Contact With Perpetrators?

[Nicolette]

Ok....here's some input from the outside looking inwards. My sister has CPTSD and I have watched her anger, rage, struggle to understand herself, medical problems (I believe endometriosis is stress related), being promiscious, the alcohol, the pushing away of people trying to help and the worst thing........going back and back and back looking for love from a family who just made her sicker and sicker. My sister would go and see a medical professional, they would advise her on things, she would go home and tell our mother who would say "they don't know anything; I will help you" and I watched her get swallowed up by the toxicity of it all.

Three years ago I sent my sister some information on PTSD and told her I thought that was what she was suffering. Two years later, she rang me up telling me she had being diagnosed with CPTSD (not surprising) and was suicidal however stuck at helping herself past taking medication which didn't work well with her.

This sister who recently got married, didn't invite me, even though I am the only one who sees and understands her illness to some point, and instead she keeps reverting to the toxicity of maintaining relationships with her abusers. The straw which broke the camel's back for me was not being not invited but that she had her abusers at her wedding and one "walked her down the aisle".

In comparison, I grew up the same and my only saving grace was I got out of there and slowly began to realize through adulthood that my thinking was skewed and what I thought was normal family life was not like other people. I started to see the control and manipulation and it was a struggle to break free as the draw card was always wanting to be loved and hanging on for that sign of hope that one day my parents would love me 'normally'. Not just consider me a bank and someone to do errands. I actually had to totally end my relationship with my family on Mother's Day this year as receiving an attacking email over only sending a card resulting me bursting into tears and ruining the good time I was having, finally made me see that even at arms length would not work. I wrote back, said a few things I needed to say and have felt a ton of bricks lift off my shoulders since that day as I no longer worry about having to please them or the consequence of what I do or do not do right. Geez....my son is nearly an adult and my parents were still pulling those strings which hurt right to my core. I cut them. That is what worked for me.

If I look at me and my sister I don't think I was stronger, just luckier to get out and realize things where she never made that step with an open mind. I wanted to fix myself, she just was consumed by the want to be loved. Like Anthony said to me, he loves me and that's what matters so why go back and back looking for love where you are not going to get it. If it was an ex I wouldn't go back so why do it with my parents. It took a good 9 months to have the strength or drive to process and carry through what was one of the scariest things I have had to do yet has turned out to be the easiest now that what is done is done.

People say to me I will have regrets when my parents die but I disagree as I know I did everything I could but didn't get back in return. What can you do with that? I don't have anything to be guilty of other than trying too hard.

I am sharing this for those of you who have excluded your perpetrator from your life to know that while hard I can see how it saved me from the depths of suicide and helplessness my sister now lives in.

 

[Gloria]

I just have to add my story here also because Nicolette's story really touched me. My sister and brother committed suicide. My sister died three years ago. I withdrew from my family of origin twenty five years ago after my brother's suicide. I can totally identify with how Nicolette feels because she is the only one that really understands here sister. I was the only one that understood my sister but yet she treated me like garbage her whole life. She was such a mess and I was giving her money. I would go ballistic when I found out that she would pay $100 cab fare to go to a birthday party in the family and never even acknowledged my sons' or my birthday. She is gone now. I do understand why she did this - she was so desperate for approval from the toxic family that never once gave any approval that she would do anything to get it.


Christmas is very hard for me. I keep busy by visiting old people in the nursing homes on Christmas. It is very difficult and no matter how much I try to mitigate the depression at Christmas, I still get it. It's still hard but it gets easier. My half-brother who abused me said terrible things about to an uncle and all my other siblings inherited a fortune from him but I didn't. I was disowned. But I loved my uncle. Money isn't everything. My uncle once told me "Gloria, your brother and sisters are just screwed up. How did you end up being so wonderful." When my brothers and sisters got $500,000 each, I decided that comment was worth $500,000. All my brothers and sisters just blew through the money in a couple years anyway. I have a treasure in my heart and I don't lose it because of the recession.

When I get tempted to have contact with my toxic relatives, I remember that it's not worth it. They took away too much from me already and just allowing them in my life just allows them to take more from me.

 

[intothelight]

Hi Gloria,

Just remember we didn't "pick" our families. I have severed quite a few ties and now I only "pick" the people I want to consider as family.

ITL

 

[Gloria]

Shame is such a big part of the dysfunctional family and when I share with those close to me what my family was like and how cruel they were to me, the people I share my information with give me a look of disbelief and ask how anyone could be like that.

I tell them the world has good and bad. Some few people are very lucky and are born into wealthy, loving families. Then the opposite end of the sprectrum is a child born in an undeveloped country whose parents don't care for the infant and the infant dies. It's not like there is anything wrong with me because I didn't get as lucky as someone did.

