Relationships - How Do You Feel About Them?

[Elena Farely]

How do you feel about your personal relationship with the people around you? By which I mean, close friends, acquaintances, family, partner/significant other, therapists, doctors, psychologists, etc. Heck, even pets!

My family relationship is very messed up. My second oldest sister hates me, encourages my mother to throw me out of the house, hates my boyfriend, has abused me in the past/childhood. But her fiancée who I consider like a brother to me, he understands my choices and stands behind me and feels my choices will always have an effect on my life and that it is my decision to make. No one elses. And I appreciate that.

My mother is just... Ugh. I cannot describe what she is doing to me. She's just pushing me further down a horrible road that will not end will at all. And it's not going well walking halfway down that road. She cares more about foster children than her own childrens problems. She'd rather focus on another persons family to try and feel like she's loved rather than working on her own families problems and ignores that slowly, her family is falling apart and she will never regain what she will lose.

My family is hectic right now and it's becoming a mental toll on myself.

With my boyfriend, it's on rocky steps at the moment. One day, I'll be happy with him but then just come crashing down so hard, it's near suicidal. And it pains the both of us. He also suffers from PTSD, depression and other mental disorders similar to my own and we both have troubles at times with them and being around each other or wanting to be alone.

There's probably more I could talk about but I'd like to hear about some other relationships some of the forum members have with people.

 

[p-no]

Hello,

For a long, long time, like you, I felt I was pushed down a road that never seemed to end. It took a lot of work in therapy (started at age 19) and with time (well, not literally, but with work and therefore with time), I found out that there were exits to that road all along. Earlier on I would see the signs pointing to those exits, later-on I would actually follow one, leave the road but then end up on the same road again by getting lost. Then came a time when I took an exit and that was it. I know that road still exists and I have to be aware of it and be in reality at all times to not end up on that road again. Not so easy, but definitely the better choice: putting my energy into staying on this new road.

Regarding relationships. In 2010 I took a decision. I decided to leave my old life behind, meaning leaving the place where I lived, my family (= my first but not last abusers), change my name, move to a new city and - most importantly - cut contact to all abusers. I did this, with the help of my then therapist, in 2011, and started a new life here. I knew already two people in this city from when I lived here years before. Having changed meanwhile, I found that I needed to cut contact with them, too, since they weren't good for me. Back then, I had not noticed because "not good for me" was equal to "normal". Then I did notice and applied consequences.

Since then, about 6 months, I have been "alone". I have no friends here and two in other parts of the country. My definition of "friend" has changed, too. I have a good job and I love it. I like my colleagues and sometimes we meet for coffee or sushi outside of work, which is nice. This is it. And I have never had more peace. This is also owing to my therapist who I am very grateful for and who has helped me tremendously. Only lately, thanks to the people in this forum, I realized how good she is for my life and that I want to trust her more. It's actually working; I have opened up a lot more recently and have been rewarded for it. I have realized how much more I'd be able to heal if I trusted her more. She has never let me down, and finally I got it. (Thanks to all who write here, seriously.)

Although I am fairly alone, I am happy. I grew up alone so this is not new to me. Quite the opposite, I must say: Being alone were the good times in my life. As soon as my mother and my other abusers were close, they would abuse me. So being alone is a good thing for me.

Still, now I would really like to have a partner. There have been men who were interested, but those would have been "relationships repeat", and what I really want is a new kind of relationship with a man. An equal, reciprocal one that is clearly in the present. I have a natural longing for it, but seem to attract the wrong man. This really makes me sad, and I feel quite sad about this today. Still, I know (and now this includes brain and soul) that I am well and I like my life and feel content. I hope that one day I will meet a man who is good for me, and who I am good for.

I hope you will find a good way for you to be part - or decide not to be (anymore) - of your relationships.

prime-no

 

[Elena Farely]

I'm glad you escape from as you call them "the abusers". It sounds like you did very well for yourself with a lot of help from your therapist. And it sounds like you've made some choices that have made you happier in life which is always good.

Right now, I'm just trying to play this game of life day by day but some things start to become hard between all the different problems between each person I have a relationship with. I just try to find a cheat code around it (= avoid situations).

 

[p-no]

There probably is no other way than do it day by day or sometimes even hour by hour or second by second.

 

[Diamond81]

Relationships have always baffled me and i have never had a "close" friendship. Not a real one anyway. On the other hand my brother has has the same "best friend" since third grade for 43 years. Like someone who is born blind, I am aware that something vital is missing from my life, but never having experienced it, I cannot access the impact.

