Missing an estranged relative

Greatestgatsby

First post here on boards but I've been lurking for a while.

To start off, I'd like to say that I don't know as whether I am seeking advice or if it's an opportunity to express my feelings. I've been concealing these feelings for a while and reluctant to express them to anyone else.

To give you a bit of background on myself and the situation;

I've a strained relationship with my parents, in fact I have no relationship with them. While they were present during my childhood, they were emotionally absent and very abusive, not just to me but also to my siblings. They have a toxic relationship with alcohol and gambling. For these reasons, I have been tee-total my whole life (so far, not a long life. Early twenties).

When I turned 18 I found myself unable to live with my parents because things had reached "boiling point." For the next few years I found myself living with a relative I had not seen in years, our relationship before we lost contact the first time was very limited. I always had great admiration for this person and my memories of them were happy.

You could imagine that when I realised that this person was who I was going to be living with for the foreseeable future, I was overjoyed. I didn't think this living situation afforded me a "free ride", never once did I think that but I was nervous about making that relative proud and happy with living with me. The first few months to a year were great. We built a great relationship between us and I did my best to make her proud by doing what I could to improve my education, work and personal life. Despite this, I was suffering greatly emotionally and found myself unable to form meaningful relationships with some distant family and potential friends.

During this time, things started to deteriorate. I found myself caught between this person and their significant other when they had rows, which I must note lasted on average two to three weeks at a time. I would constantly get pulled into it despite my insistence of wanting nothing to do with their arguments. This began to wear on me, constantly being worried about an argument ensuing. I felt as though I was back home in the pit of a fire, only, at home I knew what my family were capable of.

Over time, this relative began having these full scale arguments with me over silly things. I would find myself isolated for long periods of time or was abused verbally. I never fought back. Suddenly, despite my efforts to please, nothing I did was good enough, for either of them. They both started to constantly criticise me and I began to get stressed. It was actually during this time that I started to lose my ability to just talk with people. I was constantly worried about what people thought of me.

It wasn't like this all of the time and I don't have this illusion that I was perfect to live with, I know I have issues but I was never verbally abusive, I had immense respect for the both of them and I continued to try my best.

To cut a long story short, I had enough last October. I remember the day that started it off. I was at the dinner table trying to make conversation with this relative, trying to diffuse the situation as I could tell by their tone and their angry look that they were in a foul mood. For what reason I was unsure. Anyway, I told this relative about something that I found exciting. There was going to be a study abroad fair in the university sports hall the following day, and the prospect of spending a year in France or Germany was exciting, especially so as I have never travelled. Upon telling them this, the person blew up and went on an abusive tirade. I was incredibly shocked and that shock turned into upset so I ran upstairs. I started having another break down. During this breakdown I contacted my closest sibling and begged her to let me come over (she lives across the water). However, the thought of dropping out of college stressed me and made me feel like a failure. Despite that, I thought my mental health was worth more than my pride. I knew if I stayed I would never have succeeded because this cloud would stay over me.

I had made plans to leave the following Sunday but this was interrupted and I had to move over quicker than I thought. I was going to tell the relative that I was leaving of my plans, that I appreciated their "hospitality" but that we were complete opposites and that we shouldn't live together. Before I could get to this, she found out as to how quick I was leaving. (should have noted earlier that during the last row she had ordered me to leave). She went berserk and started beating me whilst I sat at my computer desk. She also went on another abusive tirade, calling me everything she could think of, demeaning me and hitting me. During all this, she is throwing all my stuff out the front door and down the stairs, destroying a lot of the stuff that I had built up and worked hard for. I found myself homeless that night so I had to head to Dublin and get the next ferry out.

The reason I am posting here is because I miss that person, ridiculously. I loved her, before everything went wrong and despite what she did, like I would a mother. For a while she gave me the emotionally supportive love that I always craved from my mother and because of that I developed a bond. I'm reluctant to contact her because I know she would just love that, and try to shame me for what she did. I don't want her to have that hold on me but I don't know how to stop missing her. She was always dismissive about my mental health and things that happened during my time with her has taken it's toll as I have been diagnosed with depression and I'm on medication now.

Finchie1276

[QUOTE=
The reason I am posting here is because I miss that person, ridiculously. I loved her, before everything went wrong and despite what she did, like I would a mother. For a while she gave me the emotionally supportive love that I always craved from my mother and because of that I developed a bond. I'm reluctant to contact her because I know she would just love that, and try to shame me for what she did. I don't want her to have that hold on me but I don't know how to stop missing her. She was always dismissive about my mental health and things that happened during my time with her has taken it's toll as I have been diagnosed with depression and I'm on medication now.[/QUOTE]

Hi
But you didn't love her, you were emotionally dependent on her because she continued the only model of affection you had. It was deeply unhealthy and flawed. I think your self esteem is very low, if you were to work on this and work through your background with a psychotherapist them I think you would be rightly very angry at the people, including this person who treated you so badly. Take a read over your post as a third party might and ask yourself it is it appropriate in any way for you to have experienced that?

orthsquel

I'm sorry for what has happened to you, I truly am. You deserve a lot better than all of what happened, so much more than that.

Finchie is right and I'd wonder if "missing" is the right feeling? You may be missing that connection, that familiarity, but you may also be feeling other emotions that are beneath the surface of "missing" this relative. I do think that therapy would be essential for you and in time and a different perspective, what you feel could be quite different.

I'd suggest that you do not contact this relative, until at least you have dealt with your own feelings and your experiences and are in a better place mentally and emotionally.