Dear Helcat:

“My biological mother couldn’t love me, my second family couldn’t. I am the common denominator. Apart from they all have mental health issues and a history of abuse” – from my experience and just looking at the state of the world, mental health issues and history of abuse is the norm, not the exception. It is no wonder then that lots of us were not loved/ respected within our families of origin. We then go into the world… and because our families were not exceptional, love/ respect is still hard to come by.

I know that your mother was exceptional in the ways she abused you and in what it led to, but so was mine, I mean, no child, while abused, thinks: oh, this is nothing compared to (worse). When it happens to a child, abuse is just one-measure-of-bad. I am saying this so to emphasize how much child abuse, and later abuses, are indeed the norm.

“There’s a fear of abandoning them” – how about abandoning abuse.

“I support the family members that I am in contact with as they are abused by other family members” – support them as long as they don’t abuse you, I mean it’s the least they can do in return for your support.

“They also expressed a fear of me abandoning them because I left my biological family. I don’t want to hurt them” – you didn’t abandon your biological family; it was not your responsibility to stay in an abusive and dangerous situation.

“At the end of the day, pain is a part of their lifestyle and by staying in contact I am subjecting myself to that” – it’s like you are choosing to sink with the Titanic instead of leaving on one of the lifeboats available to you.

“Why? Because I love them and want to help. Is that a fair? I can’t save them for themselves, I can’t make them change, they have to want that for themselves” – continuing the titanic imagery: while you are waiting for them to change, you are all sinking because time is not waiting for you or for them, and busy waiting, you are not busy living/ learning.

“I also feel indebted because they took me in as a child. I believe I would have likely committed suicide if I had to fend for myself alone during that period” – when they took you in, weren’t they compensated by the state/ social services? If not, or if you think that more compensation is fair, you can give those deserving the monetary compensations you think they deserve, such that will allow them to pay for quality professional counseling, if they so choose to spend that money.

“In some ways I have put them first, because I tolerated the abuse. I have to start protecting myself!” – there is a saying in self-help groups: “Principles, not Personalities”, meaning, instead of trying to accommodate people, accommodate the principles you believe in, which brings me back to your sentence above: “There’s a fear of abandoning them“, and my response:  “how about abandoning abuse“. Abandoning abuse is a wonderful principle, one that could save the world if enough people in powerful positions chose this principle.

anita