I was raised by a person who knew my grandmother and not by anyone in my biological family but in recent years I talk a lot to my oldest sister. All of my biological siblings live in either California or Arizona now. My one brother drove from Phoenix to California to visit my sister. It isn't going well.
I have five brothers and sisters, they range from barely functioning to functioning with a degree of addiction. Almost all have some kind of mental disorder from abuse as children coupled with alcohol and drug abuse.
Our parents are still alive but both have mental illness and have never played the role of a parent to any of my siblings. When I talked to my sister about the brother that came for a visit whom I haven't seen in many years he was starting to look like a carbon copy of my father and it makes me sad.
I was very fortunate that although my childhood at times was a nightmare it still was better than what they experienced. I am truly the only one except one other brother that is fully functional and does not have a debilitating mental illness.
I know that many of their current issues stem from our parents and how they learned to cope. My mother started them off with alcohol basically in grade school and it expanded to drugs. My only issue that has been difficult to overcome is social anxiety which I developed from the abuse and isolation of my childhood but I was not in an environment that fostered drugs or alcohol and I never used them to self medicate. I toughed it out and managed to maintain some semblance of a functional productive life.
Although my siblings have made some of their own choices as adults, I feel they are the victims of their caretakers as children and the environment they experienced as their normal long before they had choices. They did not have an advocate to speak for them, a caretaker that protected them, nor a positive role model to show them another way.
There also was the incredible poverty, poor nutrition, virtually no discipline, structure or boundaries. They grew up doing whatever it took to survive even including stealing food or eating rotten food or no food. The girls were victims of my mother's boyfriends even my niece was molested by one and my brother was raped in a foster home.
They have alternative ways of coping with the chaos that is in their minds and that surround them even now and an altered reality to explain what happened to them which also serves an additional purpose of justifying their addictions.
I don't judge them anymore, I have quietly put together the pieces of their lives by talking to my mother and father and finding clues with their rants and some of information I have gathered from conversations with my sisters. Getting the full picture has helped me understand they whys and not just the whats of their actions and how they evolved into their present lives. I personally think our parents were fortunate that none of us died as babies or no one has successfully committed suicide.
Our parents have never acknowledged what they have done or haven't done, but they berate us all which is kind of ironic. With all of our issues as whole we are all still better of than they are for even though my siblings have difficulty functioning not one of them lacks a heart and compassion. All of my siblings love animals as I do, they can see suffering in others and most likely the ones that are able will help others selflessly. My mother and father are full of hate, bitterness, and are vengeful even now.
There may be little more victory than just surviving for some of my brothers and sisters but God has not abandoned them for they are not just empty containers like our parents, they are living vessels because they are holding love. They had no one to demonstrate love for them as children or plant the seeds to take hold in their souls, perhaps the seeds that become love are always within each of us from the beginning. It is said that a seed must die before it will bring forth new life and it may wait years before it comes to life under certain circumstances but perhaps some seeds never come to life to fulfill their true purpose.
I have five brothers and sisters, they range from barely functioning to functioning with a degree of addiction. Almost all have some kind of mental disorder from abuse as children coupled with alcohol and drug abuse.
Our parents are still alive but both have mental illness and have never played the role of a parent to any of my siblings. When I talked to my sister about the brother that came for a visit whom I haven't seen in many years he was starting to look like a carbon copy of my father and it makes me sad.
I was very fortunate that although my childhood at times was a nightmare it still was better than what they experienced. I am truly the only one except one other brother that is fully functional and does not have a debilitating mental illness.
I know that many of their current issues stem from our parents and how they learned to cope. My mother started them off with alcohol basically in grade school and it expanded to drugs. My only issue that has been difficult to overcome is social anxiety which I developed from the abuse and isolation of my childhood but I was not in an environment that fostered drugs or alcohol and I never used them to self medicate. I toughed it out and managed to maintain some semblance of a functional productive life.
Although my siblings have made some of their own choices as adults, I feel they are the victims of their caretakers as children and the environment they experienced as their normal long before they had choices. They did not have an advocate to speak for them, a caretaker that protected them, nor a positive role model to show them another way.
There also was the incredible poverty, poor nutrition, virtually no discipline, structure or boundaries. They grew up doing whatever it took to survive even including stealing food or eating rotten food or no food. The girls were victims of my mother's boyfriends even my niece was molested by one and my brother was raped in a foster home.
They have alternative ways of coping with the chaos that is in their minds and that surround them even now and an altered reality to explain what happened to them which also serves an additional purpose of justifying their addictions.
I don't judge them anymore, I have quietly put together the pieces of their lives by talking to my mother and father and finding clues with their rants and some of information I have gathered from conversations with my sisters. Getting the full picture has helped me understand they whys and not just the whats of their actions and how they evolved into their present lives. I personally think our parents were fortunate that none of us died as babies or no one has successfully committed suicide.
Our parents have never acknowledged what they have done or haven't done, but they berate us all which is kind of ironic. With all of our issues as whole we are all still better of than they are for even though my siblings have difficulty functioning not one of them lacks a heart and compassion. All of my siblings love animals as I do, they can see suffering in others and most likely the ones that are able will help others selflessly. My mother and father are full of hate, bitterness, and are vengeful even now.
There may be little more victory than just surviving for some of my brothers and sisters but God has not abandoned them for they are not just empty containers like our parents, they are living vessels because they are holding love. They had no one to demonstrate love for them as children or plant the seeds to take hold in their souls, perhaps the seeds that become love are always within each of us from the beginning. It is said that a seed must die before it will bring forth new life and it may wait years before it comes to life under certain circumstances but perhaps some seeds never come to life to fulfill their true purpose.
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