Do you feel like you're not even a part of your own family?

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Meistersinger
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07 Aug 2016, 9:16 pm

I, for the most part, no longer have any connections with my brothers or anyone on either side of the family, especially since mom died 5 years ago.



slave
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08 Aug 2016, 6:55 pm

Some of us have "attachment" issues, above and beyond ASD.

Due to a disruption(s) in the process of 'bonding' with our caregiver(s), some of us are unable to form healthy "attachments" and remain feeling disconnected with friends and/or family.

Google "attachment styles" to learn more.

http://www.psychalive.org/what-is-your-attachment-style/

The effect of this is HUGE for quite a few ppl.



lostonearth35
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08 Aug 2016, 7:08 pm

Yes. I almost feel like they don't even want me to be a part of their lives any more. Especially since my mother and father are the only people who still talk to me or do anything with me once a week. My brother, I can't even remember the last time I even heard from him. Easter, maybe? My parents have been gone on their for over a week now and I've had no one to talk to or go out with. Everyone else has a life but me. I don't normally feel this alone and lonely when my parents are away, which is usually in the winter, but this week I've felt like the last living cell in a dead body. :skull:

My social worker hasn't even been over in the past three weeks because her father had just died. I'm very sorry for her loss, but I don't even know she got the message I left saying so. :(



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27 Jul 2017, 10:01 am

My family ignored me as a child. It's as if they only had enough love for one child and (having an apparent preference for boys) gave it all to my little brother. I tried for years to win their affection, but I finally gave up when they showed an obvious preference for my brother's children over mine.



PhosphorusDecree
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27 Jul 2017, 2:47 pm

I have a wary long-distant relationship with my familly. My father is best described as an "awkward sod," though he's mellowed a bit lately. Me, my mother and my sister are all emotionally undemonstrative, and tend to keep our thoughts to ourselves. We now live in three different countries. I talk to my parents every couple of months and visit about two years out of every three- I feel like I need a holiday afterwards. I talk to my sister about twice a year, and haven't actually seen her in over 5 years. Sometimes it feels like they're even harder to talk to than complete strangers are, because we've got this long history of non-communication.


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TheMikeFrom1980
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21 Mar 2020, 4:07 pm

Amik wrote:
I feel like I don't really have a family and like I'm not really a part of my own family. I feel like a complete outsider in my family. I neither fit in with them nor do they treat me like a part of the family.

My family (as in parents and siblings) don't talk to me much or spend time with me or tell me about anything that's going on in their lives or in the family. On the rare occasion that they talk to me it seems to be more like them just checking if I'm still alive or them being polite rather than showing actual interest in me or my life or caring.

If I visit them or meet them somewhere and there is some other person there (be it another family member, a distant relative, their friend or a mere acquaintance), I'm automatically ignored and excluded and they keep talking to each other and ignore me if I try to join the conversation.

I never know what's going on in the family because nobody ever tells me about it, even though I ask them if there is anything new. They always seem to assume that somebody else has told me about everything, but when I have no idea about something that has been happening they laugh at me for not being up to date and ask me what planet I've been on. How the heck am I supposed to know about news that nobody tells me about?

The rest of my family is really close with each other, but not with me. They are even a lot closer to various relatives than to me. It feels kind of weird to see them treat my cousins and second cousins more like a part of the family than they treat me, and them being closer to them than they've ever been to me.

My husband has noticed the same thing about me not really being treated like a part of the family and he's even more upset about it than I am, so it's not just my imagination. I tried for years to become more involved with the family, by showing interest in them, meeting them more often, trying to talk to them, asking what's new and so on, but it didn't change a thing, so I gave up trying.

Do any of you experience the same thing, like you're not considered or treated like a part of your own family?


I can relate to much of this and have similar experiences but I put it down to me being an ex-con and alcoholic more than anything else... but my mistakes are due to my not fitting in so it's a vicious circle... My aunt betrayed my trust 18 years ago and told the parents of my young cousins I was or am a danger to them because of my condition so I ended up going downhill over the next few years and in prison by the end of the 2000's as a result.



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22 Mar 2020, 3:32 am

My older sister and father are NT, but mother was the classic cold mother. My sister could tell that there was not enough parental support for two, so she kept it. From a very early age, my understanding was that my parents' job was to feed and clothe me, etc, and mine was to make them look normal and in control. Mother left when I was 15; dad kicked me out two years later, and mother didn't even know that until she was dying, and finally asked.



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22 Mar 2020, 10:04 am

I was loved by my family, but I'm not successful as they were. They had talents they could actually use. I don't possess talents that are exactly marketable skills. I have been gainfully employed, but can never use my talents to the highest degree possible.



