Loong post on constant family pressure, i feel like a brat, sorry it's so long

[booble]

Okay, the easiest way to get this story out is by copting an e-mail I ended up sending to my advisor of studies, sorry it's long and things haven't been too great lately.

 

 

Really the gist of the matter is I do not want to go to my families for Christmas, or even until I'm sorted out. I know I'll come accross as some ungrateful brat who doesn't know what stress is but I need someone who isn't biased to tell me what they think. You can't exactly make my mind up for me (why not ) but getting some input on whether you guys, strangers but seemingly level headed and kind (i hope as I'm new , think I'm being selfish or cruel by not wanting to share a once meaningful holiday with my family. In fact the happiest I ever was when my family ignored me for their various reasons!

 

So thank you all if you get to the end of the e-mail I'm copying and I just hope you don't feel as disgusted with me as I am.

 

 

Oh and PLEASE forgive the fact it's this HUGE chunk of text

 

 

"Dr 'Dre' [(lol-not his real name)]

 

Ok, at the moment Im unsure if I should be writing to you about all of this but I dont know what to do about continuing at university as I feel like I cant cope with university anymore. There are a few reasons for my considering leaving, the main one being I cant handle my family anymore. I dont know how much detail I need to go into, but as everyone does Ive always had a few family problems which I lived with at the time as I didnt have much choice and as long as I gave in things were fine. However ever since I got into University things started getting out of hand. Its hard to explain how without going into huge monologues and I dont want to sound like Im just whinging or end up wasting your time. Ill try to keep it as short as I can, Ive written and re-written this stupid e-mail as I feel so stupid and quite scared that Ive blown my chance to do well or even continue at university.

 

 

The only way I can say this and it sounds so ridiculous is that my family are bullying me. Its stupid I know how it sounds; they are just trying almost everything in their power to get me to live the life they see fit.

 

 

An example of this is my mothers general attitude towards me, Ive noticed it more especially since she just got her visa for Australia last November. She really wants to move there and I understand that it is a nice place but Im not sure whether moving there and being alone with her, cut off and dependent on her is a good idea. I have tried talking to her about this and about the fact she is trying to emotionally blackmail me into it. She wont go if I dont. My older brother would not be allowed over there to live unless we ALL go, otherwise he may have to go as a student and pass a degree or something himself and as he left school after not doing so well he would find it hard to get in that way. So basically if I dont go, S (my mother), will not go or my brother would find it incredibly hard to go and then Id be stealing their chance of a new life and wasting her time. Knowing how hard it is to ever say no to her (lets face it no is a new word in my vocabulary) she has started threatening to go as soon as possible knowing full well I would have to leave my course and start, again if she let me this time. The only reason I was allowed to get to university is A. Id be the first out of my cousins and one of the few in the family to go and B. I phoned up on the spur-of the moment and only told everyone when I got a place and C. It was a clearance course as Im obviously an idiot. Even then it was not like they were pleased fully as it meant moving away, they kept trying to get me to go to Paisley or try and go to Glasgow University (that one was my aunt because she is obsessed with getting me to be with her all the time).

 

I dread going home. Just there this August we (S, my bro. his pal and I) even went for a visit to activate the visas and just to see what the country was like. It was something we should have enjoyed thoroughly but its like, indescribable. My brother spent his time drinking beer and getting on at my mother constantly. I feel yet again its my fault because I smoke and neither of them liked that idea (pots calling the kettle black), I dared to have a boyfriend who dared to phone me at the house we were staying at, I didnt eat meat…what ever. I dont know what he was saying to her but things got worse and worse and of course S takes it out on me and eventually theres an argument. After that she just cut me out. When we got back on the 15th I had to leave anyway to attempt my course and she told me if I left I was leaving the family and she told me quite a few other things which couldnt have been more hateful if shed tried. She is stubborn too, she hasnt helped out with the cost of university at all for a start. She knows Im staying with A, my boyfriend of over a year who now has to pay for the two of us from one bursary/loan which isnt fair. What makes it worse is she is getting £75 each for my brother and I, to go towards our education every week. Shes always saying she has no money because of what my brother gets up to which I wont put here as I know hes bending the laws a bit. She lies about things I do have a right to know, seeing as she even now expects me to stay at hers over Christmas I think she could have mentioned my brothers girlfriend has moved in with her 18month old girl. She has lied about sending her P-60 to SAAS and refused to do it this year so basically Im sponging off my boyfriend or so it feels like it.

