Therapy and family.

I've asked my brother and mother to get therapy with me to develop a new foundation for healthy relationships to break the dysfunctional cycles of our family. I was told I have isolated myself from them and my mothers cancer was used to try to make me go against what is the right thing to do which is therapy.  

Parents raise children, children don't raise parents, so when a child develops disorders it directly corilates to the family dynamic. I was tormented by my brothers, my mother and my grandmother over my appearance and if I tried to complain about it my mother would say, I don't want to hear about it. To this day she denies this, probably because she didn't want to hear it. She was very critical of everything, had zero tolerance for emotions and any compliment you were given came with a backhanded criticism. My aunt was very jealous and would say awful things to me and my parents would never defend me, they would just say she is mentally ill. 

My parents felt that if you throw money at problems they go away. My family all talks negatively about each other behind each other's backs then are phony to your face. I developed an eating disorder and body image dysmorphia which lead to me using crystal meth at 14 years old. I just thought that if I could be skinny the criticism and talking about me behind my back would stop. I've been through counceling my whole life trying to change what my family thinks is wrong with me while none of them get actual mental help, they all just get medicated for their mental illnesses and carry on with their abuse behavior. 

I have overcome the affects of my families dysfunction by therapy, doing hard mental work, developing the right tools, knowing my triggers and I have tried to accommodate their mental illness for a very long time until now when it's affecting me again and I can no longer accommodate them because of the physical pain I deal with from an accident.  I have asked for years for us as a family to get help but the only person who has is me. 

So, what happens when you evolve, change, develop healthy communication, talk about your feelings and overcome all odds but the people who caused you to develop disorders in the first place do nothing?  You get to a point where they are all the same as they were 30 years ago telling you, that you are the problem.

You see, I am happy in my life, have wonderful relationships, a passion for living, proud of my accomplishments and am happy with myself as a person despite living in constant pain and struggling to be able to walk from a major trauma. I am even happier without being involved with these people but they want me back in their dysfunction to just sit there and take it without any of them actually doing any mental health work to make me want to be there. 

Life is hard enough as it is and if your family puts you down or isn't nice to you, discredits your intelligence and wants you to be anyone but who you are, they aren't your family, they are your abusers and it's time to end that cycle. They either get help and you work together with a professional in a safe environment to create change or you move on with your life and create a family for yourself that lifts you up, supports your passions and prioritizes your relationship to work together on keeping it healthy. Reality and functionality is a wonderful place to live, I do hope that one day my family would join me here but my bets are on them continuing to think I'm the problem. Problem solved, I've moved on with a glimmer of hope still in my heart. My door is always open but the boundaries are set and they don't bend for dysfunction they are there to keep it out.