My family have been trapped in an abusive cycle for generations. My mother and her mentally handicapped sister were sexually abused by their father. He went to prison, their mother into a mental home and they were put into care.
My mother couldn't break the cycle, instead, she kept it going by physically, mentally and emotionally abusing my 2 brothers and I.
I remember my mother grabbing my brother and I when I was a toddler and he was a baby, she ran into the night after a severe beating from her husband.
A few years later, my father turned up, stinking drunk at my primary school and the headmaster let him take me away without asking or informing my mother. He locked us both in his flat and sexually abused me for 2 days. Times were different back then. When I got into my first sexual relationship at 16yo, all those memories I had blocked out came back to me. When I told my mother she said 'That's not a surprise, that's how I got pregnant with you'. Then she told me that she was too far along for an abortion when she found out she was pregnant. She had run from her husband and went back to England to live with family. She told me how she tried to put me up for adoption but was forced to keep me because my father refused to sign the adoption papers. She was then forced to go back to her husband and the rest is history.
Her choice of men was along the same lines. Woman beaters, criminals, animal abusers, child abusers. It was endless abuse from her and her men. Her 3rd and final husband began sexually harassing me from 13yo. It continued when I went to visit my mum and lasted until my late 30's when I got banned from the house for getting into a physical fight with her husband. My mother just told me to ignore it and stop rocking the boat and causing arguments.
Her mentally handicapped sister moved in with her after her husband died. My mother's husband began a sexual relationship with her and then they both began to verbally, mentally and emotionally abuse my mother and my mentally sick brother. The authorities couldn't do anything about it because my mum's sister, who has the mental and emotional age of a 10yo, denied the relationship to protect my mother's husband.
I was thrown out at 16yo and ended up in abusive relationships. Boyfriends who beat me up as well as abusing me. But that was better than being harassed by my stepfather and knowing that my mother would not protect me.
One of my brother's ended up a cannabis addict and suffered some kind of mental psychosis. He was very difficult to get along with and couldn't live a life outside of the family home because of it. My 2 brothers and I were physically, mentally, emotionally and I was also sexually harassed by her husband too. She just told me to ignore it and I spent my whole life finding a way to break the cycle of abuse. I finally did, but at terrible cost.
Living in that house was like being in a horror movie. I still fantasise about killing her husband because he has torn our family apart and my family did nothing to stop him. The council wouldn't remove him because he had rights to stay in the house too. The police believed her husband over her when she tried to have him removed from the house. They advised her to leave instead.
So finally a crisis happened and my mother and my mentally ill brother were forced to leave with nowhere else to go.
I let them come and stay with my family and I.
This happened just before xmas 2013.
My mentally ill brother has psychosis brought on by constant use of cannabis. Those who say cannabis is harmless needs to spend time with him. He is extremely difficult to be around, his grip on reality is very weak at best. His reality is full of hallucinations and designs of grandeur and paranoia. I have been trying to get him help for years. But, unless he accepted he had a problem, no-one would help him. When he came to stay with me, he caused so much friction and bad atmosphere in my home that I had to find other accommodation for him. That didn't work out either and he ended up back here again.
I found them a house to rent near me where I could go and look after my mother during the day while my youngest brother was working. He refused to do it because it meant getting 2 buses to work instead of 1.
As for my mother, she refused to make any decisions. Instead she chopped and changed her plans based on who she spoke to from one minute to the next. That on it's own caused so many arguments and my kids were beginning to be affected by it all.
My youngest brother could be classed as close to normal. But the fact is that he's just like my mother. He's not abusive or anything, he just didn't want to deal with any of the abuse and stuck his head in the ground. He ignored it and did nothing to protect my mother from the abuse at the hands of her husband and sister. My mentally ill brother ignored it all as well, spending his time wasted on cannabis and lost in whatever delusion he had invented at that time.
My mentally ill brother convinced my mother that I was a monster, a control freak who should be locked up in a mental hospital. My mother told me there was nothing wrong with him, that I was the one who was sick and needed to be locked up. That the only reason she was staying with me and my family was because she had nowhere else to go and that it was not by choice.
At that point I broke down. I can't describe the hurt she caused me with those few words. I told my mentally ill brother and mother to leave my home and go to the council and declare themselves homeless within the next few days. They no longer talk to me or my kids.
Since then I have gotten more and more depressed. I had put so much faith into the idea that I could help them and that we'd all be a happy, normal, family. Now that is gone and I know with my mother's failing health, that it won't be long before she dies. She and my 2 brothers will die blaming me for all their misery.
I know that's not really the case. I realise they did it because they can't take responsibility for their part in the cycle of abuse. Better to blame someone else and I'm the perfect choice. The one who stood up to it all, who defended them and encouraged them to get out of there. But that doesn't mean that it hurts any less. The depression has gotten worse over the last few months. I've lost interested in everything, I don't want to go out anymore, I suffer chronic insomnia due to ptsd which is the result of being born into such a screwed up family. I know what is wrong with me and I keep going and hopefully one morning I'll wake up and it'll all be okay again. Hopefully.