Welcome back.....to myself!

It seems that come January every year I rediscover my old blog and then forget about it again for another 12 months. My bad.

So much as happened I wouldn't know where to start to get it all in. But I'll try.

In a nutshell ( I imagine this will be more than a nutshell!), since 2020 things have been getting progressively worse for me, until finally I burnt out in October 2022 and walked from job (a very toxic and bullying environment) I hugely loved the work and my team but it stopped there. I lawyered up and won. Then in November 2023 I had a mental and emotional breakdown. Since then I have been admitting to all the abuse - physical (for the first 14 years of my life from three members of my family - one parent and both siblings), sexual abuse (for 6 years from 3 to 9 from both older brothers), and mental, emotional, verbal and psychological abuse from four members of my family (parents and both siblings) for almost 50 years. From the age of 13 years I had to earn my own  money with six paper rounds and a Friday/Saturday job - to pay my mother rent (my brothers didn't have to do this). From 14 year old I tried to emotionally and mentally remove myself from my family. Mentally, I was pretty successful but not so much emotionally, I believe you need help from others to do that. I didn't have others to help me, no support and nowhere to go.

At 16 years old, I wanted to burn the bridge to my family, but anyone and everyone around me (friends, their parents and teachers) said not to - they stated that things change, people change, change with age, with distance and that relationships change as people get older. They didn't and don't. A big regret I have is that I listened to those people, when I could have spared myself over 35 years of mental, emotional, verbal and psychological abuse. But I can't do anything about that now. I did remove myself further and further away from my family from the years though, from the Midlands (England) mid 90s to the south-east coast, then up to the north in the early 00's. Eventually I moved to New Zealand - where I have been for 14 years.

I made a promise to myself, based on ideas, ideologies people were telling me I should do. They were telling me that these people were 'my family', they should be my 'everything', they were my 'blood' and I should not walk from them. Worst advice ever.

So instead I made the promise to myself, and that promise was to treat my parents in a way they didn't treat me, I would treat them with respect, fairness, courtesy, I would treat them right and do what was right by them, but not at my expense. At 16 years old, I stopped sharing anything about my life, dreams, and ambitions with my family. Never discussed anything with them at all, ever. And decided to keep them at arms length.

To try and make a long story (50 years) shorter (I'm not convinced I can once I get going!) - I managed to go over 20 years with little/no contact with my brothers. I only saw them if they happened by my parents, when I visited or if they happened to skype my parents while I was there. I was never rude of offensive. Just vague, factual and polite. I kept my parents at a distance, I would visit when I was in Europe, for only a few days and would spend those few days with them at their home. I would take them out to eat, spend the few days with them or visiting somewhere for the day with them. But still I discussed nothing about me personally or my life.

In 2020 my father needed his left toe amputated, I knew things would go down here from here. They were in Southern Portugal on their own, in their mid 80s and late 70s. My oldest brother set up a Whatsapp group for the three of us, I live in NZ, one brother in UK and the other in Australia. When exchanging messages about Dad and Mum and their situation and the COVID situation. I mentioned that this will be a downhill slop for our parents and it would get quicker if we didn't plan ahead and foresee things that would happen, we needed to stay one step ahead of the game and make sure we stayed on top of things. I mentioned that something we needed to do was make sure our parents had EPAs in place (Powers of Attorney for both finances and their personal, care and welfare) and their Wills up to date, we also needed to discuss them moving into a smaller place and near to a support network - so either a smaller place in southern Portugal, like in Lagos or back to the UK. 

My eldest brother has the world's largest sense of superiority in the world - he was my father's favourite and was given everything on a diamond studded, golden carpet. They lent him money (which I don't believe he paid back) to 'prove' he had savings in his bank account to enable him to move to Australia. In the UK they had previously paid for his university costs (inc a year in the US), the deposit on his first property and multiple cars. He has been raised (and believes rightly) that I have no value, no worth at all. Nothing I do or say has any value. My existence is not worth acknowledging in any form shape or manner. I simply don't exist, my existence is an insult to life and the world itself. So he ignores me completely, my whole life he has been like this. In his 30s once he started earning the amount of money that equaled what my father retired on, he stated to show nothing but contempt to our parents - 'contempt' is my father's wording not mine. But he, his wife and two boys always travelled to Portugal for the free two week holiday when they wanted free accommodation, according to my dad - they did their own thing over the time period and my parents 'barely saw them', they rarely spent a day with my parents, and never took them out for the day or a meal.

My other brother - my mother's favourite. Is a toxic narcissist, liar and manipulator (pea in a pod with my mother). He, along with my mother have given me the most mental, emotional, verbal and psychological abuse. And here he kicked off - saying I didn't know what I was talking about, I was talking shite, he used the f word and the c word and so the mental, emotional, verbal and psychological abuse picked up again and continued on a daily basis through Whatsapp, with my oldest brother (as always) turning a blind eye to it. This abuse continued until 2023. When I ignored the messages (all the time), they got longer, nastier, sharper, more abusive etc. At one point, friends suggested that I didn't look at the messages, because of how they were getting me down, and it was beginning to affect me mentally and emotionally. They offered to help by reading the messages and if there was something I needed to respond to, they would read out the question and type any answer I needed to respond to. Most the time there wasn't a question and no response was needed. but after only a week, my friends decided they couldn't do this anymore. They felt the messages, although not aimed at them, affected their day and brought them down mentally and they couldn't continue to uphold their offer to help me. They asked how I had coped and dealt with these all those years.....this brother owns three properties, he has never paid tax, he grows and sells marijuana and right up to his late 40s always took envelopes of cash from my mother, even though he didn't need it. My parents paid for over 8 cars for him in his late teens/20s, put him through university and paid the deposit on his first property.

