Time To Get Personal: Family Matters

[Hitokiri_Gensai]

I come from a good home, so to speak. Im adopted, and that story isnt so great, but the family i was adopted into, is fantastic.

My biological parents are an unknown to me, i know a very limited amount of things, My mother was single and 19 when she got pregnant with me, My father was a Japanese business man in Korea, and he knocked her up and took off, i was put up for adoption after three days, and thats it.

My REAL parents on the other hand, have raised me well, to be a good girl and a good person. They've been married for 29 years now, and they both have been divorced once before. Since then they've raised me and my 4 siblings, all adopted.

 

[Episode42]

So now it's you're turn internet. How was your family life growing up? And how did having a broken home, or not, effect who you became?

Lets see, the first ten years of my life my family were all fairly 'normal' My sister and I would get the occasional beating, but generally when we'd done something that was deemed to be wrong (fair enough) When I was around 10, my parents announced that they were divorcing, and we'd have to make our minds up who we wanted to live with.

I'm afraid I can't vouch for the accuracy of some of this, as facts don't completely match up and I fried a lot of my long-term memory with drugs and alcohol. But as far as i know, My mother was having an affair with a guy from work, whom she later married and remains married to to this day. There was a battle for custody to force the other parent to take us, which my father lost and ended up with my sister and I.

We struggled on in poverty for a few years, with my father generally growing more resentful of myself (my sister was his favourite) which would generally culminate in a delightful torrent of verbal abuse and destroying my possessions. Bear in mind he wasn't drunk, i think something inside would snap from time to time. So that coupled with a huge bullying problem at school left me with negative confidence and a couple of emotional problems.

My sister headed for University in Derby (which she never came back from) while i remained with my father. I took to razoring my arms and eventually drinking heavily, so rather than deal with me he up and left too, leaving me in a three bedroom house with no heating, holes in the roof and a severe phobia of the outside world. He stopped speaking to me and while i still see my mother, i have no emotional connection to her and as such seeing her just freaks me out, that and her husband is a racist, alcoholic with all the emotions of a sofa.

So at the end of it all, they influenced my life a lot, just none of it good. But they did make me the paranoid, emotionally unstable wreck i am today, so i guess it's not all bad.

Wow that was long, I apologise.

 

[Dr.Fantastic]

My family isnt that bad.

I remember not seeing my dad for the first two years of my life(He is a recovering heroin addict, long history of use before I was even born),was in jail. My mom had gotten out of an abusive relationship with my stepbrothers father two years ago(The fucking scumbag left his own son at age three, hasnt been seen for 15 years). After I was born My dad was in and out of Jails and Rehabs while I was told it was work. I cried at night alot when I was for about a month when I was 5. My dad was eventually caught with heroin in his pocket and arrested in front of me at age 10. Around a month later caught my older sister high in front of our door. I started smoking weed a bit around then, stopped at 11(It had no effect on me by then). My mom and dads relationship was always on and off again till about 2009 when it ended. There good friends now, my dads in a good house with other recovering addicts, and I came out an 8th grader who's half slacker half responsible.

So yeah, I come from a good family(No sarcasm intended).

 

[theevilgenius60]

After reading some of your posts I feel I should hide my head in shame. My parents are pretty much ideal. They met at the local university and hit it off immediatelty. I came along two years later. They were both teachers, and they managed to hit that sweet spot between too strict and not caring. Don't get me wrong, they would take the belt to me when it was needed, but never more. They are very much Christian, but they encouraged my brother, sister and I to learn about and try to understand the world from other people's perspective. There's really nothing negative I can think of pertaining to my childhood and my parents.

 

[teqrevisited]

It was all going good until about 1999/2000. Then in quite a short space of time, my uncle was killed in a car accident, my parents divorced and then one side of the family pretty much disowned the other.

