Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, I am not sure how to begin this post as I can be very poor at explaining things sometimes but I have often had poor experiences with extended family not understanding my needs.
With the exception of my parents and my aunt who have supported me, I have pretty much cut off contact with extended family due to abuse/emotional neglect. As per mentioned in a post (can't remember if I did mention before), I have had a family friend say that I did something in order to be abused and now often keep certain things about my mental health and autism to myself. In my culture (which is Carribean), I find that if you have autism or other disabilities as-well as mental health, people automatically think something is wrong with you and you are told to get over it or to be strong (due to the whole black people are strong stereotype), you are not allowed to be emotional as it is a form of weakness. I have also had family members disregard my boundaries like hugging me when I don't want to be touched or talking so much to the point where I am emotionally and physically exhausted as I have had to do years of masking (which I still do now at work as it is a survival tactic I have mastered over the years).
With my aunt who has supported me, she isn't autistic but suffers from clinical depression due to my cousin being murdered nearly 2 years ago; this cousin was another family member I was close to who accepted me as I was. At times, the same family friend I mentioned has said to me to get over him dying and for my aunt to do the same. I don't mention this to her because I know she would flip. She cannot do certain things sometimes and forgets stuff as she is grieving and my parents and I try to support her as much as we can especially as she is too depressed to work.
Due to these poor experiences, I feel ashamed of my skin color sometimes and wish I wasn't black; I don't know if other people have had other experiences like myself but yes I do feel that if family do not understand you it is better to cut them off than to let them in. It is also ironic how my family friend says to try to "reunite" with my extended family when they have treated me poorly, unfortunately my mum (who isn't autistic) has also had horrid experiences with her side of the family including sexual abuse. I think it is horrible to say these things as you are basically saying it is OK to be around abusers. I mean if I had children at some point in my life I would never bring them around people who abuse and anyone who thinks this is fine is sick in the head.
I am sorry, I just wanted to let it out somewhere.
lina-chan said:. I have also had family members disregard my boundaries like hugging me when I don't want to be touched
(Although I am not of your ethnic and cultural heritage, I did live and attend school for 2 1/2 years in the Caribbean - where it was usual for my school friends to be local to the island rather than to be from ex-pat European / North American backgrounds - so, I hope you would not be offended when I say that I have been a first-hand observer of some of the attitudes you described so well).
As I read your post it brought to mind one of my school friends in the Caribbean who really used to experience such matters within her family - so difficult to do or say exactly the ideal thing to best show her support.
That said, she used her intellect to her advantage and achieved for herself a successful lifestyle (worthy of who she was and not the version of who the troublesome relatives tried to bully her into submission). All credit to my friend - what a role model!
Back in the UK, I too have experienced an aspect of this within my married family...at a Funeral just following a Lockdown where, (for my own health reasons and due to my supporting an elderly person who needed to shield), I was still wearing a mask and keeping my physical distance). Everyone in attendance knew all of that information.
In both sides of my family I have ensured it is also common knowledge (before Covid-19) that I wish it to be respected that I am not a social touch person.
At the Funeral, this particular relative (with no mask) marched straight up to me, almost knocking me off-balance as they then grasped me by both shoulders and shoved their face into my masked cheek as they proceeded to whisper an unprovoked abusive comment in my ear - which I will not even dignify with a summary - ...secure in the knowledge that nobody else would overhear their narcissistic vitriol. The whole episode was bizarre. And yes, of course, I was vexed as our next step was to walk into the Church for the Service.
That shocked me, as I would not have expected that behaviour of that individual. We had always been on cordial terms before.
This person was confident in their (correctly judged, creepy calculation) that I realistically would not be afforded any opportunity to remonstrate.
Not least, as at that event I was - by convention / custom / protocol - attending as the senior family female host / figurehead (as I was there to support and troubleshoot or represent the best wellbeing interests of my Husband ...as we were burying my Mother in Law.
You have to wonder: quite what sort of base personally stoops to such a stunt in the circumstance? They committed a terrible mistake and in doing so; they exposed their true composition.
I suspect therein lies a potential clue to such a reprehensible performance by that relative. They had (for reasons which shall remain confidential) grown accustomed, over the years, to being the centre of family attention. But not so - that particular day. I do not really think it actually had anything to do with me. I was just inhabiting the role of their ire.
I knew (from how and what they whispered) they were not emotional, inebriated nor oblivious to the potential impact of their words / action and it's wished for detrimental outcome s. They.had decided to meter out that abuse for their own benefit.
What somehow made it all the more personally disappointing ...it was one woman to another.
Additionally, the perpetrator was a woman to whom I had often extended a range of considerable support to her household over circa 30 years. Seriously? It is staggering what appears to motivate some people. What a life lesson!
What put it all truly beyond the pale ... they were aware they could also be putting in harm's way my vulnerable, elderly, shielding charge too. That needed to end right at that moment.
That was a non-negotiable redline - which had the side effect of invoking my "truth, justice, fairness, equity" circuit of combined logic, indignation, clarity of mind and newly focused determination ...which (definitely their miscalculation) completely overrode how they had intended me to react and suffer.
I decided (on the spot): that I absolutely refused to give that person the power to feed off that situation
My determination was: that I should only envisage that person crawling back under some rock - somewhere (not interested "where").