TLDR: I haven’t felt a connection with my family in years due to self-isolation. I want to feel closer to them, but they often make me feel horrible. Advice?
After my main trauma at 11 years old, I started spending all of my time alone, hiding in my bedroom. This didn’t get better for the rest of my childhood and to be honest, is still how I live today. My brother was 9 or 10 at the time, so he was young when I stopped talking to him.
As I’m recovering, I’m feeling the desire (obligation?) to connect with my family, but I feel like they know nothing about me. Even before the trauma, we weren’t very personal with each other. My parents are pretty emotionally unavailable and never tell anyone anything, to the point where I won’t learn about surgeries or vacations until the day they are happening. We live in the same house, by the way. So feeling disconnected is still an issue even if I make an effort to speak to them. It’s always been our family dynamic. Don’t show emotions. Tell people things only on a need-to-know basis. If you say something genuine, you'll get made fun of for it.
“If you don’t like something, ignore it, and hopefully, it will go away”. This is the way that my family “solves” problems. This is the stance they take with my history of abuse. They refuse to admit that anything has happened to me. They don’t say this to my face unless they get too drunk, but I’ve overheard it. They prefer to pretend that I was born with bad genes and that’s what caused my mental illness. This alone makes me feel like it’s impossible to be open with them because my trauma affects my life in every way. I want to spend my entire life and career helping people like me and sharing my story. My parents are also responsible for some of my trauma, so that complicates things. Nothing unforgivable, but it still exists and hasn’t been acknowledged.
My self-isolation also affects my relationship with my grandparents. The pressure and guilt are 100 times worse when it comes to them. I know the clock is ticking. Both of them have declining health. I feel horrible for not having a close relationship with them. I hardly ever talk to them. I feel stuck in my pre-(worst)trauma personality when I talk to them because that’s the last time I was close with them and I want to live up to their expectations. They still don’t know anything about my partner except for his name. They don’t even know that we’re dating. I always call him my “friend”. We’ve been together for two years.
The thing is, spending time with my grandparents seems to always make me feel horrible. The guilt of not doing more with them eats me alive. I hate noticing the ways in which they aren’t as sharp or happy as they used to be. My grandmother has a tendency to be passive-aggressive and manipulative, to the point where my mom (her daughter) seems to feel no attachment to her. The bad feelings are to the point where I sometimes feel suicidal after seeing them or even thinking about them. I also worry that I should never tell them anything about my trauma because it may be too stressful for them. My grandparents are still (mostly) lucid and functioning on their own, their health is just not great.
The discomfort with talking to my brother is mostly that we seem to be extremely different people and that he doesn't know anything about me. He has a habit of nervously laughing when I tell him anything about myself (things that I think aren't strange or concerning) and then talking like he's half-heartedly trying to talk someone out of jumping off of a bridge, which is discouraging. He's at that age where most of his social activities revolve around drugs or alcohol, which I'm not a fan of. When he first started smoking weed (legally) he would often ask me to join him, but I didn't want to get high. Or see my little brother getting high.
I’m not okay with the view of “you have to put up with everything they do, no matter how shitty it makes you feel. They’re your family so just get over it. If you stand up for yourself you’ll regret it when they're gone”. So far this is really the only advice I’ve gotten on this subject.
Has anyone dealt with anything similar to this? What did you do or what do you wish you had done?
After my main trauma at 11 years old, I started spending all of my time alone, hiding in my bedroom. This didn’t get better for the rest of my childhood and to be honest, is still how I live today. My brother was 9 or 10 at the time, so he was young when I stopped talking to him.
As I’m recovering, I’m feeling the desire (obligation?) to connect with my family, but I feel like they know nothing about me. Even before the trauma, we weren’t very personal with each other. My parents are pretty emotionally unavailable and never tell anyone anything, to the point where I won’t learn about surgeries or vacations until the day they are happening. We live in the same house, by the way. So feeling disconnected is still an issue even if I make an effort to speak to them. It’s always been our family dynamic. Don’t show emotions. Tell people things only on a need-to-know basis. If you say something genuine, you'll get made fun of for it.
“If you don’t like something, ignore it, and hopefully, it will go away”. This is the way that my family “solves” problems. This is the stance they take with my history of abuse. They refuse to admit that anything has happened to me. They don’t say this to my face unless they get too drunk, but I’ve overheard it. They prefer to pretend that I was born with bad genes and that’s what caused my mental illness. This alone makes me feel like it’s impossible to be open with them because my trauma affects my life in every way. I want to spend my entire life and career helping people like me and sharing my story. My parents are also responsible for some of my trauma, so that complicates things. Nothing unforgivable, but it still exists and hasn’t been acknowledged.
My self-isolation also affects my relationship with my grandparents. The pressure and guilt are 100 times worse when it comes to them. I know the clock is ticking. Both of them have declining health. I feel horrible for not having a close relationship with them. I hardly ever talk to them. I feel stuck in my pre-(worst)trauma personality when I talk to them because that’s the last time I was close with them and I want to live up to their expectations. They still don’t know anything about my partner except for his name. They don’t even know that we’re dating. I always call him my “friend”. We’ve been together for two years.
The thing is, spending time with my grandparents seems to always make me feel horrible. The guilt of not doing more with them eats me alive. I hate noticing the ways in which they aren’t as sharp or happy as they used to be. My grandmother has a tendency to be passive-aggressive and manipulative, to the point where my mom (her daughter) seems to feel no attachment to her. The bad feelings are to the point where I sometimes feel suicidal after seeing them or even thinking about them. I also worry that I should never tell them anything about my trauma because it may be too stressful for them. My grandparents are still (mostly) lucid and functioning on their own, their health is just not great.
The discomfort with talking to my brother is mostly that we seem to be extremely different people and that he doesn't know anything about me. He has a habit of nervously laughing when I tell him anything about myself (things that I think aren't strange or concerning) and then talking like he's half-heartedly trying to talk someone out of jumping off of a bridge, which is discouraging. He's at that age where most of his social activities revolve around drugs or alcohol, which I'm not a fan of. When he first started smoking weed (legally) he would often ask me to join him, but I didn't want to get high. Or see my little brother getting high.
I’m not okay with the view of “you have to put up with everything they do, no matter how shitty it makes you feel. They’re your family so just get over it. If you stand up for yourself you’ll regret it when they're gone”. So far this is really the only advice I’ve gotten on this subject.
Has anyone dealt with anything similar to this? What did you do or what do you wish you had done?
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