What is the worst thing a family member has done to you?

[Anonymous]

My sister has always resented and hates me. She cut me out of her life and had her friends and husband attack me.

What about you?

[Anonymous]

Significant physical and mental abuse from a parent.
Drug addict brother stole and sold many cherished possessions.
Alcoholic sister drives chaos and crisis into my life (along w/ verbal abuse when drunk) that I'm just now learning how to curb.

My extended family has several addicts also - some of whom have let me down in painful ways.

[Anonymous]

Op, why don't you share more about your family?

[Anonymous]

My mother threw me out of her house in a big city at a very difficult time in my life, when she knew my son went to the special needs school right next to her house. I had to sleep at my BIL’s in the exurbs and spend hours driving my son to school every day in his ricketty car, which was literally falling apart, which greatly added to my stress. I found out that my BIL was more supportive and understanding than my own mother...

[Anonymous]

... and if ever one of them needs my help, guess which one I’ll welcome in my house?

[Anonymous]

During my very awkward teen years, my mother told me I was ugly.

[Anonymous]

My SIL has randomly and suddenly cut off contact, preventing me from seeing my dead brother’s children, who I love like I loved him and who love us dearly. She suddenly pulled out of bringing them to my wedding, two days before. She said she was going to bring them to my mother’s beside in the hospital before she died, but didn’t turn up and didn’t come to the funeral or wake or answer our calls for months afterward. She had kept me from seeing or talking to them across multiple Christmases and other holidays. Then suddenly she will get in contact and ask us to visit, like nothing happens. If I try to talk about it, she shuts down and threatens to cut us off again. It’s been 10 years of an emotional buzz saw trying to stay in my nephews’ lives. My brother’s sudden death broke my heart, but being ripped apart from his children again and again with no warning had been an ongoing pain.

[Anonymous]

My brother stole my stuffed Papa Smurf in 1982. I was very upset.

[Anonymous]

Two off the top of my head, my father hit me with a whiffle ball bat when I was around 9. Then he held me up against the wall by my neck when my mother thought I didn’t brush my hair. I was probably 13 that time. It’s very hard to recover from a relationship like that. On one hand it’s a parent ( you think they love you) and the other hand they do things to hurt you that no one else has ever done. It’s damaging.

[Anonymous]

Joy to the world

[Anonymous]

Allowed her DH to sexually abuse me for 6 years.

[Anonymous]

My dad held a gun to his head right in front of me when I was 17. He told me that I was about to see his brains on the wall. I talked him down and he wad admitted and treated for a psychotic episode. 15 years later I still picture it every time i see him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My SIL has randomly and suddenly cut off contact, preventing me from seeing my dead brother’s children, who I love like I loved him and who love us dearly. She suddenly pulled out of bringing them to my wedding, two days before. She said she was going to bring them to my mother’s beside in the hospital before she died, but didn’t turn up and didn’t come to the funeral or wake or answer our calls for months afterward. She had kept me from seeing or talking to them across multiple Christmases and other holidays. Then suddenly she will get in contact and ask us to visit, like nothing happens. If I try to talk about it, she shuts down and threatens to cut us off again. It’s been 10 years of an emotional buzz saw trying to stay in my nephews’ lives. My brother’s sudden death broke my heart, but being ripped apart from his children again and again with no warning had been an ongoing pain.

I’m sorry, PP. I know this pain.

In her typical vindictive fashion, my sibling kept me from my nephew for many years. Nephew and I were very close and she did it to hurt me (not caring or realizing she was hurting her son in the process). Then my nephew died in a car accident. He was only 19. We were just beginning to reconnect since he was legally an adult and my sibling could no longer control his decisions.

I feel for my sibling, and wish I could’ve taken her pain away. I wouldn’t wish her kind of grief on my worst enemy. But there’s a small part of me that will always resent her for taking away my relationship with my nephew.

I hope your SIL comes around, PP, and realize that it’s about the kids, and inviting as much love into their life as possible.

[Anonymous]

My Uncle ( by marriage) won’t let me or my family in his house because we are Gay and our black child is adopted. He is homophobic and racist. They live in a different country but when we go to visit my Mom my Aunt will always come to us, we never go there. This has meant we have been excluded from some extended family gatherings. Including my Aunts 80th birthday party. It didn’t happen anyway because of Covid but it still hurts to not have been invited when we did nothing wrong and everyone caters to my Uncle.

[Anonymous]

I asked my parents to come watch my daughter when I was miscarrying. They said no and doubted that miscarriages are real. Then told me to stop thinking about it and it wouldn’t happen.