[Ginger]

Originally Posted by *Anya*

This is a very heavy subject for me.

My mom was a foster child because my Grandmother was thrown out of her own family for getting pregnant and my GM had to work as a domestic to survive. The foster family was abusive and she was the scapegoat for the other 5 kids, as she was the oldest.

It damaged my mother and she was unable to be a loving, caring or nurturing person to her only daughter. She then met & married my dad, also from a cold, withholding family of origin.

I believed at an unconscious level, she identified with me and in collusion with my dad, made me the family scapegoat. My younger brothers escaped their wrath.

I used to pray as a child that something would happen to them and I would become an orphan and adopted by a mother like some of my friends had *nurturing*loving*.

Fast forward to the day I told my mom I was in love with my best friend, a wonderful person my mom really liked and that I was gay. She would not speak with me for 15 years. I wad uninvited from my brothers wedding, my brothers would not speak me & the scapegoat was out of the family dynamics.

As we all aged, my mother became sick, had surgeries and as usually happens- I am the only child near them. I help them because there is no one else. I accept that it is what it is. Things that they say still can sting though I have developed a much thicker, protective hide with them.
We were at a family and friends dinner the other day and my dad proceeded to tell the guests all about the "big vacation" when he took the "whole family, wives and grandkids to Hawaii a couple of years ago".

Neither of them noticed I was not included in the big trip (nor did I know it even happened!).

This thread asked about mom but my mother is totally intertwined with my dad. They are one person to me.

When my mom decided to speak with me again, the door was totally shut on my private life. She/they do not ask and do not want to know. I discuss the weather, groceries, etc. I just pretend with them, they pretend with me.
They are old now and I do not expect anything to change at this stage of the game.

Anya, your parents sound destructive and cruel.

It sounds though, as if you love them. Children love their parents strongly, even if they are horribly abused. I think there's a biological advantage to clinging to our parents; that we're hard-wired that way.

But instinct and reason are conflicted when the parents are so hurtful, that the child is more likely to survive, without them. So, I'm guessing that you get something back from your family, something that reassures you on a deep level that isn't conscious.

I hope that is the case, that you at least get that. You sound so together, I doubt you would do something self-destructive, like be with them if it endangered your quality of life.

What's amazing is how objective and clear-headed you are about the whole thing. I'm really struck with how compassionate you are about your parents' families of origin, and how their own childhoods impacted on their development as the parents they would one day become, themselves. It's truly, deeply impressive how you see the whole picture, including your place in it.