As a kid, I was such a weird little shit which morphed into me acting out as a teen for negative attention, then onto being a young adult who made some atrocious relationship choices, REALLY atrocious, and now, I am exponentially marrying less and less unhealthily (lol), but seriously doubt I'll ever experience a genuine, honest-to-god, healthy, fulfilling, mutually beneficial caring relationship that is healthy and based on the right things. I'm not really sad about this but I do feel "locked out" of it based on events that took place in my life...........

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Hi, For years I was involved with toxic relationships. I did not know how to think for myself. My marriage was a big mess. I was trying to raise 2 children in a healthy environment and there was abuse from my alcoholic husband. I went to ACA for a year and it was really helpful.

I began to drink and turned into an alcoholic too. It was a real mess. Alot of heartache and grief. I had cut off my family of origin. I was lonely and trying to find a new family. I was searching for the truth. It would lead me into unhealthy relationships and it would help me to outgrow them.

Now I and my husband are sober. We moved out of the area that had so many dysfunctional people. For the last year we have had no toxic relationships in our life. No crazymaking or high drama. No more retraumatization or secondary wounding.

I had to cut off every single person in my life. I am trying to rebuild my life. It has been very peaceful. But it was very costly and painful. I guess I had to go through the school of hard knocks.

Not anymore. I hope this helps and does not hurt. It is a pricess. But oh it was so painful going through it. My heart goes out to you. Big hugs.

 

[Diamond81]

Gizmo, I think I am the toxic one..............

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Diamond I do not think you are the toxic one. Toxic people do not go out looking for help. Big hugs.

 

[Loner]

There are none. A few acquaintances, and then theres my dog. I love my dog, but hes not a person.

 

[Diamond81]

Thanks gizmo. I am ready to give up on relationships, period. People equal pain. Yes, I am the toxic one. because this is true, (and I know I'm not the only one) my family for the most part,has nothing to do with me. I have numbed myself over it though. Just 15 minutes ago, I watched my youngest son who was just realeasd almost two weeks ago from a psych/drug rehab ward, walk out of my home because I caught him selling felony drugs and asked him what made him any different than his mother (my ex wife) who sells and uses drugs with minors, including him at one time. I know he doesn't have a safe place to go, he was asked toleave his last environment because of drugs. But because I said that about his mother, he tried to flip it back on me and said "I can't believe you would say something like that to me." This is my son, my own flesh and blood. It's like wearing a "kick me" sign-he instanlty knew he could both hurt me and attempt to avoid his own repsonbility by leacing my home knowing I will be up allnight worried sick about him. He has managed to stay clean a few days (something I am now beginning to doubt) has started going to meetings and now this....he has nowhere to go where drugs are not. What he sold was his own perscrption meds but it is still a felony controlled substance. Now he has every excuse he needs to go use at me. thing is, I did not scream or yell I asked what I thought was a very sobering queston. Maybe he was looking for any reason to go back out and use anyway, I dont know. But he is my child and though I may have been wrong to word things as I did, it was definetly the lesser of wrongs between the two of us. I was so proud of him. Christmas 2010, afte ra horrible verbal and emtionally charged argument, I punched him in the face. I've never forgiven myself and now this....................

Not long ago my wife who was very drunk at the time,began berating me, telling me how much she hates me ( and I'll stop there with the rmaining "list" of things she said) and without losing my cool I told her i wasn't going to talk to her but I did NOT leave the room as I should have. before long, she was screaming so loud I was afraid the neighbors would call the Police and she would not would not would not stop coming at me, attacking me verbally, emotionally and honestly, before I even relaized it I had pucnhed her in the face. I dont have full recall of the event and dont have a total "connection" to it because it still sort of feels like someone else did it but I cause an oribtal fracture in her eye socket. It was horrible, astillis, she just had surgery this past Wedensday. All I am going to hear in the morning is how sheknew this was going to happen with my son, how stupid I was to trust him, how she can now "never feel safe" with him around,. I am contemplating just telling her a f*cking lie cause I dont want to hear it.....but in truth, what I did was very traumatic to her/for her and though she knows intellectually it wasn't something I have ever doen to her and that I didnt "intend it' (not trying to avoid responsibity here) she has been very effected and i AM this horrible toally toxic, unpredictable f*cking psychotic who may end up really hurting someone, Not her words, mine.

I dont see me doing this much longer. These are the two closest people to me and look what I have done!

 

[Deleted member 12723]

Diamond these incidents do not make you what you think. You could benefit from a anger management class. I highly recomend it. I took a anger management class. I have done things in anger that I am not proud of, not my finest moments. I have exploded and done things to my own children. So you are not alone.

