy, heavy drinkers (used to be worse) and my father would travel a lot for business. When he was home, instead of being an effective parent, he just resorted to both verbal and physical solutions to deal with me that were far from ideal or appropriate. My mother tried her best, but she was and is a somewhat mentally-unstable functioning alcoholic who threw her fair share of water vases and wine bottles at me. My sister never got the brunt of most of it because she was very active in scholastic activities and didn't do much wrong, but I think witnessing what she did from my end was what really enforced her to not step out of line.

Since then, we have reconciled and we really have improved our relationship quite a bit to the level where a lot of my friends are jealous of how open we are with each other. I'll never forget eating MDMA with my father on the beach in Yelapa, Mexico when I was 21 after we had somewhat become closer. I finally told him how badly our relationship and problems had affected my life and person, how I missed out on being a teen and went down a very scary path to stay alive at way too young of an age - when I looked over at him, his eyes were full of tears. I never knew, for the 6 years my parents and I never exchanged even a 'happy birthday' that my father held so much guilt inside of him and knew what he did was totally wrong and he had been living in his own hell for essentially banishing his son from his life and being too proud to say he was wrong. It was an overwhelmingly powerful experience as I literally felt the weight of years worth of self-blame and self-loathing ease off my back. I wasn't perfect, but I was a fuckin' kid and the way they handled things was not okay at all. 

Much love to all WATMMers who struggle with family dysfunction. 

My family's fairly messed up. I'm sure there are worse ones. We used to be a lot closer... after my parents divorced (among some other shit that happened around the same time) a lot of the bonds kind of disintegrated. I haven't seen most of my cousins, aunts, uncles in years.

I feel like my mom and I are messed up in really similar (but subtle) ways. Like, we're always just responding to things, processing. We aren't movers or shakers, we aren't ones to call the shots, we are both reluctant leaders. I love my mom, and the older I get the more I relate to her, but like me she's got lots of attachments that pull her away. The difference between her and me is that I'm capable of completely forgetting about everything temporarily, I can let something sweep (HA HA GET IT) me away for a bit. She can't do that for much more than a 20-minute phone call. Maybe it's just a mom thing. And it's weird because it's like... we're so similar that we kind of phase-cancel each other in our interactions sometimes... you know what I mean? Like there's an element missing.

I'm quite aware that my dad loves me very, very much, but he has such a caustic way viewpoint (not to mention a complete inability to listen to anything I have to say that isn't blatantly smoothing things over) that I just try to stay out of his orbit as much as I can. I feel like shit sometimes for not spending more time with him but, fuck, I'm seriously happier for it. I know I'll regret it someday, though, and the avoidance I use to (not) deal with it does seem a bit regressive. And, yeah, that and alcoholism, racism, sexism, egocentrism... all that fun stuff.

My cousin who just graduated from college is my homie though. I'm going to go get dinner with him in an hour, as a matter of fact.

  On 8/13/2016 at 2:06 AM, Audioblysk said:

 

 

... I finally told him how badly our relationship and problems had affected my life and person, how I missed out on being a teen and went down a very scary path to stay alive at way too young of an age - when I looked over at him, his eyes were full of tears. ..

That's awesome that you got to that stage, and I'm sure you realise how important that was.  I has the opportunity to say the same stuff to my dad after 2 decades of not seeing him (he tracked me down for god know's why...) and I layed out how all the violence and emotional stuff in my childhood effected me and changed me as a person.  You spend the rest of your life trying to undo the effects of that y'know?

Anyway, the reply I got (especially after detailing certain events that are burned into my childhood memory) was "I don't remember that..." and "..well you mother was doing this and that..." and "...these other people were..." - just totally deflecting all responsibility away from himself from what he did.  Then he left.

I was very angry for several weeks after that.  Took a long time to get back to my normal self.  The realisation that nothing is going to change.

I haven't talk to anyone in my family since they bought me a PC for my birthday 13 years ago 

  On 8/13/2016 at 3:37 AM, Deer said:

I haven't talk to anyone in my family since they bought me a PC for my birthday 13 years ago 

I'm a Mac guy too.

Sorry, that's terrible.

I talked to my dad once in the past 10 years. At my sister's wedding over 2 years ago. My sister's husband is in jail now.

My mom's pretty close to crazy and her guy is also nuts, that's all the family I have in Norway, the rest are dead. I have some uncles and cuisins in Denmark, they're nice for the odd visit here and there as long as we don't mention immigration as they're mostly bigoted racists.

  On 8/13/2016 at 1:00 AM, Lane Visitor said:

the stuff that no one wants to talk about is the most valuable stuff. there's too much small talk and surface level bs in this society. kind of sick of the fakeness tbh. 

I'm really sick of it

Why did I read this thread now I'm depressed

  On 8/15/2016 at 9:16 AM, Zeffolia said:

Why did I read this thread now I'm depressed

lol yeah i hear you. i had to numb my mind over the weekend as it was too much for me dealing with it all as the drama continued. today i just want lighthearted things to keep my mind relaxed. like i just want to move out of town, start over, have a blank slate. 

just trying to come to terms right now with the fact that the childish cruel ways my family has been acting toward each other over the last week (and last few years) has pretty much ruined the relationship between several of my cousins and i. fun times.