To grow up watching people with their share of mental health issues, were troubling, they had unchecked symptoms that would come and go and so too was there sin, lots of it! Someone always had an excuse for a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, sister, brother or cousin. The gullible would say, "Don't worry, that's just how they are, let them sleep it off. Don't cry, it's okay. Don't be scared. You'll be fine. They just act like that sometimes." Yet, what the mean-spirited relatives were repeatedly doing or saying that was offensive and abusive was not "okay" and when were these people ever going to get help!
It is a challenge to speak to people about someone, who they love, admire, or who has done much for them, that their favorite person seriously needs help that they simply can't offer. My relatives' idea of "help" was to keep buying unhealthy food to feast on, alcohol to drink until someone couldn't stand, drugs to lull one into a fantasy world once again, or many cigarettes that offered a temporal bliss. No one wanted to come forth and admit that mentally ill relatives had issues that were bigger than they could manage. Most often, the mentally ill convinced the relatively normal, that they didn't have any problems and that the one who was trying to help really needed help--huh!? Yep. Some of the naïve actually believed what they were saying. When the relatively normal did get their share of counsel only to find that there really wasn't much wrong with them, but it was in fact the other person along with environment, and other related factors tied to the mentally ill, they were surprised. The toxic relative's negative behaviors were causing their mental and physical challenges--go figure!?
By the time I grew up and became educated on a multitude of personality disorders as a journalist, freelance writer and author, I wasn't making any excuses any longer for the family dysfunction nor was I going to subject my children to their erratic emotions, gas-lighting, and emotional and physical abuse.
Delusional thinking over the years had spread like wildfire and was never put out among kinfolk. The mentally-ill insisted they were right and everyone else was wrong. They lied, hurt and confused people and they still got favor from matriarchs and patriarchs. They stole, fought, and abused loved ones and they still got the pass. Those of us who called them out on their foolishness were name-called, disrespected, ostracized, and told we weren't getting this or that when they died.
I didn't want to be a part of any of their so-called celebrations when I got old enough to have some common sense. They would attempt to guilt me for not coming. They would not speak to me for a time. They would sometimes call and act friendly only to discuss my distance or absence to upset me like they had been because I didn't want to come around and/or offer support.
I could care less about their handouts, criticism and what they thought of my reputation with them. Once I grew independent and learned to get along without their dysfunction, I became a better person. Someone had to grow up and realize the truth, so it might as well be me!
When you are agreeing to all that is not mentally right with a person, you are enabling. You are telling them that it is okay for them to behave in dysfunctional ways. Eventually they will get you to do their bidding. Is that the relationship you want with someone? You are their errand boy or girl running back and forth to keep their dysfunctional and immoral behaviors going.
One day I reached that point of no return with my mother, who is now deceased, I had enough of feeding into the "we are family" hype. I wanted out of what she called was "helping" me in these critical conversations, mind you, voice of her own frailties. I wasn't the only one who she did this with, there were others, and some got away when they picked up on her prideful conversations. She had an on and off type of favor she dispensed out when you "do for me." or "make me feel good." This behavior was taken from the playbook of her mother.
Ma was a safe haven, so I had thought, for allowing all that was wrong with us to be validated. She made you feel like that all was well between you and her just as long as your challenge wasn't affecting her, but someone else. She would allow you to talk as much as you want about that other person, your personal faults, and how you needed to do something different. But don't dare talk about anything she ever said or did wrong to you or someone else. She was quick to hand up the phone or walk away and spoke a cigarette or two in one sitting.
Needy for attention, like her mother, my mother enjoyed people listening to her and all that was perfect in her world along with praising her, but she didn't enjoy listening to you especially if there was some criticism you had of her when she was so called "helping you." Her help was more like enabling you in whatever dysfunction you presented her with just so long as it didn't make her look bad or directly affected her negatively. "That's your business...I'm not judging. You do what you want. I'm just saying...Yep, I was young once, we all make our mistakes no one is perfect but Jesus." Really? By the time she got off the phone with you or walked away from you, she was saying something different about you to someone else, laughing, talking about how you are "naive, stupid...always had problems--never learned." My dad would chime in, "Good-for-nothing."