You have a conscience and obviously cannot forgive yourself. You are a human being. I agree with you that violence is not the answer. But it sounds like both times you snapped and pushed back. But you are haunted by these experiences.

I cannot talk you out of your opinion about yourself, but I can say go and get help for these things. You sound like your plate is full and overflowing. Be kind to yourself.

Yes when someone is yelling at you and in your face, it is always the wise thing to have a time out. You could leave and go and cool off. It is much harder when someone is following you around and in your face.

I do not have any advise for you. But getting help for yourself is the right thing to do. You are not alone. It is always so sad when it is our own kids who are being abusive. Your son and your wife need help too. I do not know if they will get it. You have marriage counseling, and family counseling. You need help. It is up to you. You are in a position to turn things around.

I went to therapy alone, my husband refused to go, until I left him for 3 months for alcohol abuse. We went to program together and learned so much. Then we went to marriage counseling and it helped us very much.

I sure hope you think about the things you could do to make it better. You may go alone, and when You change for the better, the others will get sicker until perhaps they too will see the need to get help for themselves. I wish you the very best. Good luck in whatever you choose.

 

[p-no]

Just a few thoughts...

I find it the hardest with the people I feel closest to. "Closest" not necessarily meaning "most loving", just most "entangled". (Coming to think of it, there's a wonderful book (have read/done half of it, and so far, very good for me): "Disentangle", by Nancy L. Johnston. Not PTSD, but "entangled relationships".)

I have my own share in my abuse as an adult. I left home at age 19, after I finished school as early as possible (in our system here you can graduate after grade 9, 10 or now 12; I did after 10), went to college for two years (although I had always wanted to go to university and study marine biology -- and I still regret not having been able to do this) and found a job. The abuse before this time I needed to play along with; I had even gotten help several times, but it never worked and I was left within my group of abusers (= home). The abuse after that time, I did not need to play along with, but for some time I did, merely because I did not know that "you have choices" really meant that I had choices, that those were real choices. I had never learned that 1. I was worth making my own choices, 2. that I actually really had them, and 3. that making choices differently from before would actually have effects. Still some time later, I slowly, slowly started to learn 1, 2, and 3 above and I now think I have passed the top of the mountain and have only started coming down on the other side of it.

What I mean is: We (generally speaking) have a share in what "happens" to us (that includes what we "let happen", or rather what we do and not do). But relationships is never just one person. Your wife has (had) choices and so do your children (although they may not know of them or may not know how to make them, etc.). We (generally speaking) are "entangled" in relationships, with "cause and effect" all the time. Gizmo said it: you have a choice. Not for the past, but for now and now and now and now and again in five minutes and in ten, and all the time in between., and in future.

As a child, in grade 1, I beat up a boy passing on what I had learned as being "normal behaviour" if you didn't like something or someone, or, in this case, playing along with others who said they would beat me up if I didn't beat up him. He froze and his eyes "died". He was gone right there. Life was gone from him. That woke me up. It was his very reaction to *me* (I was scary at age 6 to a boy the same age!) -- and that was when I started to learn that my "normal" was not normal at all. I am still carrying the feeling of guilt with me from that day. I had liked the boy always, before and after. Later-on, I went back to look for him in real life in order to apologize sincerely to what I did to him. After the internet was available to everyone, I found his uncle online. We met, and he told me he had killed himself at 16. Some time down the road of therapy I had realized that his reaction to me at age 6 wasn't normal either. I had suspected strongly that he had been a victim of severe abuse, too, and that was confirmed by his uncle who took him in at around 13.

What I'm trying to say is that I, too, have my package to carry containing many times when I was abusive. Through therapy though I have learned that the feeling of guilt is not equal to actual guilt. I learned ways to deal with my mother who was abusive to me until about two years before she died. Or trying to but I wouldn't let her anymore. Once she was abuse on the phone, I'd hang up. Period. (One of many examples.) I learned what people refer to as "to forgive myself", although that term doesn't do it for me. I'd rather say, I learned to look at the big picture and with the help of therapists found where and when I was really guilty of abusing someone else and where and when I wasn't really responsible (as a child, for example). I'd still love to meet that boy, Ulli, to talk to him and maybe bring back a tiny bit of peace for him and me. Since I can't, I'm making sure as much as I can to continue down the road of getting better because I will not forget his face back then on the schoolyard. I often cry for him (not only but also about what I did to him, but also for him having had to endure that done to him by me on top of all he had had on his plate already, which was even worse than my own experiences at the time.

Sometimes distance and disentangling allows you to get a clearer picture of things. I hope you will find ways to improve your life in a healthy way. Those around you will be affected by that as well (which does not imply that they will follow your path); this is my experience.