Well today was a tough day as I went with my wife to see my mum and dad to chat about some stuff relating to Abi and AA recovery and feelings and just to reassure them that they were OK and so were we.
I received a horrible judgemental letter from my sister who I haven't spoke to for 8 months telling me what she thought about my Abi and my AA recovery and it was an awful letter, the surest sign that she hasn't got a clue about any of it is that she sent the letter in the first place.
I wanted to talk to my mum and dad but my mum warned me that dad wasn't feeling to well and his bp was really high so wasn't a good time to stress him out. He came in and we didn't really talk much I found it pretty stressful as I was in character for a good chat abut educating him in AA and abi but not to be. They chatted about my sister who I really don't care about nor her kids or family just not interested at all. Same really with my mum and dad seems my caring and loving side for that part of my family has died. I see my family as my wife and my kids and they are not part of it at all.
I just don't care about them anymore it's a real struggle because I didn't used to feel like this. I don't care about my cousins or there family or my imitate family as said my sister or her kids I'm just not interested.
Has anyone else had this symptom from a frontal lobe bleed? If so please help.
Why am I feeling like this why don't I care about them?
Why am I just not interested and I have shut the door on them?
For me it's so much easer to detach from them and carry on but maybe it's not so easy for them. I'm sure it's not.
Nick xx
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Nick it is the same whether you are the one with the bi or the close family of someone. I have had a revolting e mail from my sister because she thinks I don't care about her problems. I think we have enough problems of our own, all of us involved with brain injuries, and we don't have the energy to worry about more than our immediate family. Have you tried leaving Headway leaflets with your parents for them to read when you aren't there. That may help although I am afraid that no one who hasn't experienced the problems that a bi causes can really understand at all.
Just try not to worry about it. See your family when you can but realise that it is likely that you will never have a totally loving relationship with them if they cannot understand how things are. You can still be friends with them, just not as close as you might otherwise be. Just accept that that is how it is to be.
I did give them loads of headway leaflets about 8 months ago and went today with more but never got to give them to them. Acceptance has played a big part for me and it needs to for them but they don't except that my headway concilinig is doing any good even though I think it's fantastic. My dad would be more approved if it was a neurologist from Harvard than a headway councilor he doesn't think there any good and doesn't believe in them . As my sister said in her letter " anyone can be a councilor" what would she know. They are convinced that a more professional approach would help me and I'm the other way as its me who has the bi. Have a good evening. Nick xx
Oh Nick. I swear you must have been overhearing our conversation of an hour ago. We've just been discussing my changed attitude to extended family and people who once were friends.
I've a friend over from Australia for a couple of months who I'm fervently trying to avoid because he's so full-on, like a bouncing ball with too much to say and ............... I just couldn't cope with him ! So I'm hiding, making excuses on the phone and praying for the end of September.
I'm a frontal lobe casualty too and I fully relate to your loss of empathy & emotion. (My temper's still in tact though).
As Jan says, stay in touch & be polite, but don't concern yourself with those who no longer 'get' you as you are now.
Ill certainly try Cat and thank you for your reply. Ill be speaking to my mum today and will try and educate her if I can but it may be a waste of time. As I said in my main post they both would accept the "diagnosis" from a professor of neurology but not coming from me the patient. Sad really isn't it. Nick Xx
I'm beginning to be like that but I think it's because I'm trying to better myself, I'm around more positive people compared to my mum and her husband who are really negative people who use things like alcohol and ciggaretes as crutches which they don't seem to be able to live without them,
My mum has never really loved me, well that's what I've felt like, since my TBI my mum still treats me like the black sheep of the family, just now she gets angry with me more and more when I can't hear properly, I don't remember things, I won't give her money for cigs etc, (all due to my TBI, even the last bit as I've realised that life is too short and I need to stand on my own 2 feet,
I must admit I don't want anything to do with my siblings including my brother who is also a brain injury survivor due to lack of oxygen at birth, because I'm jealous (I'm working on getting over the jealousy), my mum will tell me I shouldn't be jealous of my siblings but I think it's more to do with the amount of attention they got as children compared to with what I got so now I have a TBI I suppose I feel that my mum should've tried to understand what I was and still am going through with the TBI's, but all she wants me to do is give her money for rent, electric etc, because she can't budget and even I can budget (as it's to do with money)
I think it's natural to feel the way you do, because a TBI or ABI is invisible and people see us as fine and our old selves pre-BI, they think that what we are going through is nothing compared to what they are going through, and so we try to explain but people just don't want to listen, and some to a certain extent don't want to learn about things they can't see, that's why I try to spread the word of BI's in hope that maybe I can get through to just 1 person then it will be worth it,
Hope you manage to have a talk with your parents soon,
Thank you for your reply AW means a lot as I know people on here understand what I'm talking about.
