What's the worst family situation you've seen?

[Syaoransbear]

Everyone is flawed. That's not a good enough reason for self hate. Exactly who or what convinced you that you had to achieve personal perfection in order to be worthy? If you believe that, you've been believing a lie. And if someone else's words convinced you to hate who you are, why did you choose to believe them and let them win?

I never said I sought perfection. Averageness would be fine. And I tell myself I'm worthy of my hatred because it's true.

[MedievalMystic]

And I tell myself I'm worthy of my hatred because it's true.

 

YOU'RE telling yourself that? Nobody else? Then you are your own worst enemy. Refer to the above quote. No more simple truth was ever told, and you're a fine example.

 

And simply saying 'I tell myself that because it's true' is a cop out. What horrific, godawful things have you done to make you believe the lie that you deserve such self loathing? I'm very curious to know what you consider 'hate worthy' about yourself. Have you spent time in prison for your crimes?

Edited May 25, 2013 by MedievalMystic

[CleanMyWounds]

I have a strange mix of emotions reading these kinds of posts. On the one hand, I feel such incredible sadness that anyone would harm themselves as you're doing. You deserve much better than you're giving yourself credit for, and you should treat yourself with respect and kindness. I wish I had the words to convince you of that simple truth. You aren't your mom, you haven't lived her life or made her decisions for her. That's on her, not you. But if you don't believe it yourself, nothing changes. Half of me wants to comfort you, half of me wants to put my foot up your arse and ask you what the hell you're thinking, harming yourself like that.

 

 

Why in the world are people so ready and willing...so eager, almost...to take the burdens of others on their shoulders, and ACCEPT it and carry that crap around with them? I've never understood it.

 

Let me ask you, are you harming yourself because you choose to...or is it more of a compulsion, something you can't control? Like I said, I don't understand it at all. I just feel that there's nothing good in the behavior, and if it isn't good, it must be bad. And if it's a bad thing, you need to stop it, to find another, more productive, way to deal with the pain..

In the beginning, it was because I chose too. I heard it could help me channel my emotions, and it did. But now, it's a compulsion. I've been trying to quit but this session of quitting is going well so far.

 

I'm not trying to say you should, because you really shouldn't. But the only thing that comes of it is scars, unless you cut too deep.

[MedievalMystic]

In the beginning, it was because I chose too. I heard it could help me channel my emotions, and it did. But now, it's a compulsion. I've been trying to quit but this session of quitting is going well so far.

 

I'm not trying to say you should, because you really shouldn't. But the only thing that comes of it is scars, unless you cut too deep.

 

Thank you for clarifying that for me. In my mind I've always seen cutting as a choice. Thanks for being honest. And if you(general you) can choose to do it, you can choose to stop it, and fight the compulsion it's become.

 

Wellness and peace are worth fighting for, no matter how hard the fight. There are a lot of ways to channel emotions, especially negative ones, that are a lot more productive, and might actually be fun.. Kudos for fighting this thing and working on getting better. Obviously, you have some fighter spirit in you and that's a good thing. Actually everyone does. Some people just need to dig a little deeper to find it, but everyone's got it.

[CleanMyWounds]

Thank you for clarifying that for me. In my mind I've always seen cutting as a choice. Thanks for being honest. And if you(general you) can choose to do it, you can choose to stop it, and fight the compulsion it's become.

 

Wellness and peace are worth fighting for, no matter how hard the fight. There are a lot of ways to channel emotions, especially negative ones, that are a lot more productive, and might actually be fun.. Kudos for fighting this thing and working on getting better. Obviously, you have some fighter spirit in you and that's a good thing. Actually everyone does. Some people just need to dig a little deeper to find it, but everyone's got it.

It truly isn't that easy to quit. I have been trying since February.

[MedievalMystic]

It truly isn't that easy to quit.

 

No, it probably isn't. Just because you stop cutting doesn't mean that all your problems/fears/worries suddenly go POOF! and vanish. They'll still be there, but in a better state of mind you'll deal better, and handle things better, without the need to cut. Your struggle will make your success that much sweeter. You will succeed. You just have to want it bad enough. **sends good karma**

[Syaoransbear]

YOU'RE telling yourself that? Nobody else? Then you are your own worst enemy. Refer to the above quote. No more simple truth was ever told, and you're a fine example.