It's part of the reason why I don't really trust anyone. Everyone got along beforehand, but now suddenly the gloves were off and they were all happy to voice their criticisms of one another. Everyone was still nice to me, but being stuck in the middle, and sometimes having to be the voice of diplomacy, I'd usually be the only one to hear them. The wall went up and I told everyone who asked that I was just fine. Nowadays no one knows what I really think or feel, they only know what I let them. A thousand different well-rehearsed acts that are second nature to me now.

In the recent years the dust has settled and stability is present in both households, but it'll be a long time before I can tell either of them what I really think because I don't want to cause any more fighting.

 

[WolfThomas]

Can't really complain that much even though my parents are seperated. They met during university, both were studying medicine. They got married pretty much after graduation but didn't have me until they were 30 and my sister two years later. We moved to a rural town and my dad was pretty busy with his work, they started to drift apart, having other bedrooms, aruing quite a bit. Then my dad moved out and they got divorced. It actually got a lot better after that, my parents were both very loving and this removed any conflict, plus I can't lie they both sub-consciously tried to win our affection with possesions, even though it really wasn't necessary.

It's a few years on from there, my Dad's remarried to a nice lady and my Mum's got a live in partner, who aside from his commie-pinko political oppinions is a decent bloke. So they both seem relatively happy.

I have perhaps a positively skewed oppinion on divorce perhaps because there wasn't as much unpleasantness or finiancial issues with my parent's divorce.

 

[JCBFGD]

I don't have a perfect family, but I have a damned good one, I'd say.

Parents met when they were about my age (16, though I think my mom was 15), dated for 6 years, and married in '92. They had me in '95, my autistic brother in '97, and my youngest brother 9.5 months later in '98. I grew up in a decent enough neighbourhood about 20 minutes outside Columbus, Ohio, lived there from '98-'05, and moved to where we are now, about a 10 minute walk from our old house. We were a family of liberal atheists, and life was good. My dad had a fairly well-paying job working tech support at the business of a childhood friend, and my mom worked at Children's Hospital. She somehow found the time to work regularly, be active in school matters, and still be a full-time mother. She was the perfect mother, in my opinion. My dad didn't do too terribly much, but I still think him to be a great dad, and he's honestly one of my heroes.

The problems started arising when we moved here. It was in this house that our debt grew to $60K, where my mom suffered a concussion that dramatically changed her personality, where she also started to experience the effects of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and Lupus, and where my parents' marriage crumbled to dust.

Spoiler: The above is a TL;DR of what's in here

My parents were the victim of credit card companies. "Buy now, pay later?? Sweet!" Sure, the debt is their fault, but really, they didn't know better, and some evil, greedy corporations took advantage of their naivety, doing the same to millions (hopefully an exaggeration) of other people. We can't declare bankruptcy because, somehow, we make too much money. Yes, we make $80K a year, but we can barely afford to pay the bills, the mortgage, and buy groceries. My parents are lucky to have more than $10 extra per month. There is an upside to it, though. I've learned a very important lesson in money management, and to never use credit cards except for emergencies.

In '06, a big piece of plywood dropped on my mom's forehead. For the next six months or so, she was either ridiculously happy, or ridiculously angry. I tried to avoid her, for the most part. After her mood swings stopped, she was clearly different. No longer was she [name], the stoic and level-headed working domestic goddess. She had turned into a dramatic, over-emotional mess. In all honesty, she acts like a lot of the girls in my high school. And while I still love her, and always will, she is sometimes unbearable. What's amazing, though, is that she still manages to spit out some profound words of wisdom every once in a while. She's still a damned good mom, and occasionally, her teenage demeanour helps me identify with her more. It's a mixed blessing.

Two years ago, she found out, and started suffering from, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. This makes her more flexible than most, at the expense of her joints deteriorating at an accelerated rate. This is worsened by the Lupus. She is in constant pain, yet she still works harder than is healthy. She estimates that she only has about 20 years left, and she says she's fine with that. That scares me; that she is okay with dying when she is barely 60 is a saddening and frightening thing.

