Dealing with my grandmother...

[xXbEyOnd_iNfINiTyXx]

Hi~

First I just want to say I'm kind of new here, so excuse me for the awkwardness ^^;. Alright, long story short: my mother passed away nine years ago and my father...is well a different story (long gone, don't know where he is). I am sixteen years old and I currently live with my grandmother. And well...I'm ready to shoot myself 0.o. Anyway, I'd like to apologize in advance, I don't mean to sound like a whiny teenager ><...

Okay, I have two siblings, an older sister who moved out (lucky, lucky, lucky~) and a younger brother. I'm not really looking for suggestion of legal action, I came here to look for suggestions in dealing with this. Enough with my useless babbling, here goes.

 

My grandmother is, in a nutshell, a miserable, manipulative, self-centered, narcissistic 65 year old. She will almost NEVER admit that she does anything wrong and I can count on one hand the number of times I've heard her sincerely apologize to someone else. If there is ever a problem, there is always someone else to blame. We get into blowups almost every single day and I'm at my wit's end. According to her, I am the one that causes all the problems in my house, especially the problems regarding her health. She is currently a good 70 pounds overweight and she has asthma and two herniated disks in her spine. But to her, if anything causes her to have a heart attack, it'll be me. Not the fact that's she overweight and shoveling down pop-tarts and other bad foods, it'll be my fault.

 

She is a horrible parent. I've never been a parent before, granted, but that still doesn't make me unable to tell a good parent from a bad parent. She never stops yelling and cursing (trust me, every sentence has at least one curse word in it. If I need to move my binder, it's my f****ing binder. Nothing goes said without a curse.). Her solution to my going against her stupidity is to hit me. Now she's not one of those belt people, woot, but she thinks for some reason hitting people will change things. I take martial arts and I could easily fight back, but (being in a psych class) I choose to laugh at her and that usually confuses her. Except for this morning...which resulting in a lot of hitting and a gash from her ring on the lower side of my face.

 

In my opinion, she's not overly bright. I don't mean to be arrogant and pig-headed, but I am an AP student and I've been on the honor roll almost every year of my life. (Again, I don't mean to be arrogant but I really feel like I come off that way. Sincerest apologies!) But because I'm smarter than she is, she sees that as a threat to her authority and it usually ends up with her throwing a temper tantrum that my four year old nephew has to laugh at and I just give up. Now, my brother is on Adderall and truthfully the kid doesn't need it. I know I'm not a clinical psychologist, but the kid is fourteen and he's supposed to be hyper and eating 6 pizzas in five minutes. He doesn't need the medicine. Well in response to that, she throws a temper tantrum at the doctor's office. She not only believes that my brother should be on Adderall for the crime of being a slightly hyper 14 year old, but I "should be on Zoloft because [i'm] uncontrollable". 0.o Really, if anyone needs medicine it's her.

 

Now to explain the manipulative part. We used to go to counseling because of my mother's death and dealing with my father, blah blah blah. For the last year and a half of therapy before I refused to go anymore was her telling my therapist that I was, basically, a demon child that did nothing that I was told and I needed to be on medicine. And my therapist took that as law and wrote out a prescription pretty much throwing my side of the story in the garbage. She pits my aunts and uncles, her friends, everyone against me. It boosts her esteem and then she gets to use it in arguments that everyone agrees with her. Well that's because they've only chosen to hear her side of the story, which is always blown out of proportion beyond absurdity. She's disgustingly immature and my friends' parents ask me how I can possibly deal with this without shooting myself.

 

I think that's enough, I really don't want to make this a pity party and babble for the next hour. I'm looking for suggestions on how to deal with her because I'm ready to walk out. More so, I need suggestions for my brother who will be stuck with her for another 4 and 1/2 years (should natural selection choose not to undo its mistake of letting her survive...). I'm joining lacrosse, which has practice 6 days a week, as one way to get out of the house. But the problem is, I don't want to leave my brother by himself. On the medicine, he doesn't have the 'strength' (?) to fight back with her screaming and hitting and I feel horrible for leaving him. Any suggestions would be GREATLY appreciated. I apologize for the length of this >.<".

Any questions, feel free to ask if you dare lol. Thanks so much .

[quankanne]

would it help if you and your brother spoke with your school counselor about the deteriorating situation in your home? Especially since your granny is a senior citizen and therefore facing a whole new set of challenges on top of raising teenage grandkids ...

 

do you have any other relatives you can live with, or is granny your legal guardian?

 

hugs,

q

[tina01]

I can understand where you are coming from. . .because my upbringing had some similarities.

 

Join Lacrosse and any other activity/job to get out the house or make money.

 

As for your brother, have him get involved in a lot of school activities if possible. If not possible, then I'm sorry, there's not much you can do to help until he's 18 - unless you want the authorities involved? (that's up to you)

 

Apply to colleges all over the U.S. . .since your smart, you'll get scholarships and because your mom's deceased and dad is gone - you'll get grants/loans. Take full advantage of all the college opportunities. After you get your Bachelor's, keep going until you get a PhD. Education will help you to understand your grandmother's issues more and allow you to deal with her differently. This will cause her to eventually leave you alone and exude her anger else where. Look to the future and stay humble and happy in your present situation. When you make it out and become the wonderful person your destined to be. . .then you'll look back and smile at all the drama because it helped to make your future so enriching.

 

Read positive quotes daily and pray often. Be good to the family, but pay them no mind. Your other relatives may be envious of your smarts or just miserable within. Your grandmother has her own agenda and please believe me when I say 'misery likes company.' It's a fear tactic to keep you bowing down to her (read Machiavelli and you'll understand more)...and to keep control over what she wishes she had control over in her own life - just a lot of psychological issues no one can cure. As far as your own issues. . .a great philosophy professor once told me (after some counseling myself), "You don't need counseling with all these self help books out here today. Read about 10 of them and you've got all the answers and then your cured. Why go to a psychologist or therapist when you can read and talk to God for free?!"

 

I wish you lots of abundance, prosperity, health, and wealth for the future. Good luck.

 

Don't stress because your blessed and don't sob because you've got God. Eternal Blessings