Made the mistake of looking into my FOO's ancestry!

[sarandro]

Wow...I thought I was doing something really good when I started to look into my Mum and Dad's ancestry.
I thought that as she had a new laptop, she would get some pleasure out of finding out about the family history.

She was always interested in history, so I thought I would get her a subscription and started her off with a family tree.

I got really into it and found out quite a lot of interesting people in their past.

BUT...
Delving into my Dad's relatives, I found out that a great, great, great aunt of his had unfortunately been sent to an asylum for killing one of her sons.
It was a very sad story..
This woman was very religious and had needed to have her teeth taken out...in her damaged mind, she thought that God would not let her go to heaven incomplete and decided to kill herself and her youngest son with poison.
Her little boy died, but she survived and was sent to a mental asylum for the criminally insane.
When she was released, she went to live with her eldest son and his family and was able to live the rest of her life with understanding and compassion.

So...of course, this was why I was mental...I had inherited it from my Dad's side of the family, not hers.

I was not able to delve into her side of the family as she would not give me any information...I don't even know for sure where she was born or who her father was.
I thought then that she must have a very dark secret that she didn't want anyone to know about.
She must have been so pleased that 'mental' was on my Dad's side...it meant that she was free and clear of any 'mentalness' in her own family.

Needless to say the ancestry thing was never spoken of again, except to her friends, who she told the sad story to, to show how damaged my Dad and his family were....(and me)
When he was still alive, my Dad and me used to laugh together and say...''we're the crazy ones''

Now I know that it is her that isn't right in the head...she has something to hide about her past that has made her this way...something she is ashamed of or guilty about.

We'll never know.

I have thought about delving into her family history, but to be honest, I don't want to think about her any more if I can help it!!

Anyone else think their PD has something dark to hide??

[Call Me Cordelia]

I know for a fact there are dark things in my family history. My grandparents survived the Nazis. A great-grandfather was an alcoholic and let his children be raised in poverty as a result. Some other things... I only have general facts about all of it because it was all surrounded by a cloud of shame and secrecy. Don't  EVER mention it to Grandma that I told you.

Typical that your mom is glad to have a sad story to point towards that isn't connected to her, to pin blame on. Instead thinking of what a terrible thing to have happened, it's a gold mine. There always has to be someone to blame. Everything wrong is somebody's fault.

I have to believe that we can rise above the effects of our forebears and there are many many factors that make up our mental health. But I can see how PDs, with their fixed and black and white mindset, would be happy to believe that a criminally insane aunt generations ago is the direct and sole cause of any mental health struggles you have had.

[sarandro]

Cordelia, I was also appalled at the expression of glee on my mother's face when told this story...