 

And simply saying 'I tell myself that because it's true' is a cop out. What horrific, godawful things have you done to make you believe the lie that you deserve such self loathing? I'm very curious to know what you consider 'hate worthy' about yourself. Have you spent time in prison for your crimes?

At first it was someone else. Well a lot of someone's actually, but more importantly someone I trusted. As an adult you can choose whether or not something can emotionally hurt you because you are capable of knowing when something is true or false or if it even matters. You can't do that as a child. You aren't capable of that kind of thought, you are still learning and for the most part you are taught that what other people tell you is the truth. Especially when a large number of people tell you the same thing over and over. For a kid brain, it becomes fact. So I was taught that I'm someone worth hating.

 

I've never been in prison, past experiences just shaped me into someone I don't personally like. It's not a big deal, I don't like most people either. My issues seem irrelevant to this thread though. My family is fine besides my mom being completely crazy.

[Fin-Strider]

Can I just point out that these topics are very heavy for people to talk about, and it might be difficult to understand someone's point of view?

 

Everyone has different opinions and experiences, on all sides. Self harm is a very difficult thing to understand, and quit from.

 

On the note of quitting, if you feel the urge, use an icecube and hold it against your skin. It helps.

[Svataben]

One of my cousins lost his teenage son a few months ago.

 

I've never seen someone age so much, so fast, before, it's like he's had a serious physical illness, with loosing weight and somehow graying in the face.

I don't think he'll ever really be OK again...

[Zinogre]

Back in 2008, it was one of the worst times my family have been through.

 

In January, my aunt was re-diagnosed with breast cancer, nearly 40 years after she was first diagnosed. Instead of going through months of treatment, she had both her breasts removed.

 

In February, my mother nearly got killed in a car accident which totaled our car. She was driving on her side of the road when this guy in a huge truck comes speeding down the road on her side. He slammed on his breaks, but his truck slipped on the ice. My mother turned the car so that he hit the passenger side, if she didn't, she would have been killed. He hit her that hard that the car did a 360, and ended up facing the way she just came from.

 

In March I nearly lost my grandmother due to heart problems. She had to go through open heart surgery to replace a valve, which saved her life.

 

Then in July, my other grandmother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and she was given 3 months to live. She couldn't do any chemotherapy, because it would have killed her a lot faster than the cancer did. They found the cancer way too late, she had it for months and the doctor's told her it 'was just gas'. It was hard watching my father walk away from her hospital room, because it would be the last time he saw her alive. He was nearly in tears when he had to say goodbye, which was hard to look at because he never cries. She beat the odds, and lived nearly 6 months after she was first diagnosed. Her heart couldn't take it anymore, so it just stopped.

[Scathe]

 

I want to throw in my two cents, I have seen a lot of bad family situations and some where a lot worse off then others, mine wasn't the greatest but it wasn't healthy either.

 

I was abused as a kid like a lot of people have been, it took me a long time to accept this, I also had perfection expected of me and wasn't able to deliver, I had zero self worth or what you want to call it, I had mental disorders that ran in my family I don't think people consider that some people may be better set up to make it in certain situations, when I got to the end of my rope and spoke up I was told to take my own life by one of the people who are suppose to care about you most, I lived with friends a lot after that and self injured in more then one way but cutting was one of them.

 

Cutting was helping me survive for that period of time before I even admitted anything was wrong, it started out as a challenge between friends over who could take the most pain and moved onto doing it whenever I felt like I wasn't going to make it anymore it became an addiction, if you look it up cutting does cause the brain to release chemicals that make you feel happy (look it up.) I could feel the wave of relaxation wash over me after I injured myself, and it helped me hang onto life for a period of time, it also landed me in the hospital a few times and I lost friendships because of it.

 

I managed to stop many years ago but I'm still left with strange marks, it's not something you can quit all at once, I kept fighting to get better over the years and slowly replaced bad habits with good ones (exercise, eating right, ignoring certain people, helping others instead.) It took a long time of fighting to get here though, I had to give up thoughts that didn't make any sense but I had beat into me and replace them with logical thinking.

 

I owned up to having mental disorders and stopped beating up on myself for having what I mistook for personal flaws, once I accepted the idea that certain behaviors were an illness I could fight against them and manage them, realize that they did not define who I was, I also saw myself as a stronger person after that.

