A
female
age
30-35,
anonymous
writes:Asking this because I'm currently isolating with my family and having moved away at a very young age to get away from them, it's been very difficult mentally and I'm curious to know if my negative feelings are valid or not. I'm sorry if this is long but I've been bottling this up for a few years and don't know where to start with helping myself be better.My main issue is my mother, I don't think she had a troubled background (she had an estranged sister so was essentially an only child, and we all love our grandparents) but she loves to play the victim, never says what she means, and gets very wound up in her own thoughts. She's a very traditional mom in the sense that she expects respect and will never apologise for anything, because any disagreement we have isn't seen as an argument, but disrespecting her as a parent. I'm sick of apologising when I don't feel like I've done anything wrong I am the middle child of 3 children. Growing up, my big brother was a short fused bully and used to physically hurt me a lot. My mum couldn't stop him because she wasn't strong enough and my dad worked (he was well behaved for my dad) the unpleasant company of my brother went on for about 10 years. He would drag me down the stairs, stamp on my head, slam my head in doors, throw things at me, kick me in the stomach, tried to drown me in the pool a few times, tell me I was fat and ugly etc. He never really got in any severe trouble for it but my parents restricted his computer time and as I got older I started fighting back which quickly stopped him trying to physically hurt me. These days we are civil because we don't live together, but I can't stay with him for more than a few hours without him getting wound up. In a group he is fine but 1 on 1 he makes it clear that he still doesn't think much of me. He thinks I'm stupid. His relationship with my younger sister is normal and they often go out and do things together. She didn't get to experience his bad side the way I did.My mother was very controlling as a teenager and unfortunately I eventually acted out. Initially as I got older (13-15) and started to make friends I was only allowed outside once every 2 weeks for a certain amount of hours, I was only allowed to speak to my friends for up to 30 minutes on weekdays and 1 hour on weekends. I wasnt allowed a mobile phone and my parents put a blocker on the house phone which meant that I could only call certain people. My mum chose my clothes and would hide clothes that I bought that she didn't want me to wear. There was a phase where I liked to wear a lot of black and grey (still do) and I remember her screaming at me telling me she was throwing my clothes away and to stop "trying to be a goth". I started to buy makeup and she would hide it, pretending that I lost it because she didn't want me to wesr makeup. If my mom didnt like a friend of mine, she would get herself worked up and call them nasty names to me and say things that made me feel pathetic. If we fought she would intentionally break my belongings. My siblings were not treated the same way.Unfortunately like I said, I began to act out after a few years, having seen how my friends and siblings were treated by their parents and I guess it made me resentful. I started smoking and drinking from a young age and smoking cannabis. She only knew about the drinking and the smoking but obviously this made the controlling behaviour worse and I realized that I didn't do myself any favours. My mom would set very specific restrictions on how and when I should come home, for example if she wanted me to take a bus and I took a cab (spending my own money as I had a job as a teenager) she would go crazy at me. She would go through my bags and my post and I had no privacy at all unless I locked myself in the bathroom. I began self harming around this stage and she shouted at me for that too, telling me to stop being so attention seeking. It's worth noting that I had some pretty terrible boyfriends during this time too, both hurt me a lot physically and mentally. One boyfriend sent me threats, I tried to talk to my mom because I was scared and she shouted at me telling me to grow up. I was beat up by my ex the next day and the police got involved. This is the only time she apologised jokingly for not believing me and asked if I wanted driving lessons. I stopped smoking when I was about 18.Once I turned 19 I moved out with my friends and boyfriend at the time, our relationship improved massively and we enjoyed each other's company a lot more. We used to hang out at the weekend in the town and I would go home to see her and my cat. I would try and help her as much as I could, like taking her to work or cleaning her car or making cakes, and listening to her whine. Things were good for about 4 years. Then my cat died and she became very lonely and our roles almost reversed, like I was the mom and she was the kid. It was odd.Then I broke up with my ex and had to move home, I've been here ever since and she's made it clear that as a parent, she puts herself first. She's opening my post again, going in my room unannounced and not giving me any breathing space. I went away for 3 weeks at christmas and not only did she refuse to cover for me (it was a secret that I was away) she repeatedly cried on the phone to me because I wasn't there. Being under her roof on her terms has been hard at times but it's a lot better than before.I'm due to move out again soon but I'm currently stuck in self isolation and have been for 6 weeks. At first I had come back from a country with a lot of corona cases so understandably I had to stay in my room. I