In '09, I found out that my parents had an open marriage, and that my mom had taken advantage of this, and gotten herself a boyfriend, a Belgian expat. This was fine for about 5 months, which was when my mom decided that she didn't want to be married to my dad. The whole family took it rather well, my dad included, and no one was really surprised. Only major difference was that my dad was rather cold when interacting with my mom. So this was for another 4 months, when my mom and her boyfriend broke up. She tried going back to my dad, but ended up depressed enough that she need antidepressants. She then went back to her boyfriend, and was on and off with him from last year until just about a week ago. Her concussion causes her to act like a teenager about the whole ordeal; she's very dramatic about it, and everyone thinks so. She even lost two of her best friends because of her behaviour. Don't get me wrong, I feel sorry for her, it's just that I'm disgusted at how a 39-year-old woman acts like a 14-year-old girl. I feel bad for saying all that, but it's honestly different experiencing it versus reading it.

That's about it. Hope I didn't bore you with my first-world problems.

 

[Vancleef]

After reading some of your posts I feel I should hide my head in shame.

Same. Things were great when I grew up and I can't possibly imagine growing up like most of you did.

To be honest, I don't know a lot about my parents and how things were. All my sibling are much older than me.
My parents were both 40 when I was born, so I became the last child who got all the attention and got away with pranks and fights with my brother.
We never got physically or verbally abused and they were both strict but also loving and caring. And they still are.

 

[Kae]

I got a nice one I mean they have never separated, overall I'd say that I've had it pretty easy, of course I've had problems with my parents but they seem meaningless compared with those of my sister, just to give you an idea, well her biological mother is actually my junkie aunt, and she obviously has abandonment issues which are only enhanced by the fact that she kept her second child and just gave her away for adoption, not only that well due to this she is addicted to drugs and always gets in trouble and to top it off her brother is a thug that takes advantage of the fact that she cares for him because he's her brother and is constantly getting money off her, and also my stupid aunt is pressuring her to go live with her so they can both maintain that piece of shit brother she has.
I mean if I had one complaint to make about my family it would be about myself, I mean I was supposed to protect her but of course being the idiotic piece of shit that I am I covered for her, I mean I knew drugs were bad that's why I didn't consume them but I promised her I wouldn't tell anybody, but I also promised that I would protect her and therefore I have failed because it was my fault that the problem got big, if I had spoken what I knew maybe her life wouldn't be so messed up right now.

 

[Vault101]

hmmm...I guess I had a pretty Ideal upbringing

in a way I wouldnt say Im really "close" with my parests, buts thats just me really, like I would never discuss anything "personal" with my mum...I think if she ever attempted a sex talk with me, in my head the enitre universe would unravel, thank god she never did

 

[manic_depressive13]

My parents divorced when I was eightish. I used to like my dad but as I grew older I came to realise how selfish, sexist and unpleasant he is. He got together with some lady who is nice enough, but she has really traditional family values, and having being neglected most my life I can't really deal with that. She's also kind of dumb. My dad would often guilt me into spending time with him over the weekends, then he would go to a family outing with his new wife's extended family and completely ignore me, while I sat there awkwardly feeling like an outcast. I stopped going after a bit.

My mother got with some abusive asshole who threatened me, swore at me and would occasionally go on rampages and break things because I didn't "respect him". I was about ten. I begged my mother to get rid of him, and she promised she would, but then she would come back and tell me he had apologised so she forgave him. I found out he had also hit her on a few occasions, and he neglected to tell her he was still married when they started seeing eachother. My life from about 10 to 16 years of age was just a series of coming home, being screamed at, threatened, sworn at and getting my stuff broken by him. Eventually he got used to the injustice of me ignoring him, so as long as he keeps his hideous idiotic mouth shut the conditions at home are tolerable.

TL;DR: My dad's a bit of a jerk and my mother got an abusive boyfriend that she preferred to her own ten year old daughter. I used to be really polite back then, but now I'm pretty bitter and hostile.

