Family Issues Support Group
Family issues is a huge range that go from minor conflict to major misbehaviour and even abuse on the part of individual members of the family occur. Whether you feel you are in a dysfunctional family or you're dealing with a very specific issue, this is the place to talk about it and find others who might be going through the same thing.
I had a very difficult childhood full of physical violence (hospital visits - my mother). My father beat my mother and brother and my mother and brother beat me. All are/were (dad is deceased) alcoholics. I tried to be the peacemaker all my life but to no avail. I moved away from the south (and everyone I ever knew) 10 years ago to escape not only this but a bad (unfaithful) marriage as well. Recently on a visit back to care for a sick uncle having heart surgery, my brother picked me up at the airport. Once he pulled away from the terminal, I realized he was super-drunk. After pleading for him to stop somewhere, he finally did at a restaurant. I bought him dinner, trying to sober him up. He started waiving the steak knife around like he was going to stab somebody, kind of joking, kind of not. Of course I drove when we left the restaurant (he didn't eat his dinner) and he resumed his vodka in a water bottle. He made several feeble passes at me (never did anything like that before) trying to feel my breast. I can't even begin to explain how this made me feel. I was frightened both for myself and my brother. I feel like he is trying to kill himself slowly with vodka. I've never seen anyone drink the amount of alcohol he drinks daily and be able to function on any kind of level. I told my mother about this to elicit some type of help for him believing our conversation was in confidence. She got drunk and told everybody in the family. My attempt at getting some help for my brother resulted in just doing more harm. I told my mother that she would make better decisions if she didn't drink and hung up on her. When I called her back a couple of weeks later, she asked who I was (as if she didn't recognize my voice) and then said she wouldn't have anything to say to me ever again, that she would drink when and how much she pleased. (She is 78). I love my mother and brother, but I don't believe they love me back. I'm not sure if they ever really did. She has caused untold emotional damage to me. I can not begin to detail the emotional and physical abuse I suffered because of her. I am 52 years old and have been enduring this messed up family all my life. I now live 2000 miles away and am debating closing off communication with my family for good. Just hearing those words makes me sad but I am beginning to believe this may be for the best. Dealing with their dysfunction seems to set me back in healthier relationships I have where I live now. I cry a lot. I'm angry a lot. And I just don't know what to do.
I see no reason to keep more than minimal contact with your mother and brother. Hitting on his sister at his stage of life is a sign of major issues.
The best thing you've done is to move 2000 miles away.
I think that you did the right thing by moving far away from them and removing your kids from this dysfunction.
All of these family members are severely toxic and you had to distance yourself and your kids from this. None of this is your fault.
Do you have any relatives at all who are able to provide you some extent of emotional support? A cousin, for example? Are all of your relatives in the same area?
I've been having family issues and I have decided to see a therapist about how to deal with them because I feel overwhelmed. Like Patti said, this sounds like the stages of grief. What about a grief therapist?