 

 

Things are bad enough in that house as my brother sees himself as man of the house and bullies my mother. I havent been back since Australia and never want to go back again. He had an alright job but started dodging it and got fired, bumming around the house or with pals or working at the garage he ended up becoming a complete pot head, so as long as he had a joint he was fine. Housework is womans work so he would never help out with something as simple as washing the dishes but he never bothers so anytime Im there, even through the summer holidays Im expected to do it. When there, there is no such thing as privacy seeing as it is a tiny 2bedroom place I have to share a room with S and the state the place is in cant be healthy. I could only do so much when there as things like re-plastering walls or cutting the grass with the petrol strimmer are beyond the efforts of one person without some kind of help and coordination. She banned me from mentioning anything to do with either A or herself to my father, even when he DID write they would read his mail to me and if I bring up phoning she dislikes it to say the least. She has been continually picking fights over something an aunt did, years ago now. Not wanting to miss my grans 75th birthday party I went back to my mothers in March where she was about to kick off again because uncle Robert and the offending Aunt dared speak to me to congratulate me at getting into university.

 

 

 

Every time we talk she is degrading me about something I did or didnt do, because shacking up with A is bringing shame on her and the family in general she lies about us or denies knowing what Im doing which is just going to cause more problems with other family members. She is hostile about any new friends, condescending in their presence. Its so bad I cant take any of them back to Paisley with me to visit and even A as to chime in. When Im there if I have money she borrows it not that Im allowed or even expected to go and visit a friend. Even the fact my closest friend there that even speaks to me despite my mothers behaviour is her best friends son. These really are just examples and I cant do justice how stressful it is to even phone anymore. I was quite shaken after finding out she was threatening to send A to come get me and bring me home. The atmosphere back at there is bad enough but now my aunt who is always telling me she is helping me has started on me too.

 

She does have a fiery personality but usually she never turned it on me because in a way I was kind of like the family pet and because growing up Ive stayed between my grans, mums and then F on a kind of rotational basis so if I was getting under her feet then I wasnt outstaying my welcome. Unfortunately due to S's my way or the highway attitude they were always really scared of doing anything that might upset her or S would refuse to let them see me. Still they knew what she was like towards me and did nothing. Thats ancient history though. There have been many arguments since the Australia thing, screaming matches actually.

 

 

 

Ive tried talking to F about the problem with Australia. She guilts me to not go, S guilt trips me into going and I feel so obliged to both of them. Things are even worse since they (they being uncle & aunt) launched a hate campaign of their own against A. They let him visit with me twice, both times F pulls me aside at every opportunity to give me an earful about something we/he did that was wrong. God even when I phone she is constantly demanding to know how much money his mother pays towards the bedsit he is graciously letting me live in rent free. She is always asking personal questions about him and no answer satisfies her. I apparently have to go and stay with her to keep my gran happy and due to the most recent argument I KNOW she is planning to have it out with me yet again, as she threatened me with it.

 

 

 

Last time I visited I wanted to go back home to Dundee with A because I was sick of her and that vicious tongue of hers. She went hysterical telling me Im not going and I have to go see my mother which is quite frankly not her concern anymore. Its a complicated argument but basically because I wanted to go home with Al (to Dundee) she started accusing him of brainwashing me. Silly A finally had enough of her, not just her coldness but the blatant hostility of my aunt towards him. He then told her the fears I had expressed to him about her. The fact if I fail something I cant tell her as she is always disappointed. If I do well that raises her hopes so if I dont do well in something shes on me and now if I dont achieve something to her expectations she can drag A into it. When I visited theirs I would use msn to at least be able to talk with my friends in some degree of privacy, also my younger cousin whom they hate and describe as a little bitch and all the rest of it in heated family Sunday dinner debates (she is only 16 now so it isnt fair).

 

 

 

 

Apparently msn keeps chat records and when I finally got the courage to call her this semester she told me she had read the chats. It was sick as she was totally enjoying it. She told me the computer crashed and thats how they found the chats. I had actually saved some of the ones I had had in my often drunken state (they never noticed that) so I could see what Id written. They were stupid enough to send the folder marked with my name on it to A in a horrible e-mail detailing a whole bunch of other sins and threatening legal action against him. So they were snooping behind my back. As my cousins feelings towards them are mutual and she expressed this as we discussed our various family problems (shes down in England with her family) F promised me she was going to have a go at L for this. And L's mother is not someone to pick a fight with as shes a tough woman and also has a temper when someone badmouths her children. Plus L and her mother have had a lot to deal with, as L was going through a bad patch terrible teens or whatever and her mother J has been quite ill with it and it if J knows F snooped and found out all the things L told me shell probably have another stroke or crack skulls and then there will be more bickering and this will be my fault. It disturbs me too as L told me some quite personal things which I havent been able to share with anyone else and I was sick with worry.

