Faught for approval from childhood till 2004 after a severe car accident. Not one of my family was there to help me. I wandered with several broken bones from one unknown address to another for 4 months to get aid and assistance. Lost my house and my job in the process. No help or even a visit or phone call from my family at all. I was too busy surviving to notice it.

Their excuse (afterward) was I didn’t send them a moving address during that most difficult time. They had my phone number though. It was a lame excuse I realized and stopped reaching out to them.

During 2004/2005 I build up everything from scratch without any assistance from them. Instead, I got some very severe verbal and physical threats from my two brothers when I was still very down. It was then I realized I had to stop initiating contact with them. Not stopping contact but stop putting energy into it. No more emails, phone calls, or cards sent from me.

I never really heard from them again. Only one sister send me a card in 2008 (after 4 years of absence) where she officially announced she quit contact with me. Why? I still don’t know. I got no answers at all. They all shun me but why?

Got no explanation and was so devastated I wasn’t able to ask for an explanation further. I felt so betrayed.

With a lot of researching and studying, I think I found out what actually happened. In our family, we had a very dominant, egocentric, cruel mother (an NPD/Sociopath it would be called now).
She has set up all of us from the get-go to turn us against each other instead of her. She ruled by dividing. She also used her husband in this vicious game to turn us against him.

He committed suicide at 48 when I was just 19.

My conclusion was the same as yours at last. I regret I didn’t cut ties 30 years before when it was already so obvious in hindsight. But that’s hindsight. You naturally try to save your family connections by all means. They are part of who you are. You’ve grown up with them. It’s very hard to leave and to lose your ‘tribe’.

I’ve learned the only approval I need essentially is my own approval. When approval/sympathy comes from other people it’s a welcome bonus but not more.

Approval from a fictional figure like ‘God’ doesn’t mean a thing to me. Then I would still be dependent on the approval of someone else outside myself.

If you mean you are actually a part of ‘God’ I can go along. Then you truly give approval to yourself without shifting this responsibility to a fictional ‘higher being’.

IMO that ‘higher being’ is in yourself calling all the time.

Knowing right from wrong. Sadly there are many people who lack this call. They are without enough conscience and empathy but with a lot of ‘will-power’ to control and dominate other people.

It’s a natural phenomenon throughout the ages. The war between good and evil.

But I totally agree you’ll find no solace in repeating abusive family members trying to change things. You’ll have to let them go to avoid further hurt.

And you will see that if you let them go with a thorough, decent explanation, you’ll never hear from the again.

When you are clear and they notice, they won’t fight to save the relationship. They just leave it and keep silent.

This is a sign they know what they are guilty of.

It’s up to you to leave this behind. Which is very hard to do. It’s your family after all.

But in the end, all you have is yourself to rely on. Your values and thoughts. I feel empty towards my family. I miss them dearly for many years. My brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, and nephews all vanished actually after my car-accident end 2004.

It’s been so hard to survive and build it all up again from scratch. They let me down totally and this was my wake-up call.

I quit the initiative to communicate and never heard from them again by visiting, phone, email, or letter.

Probably you were a designated scapegoat too. I’m sure I was. There was no way I could escape my faith in this family system. But I survived more or less. Being a rebel and smart kid. I was blessed that way.

Your comment rings to me. So honest and strong. Why don’t you live in Holland so I could meet you to talk?:)

It’s kind of sad so many people seem to experience this traumatic history without ever finding each other in person to talk about it and comfort each other.

We could shed so many tears together but also so much laughter in the process of healing.

CE 

 

This is always such an empty and silly way out.

By the lack of real love and support from real people, people like you turn to ‘magical thinking’.

They create for themselves a fictional kind of ‘superhuman being. A fantasy they hold on to. Like children do who still try to believe in Santa Claus.

This state of mind is at least delusional for it denies reality big time. In fact, in many cases, it borders on Psychosis.

When you really believe some kind of fictional ‘God’ is comforting you while there’s no one there actually to comfort you, you’ve fled in a kind of Psychotic state separated from reality.

I understand. Reality is too hard to take for many of us. Many go ‘crazy’ when any sense of meaning gets lost by hard facts of reality. That’s why psychiatric hospitals are always full and churches are filling again these days.

Facing reality and accepting it is often the hardest thing to do. But you’ll have to do it yourself. No fictional ‘God’ will help you or show you the way (with a fictional book/guide at hand).

The only comfort and lessons those fictional books (Bible, Koran, etc.) can give, is they show an anecdotical record of (bad) human behavior throughout all ages.

In this view, those books clearly show us reality in many forms.

Their writers (and rulers) tried very hard to let us see this reality in a specific way. They fabricated a clever way out by inventing ‘God, Allah, Jezus, Mohamed, etc.) derailing our attention, resistance and believes not on them (the rulers) but on some fictional ‘God’ and the ‘afterlife’. Effectively leaving them off the hook in this only life we have and gaining almost complete control.

This tactic has worked for thousands of years and it still does in many countries.

Thanks to billions of people like you who rather fall in denial and magical thinking than to accept reality and stand up to injustice and fight it.

You seem one of those who took the easy way out. I can’t judge you of course. You’ll have your reasons. Live can be very hard I know.
But please stop trying, dragging people into your own very limited believe-system. If it works for you; okay.

Psychotic believe-systems in paranoid/schizophrenic people often work very well for them for many years. To them, it’s functional whatever the losses. Let it be, I learned after working 25 years in psychiatric hospitals. It often would be cruel to ‘cure’ their delusions for there would be no alternative to replace them. Facing reality would be a tremendous chock that most of them would not be able to handle.

So it’s not my objective to change your believe-system either.
Just to tell people to think twice when they come across a person like you who proclaims a very simple, childish way out.
Like advertising a simple, unproven antidote to cure cancer.

It’s annoying in a way but also devalues the problem discussed here.

With your comment, you put yourself also in a ‘God-like’ position. Ignoring all that’s been said here.

You clearly take the higher ground here inspired by ‘God’ as if you are speaking ‘God’ yourself.

Think about it (to all).

GE