 

I don't think people understand what the stigma of mental illness does, it keeps people from getting the help they need, it tells them to lock up their problems and suffer alone, it trivializes serious issues and mocks the people struggling hard to keep living, their issues aren't serious or that they are crazy people and not to be believed, they need to be abandoned, or they are dangerous. This flawed thinking needs to stop it's hurting people, suicide is one of the leading causes of death and it's covered up, no one wants to think about it if it doesn't affect them they would like to sweep it under a rug.

 

I don't know where I'm going with this anymore but I hope that everyone who is now growing up in a bad situation realizes that they can make it and things can stable out more in the future, they need to just hang in there and never give up fighting to get to a better place because they deserve it.

[CleanMyWounds]

May I ask who Uncle Edgar is? I noticed it in your signature. I'm very sorry for all the troubles you've lived through, but you're here now!

 

@Fin Thank you for your tip, I might try that the next time I get urges.

 

@Medieval Thank you for your kind words.

[Zinogre]

May I ask who Uncle Edgar is? I noticed it in your signature. I'm very sorry for all the troubles you've lived through, but you're here now!

 

@Fin Thank you for your tip, I might try that the next time I get urges.

 

@Medieval Thank you for your kind words.

 

Back in April, my uncle Edgar was taken to the hospital because a piece of metal from his hip replacement was bouncing around in his hip causing him pain.

 

While in the hospital, they ran some tests and found out he had cancer in multiple places. They couldn't do surgery on his hip, because he had heart issues, and his heart would have stopped. Chemotherapy was out for that reason as well.

 

He was doing really bad on the 15th, and the doctors said they'd be surprised if he lasted the week. My family made the decision to stop any treatments prolonging his life, on his wishes as well as my aunt(his wife).

 

Another aunt called my mother on Saturday(the 18th) around lunchtime, saying that he didn't look too well, and that they figured he was going to pass away soon. Sure enough, less than 30 minutes later, my grandmother called back saying he was gone.

 

This man was pretty much a second grandfather to me, and I miss him terribly. I'm happy he no longer has to suffer.

[akiokid]

this is hard actually because i have disowned family. i guess the worst would have to be my cousin who was threatening to murder my great uncle because he refused to give him $500. that lead to them being kicked out of the family, removed from my great uncles will, and now we have no idea where he is anymore. all we know that him and my other cousin are lifing together with their partners (4 people all together). my uncle now doesnt have any of his kids anymore due to the situation...

Edited May 26, 2013 by akiokid

[Guest]

For me, watching Fin being in there was absolutely horrible. He's my brother, and his parents were terrifying. It was disfunctional, it was terrible to see him being treated in such a wrong way.

 

I had to watch a friend slide down because of her alcoholic mother. She's doing better now, completely broke off contact with her mother, and lives with her father. Their bond is not fantastic, but they love eachother, nonetheless.

 

My own situation.. I don't know, we're a pretty messed up family, but it never really bothered me, or anyone, on a long term. One side of the family is never spoken of, and the other half... We all have our issues.

Edited May 26, 2013 by Puppylikestosti

[Minkee]

My mom is a heavy alcoholic and has been since I was about 14/15.

 

When I was 16 in high school, she became pregnant with a third child and insisted to us that it was an 'oopsie' baby, but about a year after the baby was born and when she chased her husband away with her drinking, she admitted while intoxicated that she DID ask her husband at the time to have a baby with her even though she was unable to support her properly.

 

May of 2012 was when her drinking worsened and she began at least missing 2 days out of the five at work, on some week even 3. Her job would get on her case about it and she being really defensive and insisted they didn't appreciate her even though she was doing a ****ty job and left work without a backup plan for us.

 

She got another job about two weeks after and within the first week of working there, missed three days and they immediately fired her.

 

Fast forward two more weeks and she miraculously got another job while we were hanging by a string and almost resorted to retreating to family for help. About a week into working at this job, she tried to commit suicide without so much as an 'I love you' to us. The only reason why we knew she tried overdosing was because she was texting our cousin who then immediately called my grandma to alert her and we rushed my mom to the hospital.

