SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
First, I’ll just say this: How you feel is valid.
Secondly: I can’t diagnose people because I’m not a doctor. It’s also the internet any mental health professional would know how unprofessional and as such they wouldn’t be diagnosing online based your version of events instead of hearing your aunts as well. If you went to some joint therapy sessions, the way she acts could likely get a diagnosed disorder and the therapist would be a lot better in figuring out what the issues are with your aunt.
Thirdly, everybody deals with grief differently, and while from your end it seems narcissistic, a therapist might connect her behavior to how she was raised. It might be that the way she was raised makes her think these kind of things are “normal.” That’s how generational trauma works, and some people never have enough self reflection to get past it and keep dumping the generational trauma down on people like yourself.
I guess I am saying that she may be broken mentally and emotionally, and she will struggle to change without good therapy. It doesn’t and shouldn’t invalidate your feelings about her and how the death of your father was dismissed with cruelty. It’s just, if she’s fucked up like that, that may really just be how she was raised and is dragging up her pain and trauma, and then dumping it on you.
You can force her to get help, but what can do is do your best to minimize contact with her, because you clearly don’t have the same values as she does.
I’m with you thinking that behavior is terrible, but I also try to remember that other people are always dealing with their own shit. It’s like being cut off in traffic from asshole driving aggressively. I can’t and shouldn’t make assumptions and say they’re a selfish asshole, even if I feel that. For all I know they’re rushing to the hospital to be with a family member, or any number of things that distract them because of being over-stressed.
So I would be trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, but it also doesn’t mean I have to be their friend and pay attention to what they do. Forgiveness isn’t the same as trust. You hopefully can find it in yourself to forgive your aunt because you recognize their own trauma who made them who they are, but I also hope you find the strength to walk away and cut her off if you need to. Recognizing their trauma and treating them like a human matters, but also your own feelings matter, and so the trauma she is giving you is unacceptable, whatever she has been through.
I may be rambling because I’m still recovering from a surgery earlier today, but the TL;DR:
She is very likely broken and it’s a good thing to think about how she became the person she is, but that empathy doesn’t have to extend to forcing yourself to be around someone who won’t deal with her own trauma and instead gives you trauma.
ReanuKeeves@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
I appreciate you putting the time into that message. From what my dad told me, my grandpa wasn’t a very nice person and I knew since I was a kid that my dad was not well adjusted because of it so I’m sure the same goes for his siblings. I have always been patient with them and I guess It’s hard for me to understand why they would want to pass trauma onto me.
My childhood was full of abuse and neglect but I knew I didn’t want to put others through that. So it’s odd to me that someone can experience pain and want to pass it on, knowing how it felt to be hurt. Especially by the people who are supposed to protect and guide you through life. I’m no saint, I just don’t understand why they would hurt me when I have tried to be nothing but cordial with them.
SnotFlickerman@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Oh I hear you on this one. I don’t have the best relationship with my family because of similar behaviors. That’s kind of where I learned the value of forgiveness and the difference between forgiveness and trust.
A lot of the time it isn’t a choice. I don’t get pushed to a wild rage of abusive language very often, but I do occasionally. Both my parents were wildly angry and rude to each other. I didn’t and don’t want to be that person, either, but I can also see that childhood exposure to such loud anger taught little boy Snot this is how you deal with stress, frustration, and anger at selfish disrespectful people. I am in therapy because I want to be more stoic.
Other than that, I learned good things from mother (my dad is a lost cause and always was) and I can see her own brokenness that was given to her by her own parents. She never wanted to teach me through trauma, either, but she accidentally did. She’s cried about her regrets as a parent a lot, but that’s because she genuinely is trying to put the work in to get better herself.
I have cut off my dad because of his selfishness and narcissism. He still doesn’t understand why, I don’t think he’ll ever truly make the effort to understand why. I know he had trauma, too. His whole chest melted from a pot of boiling water all over himself when he was a child, and those scars are still visible to this day. None of the bad things that have happened to him justify his behavior, especially since he won’t make apologies and then turn around and steal something from you when he gets a chance.
The difference between the two is my mother feeling and expressing deep remorse for it, and my father not giving a single shit. My mom still drives me up the wall, but not enough to go no contact because there’s still something good and healthy to salvage from it.
I can give people who feel remorse, who are listening, who want to change the benefit of the doubt. The stubborn selfish jerks can just go if they don’t wish to change.
rikudou@lemmings.world 2 weeks ago
It’s not like it’s intentional, usually. Everyone has a different way of coping with trauma and sadly, one of the brain’s most usual defenses is repeating the same behaviour, because that makes what happened normal - if I do it too, how could it be something bad?
People who do that need a therapy to stop repeating the abusive behaviour, but as with alcoholism, the first step is to admit you have been abused. You would be surprised how many people don’t get past the first step. And that’s how abusive behaviour in people who are not necessarily psychopaths occurs.
As an aside, being a psychopath (not a sociopath, that term doesn’t exist in psychology) is also a defense mechanism, although one on the extreme side of things and it’s generally incurable past a certain age.