 

 

 

I am still worried as L stopped talking to me after I told her what happened (no wonder!) with the chats and a few things happened to my cousin she couldnt even let her mum know considering she was breaking her mums rules when they happened. F wont keep her mouth shut, as I know from experience so there goes more family. Plus my Gran is a born worrier and she has had a couple of bad health scares and being nearly 76 more family fights will end up killing her. Also during one of the chats Al had pulled my leg about hacking their computer and ok it is a stupid thing to joke about but they read that and threaten legal action because it is proof he was up to something. They even accused him of downloading porn onto their computer, which in fact compromises 3 manga style pictures of CARTOON people in semi naked compromising positions which he deleted from a disk he had. They were only on his disk because one of his chums sent an e-mail with them in it and they were kind of funny. It isnt like he was storing pictures of women and viewing them for pleasure on someone elses computer and he has done computing so he even got rid of them to the point where they could not be found by a normal person and possibly cause offence. So only a low level programmer (like my uncle) could find them if he were looking and she is threatening legal action about that too. F is now using the fact she has given me about £250 which she makes me ask for as another reason to go stay with them. She actually tried to get me started in a business idea I was trying to put in action here, only down in 'somplacenock'. Nothing special, just walking dogs and looking after folks small animals when they go on holiday. She kept going on and on about it whenever we spoke, when I visited and when I tried saying no she wouldnt hear of it. Apparently there was absolutely no reason I couldnt go and spend all my holidays and weekends working with her apart from the fact I find her too obnoxious and a complete child when things dont go her own way.

 

 

 

I feel so guilty for that as things were not always like this and she gave my mum a lot of financial help as she and my uncle used to be quite comfortable with money. Its just she even phrased it like you could do it here (the job) and come down here every weekend and during the holidays. Its kind of scary the way she gets sometimes. I know I owe her money because my mum never bothers as you know and we (A and I) were getting nasty letters from the council about rent and he has had to get into debt to afford electricity. Im trying to get things sorted by hunting for a proper job now, A is too so neither of us ends up doing too much. Im trying to get some kind of legal advice and track my father down to make him put the University money in my bank. Im even having trying to face up to some problems of my own and seek counselling to sort some problems of my own out. Last January things just got so bleak. The arguing and stress caused by worrying about these people just make everything seem so hopeless as I hate the fights. I hate giving into my family and being cut off from my normal life and my friends. Whenever Im at F I always end up getting drunk, back then I was drinking quite a lot because I wouldnt be thinking about them after a point and its like I couldnt handle normal problems as just thinking of phoning her even now brings out a cold sweat. They know how bad I feel about things as Ive talked, they even read my chats which I never thought they would. It never works, nothing works with them. I could handle me and my mother not getting along if things werent so bad with F whom I used to regard as a second mother in a way. Im consumed with guilt because she always treated me like a daughter, she cant have children so we both got something as she was like mum #2 instead of having a father around. She keeps telling me my Gran would die of a broken heart if I ever left and that my Gran thinks of me more as child #6 seeing as she pretty much brought me up with my mother and aunt.

 

 

 

The worst part is I feel like I should be able to put it all behind me and just get on with it but I cant and I am so embarrassed with what a loser Im becoming. I cant face this Christmas with them now, they know some pretty embarrassing things about me now.

 

 

 

I am not saying any of this for pity but I cant do it, my marks are getting worse and worse and what is the point doing a degree if you only scrape through at the bottom? I cant stop thinking about them and it would be so humiliating to try and tell someone face to face, Im not trying to blame my family for all this as maybe its just me. Its just so difficult. Its my fault I never discussed this problem with the university before. I was supposed to go to counselling because the doctors I spoke to wanted me to go, either that or refer me to the psychiatric nurse to make sure things get better. Ridicule by telling someone something scares me and this is hard to say without picturing you rolling eyes or thinking Im just an idiot and I dont mean offence by that, in January I missed a stupid practical as Id been unwell with the annual dose of flue. I realised while having a drink, I just kind of snapped because it was the first one and Id already started spoiling my new year and I tried to kill myself. A had to deal with all of that and when I finally spoke to my family in the summer I was told to not do anything so silly again but still I thought they might understand how stressful it was as they have had times like that.

 

 

 

I dont want things to be like this anymore but I find it hard to think for a minute without worrying about them and the consequences of asking for a little space until after New Years as its spoiling my enjoyment of University. Ive actually stopped attending, it might not please them but Id rather stop now of my own accord than fail out. I just dont know if its possible or worth it to even take the resits, I feel awful for not going but I feel worse when I cant sleep thinking about it that I cant concentrate on my work. I actually missed my exams on purpose so that probably does mean I have to leave and I am so sorry for that as it makes everyone else look terrible and gives the University a bad name.