 

Luckily the pills she took weren't very strong and didn't cause much harm, she didn't even have to get her stomach pumped. It was just the mixture of all of the alcohol she had taken in the night before and the pills she took that made her scarily unstable. We had to wait until 1 am until the doctors finally said she was sober enough to talk to a counselor and go home.

 

She was off alcohol for about a week and a half then it returned with a vengeance. She'd drink late into the night and cry so loud it'd keep most of us up. And she'd mostly be crying over some guys that 'screwed her over' though she barely even knew them.

 

Now I say the crying and depressed stage has gotten better. She decided we're leaving Utah and returning to California and she's going to try and turn a new leaf.

 

The situation is still not perfect, moving day is less than two weeks away and she's been missing work at least once a week and still blows her money on alcohol and going out, so we don't have much saved for the move and I have no idea what's going through her mind.

 

Through this I've tried my best to stay strong, I take care of my sisters, make sure my grandma is doing fine, and still maintain a job. But it's really difficult. You never can know how much one person in a family can ruin things for the other members until you live it.

Edited May 26, 2013 by Minkee

[Alpha Gryph]

I had a bad family situation going on for about a year. My brother was starting to smoke marijuana and my parents didn't approve and told him he couldn't do it while he lived in their house.

 

....This led to him sneaking out of the house to go smoke in cars with friends and getting arrested, doing DXM, stealing alcohol from the local gas station and drinking it until he would puke all over himself in his sleep, and a bunch of other things. He's only 16 years old.

 

My parents filed incorrigibility though and he's been sent off to therapy and rehab and such. So far it seems as though he's been staying clean...and I hope it stays that way. This entire situation seems to have broken my parents.

[hazeh]

Just a friendly reminder for everyone that this topic should try to keep the graphic detail about suicide and self harming to a minimum. Discussion of it is absolutely fine, but grotesque descriptions can make others uncomfortable.

Also, if you need some support or advice about what's happening in your family, we have the Support thread for that purpose.

Thanks guys!

 

To put in my two cents, my mom was pretty badly abused by my grandparents. The stories she tells me still blow my mind, since my grandparents are very different people now. Or at least, from what I've seen. My uncle was also incredibly abusive to my mom, to a point where he would stand behind my mom while she was on a swing with a knife held to her back, though he would move it back when her swing would move back. There was a lot of verbal and physical abuse that went on that I've very glad my mom didn't let shape her into something horrid. She's a pretty amazing person to have survived and grown from that experience.

Edited May 27, 2013 by Shiny Hazard Sign

[MedievalMystic]

At first it was someone else. Well a lot of someone's actually, but more importantly someone I trusted. As an adult you can choose whether or not something can emotionally hurt you because you are capable of knowing when something is true or false or if it even matters. You can't do that as a child. You aren't capable of that kind of thought, you are still learning and for the most part you are taught that what other people tell you is the truth. Especially when a large number of people tell you the same thing over and over. For a kid brain, it becomes fact. So I was taught that I'm someone worth hating.

 

I've never been in prison, past experiences just shaped me into someone I don't personally like. It's not a big deal, I don't like most people either. My issues seem irrelevant to this thread though. My family is fine besides my mom being completely crazy.

 

I just want to say, for all those people, whoever they were, I'm sorry. I'm sorry as hell that having such unworthy people in your life was the hand you were dealt. I'm sorry as hell that they ever opened their sorry mouths and filled and twisted your mind with lies. I'm sorry as hell for that kid you were, the one that felt sadness and fear, instead of safety and warmth and love...like you deserved. And you did deserve that. It's unfair as hell that you had to live the uglier side of life, that you had to shoulder the heavy load of others on your kids shoulders. I'm sorry, really sorry, that you didn't have time to be the kid you should have been, that you were required to give up soft, fluffy clouds, and sparkling unicorns at way too young an age, silly as that may sound. No kid should be without their fluffy, soft clouds, unicorns...and the safety that comes with feeling loved. And that's what I'm most sorry for, that you were denied the kind of safe, warm nest that every single kid on this planet deserves to have, no matter who they are, because kids start out good, and they are the helpless and weak, and its our responsibility to take care of, and protect, the weak and helpless, not prey on them, and I'm sorry as hell that you lived in a den of predators. You guys that are hurting and carrying these mental scars deserved a lot better, and I'm sorry it wasn't that way.

