I'm >>31726. It's now been over five years since I moved away, but last year I went back a few days to attend my brother's funeral. He died before 40 due to drugs, stress, and a lot of other things. I have mostly accepted that fact and I feel okay.
It has shifted how I see my family and my position in it, though. I don't think my parents will completely recover from losing their first child. I am now aware that they did see us all (me and my siblings) differently. For whatever reason, they don't respect me very much and some of the things that happened during the funeral were just bizarre. Strange incidents, passive aggression and combative behaviour, treating me like an alien. I couldn't figure out why.
I understand everyone was under stress, but it seemed like my dad in particular was looking for a punching bag. In fact, one of the last exchanges between my brother and my father involved him calling my dad a "bully", and I see where he was coming from. I don't know why my mother stayed.
Now I'm out and I really like my life, but they aren't particularly interested in my success. What's more is that it wasn't just immediate family, but extended family also treated me with something between suspicion and derision. It's very easy to feel that it's me, but people don't treat me like that where I am now, so there must be something going on, right? >>31726 put it well:
>I could speculate why this is for hours. Jealousy? Crustacean container mindset? Is it shame that they couldn't give you a better start in life, or that they don't measure up to you now? Is it disappointment, where even if you're doing well you haven't turned out quite how they hoped? It really doesn't matter and frankly you just shouldn't worry about it.
I spent my 20s studying, building up savings, and also trying to understand my parents and think of them as human beings, forgive their flaws, even bond over things and be proper friends, but whenever I think about them all that comes to mind is a relentless stream of negativity. I usually make an effort to call my mother at least once a week, but I haven't been able to for the last two or three. It feels just feels like inviting strife in.
tl;dr - I'm really thinking of just separating myself as much as possible from my family since a big loss made some things difficult to ignore. Most of the time I just put it out of my mind and focus on achieving things in my own life, even if they don't care. Now it feels like more of a conscious decision not to contact them.
>I usually make an effort to call my mother at least once a week, but I haven't been able to for the last two or three. It feels just feels like inviting strife in.
How often does she make the effort to contact you?
If you're going to cut them off why not go nuclear and ask them, straight up, what the game is? If you're going to sever contact anyway, it might be worth it. Although I doubt the chances of any kind of big emotional pay-off or heartfelt revelation, you're owed an explaination and I think you should give yourself every opportunity to receive one.
Or you get completely twisted with it and buy your dad a Rolex for his birthday, but you fill the hollow parts of the box it comes in with spiders so that when he takes the watch out the spiders fall all over him and you never speak to either parent again.
About once every week or two she'll send a message asking how I'm doing, I'll reply asking the same. Sometimes she'll send me an Instagram positivity or mother-son message. I know my mother cares, but we've definitely lost something along the way.
Blowing up isn't really my style. I know from experience people can and will say hurtful things in the moment regardless of whether they believe them, and that it's a common response to being told things they don't want to hear.
There was also a quote from a novel, I think it was Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312, that said anger is an unpleasant emotion, full of fear. Better to direct your aggression calm and rationally like a hunter. Something like that.
Nowhere near as bad. They seemed to like having me around, I listened to my mum a fair bit and chatted with my dad when I could. I thought I was getting somewhere, and things seemed a lot more mutually respectful... but thinking about it, that usually only applied in 1:1 conversations. They had a tendency to change when around others.
