My heart goes out to you. My situation is much the same as yours. I haven't gotten far enough along to answer the question you want answered, but there are days when I wish I hadn't ever started to try to change my position in my family. Families have an unspoken structure and will let you know in no uncertain terms if you try to shake it up. Just this morning I was thinking about how my family is fine as long as I agree that I am the one with the problem, but when I try to challenge that, my family won't let me. That is, I can have all the health/mental health/coping problems I want, but if I try to relate them to how my family has treated me all my life I run into a brick wall. People don't change unless they want to, and no one in my family seems to want to. There have been big problems for years, most people don't get along with most other people, but the biggest step I've taken was a year ago, writing my mother and telling her about my memories of sexual abuse and then telling her that the way she treats me (like blatantly ignoring me when I try to talk about something that is bothering me, for instance) is so harmful that I can't be around her when I am feeling vulnerable. This started off a series of letters back and forth, her wanting to know what I meant but unable to take in my attempts at answering. When I finally tried to bring the conversation to a positive conclusion, i.e. "okay, we can't change the past, but what are you willing to do to make things better from now on" I got silence for a long time, followed by a suggestion that we should talk to a family counselor. I'm dreading the whole thing. I won't even get into what is happening with the rest of my family. The rule is "the bigger the problem, the less we talk about it." I've tried repeatedly to talk about it and gotten everything from the silent treatment to outright hostility. With my mom, bringing up what I am remembering about my dad sort of gave her an excuse to blame everything wrong with the family on him (easy, he's dead now) and take no responsibility for her own behaviour.
Being around my family makes me feel crazy. I can't wrap my mind around the split reality. Like you, everyone (or so it seems) keeps telling me to cut ties at least with my mother. But it hurts so much. Some people don't seem to care if they have a family or not, or they say you can create your own family of friends. I don't think that will ever be the same. My need for a real family is maybe stronger than most, I don't know, but there are times I feel that without it there isn't much point in living. I think part of it for me is a large chunk of my life as a teenager and young adult were spent in Mexico and among people from that culture, where family is much more emphasized. In North America independence is highly valued and it seems like there is a strong belief that it is healthier somehow to be different and separate from your family, even if that family is not abusive. That isn't a universal belief at all and I'm not sure I agree with it. I even had a counselor argue with me when I said how much I wanted a close family, trying to convince me that wasn't what I wanted at all! Anyway, there are times I think it would have been better never to tell my mom about the abuse, never to try to tell her how much her neglect harmed me, not to try to change things at all but just go along with the illusion of family and suffer in silence. But I'd gotten to a point where that was hurting me too much. Seems like it hurts no matter what I do. So I don't have the answer, and the closer Christmas comes the more depressing it gets.
