I just read an article that led to me feeling like I need to get some stuff out. I'm overwhelmingly depressed these days due to multiple anniversary triggers.
Anyways, the article was about how to know the difference between enabling someone and helping them. It listed all these things that were considered being enabling.
I wanted to read it to get some validation that when my family thought they were being "enabling" and I just needed "tough love", it wasn't true. Because despite being told that tons of times by therapists and friends, I still feel like I just can't function at life without help.
What had happened was a few years ago when I was pregnant. I had been in England and was coming back to the states unexpectedly(I had trusted the father of my son to figure out how I could stay instead of doing it myself). I was young, naive, and not properly equipped for life. No high school diploma because education wasn't important to my mother, religion was, and I had been working and couldn't handle the stress of both. So I didn't see it as a problem, I had a job, wasn't that the point of an education? I left for England leaving nothing behind.
So when I came back, I had my suitcase, and the clothes on my back. My family knew I had to come home, that I was pregnant, that the father was looking for suitable employment so I could get back out there as soon as possible. And yes I had gone there in the first place to basically run away from my family. Though I didn't realize that at the time. My mother, her new husband(she got married in the few months I was in England, instead of waiting till I was home, it was her first time being married, they started dating when I'd left), and my aunt, my mother's sister, had discussed where I could stay and stuff. Which I thought that was nice, and despite deciding this without involving me at all then telling me how things would be, they were gonna put me up and feed me. So that I figured was the price I paid. Needless to say I was an emotional wreck being pregnant and having to leave the safety of being 3000 miles away from these people. I used to do the whole "they're not -that- bad, there's worse, they're not abusive since they don't hit me".
I ended up at my aunt's, even as a child I used to call my mother crying to take me home, don't make me stay here. She's controlling, passive-aggressive, and always acts like she's better than me and my mother. Simply based on her having a job that pays really well, and my mother was the single mom who eventually ended up on Disability and I was the child that couldn't take care of herself. She was sly in her manipulation as well. Anyways, it was nothing less than hell being there. I scored high for post-partum and had to be put on depression meds, I was severely suicidal, and none of this mattered to them. The number of times I heard "if you knew what I'd been through, you're lucky you have a family that...." I had almost blacked out after a shower and the dr's said I needed to snack, keeping something in my room especially, in case that happened again. My aunt refused to let that happen. Saying she'd get mice. My mom said she'd get a plastic container to keep stuff in. My aunt said no. I ended up having to hide food in my suitcase. I basically spent my whole day in bed reading. Dream life, right? When it got close to time for my aunt to be home, I'd eat my dinner beforehand and do everything I could to be asleep by then. I was also pregnant in the summer, so I would turn on the overhead fan in the bedroom when I was sleeping(mind you my aunt makes PLENTY of money, that was not an issue at all), she would turn the fan off and the reason I almost blacked out the time before was due to the heat. I didn't like the TV she watched, and wanted to read my books, so even when she was home I was locked up in my room. She always got mad at this and ended up demanding I eat dinner with her one night a week.
All during this time I wanted to jump in front of a bus. At one point she wouldn't even let me call the father of my child because he could only call while she was home, and it was "rude to be talking to him and ignoring her". At one point after a few months, I was maybe 5 months pregnant, my aunt, mother, and my mother's husband had a "meeting". About how much it was costing having me at my aunt's, food and whatnot. What I ate was cheep food, I was mostly living off mac and cheese. How -I- needed to come up with something and discussing how they were just enabling me and I needed "tough love". I was supposed to get a job, at 5 months pregnant. I said no one would hire me when they knew I was pregnant, my mom said to lie about it. And then what was I supposed to do when I had the baby and there's not exactly someone else to take care of it...
The whole few years up until I lived with my one aunt that is sane, were hell.
It wasn't until living with my other aunt that I started seeing the differences. Even now typing this all up I feel like I'm being petty or ungrateful. I've had therapists tell me what they did was terrible, some of my therapists were mothers themselves and couldn't believe my mother would treat me that way. And that if I was dependent on them it was only because they had "groomed" me to be. My mother always called me lazy, but now I know ir was just my depression and a mother who didn't understand how to handle emotions herself. They wanted -me- to be there for them, so they treated me like I couldn't survive without them. And yet I still blame myself. I should have lived in a shelter while I was pregnant, gotten whatever job I could find, etc. I just didn't think I could do it. And I still find myself needing validation for everyone action in my past, every choice I make now. And I hate that too. That I can't trust in myself because of their brainwashing...
