Your Family Situation?

What was your family situation like?

My parents divorced when I was 4 years old. Mom moved out of state after the divorce, carting me and my older brother with her. Mom is (probably) bipolar, so she had her own issues to deal with. She never let me do anything on my own, which is why, I think, I had a difficult time doing things for myself for the longest time. My brother is eight years older than I am, which is sometimes too great an age difference for a bond to form, but he spent a lot of time with me: playing games, teaching me how to throw and ride a bike, etc. We are not close.

My father was distant both emotionally and in terms of how far away he lived, and I think it was hard for him to do his thing with so many miles between us. He may have a mild social anxiety.

To be fair, both my parents tried hard to be good parents, and it's important to keep that in mind. It's not their fault that they were pretty lousy parents. Lots of folk have worse parents.

LonelyHermit wrote:What was your family situation like?

Well I have to say that I had a good one over all. My parents were married until their deaths. They were reasonably loving and we were a close family. If I was going to say anything... it might be that they were somewhat AVPD themselves. They chose to stay in a too small house and always felt ashamed of it so they didn't invite people over... and we were encouraged not to.

My brother got into this very hurtful routine when I was young of making fun of me and treating me like a boy. If you ever watch "family guy" I am meg. As a teen I hated him and he made almost every day a nightmare. As late as 1998 I was sure that I would leave and never see him again... I do suspect he is a large influence on why I am avoidant.

But most of it is likely not related to my family.

My parents are still together. My mom probably has some AvPD tendencies but my dad is very out going. My siblings probably had a greater impact on my social development than my parents. My sister is 10 years old and my older brother is 8 years older, so I was never close to either of them. My younger brother is a year younger but he has always had a best friend and/or a wife and did not need to be friends with his sister. They seem to have their own lives and are not interested in me being part of them.

I think its the loss of my best friend between 4th and 5th grade that really started me on my path to avoidance. We went to sleep away camp together for two weeks and she basically ignored me the entire time and the other girls in our cabin made fun of me and stole my toys. That and the typical insecurities about acceptance that crop up with every teenager have never gone away for me.

Basically a stable family life. My parents have been together for over 30 years. Both are quiet, introverted and not very sociable. I have the same personality traits but just magnified greatly. I think they have been to easy on me and my siblings, good parents but just over protective and over helpful.

Me and my brothers are all within 5 years of each other, i'm the youngest, when we got to a certain age though we just stopped talking to each other. We don't really have anything in common. Also i have a younger sister and i guess she is the only semi-normal one out of all of us. I don't really talk to her either.

Most people seem to talk about family loyalty and having strong bonds with family members, I don't really feel any of that. I don't hate them or like them, I just feel neutral towards them. I find it hard to form emotional bonds to people.

My parents divorced when I was around 7 or 9, I can't really remember. I lived with my mother and my two older brothers. My dad moved to a neighboring state and re-married with the woman that he was cheating with. I think I am close with my mother and brothers. I love my dad but we are not super close given that I don't see him that much due to the divorce. I really don't like my step-family. I used to have to see them all the time when I was younger, but now I don't go over there, I'm not forced to.

I don't interact with anyone beyond immediate family. I avoid seeing them whenever chance arises. I don't think my parents had any negative impact on me that would have caused AvPD. As I had social anxiety way before anything bad happened. Although, obviously a divorce when I was still so young but old enough to understand didn't help with anything.

I'm a really secretive person really with what I'm thinking, so, I can't say that I'm close enough with my family to actually talk about deep stuff. I do at times but it's so uncomfortable. Hmm. not much story about my family, really.

- EGD.

My father has some avoidant traits/social anxiety (interesting how often one or both parents have been mentioned as some kind of avoidant in this topic). I always knew he loved me, but I don't feel like I got much parenting from him.

My mother is quite the opposite. She likes to talk, and smothers me with chitchat about herself, things she's done that she's proud of etc.

When I grew up, we visited my gandparents frequently. I don't now why, but they always favoured my older sister. She always got the best things, the most attention, permission to do stuff she wanted etc. I didn't really "get it" at the time, it was more like an instinct telling me how to act and how to behave within those terms. For instance, if I wanted to do something, I had to get my sister to ask. Where I would get a flat refusal, she would get an "Of course, dear!"

We used to sleep over as well. At first it was always the both of us. Then we were supposed to take turns. Always my sister first. When it was my turn, it was always "But it's soooo long since we've seen "Xxxx"!" or "But "Xxxx" would be so sad to be left out...!" I didn't really mind either, it was understandable that they didn't want to spend time with me alone..

