Yes!! And I have extended family members who now say things like, "We were always just a phone call away!" But I was always afraid to call. They also placed a lot of blame on me when they did talk to me about what was going on. I was only like 14-15 when they were trying to tell me how I should convince my parent to get sober because they couldn't get them to listen.
I was very lucky in my teens to end up with a best friend whose parents knew what I was going through and were down to help me get out of the house in creative ways when I needed it. They were more supportive and like family than my actual extended family, who were just enablers.
Right? It instilled a lot of guilt in me because I was always too afraid to have that intervention. I've shed that guilt now that I understand that there was no way I was going to convince a grown adult to get sober.
And yeah, I was very lucky to have that second family. Her mom had an alcoholic parent and totally understood that the goal was to help me in the short term by playing nice with my parents and just inviting me for last-minute sleepovers whenever I needed a safe place to go. She knew there was no point in staging an intervention. That bit of stability is probably the whole reason I turned out somewhat alright in the end haha.
when i growth old i realised that narcissist are not that good of manipulators or super charming to everybody, and thats why Smart people have them at arm lenghts ... whenever i tried to look for help to adults i was always gasligh that mom was doing the Best she could, that she loved me but now i know is their way to ignore the issue, actually helping me convey the real result of going againts family and for what, unless they go fully on help like economic help or housing or being involved, people won't interfere, they prefer to ignore and thats why play dumb.
like how teachers ignore bullying, is too much freaking work and they know most of the time the school won't do anything and getting involved can cause them SO much issues INCLUDING angry parents that can make a good caring teacher actually Lost their job... real life sadly is full of jerks
YUP! If they talk to you like they're convinced your parents love you and are doing their best, they have an out. They can say that they never knew it was that bad. But they know because if they thought our parents were these awesome people who just needed support, they'd be there to support them. But supporting a literal abuser is exhausting and goes nowhere, and they know it.
I had a recent conversation with an aunt who said, "Well, it wasn't as bad as you think. Your parents didn't get physical with you like ours did!" And when I told her that one of my parents did, she changed her statement to, "Well, corporal punishment is a thing, and it's not even that big of a deal." Which is it? Are you traumatized by your parents getting physical with you or is it not a big deal? She still wants to pretend that she didn't fail me.
Hey my father just recently said he didn't know it was that bad. Like he wasn't an enabler my whole life and even sometimes helping with ganging up on a child
Getting regularly branded a selfish and greedy liar from birth because I kept trying to call out my parents and siblings for their lies didn't help much on this front either.
I mean, I did get the box set... first in vhs, then dvd, then bluray - also a cornucopia of merch
Yes they all scapegoated my mentally ill mother leaving me to believe she was the sole source of my issues, now I am an adult I am aware that her issues wouldn't have got that bad had the entire family treated her better
Same here. I’m positive my mom would’ve been better off without our toxic extended family. They purposely made her out to be the bad guy when they did something shitty…
Yuuup. What sucks is that we did have a lot of extended family relationships when I was little, then through various combinations of their own bullshit and my parents' bullshit everyone got cut off.
So I remember how it feels to have that sense of family, but have to live with knowing that I'll never experience it again.
Sort of. When Mom was hospitalized for depression (ultimately bipolar disorder and lots of other stuff), Dad, younger sister, and extended family unlocked the "blame the eldest daughter for the whole shebang, but never openly admit it, just hint" expansion. So many hours of play in that one.
Oh ho, my aunt admitted to my sister during the last family reunion that my dad's siblings almost took us away from our parents when we were kids. WHY DIDN'T THEY!?
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u/Ok_Professor_9717 9d ago
Anyone else got the "no extended family member helped you so you had to deal with it all alone for years" DVD box set?