Its so so like my AA meetings as only alcoholic understand other alcoholics. My parents have done a lot for me and have been there for all sorts of problems and thats just being a parent I'm doing the same for my kids now. Yes I had nice things from them too and I'm doing the same its like theres terms and conditions that come with being a parent to your kids but there arnt.
You are so right in that its invisible and I have changed but they still think ill go back to the way I was. My consultant said to me, my wife and kids before leaving the hospital that the Old Nick may come back but its very unlikely so you will have to get used to the new Nick. I don't remember her saying this but Lisa my wife told me this was said. My mum still thinks you can put a plaster on it and it will all be better. Unfortunately brain injuries don't work like that as we know.
Im going to try and talk to my mum on her own today and see how I get on. Have a fantastic day AW. Nick Xx
Frontal lobe was part of my injury too. Seems to be a few of us.
I too have recently had similar run ins with sisters and felt guilty and false around who used to be my childhood friend.
I dont understand my feelings, nor theirs, and i am not much help to you here other than to say i am listening and understanding to a degree how you are feeling. Like everyone else here on the forum.
By saying you "don't understand your feelings" helps tremendously as I don't either I'm just trying to accept them. This "not caring" thought process for me is a real struggle as I so used to care about every one. Its like my brain just doesn't have the capacity to care about my close family outside my wife and kids. Its a question ill have to put to my councillor and maybe go back to my consultant or GP and ask them.
Have a fantastic Friday Jules and keep listening and talking. Nick Xx
It's strange, isn't it? Because we're mostly up-and-about, the rest of the world assumes we're 'better', and are going to be the same as before, then they take offence because we're not.
I'm cagey, I always was, it's a coping mechanism from my childhood, if I don't let people 'in', they can't damage me. A friend from way-back told me the other week that when he first met me, he thought I was stand-offish, but, knowing a little bit more about me now, he gets that my 'distancing' is just part of me, and it's not there to upset other people. There's the 'acceptance', and that's why he'll always be a 'friend'.
What 'other' people don't get, now, post BI, is that, although I look the same (ish), I'm not, I am profoundly damaged, on many levels, and I just cannot deal with their sh*t day-to-day. They are not living in my body, and they don't know how much more difficult EVERYTHING is, so get upset when I don't want to 'join in' with their day-trips that I know would leave me wanting to climb out of a window.
I'm a rather extreme case, because I barely interacted with family 'before', and, due to an imbalanced marriage, where the husband would accuse me of having affairs if I mentioned anyone's name more than once, I didn't really have any friends. After 20 years of that, and his intrusive family telling me what they thought I should and shouldn't be doing, I asked him to leave, because he was sitting on the sofa, breaking wind, wearing the same work-clothes for weeks on end, and leaving disabled-me to clean around him.
My brother and mother accept my distancing behaviours, I'm not saying they like them, but they don't do what the husband and his family did, and try to force me to socialise. (Where I'd end up standing in the corner of a pub, like a ginger standard-lamp, while the husband wandered off and talked about mixing desks and motorbikes.)
Some of us don't have the emotional capacity to give to others who don't give back. I have my son, and a couple of colleagues I trust, I interact on social media more than I do in the real world, because, when my brain gets tired, I can just turn that off, much harder to do a quick-exit in the real world.
It's not all doom and gloom, and, for me, there's the chance that I might be able to re-engage with the world at some point, but, again, for me, in my own little world, I need to make sure I'm stable in myself before I do that.
Gosh this is tough stuff to be dealing with, bless you!
Can I stick it into a faith context, since I know you aren't averse to such thinking and it might just give you another angle to see it from?
I don't think it is by accident that when St Paul gives the church an example to try to live up to in terms of how they should be united and care for each other he uses 'the body' rather than what might have been on the face of it a more obvious simile of 'the family'. Unfortunately the truth is that families are often not loving, caring, supportive places: that requires a willingness to listen, understand and empathise and sometimes those most closely related to us have too much else in their relationship with us getting in the way of their ability to do that.
