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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I am estranged from my family of origin. My mother wasn't speaking to her mother or family of origin when she died. My father stopped speaking to me and my sister, and he remarried five years after my mother died without telling me or my sister. My sister stopped speaking to me. I still communicate with her husband via FB. My sister cleaned out my parents house. She took everything including my personal belongings from my childhood still at my mother's. I have no pictures of my childhood.

When my mother died in the hospital, my sister threw shoes at me across the room. When I called or visited my mother in the hospital, my sister would hang up the phone or interfere. She denies any of this. She tells people the nurses at the hospital didn't know she had  a sister. There is a history of physical, emotional, and verbal abuse and violence among the women in my family of origin. [/quote]

PP, thank you for sharing this.

I am not fully estranged from them, but have a similar story of dysfunction and abuse in my family of origin. I do not speak to any of my siblings. My parents are still alive and I maintain a distant relationship with them just to have some kind of link to my family of origin. Lying is also rampant in my family, both to one another and to others to try and cover up what has actually happened.

My husband knows about this and a few friends know I'm "not close" to my family, but don't know the extent of it. One of the hardest things is talking to be about their families. Even when people tell me about conflicts or issues with their parents or siblings, a part of me feels horribly sad and just warped and not normal. I have to work hard not to engage in self talk about it or to believe that because my family is so messed up, I must be irrevocably messed up too. I also struggle with how to present all of this to my DC. So far I haven't shared any of it (they are still very young) but I don't know what the balance is between honesty (my family of origin was very secretive in a way I think is toxic) and burdening them with this pain. I'm working on it.

I sometimes wish more people with these family histories would/could talk about it (including me) because I find it so isolating. I just feel like I don't really have family or any kind of familial support network and I often feel like this is so anomalous, but I know their are others. But I think we stay quiet out of shame, and people who talk about their families a lot tend to be people with good, loving families.

So appreciate you sharing your story because it makes me feel less alone. Hopefully my story makes you feel less alone, too. It is hard to be a chain breaker, hard to go it alone, hard to feel like your inheritance is primarily one of dysfunction and what NOT to do, and that [b]the healthier and happier you are, the further it takes you from you family of origin.[/b] Solidarity.

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That is a very insightful comment. It reminds me of why I do not try harder to stay connected to one of my siblings. [/quote]

Yes, very insightful. I used what I learned from being part of a somewhat dysfunctional family of origin to create for my children the family I wished I had had growing up. My parents used to comment on what good parents my husband and I are, and I never replied to them that it was because I learned what not to do from my childhood. I saw no reason to hurt their feelings in their old age.

Sometimes my sibling comes out of the woodwork to spew arrows of what she hopes will be hurtful comments at me. I am aware that this happens when she realizes that I have removed myself from the craziness and she, for whatever reasons has not been able to. She resents me for this and wants to both hurt me and claw me back into some kind of weird back and forth confrontation with her. I just ignore her when she goes down this unpleasant path and refuse to respond to her nasty texts and emails.

I am happy and healthy in my life and relationships and so feel quite removed from her as she, despite years of therapy, has apparently been unable break free from unhealthy behaviors. I feel sorry for her, but I can’t change other adults. I can only stay away from people who wish ill to me and my family. 
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