 

Now it's time to move on, isn't it? Who wants to be bogged down mentally in that kind of past? If that happens and it breaks you and keeps you from being as good as you can possibly be, those people won, simple as that. To me, that's just unacceptable. It's like getting screwed over twice, only now you're screwing over yourselves if you hold on to that poison and allow it to rule and dominate you.

 

 

 

My, I am getting sappy, aren't I? Maybe it's the lack of sleep...

Edited May 27, 2013 by MedievalMystic

[EpicosaurusGoesRawr]

Well, my neighbors reported us for anti-social behavior and my parents are taking it out on us...

[Gsea]

I don't think my family situation is the worst I've seen, because I know people who have it worse, but I'll talk about my family anyway. The issues in my family mainly revolve around my parents:

 

My dad has some mental issues and a few months ago it was really bad, to the point that we had to get police involved, after which he spent a week in a mental hospital. There's more to that story but I'm too lazy to type it out.

 

My parents' marriage was on the verge of ending in divorce around the end of 2012 - it all happened quite suddenly and took up most of that year, actually. Things just kept getting worse and the fighting was really bad and my siblings and I got to find out a bunch of fun stuff...like the fact that my dad was suffering from depression, is bipolar, verbally abusive to my mother, etc.

 

In the beginning of this year things were still pretty bad (we started off the New Year at my cousins' house at which my father got drunk and kind of lost his mind, very fun) and in maybe January or February we found out that my mom had had an affair. Then later we found out my dad had also had an affair, but it was years earlier. I guess it sort of made them 'even' and they decided still not to separate.

 

Both my parents go to counseling now because, predictably, a mother with anxiety and a father with depression do not mix. I would like to say it hasn't had much of an effect on my younger siblings and I, but lately my 13-year old brother has been lashing out and having some apparent anger issues and my parents are discussing taking him to see a psychologist. As for my sister, who is 11, I just wonder if this will take an effect on her as she gets older. And the effect it has had on me, I won't discuss, because my parents track and go through my internet history like it's an entertaining little story (hey mom and dad!) and I don't feel like they should know everything (what a surprise).

 

So yeah, there are worse situations. But my family situation strikes me as particularly bad because I feel like it came out of nowhere. Two years ago I would have said that my family was perfect and happy and had very few problems. Apparently, however, these issues that my siblings and I have just recently become aware of have been happening for years.

 

Things are getting better, for the most part. But now that summer break is coming up and we'll all be out of school, I don't know what will happen. We tend to lose our minds a little after spending so much time together.

Edited May 27, 2013 by glamoursea2

[WildClawCat]

Man... reading through these made me realize my situation isn't as bad as I thought it was, even though I guess a lot of people have different limits of what they can take.

 

My family situation... I guess got better since one half disowned my entire half of the family (my grandmother's side has been outcast by my great-uncle's).

 

I don't really know what to say that won't sound like complaining, or just... teenage whining, I guess. Or what I'm comfortable saying on a public forum, which is very little (probably only the disowning bit).

 

What I could say is that while it isn't as bad as some of what I've read here, like I said, everyone has different breaking points in things. With bullying, I have more tolerance for strain. With family... much less so.

[shadowgrr]

One friend of mine was abused many times by her father, in the end he went at jail after her parents divorced, but for financial reasons, because she had never reported it. Now he is free and he is living arround her neighbour and he is trying to approach her again. She is still fine, but you don't know what will happen.

[Pippyspot]

I'm thankful that I've mostly had a strong and close relationship with my parents. However, I have seen situations of neglect, abuse, etc and it's truly horrible - I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy

[popcorncat11]

Well, a couple actually.

 

My friend, she.... She's tried to commit suicide so many times. Everyone at our school calls her an easy , but she is the opposite. She has been sexually harrassed so many times, the guys at our school love to talk about this, they always leave out the part where she says no. Rumors have spread, like that she does her boyfriend in public, but they also call her emo. At least 3 times a day people tell her to go kill herself, because nobody wants her, not even God. She has tried so hard to ignore them, but its harder than it looks. The only person she has is her boyfriend. She has sworn to him that she would stop cutting herself, because she knows that as soon as they both turn 18, they can get out of this town, this state, this country. She would rather get out with him than take her own life and leave him alone in this world. She isn't my friend, she is me.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2013 by popcorncat11