I saw this enabling behavior firsthand when her dysfunctional brothers, who she had a love, hate relationship with, would call or come around. She held them in high regard when she thought of past stories when they personally helped her. She wouldn't let anyone speak real truth to her about them unless of course they had pissed her off. Even though, they had a long history of abusing women and was often disrespectful to their own mother toward the end of her life, according to her mother, she still defended them.
One day as I was preparing to leave her home for the last time, I had, had enough! I wasn't going along with any more false programming about any of our relatives. I listened to how this one was "good to me," "protected me," "helped me," and "did for me." These same individuals who she had multiple falling outs with over decades, were also quite negative when they talked about her to others and used her when they could like she would use them to help with one thing or another always saying, "...but I paid them." Yep, she did. However, no amount of throwing money at a situation was providing any healing to any of us.
There was no getting through to my mother on helping herself, keeping her distance from toxic relationships, and doing what was morally and ethically right concerning others after her own mother died; rather, she welcomed all who made her feel some kind of way while pushing away anyone or anything she felt was "boring," "a burden" or "weak." I found that was also anyone who knew her, like I did, a little better than most--no time for me--I was too close to God for her taste.
My mother had learned from the best of them, how to control, manipulate, and ignore those she didn't see as a challenge while pushing away those, like myself, who didn't by into the false programming--her view and only her view of how her family is/was. "I know how they are..." but at what cost will one make a deal with the devil so to speak?
The line was drawn in the sand by me when I created distance between her and I. I no longer deemed it necessary to have discussions with her about my life (which she didn't mind telling others about--funny how that came around full circle) or her "no-good" brothers as my dad would like to say.
Meanwhile she covered up her own personal issues while presenting herself as perfect despite my grandmother's passing--no she didn't want to talk truth about that and how she acted disrespectful with her months prior to her death.
Too much emotional stress was building within to "be on my best behavior...be quiet...listen, listen..." with my mother. So, to avoid an argument where I would dishonor her, it was better for me to deal with the truth about everything concerning my family headlong while keeping my personal faith intact. I said what needed to be said and moved on.
What exactly was I listening to when I spoke with her in the past? I sat on the phone and in -person and I heard what? How my mother felt, how great she was at XYZ, how good others were that made her look good, how I needed to do ABC because it would make her feel...don't expect her to give. without getting something in return...how I and they could or better. Yep, that was my mother.
Ma encouraged conversation that she felt comfortable with, yet resented me when I spoke truth--her truth as observed since I was a child.
"Hey Ma, did you ever consider seeing someone like a therapist. Did you notice that sometimes things just aren't right, you know within?" I said one day.
"There is nothing wrong with me, Nicky."
Yep, she was going to draw a line in the sand too. She was going to run, because I got close, too close to her truth.
I knew after grandma's death, her and I were finished and so too was I done with all mentally unstable relatives who were convinced by her that everything was wrong with me, and never was anything wrong with her.
Enough was enough!
For some of you, your connections to family is a complicated often psychologically twisted connection. You want something from people who will not admit their faults while pretending as if there is nothing wrong emotionally and/or physically because they told you so.
I learned later that we had a mix of all the psychological clusters (A, B and C) in our family. I had to even check myself, receive prayer, and listen to counselors when it came to some challenging character traits within me. I attended deliverance ministries as well. I felt much relief as a result.
Dealing with mentally challenged relatives is no walk in the park. Family gatherings are difficult to be a part of particularly when the organizers are not stable. Fights show up out of nowhere. Things are disorganized and in disarray. The family instigator is building a case of being right in this situation and that one even though he or she is really terribly wrong. The flying monkeys of the family defend and offend because they are loyal to the one who gave them A, B, and C. Truth-tellers are demonized and children are often annoying to these dysfunctional relatives who are really about self not us. I knew the truth, while many relatives believed lies given to them by anyone who would dare listen to them.
Wake up and do what you can to preserve what little sanity you still have concerning your relatives and most of all protect your children. "It's okay, alright..." to connect with people who are troubled in mind, body and spirit, is unacceptable! No it's not okay to look away and pretend that there is no elephant in the room. It is seriously not okay to let emotional and physical abuse to continue to go on! Get some help for yourself if you believe otherwise.
God bless.
Nicholl McGuire is the author of Say Goodbye to Dad, Tell Me Mother You're Sorry and When Mother's Cry. You can find these books wherever books are sold online.
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