Thank you for pointing that out because the shame and the silence kills us. When we speak about our past on the forum and we refuse to be ashamed, we are giving each other so much power. This site is so healing to me.

So thank you very much, ITL!!

 

[bluecat]

Hi Sonickel77,

(yr 77? me too!). I can very much relate. My father was my abuser too and I can't avoid him. He still lives with my mother, even though, she finally, after 33 years wants a divorce, he won't stop leaching off of her. Even though he's been sleeping with another woman for the last 20 years. And I love my mother and my sisters, they were victims same as me, they never did anything bad to me. They were my survivor unit. I can't just cut off all contact.

But if I talk to them and don't talk to him, he takes it out on my mom, because he blames her that she turned me against him somehow. Like if what he did to me wasn't enough to turn me against him. I went home couple months ago (my family lives in Eastern Europe) because my grandfather was dying. I got the news one night and flew back the next morning, totally hysterical, because I love my grandpa. And my idiot father thought that everyone knew ahead of time that I am coming and only he was kept out of the loop. His new attempt to reconcile with me was him trying to kiss me on the lips, one of his disgusting slobbering kisses all over my face. After trying to **** me when I was a teenager! I thought I was gonna punch him. I should have, but instead I just said that I am not into all the huggy kissy stuff and pushed him away. Ever the good girl, grrrh.

I never actually confronted him. I guess I feel that with his manipulative personality, anything I'll tell him, he'll spin around to get to me. If he ever realizes what he did and how wrong it was, I'll know it because he'll break down from the guilt. Maybe I'll forgive him then. But I doubt it will ever happen. I am just eagerly waiting for my mom to finally get rid of him, so I don't have to deal with him ever again. 33 years and still waiting.

I wish I had an advice to give you, but I am myself clueless about what to do with this. But I can definitely relate.

Take care,
Bluecat

 

[bluecat]

This sister who recently got married, didn't invite me, even though I am the only one who sees and understands her illness to some point, and instead she keeps reverting to the toxicity of maintaining relationships with her abusers. The straw which broke the camel's back for me was not being not invited but that she had her abusers at her wedding and one "walked her down the aisle".

Hi Nicolette,

Thanks for sharing. I think I was like your sister when I was younger. As a child I hated my father and I knew he was bad news. But by the time I turned 20 I put a huge bandaid on it and blocked all of it. Instead of him, I blamed my mother for not being, I don't know what, fun and caring enough to make him happy. I thought if she satisfied him better, he wouldn't be the same enraged psychopath. I married a guy who was a mirror image of my father and yep, had my father walk me down the aisle. One of my sisters told me later that she wanted to puke when she saw it.

It took only a year before I knew what my mother had been through and that I was pretty off. I am not glad my ex was abusive, but it was good that something shook me up from denial and made me face reality. I was pretty seriously off. Breaking mentally with my father didn't take much longer. Just cleaning up the mess he left behind is a never ending fight.

Maybe your sister will come around and see who was there for her one day too.

 

[girlwithwings]

I left an abusive relationship (my son's father, very similar to my own who beat/molested me at age 2-?) and am now back living with my mom who won't hear of any of it (my truth) about my father...I have had a good relationship with her since I did not live here but I cannot hold a job and she can't see why, never has been able to accept me, just hates me.

Living here has triggered everything and it feels like a prison again like it used to.

My Dad is dead, he shot himself in 2006. I lived my whole life thinking when he was gone I'd be free...nope.

I am considering trying to get disability for this because living here is killing my heart (again) which is why I left here at 15. I am 31 and I just don't know how I can be starting over again, facing these issues in a new way. It's like you can't fast forward past it. I have only dealt with small bits at a time as they are revealed to me.

I now remember why I thought of my Mom as abuser #2, even though she has done more to help me day to day than anyone else, it's still not real, it's to cover up the truth. And then she's feels angry at me for feeling (and being helpless).

Living here again feels like slow suffocating death, which is the recurrent dreams I have always had...being slowly choked to death in the dark. Silenced. I wish I could just make it go away.

 

[Susan M]

I guess my question would be how to get through it. I have had no physical contact with my ex-husband for over 9/10 years. He is currently trying to regain visitation of our younger children, who have had no contact with him in about 5 years. The courts have given the kids a GAL who has insisted that I meet with him (GAL) and my ex, and that I email my ex and have phone contact with him so the kids can see that he has changed. Every time one of these contacts happens, the anxiety is on overload and sends me into trigger overload. How do you get through this?