Collateral damage

[Call Me Cordelia]

My kids came across an old picture of my siblings and me. They can't understand of course why I no longer speak to them or have any idea even where they live or whether they have cousins now. They couldn't understand that no, they weren't as bad as mom and dad. But... they never had my back either and if I was going down it was an opportunity for them to advance in the family system. That I simply didn't matter enough to them to try and preserve a relationship with me. That I had to cut my losses with everyone who is related to me.

They wanted to know what we used to play as children and where are they now and I just had to stop the questions because it was making me sad. I still don't know how much information I should give or when. To their credit they already know that my family are not safe to be around them and they didn't pry about why we made that decision. Trying to be normal about this seems impossible.

At the same time, DH is catching up with his sibling as he does periodically and he's finding out that a cousin of his has a unique hobby in common with one of our older kids. He hasn't spoken to this cousin in years. They too were close as kids. Partly that's just life, partly PD families just ruin every relationship. Wouldn't it be something if we could just, you know, connect with our relatives? Not even the holidays and stuff but just have stuff in common and be normal and cultivate friendships with people in either of our extended families? I wonder what that would be like.

[footprint33]

Hi Call Me Cordelia,

This issue is a hard one and very close to my heart. I'm sorry you're going through it because wanting to provide family experiences for our children is a deep need. Yes, it would be so nice to have some connections with families and kids in the extended family. I have two children, now ages 13 and 15, who haven't seen my parents since they were 2 and 4 (11+ years), so basically most of their lives. I also have two brothers and have many memories of the three of us from when we were kids. My kids have asked me about my childhood, and at some point along the line, I just felt that it was easier to tell stories about some memories and not feel emotional.

I was the SG in the family, with one brother who was the GC and the other one was a bit of a forgotten child. All three of us developed very toxic relationships with our parents and with each other, and I no longer have any relationship with either of them. However, we did have some good times when we were kids, and I've found that I can remember some of those things and tell my kids about them. My childhood was chaotic, and my brothers and I did share in that chaotic experience. My parents had a VW van in the 70s, for example, and there were no seats back there. My brothers and I would run around in the back while my parents drove around. The side door fell off and my parents chained it back on, so we had to crawl in and out of the front door to get to the back of the van. I remember telling stories like that to my kids, almost objectively and without emotion, just a little picture of my life from when I was young. My kids seemed to appreciate it.

Also important over the years has been to tell my kids the truth about my parents and brothers. I did this in age appropriate ways, so didn't give much info when they were younger but let them know that my parents and brothers weren't nice to me when I was growing up. As they got older, I told them more. They now seem to have a healthy understanding and don't yearn for any involvement from their grandparents or uncles in their lives. They do have grandparents and an aunt, uncle, and cousins on my husband's side, however, so some extended family. However, my in-laws live in another country and we don't see them all that much.

I did reconnect with a brother several years ago and had some hopes that there was a chance we'd have a new start. He has kids who are around the same ages as my kids, so I had fantasies of the kids connecting too. But I learned about 6 months ago that this brother was only in touch with me for toxic reasons, smearing me behind my back and crushing my hopes. So I'm now back to NC with them all. He has a complicated relationship with his kids because he and his wife had a messy divorce, so I don't think my kids were every really going to have a lot of access or communication with those cousins.

I know it can be sad to think back to our childhoods and playing with our siblings or cousins. But there's also some good in these memories. If they're happy, we can hold onto them. If they're not happy, we remember all the more why we're NC.

footprint

[notrightinthehead]

I relate to the grief of what could have been and wasn't. I have no contact with my brother and it makes me sad to think of him as the lovely, lost child he was, his potential and the dysfunctional family we were born into, which crippled us for life.
At least you are doing your very best to change this for the family you built - breaking the toxic cycle!

[DaisyGirl77]

I got caught with my pants down, so to speak, a few years ago when my nephew (not by blood, but by heart) found a book I'd made via Shutterfly that detailed family history back to great-grandparents (or 2x great-grandparents).  I'd made it before shit went down & got real & filled me with pain & betrayal.  I'd made it because I wanted future generations to have a starting point if they wanted to do genealogy research.  I filled it with (at the time) current & old photos of everyone in my family tree on both sides.

In a nutshell, I filled it with love & hope & dreams.

Back to my nephew.  He pulled it out of nowhere & asked me about the people in the pictures, most of whom had hurt me.  I began to cry--not hard, mind, but very clearly teary.  I covered it up by telling him that most of these people were dead & I was sad about it, but in actuality, I was crying for the person I was when I made that little book.  (Oh, the people he asked about were very much alive, lol.)  I didn't have the tools back then to explain to his 9 year old self that these people had hurt me badly, & I was still extremely raw emotionally over it & it wasn't his fault I cried, hence why I fell to the "they're dead" explanation.

There'll be no chance of reconciliation with them.  What they did burned it all to ash.  I still occasionally grieve over the immense loss of my family--especially when it just sucker punches me--but it helps (& hurts) to remind myself that the people I knew only existed in my fantasies.  They weren't real.  What was real was seeing what they were really like, & what they were like was what actually caused the trauma & PTSD I now have.

Eventually, I'll share a little bit of who they were like when & if my nephews ask, in an age appropriate manner.  It just really sucks that they'll never have the family they deserve because of the lines my sisters & I come from, & their own choices to hurt, deceive, & betray their own in the way they did.