Need Advice To Deal With My Family...

[franti]

I am at the end of the road and I feel like I've been there for so long. I find myself in shock everyday, I'm paralysed by my situation and the worse it gets the further I feel from getting anywhere.
The relationships I've had with my family. I think it's fair to say they never understood me. That is such a common statement but if you really think about what it means, it is so horrible...
It really means DENIAL. A vested interest in not understanding. Refusing to help but maintaining the pretense of closeness.
It is driving me crazy and ruining my life. I am way beyond knowing how to deal with it, I'm a wreck.
But I need something to change.

Any suggestions?

[gill]

Well one thing that you've already done which is good is letting some things out and allowing others to be here supporting you. I am wondering if you have been diagnosed or what is it that you are going through-depression? anxiety? some rough experiences with family members it sounds like. Are you in therapy or on any medication? What is it that your family doesn't want to admit? Do you tell them the truth about you and they don't want to accept it so you feel they don't really care?

[allen]

Yeah I have dysthymia and I can trace the roots of everything back to my earliest memories. All my life I've been a bit different and I always knew that things were just not right. Now I'm 25 and I seem to be regressing or something...
I have a middle class family with a lot of unspoken issues too deeply buried for a healthy person to ever uncover. I have no hope of getting any resolution in my state.
But I don't know how to go on without a hint of resolution. Just the thought of a phone call from one of my parents can trigger a panic attack. I don't think I could ever face them again.
They just plain refuse to accept me for who I am, even though I've been calling out from the depths and running around trying to appease them. It would be wonderful if they turned around and told me they didn't want anything to do with me! That would give me the freedom I really want.
If they had to admit something... I think their whole world would come crashing down around them. I don't think they could deal with that so they talk about mundane things and laugh and congratulate each other on how well they avoid facing reality. They pity me and lament my depression, they say they're sad I never call them. That feels like the most insulting hurtful thing anyone could say!! When I am broken, spent desperate to find a way to reconnect but knowing that I can't.
I don't understand what I could have done when I was so young to hurt them and make them fear me. Maybe it's because I never knew how 'play along' or was more interested in what I felt rather than what I was supposed to do/ say. I gave up hope of confronting them long ago because I realized they would never understand me. To the point where if part of my argument was that black is black, they would tell me no, it's white. Even though we haven't spoke for years they have as strong a hold as ever on me. Every day I live in their shadow, in reaction to them, for them. I hate them with a passion.

I just can't believe how much this has affected me my whole life.
I am an adult with the sensibilities of a frightened confused child. I can never get involved iin a confrontation because I never managed that with my parents so there’s too much liable to come crashing out, wrong place, wrong time. I can't build any relationships because as soon as I get to know someone I start resenting them, as soon as I start to love someone I can't control the anger and hate that comes out of nowhere.
I have become the problem that is what makes angrier than anything. I now carry everything around from the past where it has no place and all of a sudden every one else is reasonable in comparison. I'm the poor black sheep of the family who lost his way.
"There was never anything we could have done dear..."
All I care about is finding a way to make them see or admit something. I've thought about suicide often. That's how much it matters to me.
I seriously need to sort this out once and for all. It's not possible to live like this without just getting slowly worse and worse...