Family heirlooms: dresses and mental illness

Today my fourteen year old niece announced mid dinner in a restaurant that she wasn't joking but thinks there is something actually psychologically wrong with her. She got mixed reactions from the crowd, which included two aunts (me being one), my husband and a cousin. My sister, Katie tried to tell her that the symptoms which included 'suddenly getting really really angry and hearing myself being horrible to people for no reason and then being really happy all of a sudden all the time' were normal because she gets the same thing. I had to bite my tongue from telling my sister that she may not realise it but she's not so normal herself. I expressed to my niece that maybe part of it is just being a teenager but that she has had a difficult life (to which my sister outright disagreed with me: so having two abusive parents and no sense of stability in life and moving countries twice and going through your parents extremely messy breakup and then your grandparents doing the same and having the responsibility of practically caring for your two younger sisters and spending the first half of your life in a cult isn't difficult?) and two very volatile parents so it would be understandable if she was having problems expressing her anger or emotions appropriately.

I don't know how well my niece really understood how well I was understanding her but I was surprised at my sister's resistance to the conversation. I sensed she disagreed with me even engaging in the conversation.
The thing is, if you grew up in my family, you would be a miracle child not to be psychologically affected. Is this just a pattern of mentallness that will be passed on from generation to generation because each parent is so fucked up by the ones they had? Is this reason enough for me to never have a child of my own? I like to tell myself I am the least crazy of me and my sisters (and I have DID!) but maybe I'm just naive. I don't know that I won't damage my children in the same way my sisters have damaged theirs.

It's sad though, because I feel I have so much to offer a child. I feel I could be an amazing mother. Yet at the same time, I know I couldn't do it consistently because of who I am sometimes. I myself am unstable in that there are other parts of me who can't tolerate humans. How would they tolerate a needy child? Will I ever be different? Is there any hope for me or would I be doing the world a favour by allowing this chain of crazy genes/learned behaviours to die with me?

My eldest sister Noeline has been getting on my goat a lot lately. She appears to be going through some kind of extended mental breakdown, which involves being extremely accusatory, harsh and angry towards everyone she knows. She managed to fall out with my entire family, including me, while I was away on my big trip earlier in the year (I hadn't even been speaking to her, I just got home to find I had been blocked from her facebook). She then reinstated us onto facebook via a new separate identity she has set up so that it is secondary to her 'real' facebook. She doesn't post much on this, except to moan about how hard her life is as a single mum and to write critical things on our profiles. She has pissed me off something shocking this week, firstly because she had a go at me for not getting in touch with my dad and for not making more effort with him while he was over. This really upset me. I can cope with harsh judgements from outsiders who don't know my dad or the history, but my very own sister?! She of all people should know why I might not be keen to make much effort with him.

She annoyed me again because she posted a picture of her little girl wearing a special dress which has been worn by all the girls in our family so far: me and my sisters and all my nieces. She said that she was going to keep the dress now to hand down to her children's children to wear. I questioned what about mine or Katie's children, as neither of us have kids yet and she posted a harsh and cutting response about how it was hers to do what she wants with etc. There's just no need. She could have said that she'd happily lend it to them to wear or something like that but that's Noeline for you. I felt angry but I didn't want to let her know that. I also didn't want to just say nothing because I feel like she only says hurtful and cutting things because she gets away with it, so I just responded by saying: "Oh well, it's only a dress". I think that will piss her off, which I'm glad about, because she's certainly pissed plenty of people off lately.

I asked the rhetorical question on twitter and I ask it again (although if you have the answer that would be great!): how much crap do you take from a member of your family before it is enough? Is there some kind of manual with guidelines as to the recommended amount of abuse you should tolerate? If she wasn't my sister, she wouldn't be in my life anymore. It would be simple: friends don't treat their friends that way. She obviously hates me so get her out of my life. When you share blood it's different though isn't it? But does that mean you should just put up with anything?

