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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nandina" data-source="post: 765930" data-attributes="member: 23742">Oh LMS, this is heartbreaking! What an awful way to discipline a child. Unfortunately, everybody who has kids doesn’t necessarily know how to parent them properly and that was clearly abuse. Often, a parent just reflects what was done to them as a child and the cycle continues. You obviously broke the cycle with your kids, thank goodness.When I was with my cousins we kind of cleared up various issues that we had heard about all our lives, sort of pulled some of the skeletons out of the closet. I told my older male cousin something my father had told me years ago. He said his father beat (not spanked) the two oldest—my father and my female cousin’s father. But not the two younger ones—the male cousin’s father and their sister, the youngest. It isn’t surprising then, that my father and his older brother both became alcoholics whereas the two younger ones led fairly productive and normal lives. What trauma the two older ones must have experienced!The level of drug addiction and alcoholism in my family is astounding. My female cousin just lost her son, her sister lost a son to drug addiction, I lost my son (biologically my nephew) to it and also his father, my half brother. Then there are the cousins who passed too young and whose drug use probably contributed to an early death. There is one child from each of my father’s siblings who fits that description. My brother and sister both struggled with drug addiction as teens, although they both recovered and led normal lives. My remaining half-brother still struggles. My female cousin’s sister still struggles with it as well as the sister’s daughter, who has serious issues and has had her child removed from the home. It just goes on and on.And what I find really unbelievable is that my grandparents and most of that generation of the family were devout Christians who did not drink or dance or do anything that was deemed a sin. But the next two generations were just consumed with addiction. How can this be explained?LMS, you are a survivor. You are strong and capable and have been a great mom. It’s not surprising to me that at some point you had a breakdown. Who wouldn’t under the circumstances?It sounds like your mother is quite narcissistic. What was her background like? Was she abused as a child? I had a very stable upbringing although we were poor. My parents were divorced and my father rarely provided child support. My mother was a proud woman, worked her tail off for years at a job she really didn’t enjoy, would not accept welfare so we did without a lot of things. If I had been raised in my father’s alcoholic home I know it would have been different.I’ll take it! ♥</blockquote>

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