Extended family chaos too?

[XL]

So... .   parents aren't the whole story. There are probably 30 other people in my extended family with personality disorders, including 7 with BPD (yes, this correct). Huge abandonment trauma events in my grandparent's generation, on both sides of huge families.

They've been on the news for violence or public suicide threats 4 times, one of which sparked a media frenzied manhunt for one of the minors.

I'm embarrassed at what an insane, drug-fueled circus my family is, and I suspect the cousins my age are shutting down and setting ironclad boundaries. I have a total of 12 cousins who have gone permanent NC and started new families in secret. There is no small supply of totally enmeshed cousins who never left home, and an equally horrifying supply of cousins in their own violent relationships. The rest are crippling over achievers who cut each other's achievements down based on the family fracture of the week.

Is anyone else dealing with this too? I've gotten close to 'comparing notes' with a few cousins, and it was disturbing. I don't get involved with in-fighting, and I don't respond to derogatory gossip. I'm mostly embarrassed at how often they're on the news.

[chriskell]

First of all, WOW. A few of your posts have made me think you should write a book (along the lines of The Glass Castle), and this is one of those. I am dealing with some of the same issues, but on a much smaller scale (only my mom's side and she only had one sibling). My uBPDm's sister behaves just like my mom, BPD I believe but also strong paranoid PD traits as well. Their father was a high functioning alcoholic with a high degree of paranoia. My brother is paranoid schizophrenic which I've read can run in the family alongside PPD. I have one first cousin who happens to be a doctor, and I'm kind of dying to talk to him about his mom. We just reconnected on facebook, but I haven't gotten up the nerve to bring up the subject of our moms' mental health. We have childhood memories of fun times together from about 40 years ago, but then lost contact due to things such as family estrangements, custody battles, etc. My T strongly recommends it I talk to him about it. I have had the fortunate experience of comparing notes with my two "normal" brothers who have been limited contact or no contact with mom for about 18 years. That has been enlightening, validating and healing. I suppose you will talk to your cousins if and when you are ready just like I will talk to mine if and when I am ready. I think I'm afraid he will say, "I don't know what you're talking about. My mom is totally normal," but I don't think that is likely.

[Louise7777]

I can relate to that, XL, unfortunatly. And even worse, all are either undiagnosed or misdiagnosed. It created chaos and dragged many others who had no PD. Not sure if its a genetical thing or if people behaved erractically because of the chaos installed by 1 or 2 members... .  

It took me long to realize what it was and accept and detach. Im just beggining and I think it will take me a long time, cause thats what I have seen my whole life. Sadly, it became normal to me, until I finally realized it was not. But Im having a hard time setting boundaries and dealing with the consquences: silent treatment and rage.

Wish u luck! 

[AbbyNormal]

Hi XL,

Yes, extended family chaos too. My dad went through a period of estrangement from my mom after their divorce when I was 6. Once, I got word about him because he had been arrested by one of my friend's fathers. At the time, I was more interested in how he was rather than the embarrassment of the circumstance. But to this day, if I see that person, they'll ask if I remember when their dad arrested my dad.

We (my dad and I) reconnected for about 10 years after I became an adult but one thing led to another and some enmeshment happened between he and my mom. He fell on some hard times and started living in a rental house that she had inherited. When my mom pushed him too hard he disappeared again and I haven't heard from in about 9 years.

He was an alcoholic. He was adopted and had a horrible, abusive alcoholic mother. His adopted dad was an enabler. Think along the lines of, his mother was a classic witch and his dad was a classic fisherman. His dad ended up committing suicide. Actually, there's some question over whether he killed himself or was killed by my dad's mom. We'll never know the truth but he was a local business owner and died of a gunshot wound at one of his businesses so it created a lot of news coverage.

His mother is now pushing 100 years old and is still evil as the day is long. I was contacted recently by a lawyer trying to find my dad. Apparently his mom wants him to sign over some money that my dad is the beneficiary of to her so she can continue living in a pricey nursing home. The kicker is, my dad has believed since his father's death some 35 years ago that his dad left nothing to him. His mom made a point of telling him that his dad left him nothing because he didn't love him, blah, blah, blah. His mom has managed to keep him in the dark on this all these years and only tells him now because she wants the money signed over to her!

My maternal grandmother's husband was also an abusive alcoholic and he was murdered (shot) during an altercation with his lover. That was all over the news.

It is really embarrassing and that's another reason I've mentioned on other posts that I don't like talking about my family. I don't like to share much about my background, as don't think it's for the faint of heart. In some ways, I feel like I'm in the witness protection program.

[XL]

Man, that's quite the story. I'm actually too embarrassed to repeat what one family member did, and I won't get into what the minor did. The rest were drunken vandalism or drug robberies.

I think a lot of the behavior was based on a pretty intense abandonment scenario, which does explain a lot. However, 2 cousins were formally diagnosed bipolar, so I don't know what to think.

This actually was harmful to me; mainly because it set the standard that family are occasional enemies, and it's totally fine to cut them off after petty fights. There was also way too much negative gossip, and I remember as a kid being very upset that anything I did was going to be spread around. I heard every stupid thing my cousins did, so obviously they were gossiping about me too. I think this explains a lot of my fear of success. I don't like being under a judgmental microscope.

There was also a real effort to make the kids take sides in the drama. I had to cut ties with one close cousin after a fight between all of the aunts.