Where do I even begin?

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1

Hello. I am not really sure where to begin so I guess I’ll just try to say what I need to. First a little back story.

This past year has been really rough for me. Earlier this year I moved out to Mississippi with a friend to try to chase my passion for doing Zumba. There were opening a herbal life shop witch I was all for and very happy for them. Well a few months after my brothers wife made a comment on my friends Facebook post that was basically trashing my friends. Well my friend though I asked her to do that and it created this rift between us and got to the point I had to leave. I ended up loosing my best friend because of my brothers stupid wife!
So after that I had the choice to go back home or go stay with family in Florida. I decided to go stay in Florida because who wouldn’t love to live there right? So I stayed with my brother at his house for awhile and then my mom moved out with me. Again after a few months of living there my brother wife started to talk shit about my mom. Well it got to the point where my mom was questioning if she is a good parent and a good person so i snapped and chewed her ass out and the worst part was my mother’s own son didn’t even say or do anything. And his ex wife before did the same thing where I never got to see my nieces and nephews and now it happened all over again I won’t be able to see my little nephew or niece grow up because my brother wife is so selfish!! I want to forgive her but how do you forgive someone for coming after your family!
So I moved back home and ever since then I have been a person I do not like but I don’t know how to change or have the want to change even though I don’t like what I’ve become. I just can’t seem to do anything right and just feel like such a disappointment especially to my parents. And last night my depression was the worst it’s ever been and it scares me. It just seems to be one bad after another and I just want it to stop.
I guess it’s all just catching up to me and I just am not sure how to handle it

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Septic_Ang,

Gosh, it’s so brutal to feel like so much of your pain can be traced back to one person doing you wrong over and over and over…dividing you from friends, from family, from your nieces and nephews, from your brother, from your mom…it’s got to be so hard to keep from feeling this hatred bellow up within you and overtake you…it’s got to be so hard to not feel so powerless and so helpless and at the same time feel like there’s got to be something you can do to pay her back, get revenge, or at least fantasize about it…and then to feel like your life was on the up and up and now it’s crashed all the way back down to being a person you don’t want to be…sheesh, that sucks, friend…hard to even know how to untangle these past couple seasons of your life…hard to figure out what parts you’re responsible for, what parts you can still repair, what parts you just have to give up on, what parts you want to give up on…IDK it feels like a tangled mess, and you don’t know what to do about it…and I’m really sorry you’re in that place, friend.

Thank you for sharing here so you don’t have to carry it all alone.

-Nate

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Hey. I’m so sorry that you’ve lost your friends and a good job because of your SIL. It sounds like you have a few loose ends to tie up because of her. I can understand why you’d be angry with her, for multiple reasons.

It hurts to lose your friends, not only because you had a connection with them, but in cases like this, because they also believed that you did something horrible, and how could they even begin to believe something like that? It hurts that a friend would believe it. It hurts like heck.

Your brother… Have you tried to talk to your brother about how you feel? About how your SIL treats people, especially your mom? If she’s treating your mom that way, she’s more than likely treating others that way. Maybe he doesn’t see it the way you see it. Or maybe he sees that he still has to live with your SIL and doesn’t want to cause a rift between the two of them. Maybe there’s other stresses in their life that you don’t know about and it’s overflowing to the immediate family. If that is the case, I’m not saying it excuses him for not defending your mother, but sometimes people don’t say things they should because of situations they are already in or they know they’ll find themselves in in the aftermath.

Have you tried talking to your sister in law? I know you were talking to her when the situations were happening, but what about now that you’re several months out of it? Maybe she’d be more willing to listen, to see that she was (and still is) hurting the people around her. Or maybe she’s set in her ways and there is no reasoning with her. (You don’t have to answer any of these questions here, these are just things I wonder as I read your post.)

It probably feels like you’re losing your brother in addition to your friends and your nieces/nephews, and in that case, it’s no wonder that you’re feeling more depressed. It’s hard to lose one person, but to feel like you’re losing multiple people is… well, there’s no good words for it. Heartbreaking is the simplest and best, I think.

As to forgiving your SIL, it will make you feel better in the long term, but you have no obligation to forgive her. And honestly, I don’t think there is any one good way of making peace with what she’s done. The only thing that has ever helped me come to peace is time. Occasionally knowing I did everything in my power to make the situation right has brought me peace of mind. Maybe you need to give yourself more time to heal. A therapist or counselor would be able to give you tools to help you forgive her or move past what she’s done.

I know you said you feel like a disappointment, but it’s not your fault that you’re in this situation. It’s an after effect of something that happened to you, and it happened for no obvious reason, which adds confusion to the mix. I think you should be proud of yourself for defending your mother and being her warrior. You had the guts to stick up for her when others didn’t.

Your feelings on what your SIL did, and your feelings on how your friend and brother reacted to it, are valid. I hope you can find a way to help yourself start feeling better.

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Thank you for your words Daisy. As far as talking to my SIL I’m just to afraid that I am going to say something that I will regret and makes things worse. I have wanted to talk to my brother but the same thing I’m to scared that his wife is going to come between us some how like she always does. And as far as counseling I’ve always hated the idea of talking to a stranger about my problems but do realize that they will be able to give me an un biased opinion

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Thank you for your words Nate. It’s took a lot to post as I am not good at expressing how I feel and afraid I am going to be judged even though I know that isn’t the case here!

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