Support for children of crappy parents

[MsTinkerbelly]

Originally Posted by Soft*Silver

that was really shitty of your mum! Dear Lord, i would have pushed people away too, after that!

My mom and dad did the best they could but there were alot of problems in my family. Dad was an alcoholic, mom a gambler. While both succeeded at stopping their addictions, the process of living thru it until then, damaged me and my two siblings. Enough so, that my brother committed suicide, my sister became the enabling caregiver to everyone in the family and I was the raging fierce scapegoat that everyone hated because I shoved reality in their faces. My sister and I became the best of the worst of ourselves. Our past histories defined us, but we took the weaknesses and made them into our strengths. My sister is a helluva nurse, working in peds, HIV, and addictions. I worked in mental health and social services, in addiction treatment programs, homeless and domestic violence shelters and rape units. I wish my brother could have made it. I think he would have found a way to become a warrior too.

It's interesting that in some families alcoholics beget alcoholics, and abusers beget abusers...while in others, crappy parents beget parents ( and people) loving and fierce.

I would give my last cent to my daughter, I would have been a prostitute if that was the only way to feed her and keep a roof over our heads...my sister washed her hands of her kids at 18, and moved to Idaho without a thought to leaving them here alone. Well they have me, but it's not the same.

Btw...I got back at my mother for leaving me. She eventually came back to our house and to my father, but at age 15 their marriage was over. My mom tried threatening, bribery, etc... but I chose to move out with my father because I knew it would hurt her as she had hurt me.

We spent a lot of years working out a relationship that was healthy for both of us, and in the end I moved myself and my family into her home to care for her the last 2 years of her life.