Dear Tessa:

You wrote that you and your two siblings, the three of you, ” all agree that we had a perfect childhood.” I have yet to come across a person, online or in-person who had a perfect childhood. I do come across a lot of people who say they had a perfect childhood.

I believe “the proof (of a perfect childhood) is in the pudding”- that is, the significant mental health issues of your sisters, and to lesser extent, perhaps, your own, are the pudding and it does not indicate a good childhood, let alone a perfect one.

Just saying.

anita

Old topic, but I experienced the same, so I completely understand.

Shame

Feeling wird

Dissapoinment

Unlucky

Feeling cursed by ill fate

Depression

Hopelessnes

How

Lacking normal family for whole your life
Lacking family support for whole your life
Isolation

I experienced the same. Im only normal person in family of four people, two siblings, as you wrote, at early 20 becomed personality disrupted and their mental heath is worsening, along with parents, which were normal when I was born but appareantly among few years they developed abusive and neglective tendencies, and their mental health is also worse every single year. They started to abuse and neglect even themselfs, no hygiene, food malnutrition.
Both sibling living with them, one of them, as you say, exploiting parents financially and enotionally over 10 years, lazy, do not want to work, paranoid, psychotic, threating with suicide. Do not want to visit psychiatrist. Parents blindly supporting her financially.

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.

I know that stupud melancholic feeling its eberything lost and you will never have normal family as other. You are alone living with sick people.

Its weird. I was not exception. In early 20, I started abuse drugs to deal with pain, and after time, I get mental breakdown and I had to visit psychiatrist. There was psychotic mentall illnese geneticaly in our family genetics.
I was taking medicine for while and get through ppschotherapy. Im healthy now.

This is reality. I was only mwmber of family who was able to take responsibility of my own psychological health. Parents was born into small rural areas with deep stigma of mentall illneses, so it is “shame” for them to admit their problems. They would probably rather pick death than to visit mental health worker. They have sad future along with siblings.

But its their responsibility. I feel sad for them sometimes. Not for them, but for family we used to be sometimes and fact, this is gone, this parents are gone, this siblings with once I was friend are gone.

Life is shit sometimes, for some people. There is lot of people in extened family who are like me, normal, healthy, friendly, but we are just in superficial contact. They are not in close contact with this family. No visitors did not come here for decades. Our family is shame for all family generation.

I totally understand you how it is like to be only normal person in whole family. Althought its 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.

Life can bring out sad things really.

I believe in you.
I think you must be strong person, me, either everybody who remained resilient despite that horrible conditions.

I heard, that sometimes, strongest ones face struggles. Weak people have smooth lifes, strong ones face hardships because they are empowered to handle them. Take it as compliment. I do not know any wise strong or conciouss person who had easy life.

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