New here, late and sudden realization

[BorderlineSunrise]

I had a late realization of systemic abuse about 2 months ago, in my early 40's.  I'd been close with my parents, monthly sleepovers, several phone calls a week.

I heard from an aunt that my paranoid and severely mentally ill brother had been calling aunts thinking my father wanted to kill him.  He'd made death threats against people in care/authority positions to him in the past, FBI person of concern, etc.  I hadn't been happy when I heard they let him move back in with them (into a camper trailer using a bucket toilet on their yard) a year ago, but now I was scared for my father's life.  Last time living with them, my brother cut himself and nearly bled out, thinking it would keep the FBI from torturing him.

They blamed me for him needing to live there after I said I don't want him near me.  They always made me responsible for letting him cruelly bully me to make him feel better (and so he doesn't give them as hard a hard time).

So I told them they need to stop doing everything he demands, and to insist he let them involved in his psychiatric team if he wants their help, instead of putting him in this unsanitary, unsafe living situation. 

Their response - getting 2 of my aunts to say "don't contact me for the foreseeable future" and blocking my number.


That's when it hit me: they've always been covertly abusive.  When I used to live away, I'd travel across the country to see them for a weekend, they'd rub in my face their preference for my brother, taking his calls for hours in the living room, instead of telling him to call back on Monday. 

The little traps that put me in double binds.  The mean put-ons meant just to get a rise so dad can sneer and say "can't you take a joke?" Or when I show dad an archery set I got (like his), he says yeah let's go try it out, but he keeps bringing up conversations with my wife about his garden so I'm left with an arrow in my hand waiting for dad to come hang out with me.  Then only after i grit my teeth and leave he texts "let's try again", and i go along with it, but feeling humiliated. 

In childhood, dad spent decades working the night shift because fewer bosses looking over his shoulder than in the day shift, staying up drinking six packs in the morning after work instead of going to sleep and spending the evening with his family.  Subjecting us to mom who'd come home and scream at us when she got home if I dont immediately give her an hourlong back massage and listen to her complain about her coworkers. 

That's not to mention the time in my teens he forced me to stand on my bed and strip naked to punish me for having called the cops a week prior, or the time he "pretended" to shoot at the dog, missing and hitting the ground a good 20 yards away from me who was hiding behind a tree - "I talked to a therapist - she said it's not abuse but shock therapy to get you all to stop arguing."

He's a country guy who "would never live where i can't piss off my front porch" - that's fine until now after this blowout my wife tells me 7 times in 3 years he's staged it for her to walk upon him pissing when they're both in the yard - he hadn't positioned it pointing away from everyone, and he doesn't act embarassed or say sorry when it happened.  I'm so grateful she finally told me.  Having someone I value more than myself gives me a reason to protect myself from them too.

I'm about to buy a house - I tried but couldn't change my name in time to hide the ownership records (and can't put it in an llc due to mortgage guidelines).

I tried to make it seem like i just need space for my therapy, that i'm just overwhelmed - I dont want them to feel like i'm going silent to punish or judge them - I'm terrified they'll send my brother after me - he has access to all their guns. 

My hands are tied, ERPOs, restraining orders, Adult Protective Services, are all to weak to separate that pitt bull enforcer of a brother they have on retainer from them.

It all became so clear in about 24 hours the coercive control system they'd set up around me.  It was dizzying, the cascade of going back through my memories and understanding it all through this.  The blinders just fell from my eyes.

[BorderlineSunrise]

I'm sorry it's so graphic.  I hadn't read other welcome mat posts first to see the norms here.  I guess I'm trying to see if other people find this story as upsetting as I do now - whereas 9 weeks ago it all had seemed kind of, er, understandable...

[BorderlineSunrise]

Particularly confusing is they are high-warmth, high-victim, low-formality, high psuedomutuality family system.  If they were formal rigid "spare the rod spoil the child" authoritarians it might've be easier to see through.  But Dad pretends to be your buddy, "we're not like other families who are strict".  And the extended family is all warm and nicey nice - but if you're not respecting your elders, it's just absolute silence and ostracization. 

Yes, I've been in therapy.  In my 20's i thought back on a couple of the most extreme incidents, and thought it was "abuse" and went to a therapist.  He had the "overwhelmed immature parent" model in mind, met them in a co-joint session, and they tricked him.  He convinced me to forgive them and accept the stunted love they have to offer since they're not the "monsters of the year".

