Ask Lemmy

Haven't spoken to my BPD mom and enabler dad and golden child brother in 13 years. It's sad. But honestly it dumped so much off of me to stop drinking her poison.

If you have BPD get help now before you get to an age where your behaviors are something you have no insight into. Listen to people who tell you that you need help.

I was the first of my siblings to cut contact with my dad and stepmom. I had to really consider how I would feel when my dad died, if I cut contact, I didn’t want to regret it.
My stepmom was abusive and my dad always chose her over our safety.
Now all but one of my siblings have cut contact.
They tell people we ghosted them. They reach out regularly to try to contact us. I’ve realized it’s because they feel bad about themselves and it’s never about knowing us or caring about us. Half the messages they send us say stuff about how we are going to hell and we need to find Jesus.

The hardest part is explaining to people with normal families, they never understand that parents who can’t love you exist, and that a big happy reconciliation wouldn’t be a good thing.

It's going fine.

The day my mother died my aunt came into the funeral house yelling that I had betrayed her because in the obituary I added my fiancee and her parents. Thing is, she doesn't like my fiancee (foreigner), classic racism and elitism stuff. My mom was her last sister alive (two brothers also deceased). Anyway I was not mad I told her calmly that she was mad, I wasn't, and if she had a problem it was on her not me.

That night her daughter gave me a lecture about how distant I was with family and blah blah blah, it ended with me pointing out that on my mom's side during the last three months of her life only her two best friends were with me and that neither her nor her only alive sister were with me, or her, until she was already sedated. I left, friends invited me to dinner and I decided that is she wanted to be back at my life she would need to go above and beyond apologizing not because of what happened to me but because they disrespected my mom's and they can't backtrack on that.

My fiancee is Filipina, I am Spanish. They have a problem with that, my mom didn't have a problem (she even gave me the ring to ask her to marry me, which I did three months after my mom died). I am marrying her on Thursday.

I looked up to them a lot before all this, and I didn't need them to be with me when my mom was dying, her friends (one is like an older sister and the other is like another mom to me) where more than what I, or her, could have asked for and the neighbors were very worried about us and that's a testament to who my mom was, again the issue was and is on hers I defended my mom, my fiancee and her parents (two woman, not married, not lesbian, it's complicated.

They are a hateful bunch because they refuse to know and learn.

My dad's family is totally the opposite and they are, in theory, "less educated". Not all my mother family is like that though, the widow of her younger brother is very happy for us too.

So in short, I defended what I loved and I know I would take my fiancee over them any day of any week.

Fucking best idea I ever made. My family is abusive and I'm the family scapegoat. They're really anti gay so I've had to hide that part of myself. Not being constantly controlled and criticised has made my life dramatically better, plus nobody has called me an anti gay slur in years.

There's times I miss my dad, so I hop in !dadforaminute@lemmy.world and get some substitute dad advice or hugs. Works like a charm!

Rip the bandaid off. It was very nice getting rid of the toxic family I had when I was young. You don’t owe them anything.

My wife did it about eightish years ago with her narcissistic, controlling, lying father, and her life has become much better because of it. He's still sometimes throwing tantrums or trying to manipulate her (they still sometimes meet at family functions, of it can't be avoided), but the mere fact that he doesn't know our address has made her SO much more relaxed and happy than she's been before. Bonus is that it makes him livid, because he can't control her.

Her sister has cut the ties with him much more recently, and has seen the same effects on her mental health, but she's also struggling more with it, because she grew up with him (instead of their mother, as has my wife) and because he knows where they live and it enables him to try and manipulate her into returning.

From what I've seen, it does take initial and continued strength to cut the ties, but it seems very much worth it in the long run. (Disclaimer: YMMV)

Got tired of arguing efficacy of vaccines. I was finally called an asshole when I asked if they got vaccinated when they insisted we bring our (at the time) newbron over (far too young to get vaccinated.) So I just stopped replying to messages/answering calls. They now just spread lies about me to the rest of the family that I hear about from non-insane siblings.

Felt good, wish I did it sooner. I imagine it's what having a tumor removed feels like.

It was good.

Excellent!

Bonus: The worst ones lived juuuuust long enough to see Obama elected. ;)