 

[Cazza]

My mother was a stay at home mother because my father didn't believe she had to work. He was miner and was pay well. With my father as a shift worker he was at work or sleeping most of the time. My mother was the one me and my brother went to for everything. My parents separated around late 2001 when I was around 9.

We moved across the country to live with my mothers side of the family. I didn't see my father for a few years. My brother and I after a few years started to vist my father after he moved closer to us. He didn't live in the same city. With the travel being the best part of a day by train. It was awesome to vist him. We only visted when he was on his off shifts so he had time to do stuff. We went most school holidays for awhile. School got in the way and we stopped going.

After a few more years. About 2 and a half years ago. My borther and I visted my dads side of the family with him. about 4 months later we found out he had cancer. At this time we could drive so with my father no longer working we visted him as much as we could. Weekends, holidays we even took a little bit off schol. Then he died.

 

[Soviet Steve]

I guess my household would qualify as being broken.

Mom comes from a family of aspergers sufferers (Grandmother could never manage to get her life in order) - Got knocked up at 17, married at 18, marriage didn't last a year before the big trials began over who could take what from the other.

Then it was onto a government assisted flat after some time of nomading around, bi-weekly visits to some broken alcoholic whoose goal in life became to get me to fuck up so I would have to flee to go live with him instead of my mother. (Such as encouraging me to rape girls by the time I was 11, though I had grown used to him just rambling at that point)

Eventually Mom found a psychotic loon who caused my two half-brothers who received all parenting dispensed from then on. He still harasses us at times but they never married.



I'm always suspicious of people's motives, expecting the worst - present family connections don't matter much to me aside from the material goods that are dished out on occasion. I guess some would say I seem depressed but I don't think so, I'm just sick of waiting. Next year I move out, wont have to deal with them any longer, then the good part of life can begin.

I'm hoping to make a functional family of my own someday, but I've seen what happens when you rush things.

 

[DigitalSushi]

Mayhaps a bit to personal of a question? Honestly it was an awkward question, if in the mostly anonymous world of the internet.

I applaud you for bearing your soul.

Same goes to everyone on here.

Me, I'm a happy chap, my Dad has an aggressive form of Bi polar disorder and he thinks he's a spy, growing up I became the black sheep of the family because I was convinced he had a mental disorder and I was shouted down at by the rest of my clan as it were. Took 10 years but I finally got him diagnosed, which my mother actually apologised to me for the whole "cutting me off from the family thing".

Do I feel vindicated, yes.
Do I rub it in there faces?, nope.

Still its kinda awesome having a dad that's 5.2ft and thinks he's a spy, he calls my sister "alpha Foxtrot" when speaking in code, bless the little tyke.

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I actually have a great family, I'm the second oldest of four kids (an older sister and two younger brothers) and my parents are really good. They both earn quite a lot and are really wonderful people so I can't say I've had a hard childhood, but we did emigrate from my homeland when I was eleven, and I found that pretty rough at the time. I'm insanely thankful to my parents for giving a me a good start in life and supporting me. I can create enough messes in my life for myself, without inheriting any from my parents.

Sorry for turning up in a thread about family problems professing how great my family is. My grandparents are horrendous, vile people though, so it's not completely perfect.

 

[DoctorFrankenStein]

