Hi everyone, I really hope your situations have gotten better by now, or rather, that you are not letting your toxic families get to you.

My story is very similar to some of yours. I was out of home as soon as I found a job abroad, at the age of 23. My mother, who has an undiagnosed mental illness, stopped talking to me, as I would no longer be her escape route anymore. She used to blame her unhappiness on me and the fact that she had to give up all the things she liked (except smoking, not even pregnant did she give up) because I was born. Herself and my dad (both are bow retired) were teachers in the town I grew up, where they still live. They were loved at work and by all the people who knew our family, yet they didn’t have any friends. They both were very different people at home with my brother and myself than they were outside our home. My dad was the kind of teacher who is funny and cool, yet at home not a day went by without slapping me at the age of 5 for accidentally spilling a glass of water, or yelling at me for getting good marks in an exam.

I was bullied in highschool and they blamed everything on me, because I was “geeky” (I’m a doctor now) and didn’t make friends with the cool girls who smoked or drank. They wanted me to be “normal”.

My younger brother and I were very close as kids, but in our teenage years, my parents started playing him against me. He had a lot of friends and my parents encouraged him to go out drinking until all hours by the age of 14. They kept on comparing us until the point where he was embarrassed to be known as my brother and started joining them in their yelling at me. Divide and conquer I guess was the strategy back then. The sad part is he had an alcohol problem by the age of 18. To my parents, this was great because they got to help him get out of it, which meant he was even more dependent on them.

I lived abroad for 11 years and still hate the fact that 5 years ago, I returned close to where they live, to get married and start my own family. I work as a doctor, but my parents feel embarrassed to tell people who know them, so they tell them I work “at a hospital”. They are also embarrassed I don’t leave my children with my mom and take them to daycare instead.

My biggest concern is that sometimes after visiting my parents and my brother – who has married a lady who is kind of like my mom and tells him even what to wear every day, I feel really bad. They have changed and are now more calm, but I still see their true nature at times and it scares me that their ways may affect how I relate to my children and other people.

I know everyone’s situation is unique, but would you find it easy to cut all ties with your family? I try to visit as little as once per week but they try to visit my home, my kid’s school. My mother even asked my eldest child about his friends and where they lived.

I feel scared and my husband thinks we have nothing to worry about, but I still think I need therapy and to get away from my family of origin…