Did anyone else go through similar experiences with their family?
Anyways, the article was about how to know the difference between enabling someone and helping them. It listed all these things that were considered being enabling.
I wanted to read it to get some validation that when my family thought they were being "enabling" and I just needed "tough love", it wasn't true. Because despite being told that tons of times by therapists and friends, I still feel like I just can't function at life without help.
What had happened was a few years ago when I was pregnant. I had been in England and was coming back to the states unexpectedly(I had trusted the father of my son to figure out how I could stay instead of doing it myself). I was young, naive, and not properly equipped for life. No high school diploma because education wasn't important to my mother, religion was, and I had been working and couldn't handle the stress of both. So I didn't see it as a problem, I had a job, wasn't that the point of an education? I left for England leaving nothing behind.
So when I came back, I had my suitcase, and the clothes on my back. My family knew I had to come home, that I was pregnant, that the father was looking for suitable employment so I could get back out there as soon as possible. And yes I had gone there in the first place to basically run away from my family. Though I didn't realize that at the time. My mother, her new husband(she got married in the few months I was in England, instead of waiting till I was home, it was her first time being married, they started dating when I'd left), and my aunt, my mother's sister, had discussed where I could stay and stuff. Which I thought that was nice, and despite deciding this without involving me at all then telling me how things would be, they were gonna put me up and feed me. So that I figured was the price I paid. Needless to say I was an emotional wreck being pregnant and having to leave the safety of being 3000 miles away from these people. I used to do the whole "they're not -that- bad, there's worse, they're not abusive since they don't hit me".
I ended up at my aunt's, even as a child I used to call my mother crying to take me home, don't make me stay here. She's controlling, passive-aggressive, and always acts like she's better than me and my mother. Simply based on her having a job that pays really well, and my mother was the single mom who eventually ended up on Disability and I was the child that couldn't take care of herself. She was sly in her manipulation as well. Anyways, it was nothing less than hell being there. I scored high for post-partum and had to be put on depression meds, I was severely suicidal, and none of this mattered to them. The number of times I heard "if you knew what I'd been through, you're lucky you have a family that...." I had almost blacked out after a shower and the dr's said I needed to snack, keeping something in my room especially, in case that happened again. My aunt refused to let that happen. Saying she'd get mice. My mom said she'd get a plastic container to keep stuff in. My aunt said no. I ended up having to hide food in my suitcase. I basically spent my whole day in bed reading. Dream life, right? When it got close to time for my aunt to be home, I'd eat my dinner beforehand and do everything I could to be asleep by then. I was also pregnant in the summer, so I would turn on the overhead fan in the bedroom when I was sleeping(mind you my aunt makes PLENTY of money, that was not an issue at all), she would turn the fan off and the reason I almost blacked out the time before was due to the heat. I didn't like the TV she watched, and wanted to read my books, so even when she was home I was locked up in my room. She always got mad at this and ended up demanding I eat dinner with her one night a week.
All during this time I wanted to jump in front of a bus. At one point she wouldn't even let me call the father of my child because he could only call while she was home, and it was "rude to be talking to him and ignoring her". At one point after a few months, I was maybe 5 months pregnant, my aunt, mother, and my mother's husband had a "meeting". About how much it was costing having me at my aunt's, food and whatnot. What I ate was cheep food, I was mostly living off mac and cheese. How -I- needed to come up with something and discussing how they were just enabling me and I needed "tough love". I was supposed to get a job, at 5 months pregnant. I said no one would hire me when they knew I was pregnant, my mom said to lie about it. And then what was I supposed to do when I had the baby and there's not exactly someone else to take care of it...
The whole few years up until I lived with my one aunt that is sane, were hell.
It wasn't until living with my other aunt that I started seeing the differences. Even now typing this all up I feel like I'm being petty or ungrateful. I've had therapists tell me what they did was terrible, some of my therapists were mothers themselves and couldn't believe my mother would treat me that way. And that if I was dependent on them it was only because they had "groomed" me to be. My mother always called me lazy, but now I know ir was just my depression and a mother who didn't understand how to handle emotions herself. They wanted -me- to be there for them, so they treated me like I couldn't survive without them. And yet I still blame myself. I should have lived in a shelter while I was pregnant, gotten whatever job I could find, etc. I just didn't think I could do it. And I still find myself needing validation for everyone action in my past, every choice I make now. And I hate that too. That I can't trust in myself because of their brainwashing...
Did anyone else go through similar experiences with their family?