You put your distancing from your sister down to the impact of frontal lobe damage - from what you have written I would suggest you have backed away because she is being a complete cow (!) and you are in self-preservation mode and keeping clear of any further hurt. Sounds eminently sensible to me. My guess is that her letter and complaints are not really about you. I will bet it is all about her. I bet it comes from a place that says 'You aren't the Nick I knew' - and she is angry or grieving for that loss so hitting out. We expect our sisters to love us when things go wrong. Unfortunately that isn't always so. The bond simply isn't all that strong in some cases. Sibling rivalry can be a more potent force than adoration - it is instinctive from when we were all fledglings in the nest together because if there weren't enough worms one of us would have to be thrown out by the other!
With your dad what is getting in the way is his fatherly love, and denial. He can't accept his boy is damaged irretrievably and being a bloke if there is something wrong his only concern is declaring how to fix it. And that means how he thinks it has to be fixed and what anyone else says is neither here nor there, because this is his boy he's talking about...I doubt you will be able to change that either...it comes from a very strong place, born when you were.
So...looking for and expecting love and not finding it really hurts. That is why you came back so deflated and pulling back emotionally. And I would suggest that your best remedy is to turn and look towards the love that is constant, that will and does accept you totally with all these changes, that will work to always achieve something good, including out of this situation. God's love will hold you up, and I think that by taking some time out to yourself and spending some time in it you will come back fully energised and appreciating the love that does surround you - in your close family, and on here, yes, but also in a muddled way in your wider family. And that recognition through the opening of your heart again to his love will lessen the hurt their lack of sensitivity has caused to you.
It isn't for nothing that Jesus' commandment to 'love one another' is the biggest conundrum ever. It is so obviously the answer to every problem mankind has or ever will face. It is so obviously always the right thing to do, whatever the situation. And yet, being human it is so very very hard for us to do!
Another couple of things I have found helpful relating to differences of opinion and detachment are the following: (1) everyone disagrees with others and gets angry sometimes - even Jesus turned over tables in the temple. Sometimes others behave in a way that we feel is wrong. It isn't wrong to feel like that, or to voice it, or even act upon it. If he did, it is no surprise that we do too. And (2) Jesus told his disciples when sending them out that they might come to places where the people didn't want to listen. In such times they were to leave, and 'wipe the dust from their feet' as they left. This is old Jewish tradition/saying or wisdom about contamination and also closure. Sometimes you can't make a link with another. They just don't get it. Whether it is the message of God's love or any other opinion you hold, there is no point trying to keep forcing it down their throats. Everyone is on their own journey and sometimes they can't be on the path you are on. So simply move on. And leave the dust of that encounter on their doorstep so it doesn't haunt your future dealings and you don't carry even a particle of that 'baggage' as you move forward. I do love the old wisdom and the ways they found to express it.
You have tried to speak to your wider family. You did so out of love. It seems they don't 'get it'. Perhaps they never will. It is not your fault and you can't make them. So bearing that in mind, just rest in the knowledge that you did try and leave it at that. Accept their imperfect love for what it is, be thankful for it as far as it goes, and turn your face to and revel in the big loves in your life that keep you going.
Wow - completely get what your saying malalatete love all of your words especially the last paragraph. Thank you. Nick xx
Hi Nick,
Just a thought, I know you live in my area - Headway at Newick have get togethers for families of those with brain injuries, just a cup of tea and chat in the lovely garden there. Lovely families come (including one set of parents). I know there is another one shortly. As your mother seems the most receptive, would she come along and chat with other people in the same position? It might help her to put things into perspective and she might realise that you are always going to be slightly different from the 'old you'. maybe that would be a start in your family learning to accept the new you?
As always our "family" have already given you lots to ponder .
Taking a bit of a sideways slant on it. You can choose your friends but have no choice about family.
In your case if they can't be bothered to read the leaflets or acknowledge your injury then just let it go.
You obviously have feelings and are concerned about your lack of caring...........remember you are still less than 2 years on the journey post bi.
Surround yourself with people who do care and can help you progress .
Not sure if it's related but at one point I got really distressed by other people's expectations of me and I was getting agitated. I really wish I could remember who it was but someone gave me a wonderful piece of advice.................you wouldn't let someone like that rent a room in your house would you? So why are you letting them live rent free in your head?
Remember it is not selfish to take on only what you can deal with it is actually quite responsible.
It was a close family member in particular who was causing my agitation, guilt anger etc at the time.
Since taking that advice on board I can now be civil and the bonus is.......because I'm not wasting so much brain energy with that person I can actually do a little more.