wasnt allowed to touch anything outside my room without gloves. My family spoke to me through a closed door. Now I'm on immunosuppressants and can't go outside. This has really caused some issues to unearth again in our relationship bevause for once I need to rely on my family. Recently my sister went out and got drunk for 2 days despite our country being in lockdown, she now has the virus. She won't isolate and my parents aren't forcing her so I'm back in my room again, my mom has been gaslighting me and kicking off at me ever since, finding any reason under the sun to create an argument. I need to pick up meds, post letters and she is refusing to help me, but also won't let me outside. Our conversations end up in arguments with her telling me I'm not at risk in her opinion (I'm on azathiaprine) and that I'm 'overreacting' but won't let me outside because I am at risk. Luckily I'm moving out in 3 weeks and although it might be tougher, I know I will be a lot happier.I am nearly 27 years old and these days I have a very low image of myself and I find it hard to believe anyone could naturally love me. I hate thinking that I will have to fight to determine my worth for my entire life. It's caused issues in my relationships and I find myself crying a lot. Although I haven't hurt myself recently, I feel like I want to often. I was wondering if someone here could give me an insight into what behaviour is normal for a parent, and what I could do first to start helping myself feel human again. Any resources you could offer me would be really appreciated!
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Fancy yourself as an agony aunt? Add your answer to this question! A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 April 2020): First I would like to say, please don't go back to self-harming it will achieve nothing. If you feel the urge, then please try to change the dynamic. Paint a positive image on the area like a beautiful rose something symbolic of how you feel, or paint on canvas, paint what you can not express, or put music on and dance what you can not say in words. The arts hold great healing properties, and the ancients knew this only too well. Everything will be more heightened at the moment so recognize EVERYONE is coping the best way they know-how.
Please stop the self-destructive behavior and stop waiting to feel hurt, you have to understand that even family don't always understand your inner turmoil as we often don't understand theirs. Let go of all your bad memories and fears and feeling not normal. You like 'they' are all unique individuals with differences, rightly or wrongly.
You say you are moving out soon, good you need to shed the childhood wounds and appreciate your life, create your life in a way that needs no validation, be who you are and love you for who and what you are. Try and not let the roots of resentment take hold of your spirit, let the past go, forgive what you can and rebuild.
You don't need to address others' behavior, you know fine well that some people cannot or won't see any other view other than their own, and vise versa so why create more stress, walk away and live your life to the full.
We can change how we feel about events in our lives and sometimes we have to start with changing our own perspective on events and learn to stop piling all the slights and knocks onto our backs, it would eventualy get heavy, choose freedom stop been a prisoner of suffering.
A
reader, anonymous, writes (8 April 2020): If you take an immunosuppressant, your mother is absolutely correct to keep you away from people who could infect you!
You have to find a pharmacy that delivers! All you have to do is call your doctor who prescribes the medication; and the clinic or doctor's office will probably find a drugstore that delivers and call-in your prescription. Most do these days, or you can subscribe to a med delivery-service that charges a minimal-fee.
I recommend you bite your tongue and back out of confrontations. Your unflattering characterizations of your family members are sure to reflect in your attitude and how you interact with them. You can't be confrontational; they know why you ran-away and why you came-back. You are in no position to judge them; and least of all, in any position to challenge your mother in her own house! Despite what you must think of her, she won't let you leave the house out of concern for your safety. I think your family in-general share a common dysfunction; and nobody can point the finger at anybody. You just may have to swallow your pride and ask a mobile member of your family for a favor. Where's your father now? He's the only one who didn't get a scathing-review!
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (8 April 2020): I would suspect if we spoke to your father, your mother, your brother, and your sister; that each would tell an entirely different story about how each dealt with you growing-up. We here at DC are accustomed to one-sided or one-dimensional stories; and we've all developed a knack for reading between the lines. You have to pay attention to even the smallest details; and you can often tell where the facts are skewed, or vital-elements are missing.
Stories like yours are intriguing and beguiling; because you are the center-character, and everyone around you has it in for you. Your brother bullied, beat-up, and mangled you. Yet it was totally okay with your parents. Did he ever hospitalize you? Did your teachers or your school nurse ever wonder where the marks, and bruises come from? Did he ever leave a visible or permanent-scar? Did he ever break skin or bones? Never once was he caught in the act of torturing you?
