Dear Nanda:

When family becomes your enemy, what do you do?

Same as one would do facing an enemy.

Can you gather all your strength, all that is left from that “smart and happy little boy” that you were and move out and away from your mother and all those who cooperate with her?

It will be difficult to do, and I am guessing you don’t want to move away from your supportive sister, but I don’t see any option for you. Do you?

anita

Hi Nanda, really sorry to read your story, it is terrible when the people who should support you the most are in fact the total opposite,  looking to sabotage your success at improving yourself, at escaping.   It never fails to amaze me what families will do when you threaten their choices by showing them a different way.

I know you are in a tough spot right now but congratulate yourself on retaining that sense of identity that tells you things can be different, will be different.  Even without money, without a job, depending on what country you live in there are support systems and ways to be able to break free from this sooner than later. Reach out for help from every such source available.  If it is literally impossible to move out now, work on turning those plans into small, concrete steps that each day take you closer – is it possible to return to your favourite college to complete your degree? What is stopping you from that, can you retake the class with a different professor?  In the meantime, what are you doing to get out of the house each day, away from this toxic family environment? If not a paying job, have you looked into volunteering whilst job-searching? Are there are part-time jobs. Etc, anything that helps create a sense of moving forwards, of stepping towards your freedom will help with enduring your current situation. Well done on reaching out on this forum – it means you still have the desire to want different, hang on to it, it’s easy to lose it when bogged down by those around you.

Dear Nanda:

You are very welcome. To summarize your situation right now: you are 21, having recently dropped out of college and you are looking for jobs. You live with your mother and younger brother and you can’t move out because you don’t have enough money to move out.

As a child, you were abused by family members, “they bullied me, called me stupid every day.. called me useless little crap.. they wish I dead soon so I didn’t waste their money”. A cruel aunt did a lot of the abuse against you and she now lives in another country. Your mother with whom you currently live either abused you directly in those ways  (calling you names, wishing you were dead etc.) or she didn’t protect you from such abuse. You wrote specifically about her, “my mom.. judged me, complained about anything, being unsupportive, etc.”.

In your note to me you wrote that you started practicing mindfulness, excellent. But notice: if your mother is disrespecting you and mistreating you currently, mindfulness can’t and shouldn’t make it.. feel okay. You need to be treated with respect.

You wrote that you experienced perhaps embarrassment, or “Self loathing? Anger? Self conscious?” after being denied as a job applicant. These feelings, shame, anger with self, these happen when a child is disrespected and mistreated by a parent. A child sees his mother and father, even an aunt or an uncle as this all-knowing, all powerful person, and when disrespected and mistreated by that person, a child automatically believes there is something wrong with him that brought about that bad treatment. He then feels anger toward himself, for … brining about this treatment.

But it is a misunderstanding of a child. There is something wrong with the parent, not with the child, when mistreatment happens.

This anger toward oneself, this self loathing then expands to other areas as the child and later, the adult-child finds “proofs” that indeed there is something wrong with him and this is why he didn’t get this job or pass that test.

I hope that you learn to see yourself, the child that you were, as the victim that you truly were, not responsible at all to the treatment you received by your mother, father, that evil aunt and so forth.

There is nothing wrong with you.

How is your mother treating you currently? And is that evil aunt still part of your life or your mother’s life via internet/ phone?

anita

Dear Nanda:

You are welcome. Your older brother physically abused you, cooperated with your aunt in torturing you. And your mother “just watched it” and still to this very day, “she keeps silent most of the time”, she does videocalls with the aunt that tortured you, still spoils the brother who tortured you and she gossips about you.

This older brother visits your mother with whom you live, every day, and “seeing him everyday gives me goosebumps”- those goosebumps are automatic: you see him and your emotional memory of being tortured by him rises to the surface of your awareness and you get goosebumps. You living with your mother, and having your older brother and even your aunt in your life in some ways, keeps your abuse alive, because in some ways, it is still happening.

After you move out and live far away from them all, no contact with these individuals, the emotional experience will remain in your brain and it will get activated sometimes, causing you distress. But away from all your abusers, with no contact with them, will allow you to start healing.

In the meantime, your increasing  self awareness is a step in the right direction. It is awareness of ourselves and of  other people that makes healing possible. Reads to me that you see your mother as she really is, as well as your aunt and your older brother. This clarity that you have, this awareness of who they are, is very promising to me, as I think of your future healing. Keep at it and post here anytime!

anita

Dear Nanda:

You are welcome.

I wish this was not your childhood experience, to have a mother and an older brother join together, a team of two, to mistreat you in all the ways they did, and then have an aunt join them, a team of three in mistreating you by not allowing you to play outside, kicking you in front of friends and neighbors if you did play outside, yelling at you, calling you names, mocking you, accusing you of such a ridiculous thing as being unprofessional at the age of six years old and other mistreatments.

I hope that sooner than later you will have absolutely no contact with these three people, never to see them or hear them again, may they be gone from your life for good.

And I hope you will treat yourself well and be around people who will treat you well.

anita