Not seeing much in the way of results yet but it was fairly recent. Still I am at least able to do half of my exercises a second time later in the day.
My life operates to a timetable and the family member in question (my mum) chamged the time for the nightly call unilaterally a short time e ago.
Last night she rang early. I pointed it out and had the phone slammed down on me..
Thanks to the above advice I didn't overreact. I was surprisingly adult and rang back knowing it would go to the answer machine and enquired why so sensitive tonight and suggested she take time to relax.
In May's poem she says that the extraordinary happens every day and what happened later is a miracle.
Mum rang at The normal time and a short time into the conversation a miracle happened........she apologised .
Score one for making good use of my headspace rather than worrying about things I can't control.
That was the sentiment of silence from my parents as we strolled towards the burial site of my Auntie this week. Laid to rest in a beautiful wicker basket under the trees. A stroke, 3 months incontinent and then gone. Now at peace. As we processed down from a wee little blessing service, I said I wanted to die at 70. They asked why 70? I said I'll be about done then. But you might still feel fit at 70. I replied, I haven't felt fit for years. The silence. Their thoughts searching for what that might mean. Without saying it out loud, their thoughts were Oh yes I forgot, you did tell us you had a stroke, and we know you have had health problems and you tell us you had a brain injury. Oh well never mind. So you don't feel fit. So what. We are getting old too but we don't moan. We don't talk about it. We just get on with it.
And there it was. Laid bare. I either put up and shut up or choose to hang with those who need to talk about it.
I haven't decided which I need yet. I know I need to keep reading all your posts on here. Helps me to quietly process thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories.
Perhaps its time for me to not talk about it anymore. To put it down to 'one of those life events'. Box it. Categorise it. Forget it.
Then comes the, why don't you want to come climbing with us after work conversation. Oh well, I like to potter around the garden, avoidance of the truth reply. And so life takes on a less then whole, less than real, less than honest, sense of normality. Little white lies, we all do it. Is it good for us?
What I will be giving up in connecting, I will be gaining in social acceptance. Inventing stories as to why 8 years of my life does not make sense is the next step. Cleansing it with a socially acceptable sentence to brush my story into something interesting and yet 'void of emotion' is a challenge, one I welcome.
Come on, then. If I need to pour my heart out to my diary and to a screen here, but speak in tones of reciprocity and receptivity with people day to day, I can do that. Just , its a change in pace, a change in approach, a change in recovery.
Bring it on.
Nick, be grateful for the short time you have with family. Before you know it, they disappear into a hole in the ground. Enjoy the banter that you used to with them, without divulging your pain or trying to gain understanding. Just be. They will love you as you are without explanation. Just be.
Family. Love them as they are. Your roots and branches. Your nutrients and your sunshine. Your wind and your rain.
So true and I love the fact that you have to research to learn which in turn gives you drive. I have never been short of drive just short (5'5") on a good day. O never been short on humour too. N
I'm no good a long replies, but really do feel for you.Unfortunately some people just have no intention of trying to understand and how disappointed you must feel when it is your family. My boss recently said to me my fatigue is probably due to my age. For your own sanity, I would try to remain in touch with them, but give up trying to make them understand. Headway are brilliant, don't give them the time of day in them trying to say any different.
I hope the sun is shining where you are and that you manage to have a good weekend. I'm getting the bbq out
Ok had a chat with my mum today she came round and my wife and I had a good chat with her.
It went ok but not brilliant she still doesn't get it but then again why should she. She would accept it all if it was a Harley Street professor explaining it to her and that I was ok its just a brain injury. If he found a concrete diagnosis and then pout a plaster on it I'm sure she would feel a lot better. The trouble is you can't SEE a brain injury and it has with out a doubt changed me.
Mum still sees the same physical body that I'm in but the brain has changed and she can't cope with that and or doesn't accept it. We went through a lot of stuff with her to explain the changes and what headway have done for me and that the hospital I was in recommended Headway she didn't know this and thought Headway was just a charity and had no standing. No research there then.
I completely agree with a lot of the points written above and I will take today with me and digest it and let my mum and dad get on oath it in there own way. They need to get it for them selves or maybe not.