So for the next 20 years I tried to set boundaries and enforce them, and regarded them as a bit immature, a dysfunctional family but to accept them for the stunted, reactive but loving people I saw them as.  I had to vigilantly and forcefully beat my boundaries in.  The abuse went underground and covert, mostly around the put-ons, the subtle gut punch disappointments, and their resentment around me not letting my brother abuse me anymore.  And their poisoning me to my family behind my back, I'm coming to learn.  "Oh it's a shame he's not supportive to his special needs brother, but I guess he has his "mental health" to look after...[SIGH]...."

And I've been in intensive therapy for the past ten years - the kind where the therapist lets you work through your own views for yourself.  I remember a few years ago my latest therapist said "why do you believe a word your father says?"  I dont know if I even let my therapist 10 years ago see the details to know it was abusive or if i censored it too much for him to see.  I went into the therapy for a bit of "anger issues" and some mild dysthymia mild depressiveness and anxiety.  Only now am I realizing the profundity of my dissociation in my personality, my CPTSD, how difficult interpersonal relationships have been for me (and how difficult I've made it for people to be friends to me).  I wish I'd been able to hang onto my realizations 20 years ago, but I'm able to handle the truth now. 

[TimetoHeal]

Hi, Sunrise.

Welcome to the forums.  I see you and I hear you.  You have been through a lot.  Yes, what you share is not normal behavior from parents and is very hurtful. I'm so thankful your wife shared with you what your dad was doing in front of her (sexual abuse, honestly), and that you love her and want to protect her.  Imagine if/when the two of you have children what he may do?

You are not responsible for your brother's care or for making things easier for your parents.  It's time to put you and your wife first.  She is your family. 

I'm glad you are in therapy that seems to be helping you now and so sorry that you had invalidating experiences in therapy in the past.  (What therapist finds any value in what your dad did when you called the cops??  That is mind boggling!). It sounds like your father has engaged in covert SA for a long time.  This is enough reason to stay away from him and keep your wife away from him and any future children. 

I hope you find peace and more and more clarity as time progresses. It is shocking to our system when we suddenly realize things were not the rosy, loving, warm childhood that we had built up in our minds and that we were TOLD we experienced.  Take your time in processing all this and working through it. And protect yourself and your wife by all means necessary:  Alarm systems, cameras, alerting local law enforcement, etc.  I'm not a big proponent of guns, but in the case of your brother, if you really think he may come to your home armed, you have to do everything you have to. 

Hugs.    We are here for you. 

[SeaBreeze]

Welcome! I'm sorry you grew up in a disordered family. But glad your search for answers lead you here.

I know how difficult it is to wake up one day and realize "Whoa, I was abused?!" I always knew my mother wasn't normal, but  in spite of her more challenging behaviors, I still considered us to be very close. It wasn't until my 20s, with children of my own, that I understood concepts like parentification, emotional incest, and enmeshment. It was very hurtful to process that, but it helped me begin to understand my own issues as an adult.

Particularly confusing is they are high-warmth, high-victim, low-formality, high psuedomutuality family system.

This sounds like my first husband's "perfect family". They operated like a cult. Love-bombed and lured in susceptible people like me, thinking we had found the family we always wanted to be part of. Triangulated, punished and/or banished when we questioned things or disobeyed the mother-in-law. When I finally left my first husband, along with two small children, we also escaped/fled his family. (I then landed in my 2nd PD marriage for 25 years, but that's a whole other discussion.)

Believe me when I say that I believe you! I think you will find a very supportive group here who understands the craziness we have all seen behind closed doors. I hope you find the answers you are seeking here. Looking forward to seeing you around the boards as you sort things out.

[BorderlineSunrise]

TimetoHeal,  thank you.  I imagine the therapist he quoted had in the initial meeting, in trying to build rapport, had reflected what they thought he meant, "ah, so you mean you were trying to do a shock therapy?" Therapists aren't trained to judge people on whether they were abusive years ago, they're trained to build rapport and see if they can help.  And woefully aren't standardly trained on the intricacies of malignant abuse.  They assume it's "dysfunction" and "poor communication", rather than malignant exploitation and will to dominate.  In this system, my parents had *perfected* their communication skills.

Sea Breeze, yes, it's cultlike!  I've been learning my grandfather was connected with organized crime; I dont know if he was a murderer or ring leader, but he was doing some money laundering and other things.  I think the code of silence got transmitted to my father and his siblings and they run the family like a crime family without knowing it!  My mom was a broken little bird rejected by her mother; this family brought her in like a foster kid.  My gradma on my dad's side oddly was the only safe person in the family, but you know even some nice people - their firstborn son can do no wrong....