Lyme and family dysfunctionality

My family can be considered a poster family with regards to how lyme can destroy a broader family. Both I and wife are lifelong lyme sufferers and we both believe we were infected by our respective moms and even grandmas right from our birth. Going into the history of various family members over the decades of the last century, it is evident to me that my mom and grandma were lyme sufferers when lyme was not on the radar of anyone. On my side of the family, lyme expressed itself with mr. alzheimer doing both of these very intelligent ladies (mom and grandma) in. Leading up to that there were bells palsy, debilitating pains that were then explained as crazy pains in the back with no cause, etc. I am now in the fight of my life making sure that i do not fall victim to that same strain of alzheimers that did my mom and grandma in.

On my wife's side, their lyme made severe mental cases out of her mom and one of her uncles where both at different times were hospitallised for years in mental institutions and were dealt with using practices that were prevalent in the 1950's - lobotomies and electric shock therapies and years of incarceration in mental hospitals. My wife has somehow managed to avoid the worst of these symptoms but somehow, we seem to have passed on the genie of health to both our son and daughter. Both of our offspring are now adults 42 and 39. Both believe that their parents are nuts because we have figured out this lyme genie and are trying to heal ourselves. We have thus been estranged from them for the last 15 years. Any communication originating from their mom or from me they discard as a symptom that their parents are crazy too. But they are not willing to look at themselves in the mirror and even consider that the mental problems can be affecting their ow personalities.

Our son exhibits all kinds of lyme symptoms. He is currently on government assistance as handicapped. He is incapable of holding a full time job and has been unemplayble for the last 15 years. He is currently living way below the poverty line and he has somehow got custody of his 2 sons. Govt gives him assistance with the boys and somehow he is surviving. He has had bartonella rashes. He has phobias. He has a serious eating disorder wherein he has balooned out to a dangerously huge size. And yet from his postings on the net, we see that he still has a very sharp mind on all kinds of topics. He is completely unwilling to look at the possibility that lyme might be the factor that is destroying his life. We fear for his health and for thus for the health of his 2 boys but we are helpless in trying to assist him in any way as at any real contact with him he calls the police on us and that is that. This is a sample of how lyme has destroyed our relationship with our son.

The story with our daughter is not as severe but there is no contact with her either. She has managed to build herself a stable life without parents and she has constructed a mindset that both her parents emotionally abused her when she was a teenager and thus she can never be close to us. Her story of abuse is so off the real history of what happened and now she firmly believes this. She is convinced that mom is crazy and that I am in her mom's control and thus i too am guilty of abusing her because i did nothing to save her from that abuse. I can ask her as loudly as i want - when did you ever complain to me that mom was abusing you - and she does not hear that. She says that you should have seen the abuse. I saw love of a mom to her daughter, a caring concerned loving mom and at the time daughter really appreciated her mom. It seems daughter started creating a paralell history of her life at about 22 years of age. Up to that time mom and her were the best of loving friends and not just mom and daughter. Since that time, things have deteriorated to a point where our daughter is posting hate songs about her mom on the internet that are so disgusting that i shudder at even thinking about that.

And I have to look at myself in this mess. Has the lyme coloured my thinking? Am I sane or has lyme helped itself to my thinking process to a point where i am not rational? Has it affected my wife in a smilar fashion?

Together wife and I are now fighting lyme but we are incapable of having our offspring join us in this battle because of the denial of lyme is a component of the denial of lyme by the medical establishment as a whole.

My family is a victim of this denial of lyme by the powers that be who deny long term lyme exists. It is all so sad and even though I am aware of all of this, i am powerless in really changing anything. All I can now hope for is that at this time, both wife and I can ease our own sufferings with lyme by taking the treatments offered us by our supportive lyme literate naturopath.

I write this on father's day because this is where my thoughts are today, with my kids, and i know that i will not receive any contact from either of them on this day. It is a sad day for me. xfmlg

I am so sorry that it is a sad day for you.

Having lost my only child at the age of 38 to breast cancer, I can tell you this. I had to be the bigger person. I did not agree with many things my adult child thought or did. But I loved and kept many things in my heart.

When she died I held my head high because I loved her with all my heart. We did not believe in the lot of the same things - I raised her alone and taught her to have her own mind, not mine. So, her beliefs were hers. I was proud of her and why she thought the way she did.

Argue? Wow, 2 women (she was only a teen) under the same roof with strong personalities, whew did we fight. I smile thinking of trying to make her think my way, when my job was really to make her think for herself and not be influenced by anyone joe blow that came around.

Parenting can be hard at times, but loving is easy.

My Mom told me a long time ago that "the love for a child is the only love that grows into separation." She is a wise Mom.

Respect. We all want respect. You want it from your children, and your children want it from you.

Pretend you just met them for the first time and be interested in them. Showing a true interest in someone causes them to be interested in you.

They do not have to like you just because you are their parent. Show them reasons to like you. Just be a friend. They are adults and don't need parenting any more and it sounds like they really don't want it.

No lectures on what they should do!!

When my daughter moved out of the house I heard in her voice one day, as I was giving her advice, just shear disgust. I thought about it and we made a deal on that day. I told her I could not stop being her Mom and that being a Mom was advising and telling her what to do. I told her that her job as a child was to be polite to her parent. She should listen to me politely and then do what she wanted to do. I had no right to think my way was superior or perfect. We shook hands on it and looking back, I am so glad that we agreed to this.

I had no unsaid things when my daughter died. I had been me (she let me) and she had been her (I let her).

xfmig,

I am so sorry. I can relate in that my husband has the same kind of relationship with his children. Fathers Day is always bittersweet for him.

I know this is probably hard for her also.

You need to hang onto each other, thats what my husband and I decided this morning. We have each other and though the dreams for our family didn't happen like we wanted, we have a good life in spite of lyme. I hope the same for you.

The realization that I possibly passed this horror on to the man I used to love is about more than I can handle.
Neither of us has the money to get him tested for all the possible tick infections, let alone treated.