..oh geeze. I've got one of those that looks good from the outside. My parents have been married for 43 years. I'm the only child and they'd been married ten years when they had me. They were both hippies once and had the courtesy to raise me without ever mentioning religion.
My father worked nights until I was maybe 15 years old. So I barely saw him. Turned out that was a good thing. He got transferred to days and suddenly realized that I had become an individual person of my own and formed some opinions that didn't agree with his patriarchal/sexist/racist/selfish/black&white view of the world. [He won't even recycle trash, he doesn't give a fig for the environment. The man once buried a busted motorcycle in the yard and burned an entire truck camper shell because he couldn't be bothered to take them to the dump.]
Now I'd always gotten the belt from him if he thought I was 'disrespecting him' but he got really physical with me and the altercations got a lot more frequent.
The man is a complete psychopath. He's extremely bi-polar and cannot control himself in any way shape or form. When he fights with my mother, somehow it's always my fault. Even if he makes her cry.
I had to stay with them for a little while because a hurricane wrecked my house a few years ago. At one point he started a fight about something with my mother and decided to charge into the room where I was staying and rough me up.
I pulled a sword.
He ran for his gun.
My mother physically stopped us from killing one another.
He's a horrible person and I'm ashamed to be related to such a thoughtless brute. And he's just like his father too.
I've made the conscious decision that I will never have children. I don't want to pass his tainted blood on. I'm not perfect either, but at least I'm aware of my flaws and make an effort to overcome them.
My mother is passive-aggressive and afraid of being alone, I think that's why she hasn't divorced him. I wonder what she'll be like when he's finally dead? [I know I'll be relieved.]
Either way, Spirit is planning to hire her a juicy male stripper/call boy to pay her a visit once she's done with his funeral stuff. It's an idea I fully support.

 

[DuctTapeJedi]

'Broken home'? Not so much... 'broken parent'? Very much so...

Same here.

OT: My parents are still married, and I've lived in the same house my whole life. We were really poor when I was little, and my dad had to work two or three jobs at a time, so he was never home. Of course, it was the sane parent who was gone most of the time... My older sister had lots of friends that she could go hang out with when things got bad, but I'm an epic introvert. I got left to deal with the monster alone.

I was verbally abused as a kid. My mom was a time bomb, and you'd never know what would set her off on a tirade. I've been yelled at[footnote]I don't mean a lecture, I mean hour long screaming sessions.[/footnote] for being overweight, being an introvert, coughing when I was sick, not having enough friends, and everything else you could think of. Oh! And there was that period of time when I was little when she referred to me as 'it.'

I also got smacked in the face for 'being disrespectful' up through high school. She still threatens to hit me sometimes. If she ever did, I'd file it as an assault.

My mom also likes to talk about the (frequently not true) details of my personal life to everyone she knows. I'm pretty sure a while back that she was spreading rumors that I was gay.

Her other new thing is trying to make me feel bad about myself directly. She's been laying on the guilt about how I'm apparently mean to her, and always argue. My 'arguments' I start with her frequently play out as such:

Mom: Could you take out the trash?
Me: Yeah, just two seconds, I need to finish up (insert arbitrary task) first.
Mom: WHY DO YOU ALWAYS FIGHT WITH ME!?

Finally, is her overwhelming sense of selfishness. I recently had pneumonia. My parents were on vacation at the time, and I was too delirious to find anyone/everyone was too busy to take me to the hospital. When my parents got home, and I asked them to drive me in, I was met with:
"EVERYONE IN THIS FAMILY EXPECTS ME TO DO EVERYTHING! I NEVER GET ANY TIME FOR MYSELF, I...(This went on for some time)."

I'm currently riddled with depression, anxiety issues, and many other problems. Sometimes it feels like I can barely function. I was in fourth grade when I first talked about wanting to kill myself. I've spent over half of my life in and out of therapy. I'll never forget my mom's first words after finding out I was suicidal. "If this is just some attempt to get us to buy you something, think again."

Crap, it even hurts to type this. But I needed to vent. Sorry for the wall of text.

 

[DigitalSushi]

[He won't even recycle trash, he doesn't give a fig for the environment. The man once buried a busted motorcycle in the yard and burned an entire truck camper shell because he couldn't be bothered to take them to the dump.]

That is nasty, I hope everyone reading this actually recycles, and when your brushing your teeth, turn off the fucking water.

Now I'd always gotten the belt from him if he thought I was 'disrespecting him' but he got really physical with me and the altercations got a lot more frequent.
The man is a complete psychopath. He's extremely bi-polar and cannot control himself in any way shape or form.

Thank you for bearing your soul, but is you father bipolar?

bipolar people are normally aggressive none physically, at least thats my experience anyway. If you want to discuss this further I'm but a PM away!