My parents are still married, but they have always argued a lot, slept in separate rooms since I was a child, no physical affection, etc. Mom is extremely outgoing, social butterfly, becomes best friends with the grocery store cashier, etc. Dad is more reserved, but I don't see any AvPD or social anxiety in him, just more reserved than Mom.

My brother is two years older and growing up we were extremely competitive with each other. He would regularly tease me and beat me up. I had a lot of anger toward my parents for letting him get away with this, they were of the attitude of "kids will be kids" and never disciplined us.

Currently, I talk to my parents about once a week about surface things and see my brother about once a year at Christmas. I would not consider myself super close with my family, but I am definitely loyal and would immediately step in if they needed me.

I come from a stable family with two younger siblings. I always felt like a lot of expectation was put on me being the oldest. There was some subtle emotional abuse from my parents though I don't think they did it intentionally, and I was the only one to end up with problems.

I don't share much of what is going on with my problems with my family anymore. My mother has taken to turning it into some sort of competition/whinge session about all of her issues any time I try to talk about anything, so I'm extremely guarded about what I say now.

My mother is bipolar while my father is suffering from clinical depression, I think even a chronic one. They have both been hospitalized (is that the right word?) because of their illnesses. I don't have any siblings. My own experience of my parents is that my father is distant and shy, and it doesn't seem like he has any close friends, none that I know of anyways. My mum also critized him for not having friends from earlier school years still. I also know that he loves me, but he's not good at being there for me, I know he only calls to contact me when my mother tells him to.

My mum on the other hand is overprotective, calls me way too often, and tries constantly to impose her very strict christian beliefs on to me. I've just stopped telling her what really goes on in my life, because I know she wouldn't approve. We talk, but it's mostly superficial. Even though my mother is more social than my father, it would always be quiet at dinner time, only interrupted by my mother asking questions neither me nor my father felt like answering.

They are also still married, but do the whole arguing a lot, sleeping i seperate bedrooms thing...

My parents are in a happy, stable marriage. My family life growing up was reasonably typical- no abuse of drugs, alcohol or family members; no major life-changing trauma. I had a normal childhood as far as most are concerned. The only thing that was maybe out of the ordinary is how horribly my younger (and only) sister treated me and continues to treat me. There was always a lot of yelling, fighting, hitting, etc. Basically, if it had been coming from a parent instead of a sibling, I would've been removed from that situation a long time ago. But since she's my little sister, it's just an "attitude" or a "temper," nothing more serious. I was always really shy, but I participated in sports, had friends, had a much more active social life than I do now.
My extended family is another story. If you've seen Arrested Development, well, it's kind of like that. Only less funny and no prison. One time my aunt essentially kidnapped my grandfather and took him to Chicago where she lives (and she's trying to do it again now). When my grandmother died, my dad's whole family got into a massive fight, with people taking sides and switching sides, my uncle and his wife ransacking my grandparents' house for things they wanted to take while we were all at the wake, and a lot of very nasty emails where everything was put out there. I'm convinced now that my uncle has NPD, and his wife has... something. I don't even know. She claims to have several different types of cancer and claims to be on 10 different meds for them. She still has a full head of hair and doesn't seem sick at all. And she said her doctor "allows her to have 4 mixed drinks per day" with all her meds. Bascially they're both very much delusional about their situation, about who they are as people, and about what the situation is with our family.
I've grown up with dysfunction like you wouldn't believe on my dad's side. I can't remember a time when my dad and his siblings all got along. It's always been "who's fighting now?" or "who are we not allowed to talk to now?" Currently, it's the sister trying to kidnap my grandpa (which honestly is not in his best interests) and my other aunt who agrees with the plan to move him because she just doesn't want to deal with caring for him, even though he's in a nursing home.
My mom's side is slightly better. Her mom died when my mom was a teenager (from, what I understand, the side effects of raging alcoholism). My grandpa was a functional alcoholic when my mom was growing up and he's getting alzheimer's now, in part because of the heavy alcohol consumption. All three of my mom's sibling's are at various of alcoholism, from recovering/not really recovering because she's basically back to where she was; to denial of having a problem despite a DUI; to functional like my grandfather was.
Despite all this, I'm not really sure it's the family situation that has messed me up. Hard to believe, but it's just what I know. It's just fighting and I'm used to it. But it hasn't made me the way I am. Except for my sister, I'm pretty sure her actions towards me have played a role in the way I view myself and the way I view the world. Constantly hearing that you're a terrible person and that no one likes you for ~16 years probably leaves more of an impression than you realize.