isabel

because I don't know what I'm doing? none of this is real and it was just a coincidence? those weren't my feathers?

Hi, So I stopped talking to my mom, I thought about it for years before I actually did it, then one day in June I just stopped answering the phone and I haven't talked to her since. My reasons are because of the way that she views me as a person. Going back as far as I can remember she has taught me to believe that I am evil, worthless, inferior to all other people in a way that can never be fixed, she thinks I'm a liar, that I want to hurt people, that my father never wanted me, that I have nothing to offer anyone, that I don't deserve help from her or anyone even if I am in desperate need... (I could go on for a year but you get the basic idea, anyway I don't like that so I don't want to talk to her anymore.) She has been talking to my sister. She has told her that "she had no idea" that she ever did anything wrong and that I am "just assuming" that things have happened. But they did happen, I remember. I'm not assuming anything. She is also saying that she's sick now and has to be on medication and that it's my fault because she's so upset about me not talking to her. But I don't get that, I have been in trouble in the past, real trouble, and she never got sick over what was happening to me, she made it very clear that she did not care at all. She never got sick or had any emotions about not seeing me or not talking to me when it was her choice. I know she doesn't care, but why is she pretending to care?? I don't get it. Anyway, my sister is my only friend, and I thought the only person in the world who understood, but now I don't know, she seems to be on my mom's side now, she thinks that I did something wrong by cutting contact and she said that she agreed with my mom about how I am assuming things even though she was there when they happened! She knows they really did happen. My mom is "working on her" hard. She's convincing her that I am the bad one, like always. I'm so afraid that she will take my sister away from me now, what should I do? Thank you!

With a lot of thanks to this forum, I've been unraveling what's happened to me and have some answers as to why. Basically I survived a horrifically abusive childhood, then went on to go through around 12 years of abusive relationships and more horrors and loss, then I basically gave up on the world. For the last 17 years or so I've had no romantic relationships at all and very few friends and I just work from home and make very little money. It's been extraordinarily difficult and lonely but safe. So the other day I found out about a man who lost everything, and on his spiritual journey he discovered that not only was that okay but it turned out to actually be a good thing, it "cleared his karma" and he became free and happy. Well what if I look at my past as a blessing then? Meaning basically since I've suffered that I now deserve a break, I don't deserve to suffer anymore, I'm done, I've suffered enough. So is karma real? Can it be cleared by suffering? And how do you know when you've suffered enough? Or if that's not quite right then how do you turn suffering into a blessing? I don't know what questions to ask... Thank you.

I'm carrying horrible guilt for things that happened when I was younger. Mostly because, I had a boyfriend who ended up raping my little sister and caused my grandfather to die. I had nothing to do with either of those things, but if I had not brought him into our lives that would not have happened. Also, I broke up with him and kicked him out of my house, that's when and why he went to my grandparents home and all that happened and my grandfather died. It was 30 years ago. So I want your opinion. How responsible am I for what happened? Please be honest. How can I ever have anything good in my life for myself if I caused something like this to happen? What can I do to make up for what happened?

Yes. My childhood was a horror story of psychological abuse ranging from being taught that I was a pig person with monkey blood who could never be good enough to having my beloved pets killed to being beaten with a two by four...but on the bright side I do go through phases where I am okay and even phases where I am happy. What makes it okay is my focus. I can choose to dwell on my past or I can watch cute cat videos on the internet. Each one makes me feel vastly different. And I practice, practice, practice on holding on to those good feelings. Another very important thing that I noticed is that when things are going well for me, I tend to dwell less on my past. For example if I'm sick or if my job isn't going well or I have any other kind of problem I used to tend to swirl down and down and down but now I am aware of myself doing that and I know that won't help me so I go to the cute cat or baby videos to "reset" my thoughts for the day. I think you have to go through it completely but then you have to let it go. Then take really good care of yourself and look to the future only, look to the future being good, no dwelling on the past. And it does get better, and easier. It's not really fading but it's getting easier to re-focus so that I don't have to keep reliving it over and over again.

I don't know! lol but at some point we arose and our beliefs and our actions definitely create the reality that each of us lives in...we are creating our own worlds but to what extent...

My mom had a room in her home for me and my son, she would invite us to come and stay with her often, and we would go. One day, my boyfriend threatened to kill me and he had recently purchased a gun so I was afraid. I called my mom and told her what was happening and I asked her if I and my son could come to her house for safety for a few days. She said no. And she said the reason was that I would be "a little bit too much in her face for her comfort" at that time. (So me being murdered in front of her grandson didn't make her uncomfortable, I guess.) I wasn't much surprised that she said no, I was mostly confused because she asked me out there all the time, why not let me come out this time? This is a typical example of how she's treated me, I honestly feel like my mom hates me and enjoys purposefully hurting me. If my brother ever needs anything at all she will go to the ends of the earth to save him from even the smallest inconvenience, he doesn't even pay his own bills and he's 42 years old. If I say anything about this situation I am branded as "out of touch with reality", "insanely jealous" and "out to get my brother" and so on. Anyway, I stopped talking to her and I would very much appreciate any opinions or advice that you have. How she treats me is very bad right? I feel like it's very bad but I just want to know what other people think. I feel like I made the right decision to stop contact but then I start to doubt myself... Thank you so much, this forum has been so incredibly helpful to me.