He's a horrible person and I'm ashamed to be related to such a thoughtless brute. And he's just like his father too.

Hopefully you can be the better person and not be violent, both towards others and your farther, after all being aggressive towards him only compounds the problem, justified violence is still violence.

edit: I chopped off your comments, apologies.

 

[DoctorFrankenStein]

'Broken home'? Not so much... 'broken parent'? Very much so...

Same here.

OT: My parents are still married, and I've lived in the same house my whole life. We were really poor when I was little, and my dad had to work two or three jobs at a time, so he was never home. Of course, it was the sane parent who was gone most of the time... My older sister had lots of friends that she could go hang out with when things got bad, but I'm an epic introvert. I got left to deal with the monster alone.

I was verbally abused as a kid. My mom was a time bomb, and you'd never know what would set her off on a tirade. I've been yelled at[footnote]I don't mean a lecture, I mean hour long screaming sessions.[/footnote] for being overweight, being an introvert, coughing when I was sick, not having enough friends, and everything else you could think of. Oh! And there was that period of time when I was little when she referred to me as 'it.'

I also got smacked in the face for 'being disrespectful' up through high school. She still threatens to hit me sometimes. If she ever did, I'd file it as an assault.

My mom also likes to talk about the (frequently not true) details of my personal life to everyone she knows. I'm pretty sure a while back that she was spreading rumors that I was gay.

Her other new thing is trying to make me feel bad about myself directly. She's been laying on the guilt about how I'm apparently mean to her, and always argue. My 'arguments' I start with her frequently play out as such:

Mom: Could you take out the trash?
Me: Yeah, just two seconds, I need to finish up (insert arbitrary task) first.
Mom: WHY DO YOU ALWAYS FIGHT WITH ME!?

Finally, is her overwhelming sense of selfishness. I recently had pneumonia. My parents were on vacation at the time, and I was too delirious to find anyone/everyone was too busy to take me to the hospital. When my parents got home, and I asked them to drive me in, I was met with:
"EVERYONE IN THIS FAMILY EXPECTS ME TO DO EVERYTHING! I NEVER GET ANY TIME FOR MYSELF, I...(This went on for some time)."

I'm currently riddled with depression, anxiety issues, and many other problems. Sometimes it feels like I can barely function. I was in fourth grade when I first talked about wanting to kill myself. I've spent over half of my life in and out of therapy. I'll never forget my mom's first words after finding out I was suicidal. "If this is just some attempt to get us to buy you something, think again."

Crap, it even hurts to type this. But I needed to vent. Sorry for the wall of text.

I understand how you feel, as you can see from my post above yours I have one parent that's an absolute monster as well. This one time when I was in high school I drew a tiny spiral at the corner of one of my eyes with eyeliner and he literally leaped at me screaming because he thought I'd gotten a tattoo.
I live in this tiny little town where everyone knows everyone elses business and I've been out of work for over two years. I literally cannot get a single call-back let alone an interview. I think part of it is that he tells everyone he talks too what a shiftless, grumpy, ungrateful, lazy, conniving, worthless little shit I am.
I've felt afraid to be alone with him many, many times before, because I never know what will set him off. This one time he spilled a glass of something he'd left in the fridge and screeched at me to clean it up. I told him no and he literally started grabbing things out of the fridge and started throwing them at me. He missed my head with a full jar of pickles by inches.
And he's not the only one in his family that acts like that. [Thankfully the worst one, his father, is already dead. The third worst, his mother, is also dead now.]
I'm a pagan with a rather eclectic pantheon and someone once asked me how I can have such cozy, respectful feelings towards Azrael [The holy angel of Death]. I said it was because every time I've been in his presence I've either miraculously survived some horrible accident or illness without a scratch, or he's taken away someone who directly contributed to my life being a living hell.
At this point I wouldn't even consider suicide. I want to outlive him just so I can spit on his miserable grave. Not to trivialize the problem, but I think a similar attitude might give you some small sense of peace. A goal of sorts.