messy family, everyone's right and wrong

[Survivor3]

Sorry your having a tough time. I've read some of the posts in this thread but not all of them.
I think that you should try to move out eventually because your family relationships are toxic. You need to be selfish and think about yourself. Your obviously strong and have alot of courage to write and share on here.

You'll feel much better when your in control of your life.

all the best to you. S3.

 

[Strangelongtrip]

Thank you @scout86 ! It's been a little better over the weekend and through this week. I had a really bad breakdown over everything but I've recovered mainly. The anxiety with this virus stuff is just so bad.

 

[scout86]

If you haven't seen it, there's a fairly lively coronovirus thread going here. Check it out if you haven't, it might help.

 

[Strangelongtrip]

I've been applying to jobs with no avail, no progress. When my family heard there were going to be checks sent to each of us, my dad automatically assumed I would give him my check. Didn't even ask me. "Yeah so we're going to have about 3600 coming in so that should help." He's stolen bonds from me before and I've paid for their groceries and other things. I have classes to pay eventually, another thing he hasn't helped with but promised to pay.

It's like good and bad, if that makes any sense. Because I know he's using the money to keep our house up and food in the fridge but I pay for groceries that THEY eat and then don't pay me back. But there's nothing TO pay for right now, foreclosures are shut off and electricity isn't a problem either, no shut offs until at least the end of May. He'll use it to pay for effin cigarettes and coffee. Things like this make me wanna kill myself, because I can't stand up to him, I can't escape, I have no where to move until I get a job, and there's no jobs to be had right now, and I probably wouldn't get these jobs without an unpaid internship or a degree, which I need to stay with my family to complete.

 

[Mach123]

My childhood growing up was kind of traumatic. Emotional and verbal abuse, etc. Narcissistic kind of father, distant kind of borderline mother with severe depression. Neither of them treated, my father a bit more so and had been to therapy and all. I have a sibling who has so much animosity towards them, and my parents have anger towards him for things he did BECAUSE of the way they were, but then things he did as an adult. I didn't experience the same trauma my sibling did. I was a witness to it, and I still have PTSD partially due to this and due to a later abusive relationship, but I didn't get it as bad. I understand his anger. I also sort of understand my parent's anger because some of the things my sibling did hurt me too. But I also understand why he did some of them, because he felt like he didn't have a choice.

My parents have grown tremendously in the last few years, since I've been in therapy. They're learning to regulate their emotions (something they never learned from their own families--I've become an avid "trauma tracer", tracing my family's perspective issues down the line), they're kinder, they listen, they're overall good parents now. I'm an adult but still live with them because I'm finishing up school and paying for it, and rent around here is ridiculous. I also have physical disabilities that make certain jobs hard (basically....everything. Sitting too long, standing too long, any of it. But I have skills and know how to market them for my own businesses). I'm at this awkward middle ground where I know both of them are wrong, and both of them are right, and it's messing up my black and white thinking. I can't compartmentalize them. I can't put them in easy boxes. And it makes me panic. I can't be safe if I can't figure out who's good and bad, and they're good and bad and in between.

I have a fantasy of moving far away and never dealing with my family again, just talking with them when I need to. I don't handle emotions well and I can't think my way to what's "normal". I can't think my way to what's perfectly right. It breaks my heart that I love them both and they hate each other and I have no way to fix it. I just have to sit with their perspective feelings and it makes me so uncomfortable. I don't know what to do other than escape. Get away from both of them. But I can't right now (although I have plans to move far away eventually).

What a great post about dealing with anyone. People don't set boundaries and there is hardly a way to talk about it because people don't.

You live with people you (love) and who (love) you, that's family right? All families right? Yeah right.

So you try and hash things out and now it's a negotiation. But the stronger ones tend to win. Then the complaining starts. Nobody is all wrong or all right, and everyone has needs.

The question is how do you manage it?

"The first rule of fight club is never talk about fight club". Who makes the rules? If you do manage to get some rules in place, someone's is trying to figure out how to get around them.

I try and be nice and apologize when I don't do very well which sometimes I don't. : )

 

[Strangelongtrip]

thank you @Mach123 :) It's just this never-ending balancing act and now that I'm stuck with them I can't deal with it anymore. We're been under essential quarantine for the last two weeks and I'm losing it.

I've already relapsed into self harm twice. They tell me not to worry about finances or getting a job right now when all my income is gone. That they'll "get that by some means". Well, what does that mean? Maybe that's why they're in a f*cking debt resettlement, because they don't know how money works. I can't deal with being around them anymore. I have to numb somehow.

 

[Movingforward10]

It sounds as though in your family you play the role of adult/parent and the fixer of problems.
But there is no one in your family helping you with yours.
This resonates as this is the role I play in my family. I too have struggled with wanting to run away from them (metaphorically). My T says I need to find a middle ground. I haven't found that yet, I'm still catapulting between a dysfunctional relationship on their terms about them or me cutting myself off from them.

Anyways: back to you.
A) if they are not worried about their finances, maybe ask yourself why you feel the need to fix this for them? It isn't your job to fix it. Do you think you can take that responsibility away from yourself?
B) you have a plan. You have ambitions and goals. That are to do with you and what you want from life. the pandemic is a big old problem in helping your ambitions happen right now. But they will. You sound as though you have this inner resilience. This strength to do what you need to for you. Believe it, even though it feels tough right now.