I find it odd that neither your mother nor your father cared that their son was going totally psycho on his little sister. Why would he go soft and gentle on your youngest sister? Boys given to aggressive and abusive-behavior don't focus on only one target. It spreads around the neighborhood and the schoolyard. Making him a menace, and often a disciplinary-problem; hence, often expelled from school. Even if your parents let him getaway with so much; seems he'd be the one they were always needing to apply extra discipline and parenting over. You've pretty much characterized him as a sociopath, or bipolar. He was an unholy terror until daddy came home. Was your brother ever psych-evaluated? You should have been in head-bandages and on crutches. A dead-giveaway of child-abuse. Interestingly, your rebellious-ways came only later. After everybody else took turns at abusing you. Which one is worse, your mother or your brother? Neither are in your good graces; yet you returned to the scene of the crime!
I believe you! I don't doubt that you had it rough, if he picked on you a lot. If you really didn't like him, how much said about him is embellishment? How much is fact? He deserves some benefit of the doubt; being unable to defend himself here. We'll have to take your word for it.
Maybe your mother is also bipolar or a sociopath. Your little sister has it made. None of that abuse comes her way.
As my memory recalls, the goths I've known were pretty antisocial and cliquish. They were gloomy, snarky, withdrawn, and all hated their parents. They didn't need a reason; it was just stereo-typically gothic, and expected of them. Nobody's music was considered as cool as theirs. They did scary things to their hair, wore really heavy eye-makeup, black nail-polish, nose-jewelry, and dressed in black from head to toe. It was like Halloween all year long. Drugs are part of the culture. They put all the local businesses and malls on high-alert; because they liked to mingle or blend with punksters, shoplift, and would cause trouble. Unlike the rich or elite goths who dress-up like rock stars; hangout at high-end coffee-houses and dreary bars with pulse-music; and take designer-drugs, while they plot ways to humiliate their parents. They are all a parent's nightmare. Wannabe vampires! Sleep all-day and creep all night.
Why would you run with a pack like that? Why wouldn't you expect your parents to disapprove?
It is normal for older-siblings to pick on the younger-ones. The rivalry intensifies when one child tends to spy and tattle. If one child goes through the other kid's things, or tells things that might embarrass the other. Retaliation is the usual comeback, and it can be pretty brutal. How bad, depends on what the one child did...said-to...or about the other. I suspect you were a precocious kid, and always in your big-brother's grill (American-slang for 'face'). You're likely to get pummeled a lot; if you spend a lot of time tagging behind an older-kid who doesn't want you to.
If you're out of sight, you're out of mind...most importantly, out of reach!
If you cried a lot as a little-girl, that's a weakness a bully just can't resist! They have to give you something to cry about. I was a middle-kid, youngest for a long-time. Older-brothers used me for target practice and like a human-cannonball. They were being playful, and toughening me up. I was well-prepared for schoolyard-bullies. I was tough! You passed it on to the next kid. More were born after me. My guess is your brother wanted a little-brother to rough and tumble with. By the time your sister came along, all his frustrations were pretty much worked-out. You got tough, and could fight-back. Like I did!
It seems you were a rather extra-sensitive kid with absolutely no fond memories of your childhood. You smoked? Cigarettes I presume, as well as pot? Hung with the bad crowd! You picked ruffians (tattooed?) for boyfriends. You were only a teenager, but had boyfriends who hit you??? If you were a goth, you had to talk-back to your parents. No self-respecting goth would be polite or respectful to a parent. You're supposed to ignore them, roll your eyes, flip them off, or look at them like every word out of their mouths proved they're a raving-idiot. That's why every conversation turns into an argument. If you only buy gray or black clothing, I guess mum hid them to force you to wear colors. Make you dress like ordinary females. The make-up had to be hidden too; if you like looking like an ancient Egyptian or a tart, made-up in evening-glam all-day. Then to top it off, you ran-away with the circus! Oh, but came-back to all the psychological-torture and abuse you supposedly ran-away from.
What can you do to feel normal again? From your story, you've never been normal! Your mother torments you and treats you like a red-headed step-child. She regressed to a second child-hood; she was nice for four years, and suddenly returned to a scathing-witch again. What do you consider normal? Twenty-seven is too old to be moving back home. It means your life went south, and you had nowhere else to go. Any other option would either be worse, or nonexistent.