 

Im not sure what this is supposed to do for anyone and Ive half a mind not to send it. Im sure you didnt need to waste your time reading the ins and outs of everything as it must seem weird, but its either this or get booted off the course. Im just at a loss of what to do and although it might be best to leave honestly I dont think I want to as this chance to earn a degree may not come by again. Anyway thanks for your time and hopefully this will actually help, Sincerely "Booble"."

 

 

On the plus side this year my mother finally allowed me to get a grant by sending her P-60, that's about it . Aside from phoning me up and pushing me into 'deciding' to visit over Christmas. I really hate what a coward I am.

 

Well thank you for your time I know this must be a pain in the butt for being so long. Thank you, Booble.

[Barby]

I'm so sorry but I just could NOT get through your whole LONG post, I don't know exactly what the prob is, do you not want to go home for the holidays? Can you sum up your prob more briefly so maybe more people can advise you? Sorry to ask but it is sooooooooooooo long!

[quankanne]

kid, your mom sounds like a spoiled, self-centered harpy and you're putting yourself at her mercy if you don't stand up for yourself.

 

like barby, I couldn't read through the whole thing, but I think I got the gist of your family problems after the first several graphs.

 

how old are you? Are you completely beholden to your family for your education? are you in counselling?

 

my initial thought is to just sweetly tell your family that you won't be able to make it home for Christmas, but you'll try to get down there when you're able. And leave it at that. Believe it or not, you don't owe any explanations when you're an adult! This actually may be the prime opportunity to put into action a new "I-ain't-interested-in-dealing-with-yer-BS" policy. Remember, people don't walk all over you or abuse you or take advantage of you unless you give them the power to do so.

[Elmo]

Hi. Sorry you are going through such a tumultuous time.

 

My first advice might be a little painful to hear: You shouldn't have sent that e-mail to your advisor. They are your school advisor not your psychotherapist. The only reason I tell you this is that I want you to think twice about divuging so much personal information to the wrong person THE NEXT TIME. Nothing you can do about the one you sent, and it's not going to kill the guy to read it, but...it was way, way to much info. A simple "my family is not supportive and I'm not sure if I can continue with school, can we meet to discuss?" would have been more than enough info in an e-mail to a school advisor, IMHO.

 

Now, about your situation. You seem enmeshed with your mother. It's not healthy for an adult to be so engaged.

 

I would try cognitive counseling. You can tell the therapist EVERYTHING and they will give you the tools to learn to think differently about your mother. You need to separate from her more and realize that you are not in control of your mother and her happiness, nor her success or failure or any moves to different continents she may want to make!

 

Good luck! I really hope you try counseling. You sound bright, just consumed by a sad family situation. All you need is to retrain your thought patterns, and I think you will succeed in not only becoming your own person, but finishishing school if you desire. Plus, I don't care how your Mom threatens you with banishment, if you separate from her and put up healthy boundaries between the two of you, she will throw a tantrum or two, but eventually come around to respect that you are your own person, not someone to use selfishly.

[booble]

Hey thank you everyone, excuse the late reply as the comp's been on a 'siesta'.

 

I know your right about hi-jacking that poor man (and everyone here ouch) with the e-mail, I was just at my wits end and I just needed to let someone know. In a way it saves time though as the advisors eventually get told most of what goes on or you have to explain things yourself *shivers*. He was unbelievably understanding though he isn't trained for dealing with the nitty gritty he passed on my information to someone in the university who knows what to do.

 

As soon as the student advisory opens I will be going to speak to one of the counsellors there, I honestly find it a scary idea talking face to face with someone though, I suppose that's why E-mailing seemed easier.

 

On a more positive note I'm trying to stand up for myself over the whole Christmas fiasco, who goes where and all. My b/f's mother isn't very well (possibly cancer relapse) and I want to spend it with him, make sure he's happy plus he went to mine over new yrs last yr right after Christmas and got treated like dog muck.

 

It's a very matriarchal family and neither my mother or aunt approve of this 'new life' never mind spending the first Christmas away and yes I still feel guilty as I have many of the same probs with my aunt as my mother. The worst is my Gran who mainly does just try her best to please everyone as I think she gets caught in the middle of conflicts between my mum and aunt, bleugh. Rotton stuff and nasty phone calls, but feeling sick with guilt and worry isn't healthy so thank you loads for your advice as deep down I know you are right (been there got the T-shirt and all).

 

Last but not least I really hope everyone here manages to have a peaceful and happy Christmas and New Year

 

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