AnnieAnn
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22 Mar 2020, 3:44 pm

Amik wrote:
I feel like I don't really have a family and like I'm not really a part of my own family. I feel like a complete outsider in my family. I neither fit in with them nor do they treat me like a part of the family.




Same. I have felt like I wasn't part of my family since I was in 1st grade. Always. I know I'm not in their 'loop'. I try to act like I don't care but the truth is that it really hurts my feelings and makes me sad that I feel like such an outsider.



zenaspie
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10 Apr 2020, 5:04 am

I’m not a part of my family either in my mind. They’re pretty manipulative and they’ve scapegoated me, so it’s not only that I just feel like an outsider, I get attacked pretty often even threatened to be beaten to death by my father and I’ve called police multiple times cause I don’t feel safe. I’m tryin to work and move out ASAP, I’m worried it’ll be hard due to Asperger’s but thank god for benefits, they’ll cover my rent expenses



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10 Apr 2020, 5:52 am

Yes. My family are pretty normal people and i don't feel any kinship with them. They treat me pretty good though this might be because i hide the fact that i am autistic as well as bisexual.



Karamazov
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10 Apr 2020, 6:19 am

Not sure, I’ve never felt much in the way of emotional connection to my family: but that said almost all of us are eccentric to a greater or lesser extent one way or another.
As a group we have a tendency to cynically mock the rest of the world, and never share any personal information that hasn’t been specifically requested.
This can really irritate my wife: she asks what we’ve been saying on WhatsApp and it’s all jokes at the expense of politicians and my dad and brother talking rugby! :lol:
The fact we don’t talk about our health or emotions is apparently very odd and frustrating.



general_ike_deflated
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17 Jun 2020, 3:18 pm

Yeah. Given that I’m adopted AND on the spectrum, it just keeps adding up. I keep telling myself that my friends like me for who I am, which is what I’m thankful for. My family will talk to me so long as they feel like it. I get told I look tired ALL THE TIME by them. My younger adopted brother— he’s treated just fine because he’s only got ADD. Nobody bats an eye because he’s in college, has a job. All he does all day currently when not at his job is game or sing or whatever it is that he does. My parents don’t care because he’s EMPLOYED and ATTENDING COLLEGE. I still have classes and all of that. I spend my free time alone (bc it’s what I need). Yet I’m treated like an outcast. I’m on the verge of giving up. I’ve been threatened to be put in a group home, be put on social security and get visits every couple months. I can’t leave home because when I do, I’ll end up dead within the span of maybe a few weeks to a month or two (due to other conditions). I’m the black sheep of my family and it shows. They act like they love me, they act like they care. Truth is: I know they don’t. They just want to prolong my death by another (hopefully more than) 5 years. I can make it sooner than that if I leave.



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17 Jun 2020, 6:39 pm

Gosh, yes. So many times a conversation flows naturally among the three other members of my family and seems to just naturally exclude me, as usually happens with conversations including more than one person besides me - I just do my fake potted plant impression (initially given brief notice but then may as well not even exist, and doesn’t even need to be watered every once in a while like a real plant). And so many interests that the three of them share but I don’t, and no one else shows much interest in the things I like. Feels like my mom, dad, and brother mesh well, but I don’t.


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17 Jun 2020, 7:01 pm

I often don't. Above the age of three/four everyone in my family has pretty much ignored me, besides for criticizing things out of my control. I basically played video games by myself my entire childhood, and got yelled at for wanting attention from my siblings and parents. Ironically, they also complain that I don't really have an attachment to any of them. :roll: I'm considering cutting contact with everyone, which I have no issue with as it wouldn't change much. I'll just find "family" in other people.



janecp
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10 Aug 2020, 4:43 am

Yes I have felt this way for decades! The OP describes my family of origin situation to a T. An ex-boyfriend once said "your family is like a clique that you aren't part of". He was referring to them being exclusive, not to me being self-isolating, which is how they would describe me. I can see their point in that I withdraw due to sensory overwhelm and also have a hard time relating to their interests. What I get upset about though, is that I would never treat them like that in my environment, ie if they were to visit me. The behavior that dragonsanddemons just above describes is my family's norm, and I find it, at best, inconsiderate (where he describes them as just going ahead with a conversation that clearly fails to include him in any way without considering changing topic to include the other person in the room). The aggravating irony is that I am the one who is supposed to be so socially impaired, but they are the ones who seem to lack this basic politeness. They invited me to a family dinner and the highlight was to grill steak (I'm a vegetarian). Not horrible, but inconsiderate nonetheless.

I actually did cut contact because my mom in particular was excluding my kids and it is an alcoholic family system that was very hard to be around. For those who mention considering this, it really hurts. I do think it's better for me and my family, but it doesn't make the original rejection hurt less. For what it's worth, group therapy helped me so much with feeling seen, validated and appreciated (and this was pre-diagnosis).