Anyhow - my parents Wills were in place, although they were 20 years old. No EPAs were in place. My dad refused to do anything needed to get him back on his feet, so my September 2020 he was bedridden. I wanted to get home help/nurses in to help them - both my brothers said no. One said no because it 'wasn't needed' and the other said no because he didn't want to spend the money. After a couple of months they realised someone was needed to come in, but they wouldn't pay extra for someone that was a nurse too....although in the end his home help was doing 'nursing' jobs, including have to clean my father's foreskin because he couldn't go to the toilet by himself. At one point my father ended up back in ICU due to lack of drugs after his operation, my brother (mother's favourite) was angry at the hospital and I said to him for a week - he was there at my parents home that whole time dad was getting worse and worse - that mum was given drugs because she rattled them down the phone to me, I told him they were pills and in a plastic bag - he abused me, called me thick and stupid, used the f and c words at me and ignored me. After a week of leaving our dad in an appalling condition, he returned him to hospital by ambulance and had a go at the hospital, who then pointed out to my brother, that our mother was given drugs - which he found by the front door - he and his girlfriend would have walked past this bag multiple times a day over that week period. The pills were exactly as I said they were and even in the blue and red bag I knew my mum used for my dad. He never apologised for the abuse or acknowledged that I was right.

I noticed my mother was struggling and that I felt she had alzheimers - I was ignored by the older one, other than the one comment that dad was the 'issue' and not mum. The other brother again insulted and abused me using the f and c words in the Whatsapp chat. I pointed out that we knew what dad's issue was and that mum was going to be the one that blind-sided us if we weren't careful. Eventually by August/September, Mum had passed out over the steering wheel of the car, passed out in the shower - bruising half her face and knocking out all her front teeth, passed out on the kitchen floor - hitting her head on a hard ground and then evetually she passed out eating lunch on the sofa with the one brother (her favourite).

I take no pride in this. But I was right about everything, every little thing. and my brothers never acknowledged, apologised or anything that went on and what I had said.

By March 2021, the one brother (abuser) did realise and think about what I was saying and eventually moving my parents, between COVID lockdown to the UK and into a care home. By March 2022 my father passed away, he gave up, didn't want to know, he was depressed (first time in his life). The care home pointed out to my brothers that our mother had severe alzheimers and by February 2023 she had passed away, having gone downhill very quickly after dad's passed.

Three hours before my dad passed away I was on a Whatsapp video call to him - he was saying how I had always treated them with respect, I had always been fair and honest with them. I agreed I had. My dad passed and only my mother and carers with him.

At one point during 2020, I had received a particularly abusive and nasty message from my brother telling me that I should quit my life in New Zealand and return to look after MY parents (not ours, but mine).....no such message was aimed at my brother in Australia and it clearly didn't occur to the one sending it in the UK, that he should look after our parents and 'quit his life'.

Because I had walked out of my job on 2 months stress leave in October 2022, I was able to go to the UK for 4 months to spend time with my mother while she died. Neither of my brothers wanted to be anywhere near her as she was dying. She passed away two days before I was due to return to NZ, so I stayed a further 2 weeks to plan and attend her funeral.

In October 2023 I had to return to the UK for the last time, to see my brothers and put my parents ashes to the four winds.

Since 1999 I have repeated begged my parents not to have my eldest brother as Executor on their Wills as he wouldn't be honest or fair. They never listened. And I was right.

After my father died, he declared that there was 'nothing' in my father's estate. My father was the main money earner, and had multiple personal bank accounts and well as a couple of join ones with my mother. He also had shares in his sole name and multiple pensions. He also listed some gifting. My brother decided that those listed for gifting didn't 'deserve the gifts' so he didn't pay them out. I don't know what else happened to my father's assets but they should have fallen to my mother as his survivor.

With my mother's estate - my brother has refused to tell me what assets are there. He never told me that there was a clause in their giving all jewelry to me, and when I mentioned that that was a normal clause of that generation he never acknowledged what I was saying. it took two year before he sent me a copy of the Will, and still he denied me the jewelry, declaring any jewelry/watches were from previous generations and 'not my mother's to give away'. I received only my share on the pension because it had to come from the pension company itself. I received a small amount from my brother but figures don't add up. I got probate from the UK Government, so I know what he claimed was in the estate to the Courts, but played it down because he wanted to avoid inheritance tax. Any personal items of my mother's I would have wanted, I couldn't ask for as I would have been ignored, denied them.

In Commonwealth countries there is no regulatory board or organisation that overseas laymen/private Executors - so unless you have the money and you can lawyer up, there is nothing you can do. So they get away with stealing and fraudulent activity. But brothers have got away with cheating me and abusing their power again.

My advice to you - if you KNOW you are being cheated and you can afford it, lawyer up because a private Executor is personally liable if they don't follow the law.

If you have or are in a toxic family, get out. Burn the bridges. If I had my time again, I would have followed my gut and ended all contact. Don't listen to others. I'm not talking about 'fallings out' here or family 'arguments' or family 'differences', I'm talking abuse (all forms) and neglect.

Since, November 2023 when I had my emotional and mental breakdown, I'm now seeing a therapist. In fact, I'm on my fourth. But that is for another blog. Right now I believe this breakdown has come from the relief that I'm now free from my family, I was right about everything to do with my brothers and their treatment of me - no honestly, no integrity, no respect for our parents. Now I look to rebuild my life.

#ToxicFamily, #FamilyAbuse, #PhysicalAbuse, #SexualAbuse, #MentalAbuse, #EmotionalAbuse, #PsychologicalAbuse, #Wills, #EPAs, #Death, #Estates, #Executors, #Mental health #Freedom