Being ostracized from one half of my family, reviving another

The morning after I spoke to my father, I dialed my step-mom - the one who always called me to wish Happy Birthday, the one who sent me gifts, the one who took me into her family with open arms, when my maternal grandmother insisted (or so the family story goes – each member of the family tells me a different version) to take me in, 11 years old at the time, to go with them to Germany (from Russia, which was big deal at the time). My father's goal was to take me out of my mom’s toxic and poor household, and give me proper education, both social and academic. My parents divorced when I was 4 ½, and I lived with my mom, aunt, little half-sister, cousin, grandma, great grandma, 4 dogs, a rat, and a hedgehog (the exact number and type of animals always varied) – all crammed into one 3 bedroom apartment. Not a healthy environment to live in. And, as I was told my entire life, my mother was crazy, and so I had a genetic predisposition to become crazy as well – my father was going to “bend” me the other way, make a proper human being out of me. Thus I went to Berlin, Germany, to live with him, his new wife (my step-mom), and his daughter – my other little half-sister, 5 years old at the time (I have two - one on mom's side and one on dad's side, they're 1 year apart).

As my step-mom later recalled, I was “weird” – I stole food and hid it under my pillow, I stole letters addressed to her (can’t remember that one – maybe I pretended that they were addressed to me?), I was cold and unemotional, like a wild animal, and I had no social skills. My father, on the first day we arrived in Germany, cornered me and instructed: “You will call her MOTHER.” His look said it all, and I didn’t dare disobey. I loved my step-mother – she cooked me breakfasts, she bought me clothes, she was there, unlike my biological mother, who was never there – my grandmother and great grandmother practically raised me. My mom was always fleeing home, I didn’t yet know why (I do know now, but more on that later).

When I called my step-mother, she was very cold on the phone. I didn’t understand why, I said: “Mom, I called father. I told him.” She said yes, she knows that, because my half-sister, her husband, and my father’s current wife were all there when I called (he's gone through four wives – one before my mother, which he denies, then – my mother, then – my step-mother, and now the fourth wife – all with the same first name). She said what I’m talking about can't be real, and never will be real, and that she is not ready to talk about it, that she loves me, but can only talk to me about good things – like art, books, and the like. So that was that then – my half-sister publicly declared me mad, and now my step-mom – the one whom I called mom, was turning away from me too.

I know I’m not mad, and neither is my biological mother. After having lost contact with her for 4 years, I found her, on my trip back to Russia, in November 2009 – she is not crazy, she is a survivor herself. She has very little touch with reality, and here is why - she slept with her grandfather in the same bed until she was 12, and was beaten till bloody by her mother and grandmother. Yet she survived, without an army of therapists and a supportive husband (like I have), without the luxury of having enough money for food, clothes, or roof over her head, suffering from ADD, bipolar, and a host of other disorders (I think so, based on the books I have read and on my own diagnosis of ADD and PTSD). She was 18 when she married my 35 year old father. There was love, but he also bullied her, tried to make her to suit his needs, told her that women are made to carry water on their backs, demanded sex from her 3 times a day or more, even when she had bladder infection and peed blood. When I was born, she simply didn’t know what to do with me. She was mostly absent from my life, leaving me with grandmas me at home and disappearing for weeks. And yet in the fleeting moments when she showed up, she showed me beauty – by teaching me how to knit when I was 5, cooking me exquisite meals (mild quark with grated dark chocolate on top - instead of chicken and potatoes to make me full, although it tasted heavenly), and drawing with me. If not for this appreciation of beauty, I think I would have never had the will to survive, to be as stubborn as I am, to persevere.

Neither of my mothers protected me from my father, and I was mad at both of them for that, but I forgive them both. And I love them both, no matter how different they are. I just wish my step-mother wouldn’t push me away like she did – but my biological mom calls me every three days to see how I am, and I have never had that in my life before. The scale has shifted, while one half of the family has ostracized me - the other suddenly loves me. Well, it always has - I just never saw it.

Love can heal anything.

Comments

[John]

Your posts bring tears to my eyes. My intellectual understanding of your situation is trumped by my emotional response. Soldier on. Feel the love of the portion of your family who supports you and the family of your real friends who believe in you and support you because they love you and choose you.