Musings on setting boundaries with toxic family

For a long while now my ability to create has been severely stunted. I am a woman of many passions, and it is normal for me to gravitate between creating music, to writing to art depending on what mood I was in. However, as the causes of trauma piled on it became harder for me to let myself feel my emotions long enough to make something. The irony is that creating is what has been proven to assist in the healing process, but it is the damage that was caused that prevents me from doing the creative things I love. I’m sure I am not alone in my tendency towards self-defeating behavior. I know I need to work out, but it’s always the wrong day. I know I need to eat less sugar, but it’s always after this one cookie or bowl of ice cream. So far, I have done a lot of research into the idea that it is the effect of trauma on our brains that causes this self-defeating behavior. However, a large part of it is also guilt.  

Raised in disfunction

For those of us who have CPTSD, or similar symptoms, many times the trauma wasn’t caused all at once, but it was a series of discreet abuse. The negative self-talk, feelings of guilt, and other symptoms are programmed into us from childhood, and we spend our adulthood trying to recognize and undo the damage. It affects the way we treat ourselves, the way we treat others, and everything. What’s worse is that once we are out in the world on our own, toxic people looking for someone to use recognize these wounds and use them against us to get what they want. People who suffered traumatic childhoods are statistically more likely to experience adverse life outcomes, and I think it comes from the way that the world was painted for us when we were children. If we were treated terribly by people who also said they loved us, then when we choose a partner, we aren’t deterred by them being passive aggressive or emotionally abusive early in the relationship. On the contrary, we tend to stick around with the devil that we know, and the devil that we know is aware that they have the power in a relationship because they know an open wound when they see one.

Deciding to end a relationship for those reasons also causes internal strife in realizing the way you were raised was, in fact, kind of messed up. So, here is likely why those of us who are in abusive relationships tend to stay there. At a certain point we decide we want to be happy, but aside from lip service, what is happiness anyway? After getting rid of the toxic relationship, we are still left with the realization that other people in our lives haven’t had our best interest in mind either. If we decide to cease contact with the toxic people in our lives, will we ever be at another family gathering? Well, maybe not. Maybe not going is better anyway.  

I grew up with a very large family on my mom’s side. There are all sorts of cousins and aunts and uncles all over the United States. My mother’s dad was an Irish Catholic, and married my grandmother, the daughter of German immigrants, young. Unfortunately, my grandfather was also an abusive alcoholic in a time where domestic violence was overlooked, and divorce was still taboo. Eventually, the birth control pill came out on the market, and to get out of having more children, my grandmother had to take it in secret. The final count was 7 girls, and 4 boys. My youngest of aunt and uncle were born around the time that my grandmother finally was able to leave my grandfather and were not raised in the same chaos as the rest of my aunts and uncles. I have heard stories over the years from various relatives that paint my grandfather in a very poor light, and the abuse has left its mark on our family. My mother was very prone to indecision and anxiety among other symptoms I observed over the years. Therapy was never an option for her because of the stigma that it carries with her generation. I’m glad that we are finally turning a corner on mental health awareness, but there was no amount of advice that her therapy could help that would have got her to go.

Breaking the cycle

When children grow up in an abusive environment, they do not develop healthy coping mechanisms and the way they interact with the world around them is often a bit misguided. There are traits that they carry with them and express when they are raising their kids years later, and those children will also develop unhealthy coping mechanisms. If you are one of the people who found yourself using unhealthy parenting tactics that you learned from your unhealthy childhood, don’t beat yourself up too much. We can’t start to make things better until we realize there is a problem, and we can’t solve the problem by blaming ourselves. What we need is compassion and self-reflection, not the inner critic that makes healing almost impossible. Little by little we can fix ourselves and stop the cycle of abuse. Unfortunately, once you begin to realize what is toxic you must make decisions on who you want to orbit in your atmosphere. It makes it tough to go to family gatherings when you know you’re going to see those toxic triggers around you. It’s difficult to set boundaries with people used to walking all over you. 

I first began to realize that there was a severe problem with my family when I was around 26 and living with an aunt after an emotionally abusive relationship. In one specific incident I remember, another aunt was visiting, and I came home from work to find the visiting aunt on my netbook (a tiny laptop) without anyone trying to ask me first. I had a cell phone, they had the number, and I was able to check it at several points in the day. I was obviously upset and asked why she was using my computer without permission. To which I found that the aunt I was living with had given her permission to use my computer. Honestly, it still makes me mad especially since instead of an apology, I’m pretty sure I got called selfish, and probably another choice curse word, because I didn’t want people going into my room, taking one of my most important things out, and using it without permission. After I got the computer back, for some reason, the background was changed to just a blank blue background and no matter how much I tried to fix it I could never get a different background up. I’m pretty good with computers and still, almost 10 years later, I have no idea what she did to permanently disable my background. I’m sure it was nothing on purpose, but it’s also the very reason I didn’t want anyone on my computer. And no, it was not for anything important, just spammy bingo websites.

Meanwhile, an older cousin texted me one day asking if she could have one of my beers at the house. I said of course, and she knew I would anyway, but I appreciate my boundaries being respected and really don’t mind sharing at all. Me and that cousin still talk; me and those aunts do not. Sure, for a time it started to seem like I was just getting rid of people from my life “for no reason”, but there were reasons. I just didn’t act on them until I was aware of the impact of their behavior towards me. 

No one listens to the scapegoat

Somehow, I became a scapegoat in my family to an extent I am still trying to understand. I was to blame for things, always wrong, always selfish. To further add to the disfunction of my extended family, I was also bullied every day in grade school. The kids in my neighborhood that wanted to hang out with me, only wanted to do so to have someone to make fun of. Still, for some reason, my parents encouraged me to play with them. Then one day one of them almost killed me with a German Shepard Attack dog that the family was watching for a friend. 

When I was eleven, my mom told me to go to the house of the kids at the end of the street after school for their mom to watch me after school. The mom was not home so it was just me and the three kids that live there, the older daughter my age, playing outside. The oldest was vindictive and we had already had several problems with each other. She was mean and had no respect for boundaries. Well, on this day, she got that evil look in her eyes and called the attack command on the German Sheperd for it to kill me. For a second in disbelief, I tried to reason with the dog that it knew me. Then I ran as fast as I could and managed to escape up the jungle gym they had in their yard. They were laughing at it, and I managed to yell at them enough to put the dog inside and then actually ran home. I ran into the house crying, telling my sister what had happened. When I looked at my pants there was a hole in the butt; that is exactly how close I was to getting killed by a dog.  I would never play with them again, but my mom still tried to force me to interact with them. The mother got rid of the dog immediately, but there is no amount of getting rid of a dog that is going to make that not attempted murder. 

Years later, when I was living with my aunt, she was still in touch with them. One day she said that the two girls were at my job place putting in an application and they saw me, but why wouldn’t I say hi to them? It was never a secret about the many different things the oldest daughter had done to me, or that I didn’t want to talk to them. I’m a bit flabbergasted that I must keep explaining things to people that should be obvious, and I think it may be because they don’t want to see. If she admitted that the behavior of the girls down the street was worthy of excommunication, then would she also have had to admit her own behavior in some instances was just bad. 

Selfish people are never selfish

Please remember: The author is not a licensed anything and this blog is not reivewed by anyone. None of the information here is a replacement for professional advice or assistance.