Dani said 10 years ago:

I’m a teenager (don’t hate on me I’m allowed to be on here) and my mom does not have a good relationship with her sisters.
Her sisters are both b*tches, in my opinion, but I always try to consider the problems in their point of view. It still seems like its their fault.
Basically, my aunt… lets call her Lisa, got a divorce. Her and my mom had a big argument about it (cause Lisa was saying that he was the problem but it was her) and they stopped talking. That was almost three years ago.
Flash forward to Christmas 2012. Both of my aunts had some crazy bipolar problems and they both got in fights with my mom and grandma. I would explain, but it’s a long story, and it doesn’t sound as horrible in writing. I don’t think you could understand how terrible they are. Especially Lisa. Her fight with my mom was awful.
My mom was trying to be calm and stuff, but Lisa threw a (toy) rifle at her. It just missed the china cabinet and crashed to the ground. She kept screaming at my mom, “YOU WILL BURN IN HELL!” and when my granny tried to step in, she just yelled at my granny. It was terrible, and its been a year and a half. I still remember it like it was yesterday. I was 12.
I’m 14 now and I haven’t spoken to either aunt or any of my cousins on that side of the family since. I always cry when I think about it. I can never have a normal relationship with any of them. I hate them, but I love them. That’s what’s so upsetting.
The day of my mom’s fight with Lisa, I planned to kill myself cause I felt like it was all my fault.
Obviously, I didn’t do it, but I still get upset. I also still believe it was my fault, no matter how many times my mom tells me it wasn’t.
Sorry this was so long, it’s just something I wanted to talk about.
As a matter of fact, I’m the admin of this group and this topic is the main reason I started it. We needed a good venting group. So, welcome! :p

Humanist Hope said 10 years ago:

Firstly, Miss.

You don’t have to justify or defend yourself. (I can be here too.) Everyone is at BlahTherapy for the same reason, and BlahTherapy is not an adult or teen site. Everyone is welcome.

Secondly, there is already a venting group called “Vent It”.

But on to your topic, WOW.

My mother and all of her female siblings are bipolar, so I am well versed in living in a family where a silent mood swing can cause a year-long blood feud.

What is important for you is to put everything into context and disconnect those events from yourself. You were not their cause, and associating a problem between your aunts and grandmother to yourself is likely the very same kind of irrational thinking that causes them to fight so venomously.

Your mother and aunts are bipolar. They can go up or down, can be buddies or bitter enemies based on the day’s biology tides. It is wholly unpredictable, and it has nothing to do with you.

Growing up in a broken family, many kids are only aware of what is going on in their own lives, and this self-centralization bleeds over when something like a big fight manages to snag their attention and by default, the young person automatically thinks it has something to do with them.

You have to break that line of thinking within yourself. You cannot simply allow that thought to linger, you have to reject it. It won’t just fade away on its’ own and one day you’re better. You fearfully believed it was your fault, and now you must rationally assert that it was not.

It is said that “Passion rules reason, for better or worse.”, but it is also said that “The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason.” Think: the lingering thought that the events of that night were your fault has caused you no end of stress and anxiety. A person will believe an untruth for one of two reasons: either they want it to be true or because they are afraid that it is true.

So ask yourself, which is it for you? Were you so afraid that it was your fault that you just instinctively accepted it in a fit of fear? Or do you somehow want that fight to be your fault?

You know that the events of that night upset you. You know that you want to let it go. The decisions are to either hold on to the old emotions that hurt you, or to improve your quality of life and let them go.

“Life is the future, not the past.” Choose to live for the future, let go of the anchors of the past. There is literally nothing you can do to change them, so to continue the metaphor of anchors and water, why let the slowly rising tides of time drown you?