Manipulation and deceipt: you don't expect it from your brother

Hello virtual friends, I have just paused to say hello as I have been a bit distant lately from my blog (might not be reflected in the number of posts by us). I've had another really busy week. I'm starting to realise my work is never actually going to ease off; there is always going to be more to do than I have time to fit in. It stresses me out. I feel it may build up to a great big mountain of jobs not done and then I'll get fired. I need to draw up a timetable of what I have been doing each day over the last few months and a list of all the things I still need to do that haven't been done and take it to management to show that it's not my fault deadlines aren't being met, before they come to me. The problem is: I don't have the time to do that! Ptssh!

I've had a lot to do in the evenings too which is not good because usually I am fit for nothing in the evenings at the best of times. On Thursday, my brother in law asked me and Adam if we would babysit in the evening. I was already knackered after a full day of seeing patients and was just about ready to drive home from work and get into my jammies, but I agreed as babysitting just involves watching TV while the baby sleeps, so I thought it wouldn't be too bad. WRONG! 

It turned out that he obviously just blatantly lied to us to get us to come over as when we arrived we realised he actually wanted us to help them move house! I was so angry. I was really physically exhausted and the last thing I had the energy for was packing and moving furniture. He started delegating jobs as soon as we got there. I hadn't even eaten any dinner yet and we weren't offered anything. Eventually I had to just bite the bullet and say that I needed to get some food immediately, so Adam went off to the Chinese to get us some food which his brother managed to subtly express was inconvenient for him because there was so much to do. What added to my fury was that I had made it clear that I needed to leave at 9pm as I had my own things to do (the things included a whole lot of shaving for a hospital appointment the next day and getting an early night). 

At 10pm we were still helping (well by this stage I was lying on the floor because I was too physically exhausted to help anymore and 'on the floor' because the sofa had been moved out) when Adams brother came up to me to acknowledge that I'd said I needed to get away but to ask if I minded if they continue to move furniture. I said: “well I have things I need to do” and he just re-emphasized that he wanted to get the furniture moved. I felt so awkward. I hate confrontations and I had already made it clear at the start that I needed to get home no later than nine. If it wasn't bad enough that he had completely manipulated us into helping them move, he was now completely disrespecting my wishes. I didn't know what to say. Obviously he wanted me to say that I didn't mind, but I did mind. So I said: “I'll leave it up to Adam” hoping that Adam would have more balls than I did to tell him we needed to go, but he came back with: “Well Adam doesn't mind staying but he said you wanted to get away to do some things.” He then had the cheek to ask me outright exactly what it was I needed to do! 

Sorry, but is it just me that finds all of this really rude, inappropriate, disrespectful and manipulative? Am I overreacting? You don't ask someone if they can babysit when you actually mean 'can you help us move house?'! The only reason I can think of as to why he did that is because he knew that we wouldn't have come if we'd known what we were in for. 

It was so embarrassing for me to have to eventually refuse to help because I was so tired. Generally I just try to get on with things but with the way I have been feeling in recent months, often I don't actually have any physical energy left to move. I am actually going to the doctors on Monday about the problem as I've been starting to realise how bad it really is. I'm worried I might have a bit of chronic fatigue. 

I can't stop feeling really annoyed with Adam's brother and I wish I had had the confidence to say so to his face on Thursday. I'm wondering now if I should contact him by email to explain how difficult it was for me and that he can't do things like that in future. I know that he WILL do things like that again. I know why he does it; his mother (my mother in law) is exactly the same. She deceives people and manipulates them in the nicest ways possible in order to get what she wants. It pisses me off because Adam's brother gets angry with her for doing it to him yet he is exactly the same. 

So I don't know if I'll confront (or email, less confrontational) Adam's brother or not. I know Adam won't want me to, but yet I feel in not doing anything, it's letting others take advantage and giving them permission to do it again. People who want to control, need to know their boundaries. 

Any opinions welcome...