I have been suffering from the same thing Nick...(that's why I haven't been on much if I'm honest)...I've been deeply upset, I have tried to explain how things are for me now but I either get raised eye brows or you could say....told off (that's what it feels like). also raised voices telling me I don't cope with what I've been through and either that my tumour can change to cancerous(imagine saying that to someone...ludicrous isn't it) so make the most of my life or that the tumours gone( which it isn't)!! I find the lack of bothering to actually understand what we go through, how we feel, how it affects us etc etc so hurtful and all it does is make me want to just be at home, where I feel safest...away from insults or the feeling of being in company that don't know/understand me at all. Infact there was a cousin who deeply upset me and my closer family were furious with them as I had just had my radiotherapy, then all of a sudden my mother was their best friend and I was out on a limb, being shouted at for being upset...so I chose to shield myself from the pain and let them all get on with it! I meet folk who I am comfortable with, I'm out most days doing something, I go most places, I try very hard, I am positive about my condition, although yes it is a huge thing and who knows what my future holds, obviously there are times when I am in pain, the severity of what I have been through and still am going through and the worry hits me but surely that's allowed and I don't go on about it but if I were to knock my family back about meeting and going out it's as if I'm committing a crime...I mean after all....I look soooo well, so obviously I'm just being awkward! Oh it's tough and I'm trying so hard to put it out of my head how hurt I am by others attitudes and lack of understanding...btw I couldn't even hand in Headway leaflets as that would def be frowned upon, it in itself would cause an argument! So you can see that I totally sympathise with you and understand your predicament. I know you initially asked about feeling detached with feelings and my answer is....maybe it is because we have been so hurt/traumatised/injured or whatever but I would say to you....don't fall out entirely with your family, stay in touch, make meetings brief, give up trying to explain (it's a poor show that they should need guided, yes it's not their journey but through love for you, you would hope they would want to even try to understand but really....family or not...folk are so into their own little life that I'm beginning to think it's probably best they are left to live it their way....we won't regret trying to get them to understand the new us but one day they will most def regret their lack of respect towards us and what we have gone through and still are! So you hold your head up Nick in the knowledge that although you are the injured party, you were the one still trying to make things work and don't feel guilty about being detached feelings wise, that's the new you, we can't keep wondering why we are the way we are...we need to live as best we can for our own sanity in the future! You've come a long way and done so well, so don't be brought down by anyone and don't doubt yourself...we are who we are! ( now to get myself to listen to this instead of crying about how hurt I feel ) ! xx
Its so so lovely to talk to people who really understand my thinking and the way I feel as you have the same feelings and experiences. It really isn't rocket science is it, abi=change in person. Im going to get a hat made up I really am with "brain injury sufferer" printed on it and a great big arrow pointing down. I going to were it whenever I see my outside family.
I too totally understand what you say about your family they just don't understand and think its all ok "you look fine" honestly I would love to publish the letter my stupid sister sent me 2 days ago it wold make your blood boil.
Have a fantastic Saturday and like me today is another day lets enjoy it. Nick Xx
It would be very interesting to read the letter I'm sure! I can imagine what's in it and I can imagine how it made you feel too...how blooming selfish some folk are; I think....I may be different now but thank god I have a heart and I know I could never be as hard and callous as these people, I can't ever see myself being like that and if it turned out I was, I would hope somebody would point it out to me! (actually I couldn't live with myself if I thought I'd hurt somebody). Maybe they're the ones that need help...help to think outside the box and to actually stop and listen to us and hear what it's like to live this way! In all honesty I can live a better, happier life without the stress of those that don't understand but I find it hard to come to terms with the fact that they don't care and they should care! Love the idea of the hat haha!!
Hope you've had a lovely day and you have an even better one tomorrow! xx
I have read all these posts and responded by crying at some,smiling at some and actually belly laughing at one in a positive way but and this is the big but - my sick brain is thinking thoughts but can't put them into words. And this where I find myself in my late fifties,feeling stuff very deeply but being unable to articulate them in away that I think people will understand. There is no agenda, I am not looking for sympathy or even understanding from family and friends. All I need and I think all of us need is acceptance. I think I have found in the 4 or 5 months( can't remember how long haha) since I was first ill that not everyone gets this. It doesn't really matter how close you are to a person or how much you love them or they have loved you if they don't get it they don't get it. ( Sorry about the italics??????........)
This shock and realisation floored me when I first realised this. But thinking about it I will never in a month of Sundays ever be an engineer or a scientist. I can learn the theory but could never build an aeroplane or design a cutting edge ship. I cannot translate the theory to the practical - I am not wired that way . But I can empathise with and understand the small child who perhaps is starting his/her first day at school and is missing their mummy or the older person who is standing in the middle of a supermarket and suddenly is thinking why am I here.It is horses for courses I guess.
