![\"leuk\"](\"http:\/\/www.lordandrei.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Acute_leukemia-ALL-132x150.jpg\")
[Friends Only] Difficult, personal, etc<\/p>\n[Friends Only] Difficult, personal, etc<\/p>\n
For those that aren\u2019t aware I am highly estranged from my immediate family. I have not spoken directly to my mother in decades. I interact only with my sister on occasions when she comments randomly on facebook that I should be in their lives. My mother saddled me with years of emotional and intellectual abuse as a child. She would have added physical abuse but I was too large by the time the abuse began.<\/p>\n
My father had had a stroke at the age of 39 in 1979 and it devastated our family. I was 11, my sister 4. We lost everything; he lost more. My father had lost control of not merely have of his body but half of his brain. He had no common sense, self control, and even less ability to really do anything for himself. This is what pushed my mother over the edge. She became domineering, mentally abusive, and above all else utter paranoid that everyone was out to get her. Mentally, she was most abusive to my father. I would watch her humiliate him at home and publicly. At home he\u2019d be often reduced to tears at her onslaughtght of his now being a \u2018failure.\u2019<\/p>\n
College for me was an escape from the hell that home had become. I was in college I was unaware that my grandmother was supporting my education. It wouldn\u2019t be until years later that I\u2019d discovered that he was draining both my grandmothers financially dry. I learned this at my paternal grandmother\u2019s funeral. One of the few times I saw my father\u2019s side of the family. His brothers treated him like a pariah. On one level he deserved it. By this time he wasn\u2019t working anymore. He\u2019d lost his license under accusations of sexual harassment in the workplace. A concept that I personally thought I understood.<\/p>\n
Alcoholism ran rampant on my father\u2019s side of the family. I sometimes thought that maybe we\u2019d been lucky and missed the gene. I discovered that substance abuse or reliance doesn\u2019t always require a drug of some kind. Some times it can be the support of others. Around this time I\u2019d learned that my mother had divorced my father for \u201cFinancial Reasons.\u201d The belief was that she could better take care of him if her earnings weren\u2019t at risk. In truth she was trying to make sure she wouldn\u2019t go down with a sinking ship.<\/p>\n
I made the difficult decision to tell him to find help from a social worker. I was living in California. I was between jobs having been laid off myself. I didn\u2019t have the means to get out East let alone offer any help. I told him how much I loved him but how he couldn\u2019t just live off his mother-in-law. Amazingly and painfully, he took my advice. At first he was in a shelter. But they cared for him. Then they moved him to a Jewish Sr. Centre and his V.A. benefits paid for him.<\/p>\n
But he was no longer capable of caring for himself. And heavens knows his wife and daughter who were local didn\u2019t. He got an infection in his leg and had to be taken to a hospital. It was determined that he\u2019d have to lose his leg. I was called by my girlfriend\u2019s mother that my mother needed me back in town because my father was in critical condition. My mother needed me back in town because as an ex-wife, the doctor\u2019s wouldn\u2019t listen to her and she realized that she could order me to do what she wanted.<\/p>\n
That visit was one of the most horrible experiences of my life. It was obvious that her statement my entire life was going to be the one she\u2019s stand on. \u201cYou are not my equal, you are my child and will do what I tell you.\u201d She wanted more tests run, I disagreed and signed off on the amputation. In the waiting room she told me how horrible a person I was. How I never did anything for the family. How I was the one responsible for my father\u2019s health and condition. How his death would be on my head.<\/p>\n
I lost it. I\u2019ve posted about this in the past. I used language on this horrible person that should have had me committed. Decades of resentment and abuse. I just wanted to let her know how much I hated everything about her. I used words that I don\u2019t use even at my angriest. The line had been crossed. I didn\u2019t have a mother. I had an angry and disgusting person who I had to symbolically and biologically acknowledge an attachment to.<\/p>\n
Six months later I found out from a great Aunt that my sister had informed her that my father had died. I was cold. I was hurt. It didn\u2019t hit home for a very long time. A week later I contacted one of my father\u2019s brothers to deliver the news. He told me that he\u2019d chatted with my father a few days earlier. My sister had lied about our father\u2019s death. A few months later he actually passed. This time it didn\u2019t effect me.<\/p>\n
My sister made unnecessary arrangements for my father and explained that his VA benefits would pay for them. I should have recognized that as one of the stories my mother and father would tell me about how things would be paid for. A month later I had the funeral home calling me as kin that I was financially responsible. I explained that they had no contract with me or any signatures from me and that my sister was the one wholly responsible. I did explain that I would attempt to reach her though I was not in touch.<\/p>\n
For the next 2 months though the power of the internet my sister tried to convince me that she was being held against her will in a hospital by her mother for an attempted suicide. This whole story was a lie to distract from the fact that she was avoiding telling me that the Funeral wasn\u2019t going to be paid for. I won\u2019t even start with the other lies I\u2019ve had from her in the past. But with this one. I\u2019d be fairly publicly humiliated by trying to show that I did care. I was done.<\/p>\n
Within a few years I was married and then with my own child. I was going to try to get right at least some of what my parents got wrong. Heaven knows I spend more than one day, evening, night, convinced that I am as big if not a bigger failure. That I\u2019m ruining his upbringing. Time and time again I see my own problems buried in him and try to figure out how to help him with them before they become to defining.<\/p>\n
I moved back to Pittsburgh. For a while I was 3 miles to the tenth from the house where my sister and her mother live. I haven\u2019t seen them since I have moved back to the city 7 years ago. There are times when it is hard. I remember my mother always keeping me away from my father\u2019s side of the family. She never had a nice word for any of them. I\u2019ve always wished I was closer. I\u2019m not. I barely know them. Facebook helps a little. I find myself wondering if I am doing the same disservice to Aiden giving him only one grandmother.<\/p>\n
My sister routinely comments on my public facebook posts. Usually it\u2019s not relevant but more a demand or plea that I just forgive and move on. How I\u2019m horrible for not responding to family. How much dad would have wanted us to move on. I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m waiting to see if she\u2019s actually apologize for anything she\u2019s done (there has never been one) or if I\u2019m just so numb to it all living in the fear that getting close will only open wounds that will hurt me again.<\/p>\n
So why now. Why am I reposting this for friends.<\/p>\n
About 2 weeks ago she made yet another one of the unrelated comments. This one was a notification that her mother has been diagnosed with Leukemia.<\/p>\n
Everyone who\u2019s already thought, \u201cWell, she\u2019s still your mother\u201d has obviously gotten to this point by the TL;DR method. Those that have read and still don\u2019t know why this situation isn\u2019t anything beyond a no brainer haven\u2019t realized that the above is only a snapshot of 50 years.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know. I honestly don\u2019t know. All I know is that I can still believe that I am a terrible person who is no better than his father. I don’t know if this is a true report or not. All I know is that every fiber in my system is fighting against having my strings pulled. And it feels wrong no matter what.<\/p>\n