Dear Sosaado:

“Old topic, but I experienced the same, so I completely understand“-

– First, a bit of the old topic: Tessa/ Sadpeach posted twice on her thread: an original post on Oct 14, 2016, and a second post 2 days later, on Oct 16, 2016, over 7 years ago. At the time, Sadpeach was 23-years-old, working as a graphic designer with a history of “a perfect childhood filled with softball, block parties, and best friends… raised in an upper-middle class lifestyle… we grew up in a normal household“.

She presented her sisters’ mental illnesses as having been caused by genetics, and then added: “my mother is a narcissist… My mother often times acts like a rude 16 year old, starting fights with my 28 year old sister“, and it reads to me that Sadpeach was suggesting that her mother was not always a narcissist and/ or that there is no connection between her mother’s narcissism (suspected, not diagnosed, I assume) and her sisters’ mental illnesses (suspected or diagnosed, I don’t know).

In her second post, a reply to me, Sadpeach wrote: “My 28 year old sister has some deep rooted issues with my mother, however for the most part we all agree that we had a perfect childhood“.

Second, to your Jn 7, 2024 post, Sosaado: you shared that your 2 siblings “at early 20 (have) become personality disrupted and their mental health is worsening, along with parents, which were normal when I was born“-

– reads like your understanding is similar to Sadpeach’s: your siblings’ mental health problems or illnesses developed following a normal (or perfect) childhood because of some faulty genetics that bypassed the parents but affected the children in their early 20s, a genetic fate. And so, you feel “cursed by ill fate“.

“I’m only normal person in family of four people…one of (your siblings)…  exploiting parents financially and emotionally over 10 years, lazy, do not want to work, paranoid, psychotic, threatening with suicide. Do not want to visit psychiatrist“- one of your siblings is paranoid and psychotic but not diagnosed (since she wouldn’t visit a psychiatrist)?

“Sometimes, on photos we were normal family as others family, nice smiling mother, who loved her motherhood and proud father. Our home was tidy, there was enough of food. Now it is four abusive tyrants, dirty home, mess everywhere, trauma to live there even a day“-

– my best guess as to what happened is that your parents’ mental health issues were there from the beginning, before children were added to the family. And as time went on (like mud rolling down a hill, more and more mud is added to it as it moves down the hill), mental health issues spread to the children, and everyone’s mental issues got bigger and bigger.

Like a wound that’s untreated for too long, it becomes more and more severe over time.

Those split of a second moments captured on photos, when parents pose in front of the camera, do not portray ongoing reality.

“I was not exception. In early 20s, I started (to) abuse drugs to deal with pain, and after time, I get mental breakdown and I had to visit psychiatrist. There was psychotic mental illness genetically in our family genetics. I was taking medicine for while and get through psychotherapy. I’m healthy now“-

– Psychotherapy does not retroactively change the genes you were born with, so genetics is not fate when it comes to most mental health issues, or the extent or severity of most issues. The idea that mental illness in general (not a specific diagnosis) is determined by genetics alone, and therefore, parents who happened to bypass those genes, change from healthy, normal, loving and tidy parents => to mentally sick parents because their children happened to be affected by such genes..  is not true.

You advised Sadpeach: “I totally understand you how it is like to be only normal person in whole family. Although it’s rare, you are not alone. There are more like us, I believe. They simply move out from family, I think, if it is possible to start a new life, find healthy people, maybe have own healthy family which brings them joy. You are not obligated to be their Saviour because of few stupid shared genes. You are not expected to nothing. You are just expected to care about yourself and make yourself happy and that is your priority“-

– excellent advice, Sosaado, and I hope that you materialize your own advice in your own life and continue to be Your Own Saviour: move out and away from your family-of-origin, act for the benefit of your own mental health, prioritize and  promote it, and find other people who do the same. This way you make the world a bit better, a bit healthier.

anita