Believe me I so desperately want the people I love to understand where I am, but I am on a perpetual learning curve of my own acceptance of the limitations of others and myself. I am under no illusion that I may understand this idea but it will not stop me from feeling upset and isolated when I meet this kind of response in the future, which I am sure I will. I really do see these previously mentioned limitations as not personal but the differences between people. And yet I am a human being with all the frailties and insecurities that can contribute to the human sense of self and that deep need to be accepted for me as I am -warts and all.
This illness has caused me to look at myself and to try and work out what works when relating to others and what doesn't. It has helped me to realise I am truly not responsible for the actions of others but it has also given me some time to think about when I might get it wrong. I also realise that I do not have the same energy , thinking capacity and tolerance I had prior to my brain injury.
To survive this my current strategy is personal forgiveness. Might sound a little selfish but for me to continue with my relationships at this moment in time I really do need to consider myself first and be kind to myself. Once I can master that then who knows what the possibilities are?
Nick I feel for you and understand what you have posted. Similar stuff has happened to me. Hope something I have said makes some sense to you. I certainly don't have the answers I am no guru, but I do know that all we can do is our best and it sounds to me that you are doing this.
Wow. Thanks for sharing. Incredible story and oh so touching for me!
I don't want to offer judgement. here is my share...I never had problems with my younger brother much before but after head injury yes! Too much. Very uncomfortable and maybe the reason for problems in our family!
Not much time now to reply but take care and continue with what you like
Welcome. Hope you're finding some 'middle ground' but now I'm thinking of looking at a brain injured person...they know you as you before, after is something different unknown and probably instinctively not good! I always felt my family discarded me after head injury...I think it's a natural mechanism! So I went to many other places looking for love (and found a lot of it on the road from beautiful souls who took me in and 'warmed me up'😊) and then to China!
There are good people everywhere. For me it feels like that's something I feel more often after almost dying or suffering.
I think I need to travel again yo feel that love😊❤️😊
I get a lot of love from my immediate family, my wife and kids but outside that iv detached to protect myself. Its working well, don't want people rent free in my head.
God, this sounds exactly like my family, I had a frontal lobe bleed, in my family there's my mum and dad, iv an older brother, then there's me, a younger brother 6years younger than me and a sister 8 years younger than me, my parents split up when I was just turning 18, my mum remarried and has a 21 year old son to her 2nd husband, my mum unfortunately passed away march 2021, the said 21 year old is the only family member I talk to, my dad remarried, a woman 18 years his junior, he's 63, she's 45, they have 18year old twins and a 12/13 year old, bin 12 months since I spoke to any family whatsoever, last year on my 40th, I made the biggest mistake ever, handed my dad £20k I felt sorry for him, he made me feel sorry for him cos he works so hard, his wife ain't worked in 20years, the twins who are 19 next month don't work, they goin nowhere in life, so it's all on my dad to pay the mortgage, the bills, and clothe and feed them all, which I don't agree with, they'll gladly take my money then all block my number and block me on Facebook and forget I exist, iv a girlfriend and very few friends, it's sad really
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Oh it's tough and I'm trying so hard to put it out of my head how hurt I am by others attitudes and lack of understanding...btw I couldn't even hand in Headway leaflets as that would def be frowned upon, it in itself would cause an argument! So you can see that I totally sympathise with you and understand your predicament. I know you initially asked about feeling detached with feelings and my answer is....maybe it is because we have been so hurt/traumatised/injured or whatever but I would say to you....don't fall out entirely with your family, stay in touch, make meetings brief, give up trying to explain (it's a poor show that they should need guided, yes it's not their journey but through love for you, you would hope they would want to even try to understand but really....family or not...folk are so into their own little life that I'm beginning to think it's probably best they are left to live it their way....we won't regret trying to get them to understand the new us but one day they will most def regret their lack of respect towards us and what we have gone through and still are! So you hold your head up Nick in the knowledge that although you are the injured party, you were the one still trying to make things work and don't feel guilty about being detached feelings wise, that's the new you, we can't keep wondering why we are the way we are...we need to live as best we can for our own sanity in the future! You've come a long way and done so well, so don't be brought down by anyone and don't doubt yourself...we are who we are! ( now to get myself to listen to this instead of crying about how hurt I feel ) ! xx
Family stealing?
Am I evil?
Family meeting