Well, you'll be moving soon. You'll leave them all behind, and they'll fade-back into the past. Maybe the world you've chosen for yourself is the normal waiting for you.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie  +, writes (7 April 2020):
 If you only have 3 more weeks until you can move out, then hunker down in your room. See if you can get prescription for at least a month at a time (or better, 3) so you would need to go out less often. I don't know if your pharmacy can deliver, but it's something to look into.
If your immune system is compromised the more time you ISOLATE yourself from others, THE BETTER. If you have a sister who don't care, why bother spending time with her?
You said 3 weeks until you can move, so organize your stuff, what to keep, donate and throw out. Organize and pack up (if you can) stuff you won't need until you are out on your own.
Right now you have a LOT of time to "think" on the past. Being with your family brings up old issues and memories. I think you need to keep your mind busy with OTHER things as much as possible. Because you can't fix the past, you can't change your family.
There isn't one set of "normal behaviors" for a parent OR a child. People are individuals. They make different choices, take different actions, think differently, etc. So trying to figure your family out by asking total strangers who have never met or interacted with you OR your family is not really super realistic.
I do think you have a lot of baggage from your childhood that you haven't dealt with, and I think it would be good for you to consider finding a therapist (when all this Covid stuff is over) and work through how you can LET go of the past for a healthier future.
For now though, I'd say focus on the here and now and the future, NOT the past. Keep healthy, if that means isolating yourself from the rest of your family, then DO so. FOR YOUR sake.
You are also 27 so can she really FORBID you go post letters or pick up your meds? My guess is no, not really. As long as you take precautions (like a face mask - there are TON of people on Youtube showing how to make some yourself at home and maybe gloves).
Look up some Yoga for beginners, if you can. Or listen to some audio books or read books there are a lot of free ones online, so it doesn't have to cost a thing.
Self harm won't make you feel more human or better about anything. I think you know that. It's likely that you feel tempted to self-harm because you are not in the best environment (aka stuck in the house with too much time to think on the past and people you DO NOT really want to be around 24/7) But keep eye on the prize, you will be moving out shortly. Until you do, focus on what's import RIGHT now.
A lot of people are not really knowing what to do with themselves and their thoughts, fears, feelings during this lock-down. You are 27 so an adult. Which means you ACT like one too. It's SENSIBLE that you had to quarantine when you came back from another country. It's SENSIBLE that you had to wear gloves around the house (though a mask would make more sense...) it wasn't because "they" don't like you that you were told to self-isolate or wear gloves but your post sounds like a little kid thinking they said that to "punish" you. USE common sense here.
Feeling normal, is up to you.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/hide-and-seek/201205/building-confidence-and-self-esteem
https://zenhabits.net/25-killer-actions-to-boost-your-self-confidence/
Do some google searches for what you want to learn, do some self improvement. While you have all this free time on your hands. Remember you CAN NOT change your family, but you can learn to be better at dealing with them by improving yourself.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (7 April 2020): Hi, I don't know about my mother's past and she's extremely traditional and stubborn so I'm sure I will never find out. My brother went from an only child to an older sibling and hated me from the beginning, it was obvious in family videos etc. I was always planned as my mum had my name chosen since a teenager. My brother was wrapped in cotton wool as a kid, everything was very much on his terms. He didn't eat (and still doesn't) like a normal person and my mum let him from a young age because he would willingly starve himself otherwise. My mother in her eyes can't do any wrong and I'm confident any talk to address her behaviour will turn into a fight. I have tried before. Thanks though
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (7 April 2020): Firstly I believe something happened around conception was your mum sexually assaulted (even in a relationship) was there arguments after you were born , You say your brother is mean to you but has a good relationship with your sister well something was going on when you were born he might not know what it was as he was young but ill feelings can disturb a child .. and your sister has learnt this behaviour from your mum and brother so that's why you dont get on .. I had problems with my mum and finally at 32 yes old I sat her down and told her I needed the truth about my childhood .. now we are not any closer because the damage has been done but I am a ease now as I understand more since our chat my mum is a closed book and is always right but i told her it was open up or our relationship could not continue (I have not lived at home since 16 ) but it's good your moving out so maybe once your settled try and talk to your mum at least if there is a fall out you can go back to your own place .. good luck ..
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