Oh my god, the last video describes me almost exactly. It's so strange, but yes that is definitely me, some of the details are a little bit different but other than that it's as if he was talking about me and my mom. At around age 30, I figured out it was a good idea to do the exact opposite of whatever she was telling me to do. I lived by that idea. Also I made a point to NEVER let her see or know about any weakness, problems in my life, or failure on my part (it happened anyway lots of times but I tried). I knew not to do it, I knew what would happen, but I never knew why...until now. I am figuring this thing out.

But that applies to all of us? Then what is individuality? Something/someone has to have free will otherwise what would be the point? To create an entire universe where all the outcomes are already known, boring. Create a universe over which you have total control, with no interaction, no wonder, no suspense, why? So who is it then, who has the free will?

I don't understand. It means we are like characters in a video game, but also we are the programmer, and we are the game itself? But if it's true then did I create you or did you create me? And if we are both the same person...then what is a person? But then if it's all me, it means I have the ultimate free will, but then if it's all you then what is my free will? I feel like there is an amazing understanding there, but I can't understand it.

Thank you! No, no I left him after that, it was one of the hardest things I ever did, I had to rip myself away and I felt like I would die but I did it, that was 20 years ago! My relationships were so intensely bad that I never dated again after that last one, I've tried but I'm just too afraid, I make really bad decisions, and people get hurt, me included. Yes, I am extremely messed up. But I feel like I might be turning it around now, I cut my mom out of my life...I don't have any horrible people left in my life now.

Everybody, thank you so much! This is helping me more than you know...

Hi, just doing a reality check. I want to know how my feeling compare to what other people might feel about certain things, thanks in advance if you can answer! Imagine you loved watching tv as a child. You have two tvs in your home. You have one sister and one brother. Your mother cut the plug on one tv so it's still sitting there but you can't plug it in to watch it. She puts the other tv in her room, and when your favorite shows come on, one child is allowed in her room to lay on the bed with her and get back rubs and watch as much tv as they like. You and the other child are alone in the rest of the house, you can listen under the door to the tv as long as you are perfectly quiet but you are two young children so eventually you begin to make noise. The mother comes out and screams at you and sends you to your room for the night. This happens every night for a long time and it's a typical example of life in the house as far as one child receiving treatment that is different from the other two. How would you feel about that if it happened to you as a child? And/or as a parent, would you ever do something like that to your children?

I'm sorry you're going though this, it sounds horrible, I can relate. I feel so bad sometimes and feel like everything is out of my control and there is nothing I can do about it. Sometimes it helps to just try to start with one thing at a time. Just one small thing, it can be as small as taking a shower at least every other day (that is so sad but I actually had to start there at one point). But after I did that for a while I was able to start the next thing, like trying to eat a breakfast each morning, which is something you might try since you're underweight if you're not doing that already. It's hard to change so just pick one very small thing and go one step at a time. You can do it. Think of one little thing that seems doable to you and that can make your life better then focus on doing it until it becomes a habit, then feel good about it and choose another thing. And keep posting in forums and reaching out to people, ask questions. You can do this.

Hi, my mother and my brother both have extreme anger and jealousy issues and my brother is a heroin addict on top of that. I've been severely traumatized by their actions over and over again for my whole life. Though for the last five years or so things have become much better since I have cut them completely out of my life except for phone calls (I answer when they call but never call them, other than that, no contact.) It was working until my brother decided it wasn't and screamed and screamed at me on the phone then called back and screamed on my answering service. Sigh. Anyway, my question is should I even try to make either of them understand what they've done to me? Should I try to point out anything? Or will it be a waste of my time? Should I just try to forgive and forget? Would love to, but I would also love it if they could just see what they're doing and what they've done. Thanks!

I am five years older than my brother, I started doing drugs at age 12, I did drugs heavily around him and I offered him drugs for 6 years, until I was 18 and he was 13. Thankfully, he never accepted and never did any drugs with me. I didn't push him to but I did offer and I did do hard drugs freely in front of him all the time. The only reason I quit at 18 is because I became pregnant and I was one of the lucky ones who was able to stop at that time and not go back. After I became clean I became very against drugs and took every opportunity to make that clear to him - but he went down that road anyway. He became addicted to meth and later to heroin as well. We are now both in our 40s. He has been almost completely destroyed by his lifelong addiction and soon he will probably be dead. I spent the first 15 years or so banging my head against the wall trying to get him into treatment but all I got for it was hate and anger and accusations. "I'm out to get him." "I'm self righteous." "I'm just jealous of him." etc. So I had to walk away. He hates me. He is so angry at me, but it's not just me, he hates literally everyone, even strangers. He yells at strangers in the street regularly. He's mean and screams at the whole family all the time. His son won't talk to him at all. Still, I did my part to cause this. I did. I was a child, 12 years old, and I did everything I could to try and help him back out of it afterwards. At this point, I am also angry at him, he is extraordinarily mean to me, he steals from me, lies to me and about me, spreads rumors about me, lies to my mom about me and she believes him, she thinks I'm a monster. It's so bad that I just want to walk away, but I can't because he is my little brother and I feel responsible for opening that world to him. I hate myself for that, what do I do?

Thank you so much for sharing your story. Your sort of on the other side, so it's helpful to see it from that point of view.

Thanks you guys! I'm almost crying reading these answers, they are so in tune with what I am going through with this. Exactly! I am doing that. I keep thinking if I could just get through, I'll be nicer, I will try harder, I'll prove that I am not what they think I am (I'm the bad one, according to them). Anyway, thanks again, I'm so glad this forum opened, I will be back to read these answers again and think some more. Feeling better today!