Ina

Hi Spenc and thank you. That's an interesting though. You are right that I need to hear it from him, however the answer is kind of obvious - he didn't care enough. On the other hand he was caring and helped me out a lot. I guess I am looking to find out if he genuinely care about me.

Thank you - I know, Stefan's calls are incredibly illuminating and I take lots of inforamtion from them. I belive you are right, the parent shoudl try to rebuilt the relationship since he / she defines it. However, I feel I need to bring up the topic, otherwise we would chat about weather with my dad. There has been this weird tension sinc I am in therapy and I needed to bring some of the issues to light - i hope that if we discuss it we can have better bond...

My dad willing to engage - absolutely, I was actually surprised that he was capable to discuss certain things. I will see him in person soon so I hope to talk to him more and hopefully we can move forward and have stronger and more honest relationship. Your mother - I am so sorry to hear that, this is horrible. I know how it feels to sometimes go throught life without your mother than having her in your life. Its so sad. My mother - Sometimes I am hesitant whether I am too harsh about my mum: For her being raised in extremely abusive household and then in some institutions, she has been doing very well and I should give her some credit. She isnt an alcoholic, nor addicted to any substance (except of cigarets which she took up upon teh divorce) She was stayed-at-home mum and for not having healthy family template herself she was doing relatively good job. She used to organize lots of activities for us and was quite fun. She was caring but more physically then mentally if it make sence (I am not sure if she knows who I rerally am). The problems only came up when I was 13 - 14 and were probably triggered by the divorce. I feel like I was telling her the truth and she resented me for it and got frustrated and volatile. There were times when I thought I must be crazy. I was 19 when I moved out and I stopped engaging with her (I was tired of the drama). Back then I didnt talk to her for about a year. Then she cotnacted me basically saying that she was in better place (and maybe she apologized briefly, but I am not sure about that). However, every time I tried to talk to her about what happened, she justified her bahaviour saying I was very rude to her. This cyrcle repeated several times with me engagin less and less since there were only very few topic (boring ones) we could discuss. Last time I talked to her was about 6 months ago while I was in therapy already - it was a skype call as I live in different country. That was interesting call, for the first time in my life she agreed that she made mistakes and she seemed sorry. I challenged her and asked her "arent you going to apologize"? Even though she seemed to be sorry, it was so hard for her to apologize. But she was sad - she even said she woudl try therapy. I didnt expect that. However, the conversation after that she dismissed therapy, said she doesnt need it and even made some mean comments on me bringing the same topic up again. She verbally assaluts me and tells me to move on from past, she doenst know why I have to bring it up all the time, etc. If I was mother, I couldnt stand my daughter not talking to me. My brother and sister tel lme she is said about it, but she makes 0 efforts in contacting me or trying to make it work. I am lost with this. Hypocracy - Well my father has done his fair share of mistakes and he didnt help me back then (he knew something was happening and chose not to ask). I feel like its a bit hypocritical to say I have a good realtionship with my father or that he is this great person. Actually, the same as your father - he chose your mother, had child with her and left you deal wtih her. Thank you so much for your resonse - it is really helpful to write things down and being able to openly discuss.

Hi all, this is first post here - I am looking for advise from like - minded peope who have been in similar situation. Any tips are greatly appreciated. Thank you. It's been a year since I have been in thereapy and discovered FreedomainRadio - it's been the best year of my life and I never felt more alive. However, with self knowledge come dealing with toxic people in my life (including my family). Especially dealing with my parents is tough and I woudl be greatful for your support and insight. Here is some background that I think is important: My father: he was brought up in communist era, his mother was working since he was 3 months-old and he was put into a daycare ever since. His parents cared about him, but didnt really know him. They preised him for his academic and sport achievements. He always had to be him + some sort of success. There was verbal abuse in the family. Financially, they were doing really well and had a good socio-ekonomic status in their society. My father is very inteligent and succesfull man, however he struggles with proximity. If there is important topic to discuss, he often gets annoyed and agressive - he must win the discussion. He is not used to negotiate in peaceful way. Lately he tries, but the topic / issue is not opened unless someone else brings it up. My mother: was born into family with 8 other children (she was the youngest). Her family was very poor and abusive to the point that my mother was taken away from them (not sure at what age exactly but I think she was about 4-7). Since then she grew up in a childcare facilities. Until this day I am not sure how bad her abuse was (I am aware that she had been beaten / had had cigarete burns and I am not sure if the abuse was of sexuall nature as well, but its possible). She doesnt like to talk about anything realted to her early childhood before she was taken away from her family. She also claims that her past is not important because she is not in touch with her parents or siblings (note, that we have never met or seen any of them and I think she hasnt seen them since she was a teenager). She says that she had a great time in those childcare facilities! and that it has not affected her at all! Its hard to get any sort of inforamtion from her about her past. She can not admit she is/was wrong in anything- ever. Its very difficult for her to apologize. My mother always cared about me and my siblings in terms of having enought food, clean clothes, playing with us and preparing us for school, however, this lasted only until we became teenagers and had our own opinions and created our own personality. She had no idea how to deal with us once we were not dependent infants. She cant deal with anoyone disagreeing with her. The relationship of my parents wasn't good. Their argues got rather agressive, they were not able to communicate and solve issues and in addition, they were cheating on each other. They got divorced eventually (I was 13 at that time). The divorce was not discussed very much and we simply moved out with our mother. My father paid child support and we saw him every other weekend (or more) - he was happy in his new relationship (woman he later married and are still together). In the meantime, the situation home with my mother escalated. Our mother was very nervous and constantly complaining about not having enough money. We started to argue a lot - at one point she told me she hated me and that I was the same as my father (mind: the man she married and had 3 children with)! She started to physically attack me - this confuse me a lot, it seems the parents stop hitting their children when they grow up, but she started to beat me when I was 13 - 15. At that time I knew I could attahk her back but I was afraid that I woudl hurt her! Obviously, she didnt have the same concern about hurting me. Seeing how little empathy she had towards me really hurts my feelings. I havent had much contact with my mother since I was 19 (its about 10 years of very little contact / close to none). Last time I talked to her was about 5 months ago and I tried to discuss what I learned in therapy. She eventually apologized, but it wasnt genuine and she keeps saying I just need to move forward and dont bring the past up. She is quite a bully and doesnt want to work on herself. In her mind, something is wrong with me to bring issues from the past up. I never said anything to my father about the beating and argues with my mother. I think deep down I knew he wouldnt get involved to fix it. Recently I told him and his answer was quite shocking - he said: "I thought something was going on between you and your mother"! He didnt know how bad it was, but he didnt even ask! This makes me angry. On one hand, i woudl like to have relationship with at least one parent but on the other, how can you not care about your children when they are being hurt? My father has done some work on himself and he is able and willing to discuss things. He will be comming over soon. I woudl like discuss it with him. Do you think I am hypocrat for talking to my father but not my mother? Does any of you have similar issue and how you approached it? Did this sort of discussion helped you? Thank you so much - any feedback welcomed.