Hey everybody, 

first of all, I'm sorry for this very general questions and please excuse me if I don't put it into the best words, it's my first post here and I don't really know how to order my thoughts. 

There has been a history of different kinds of abuses and mental disorders in my family - connecting these two things leads to the difficult situation that I cannot truly rely on what some family members tell me - unfortunately, some of the stories told take up a big part of my thoughts soooo I'd appreciate some advise if possible :) 

My mother has, as far as I can judge, some kind of post-traumatic/emotional-instability disorder - she admitted that she has seen a therapist when my sisters and I were children just about two years ago, but that's all. My father clearly has aggression problems (i.e. leading to severely harming my mother), but since he has left the family when I was seven seems to have dealt with this a little bit better (although rather difficult to say from the distance, but no other conviction). My mother has been telling me since he has left about how my father was sexually abused by my grandfather with my grandmother knowing and not doing anything. There are some things that I can state as "facts" that support this - my father having confirmed running away from home at age 13 and leaving his parents house at 16, although he was still going to school back than and, from my own observations, a very cold and distant relationship to his parents. The problem is, this story is part of what I'd euphemistically call my mothers "mental abuse scheme" - she did everything to make us afraid of our father and our grandparents, saying my father was just as his parents, including horrific graphical stories about all the sorts of sexual and physical abuses we would have do endure if we would ever go to them, and she would often connect those stories - ironically, I guess - with physical abuse from her side. Now I could go ask my father, but as I obviously have a pretty distance relationship to him that would seem not just inappropriate out of fear that I might trigger something. The only one time I dared to ask him about his childhood was about the running-away-part - he admitted it but was brushing it off and turning away from the topic. I cannot ask my mother, because I would deem my mother an unreliable teller in any way, telling except from the described numerous other definitely false or at least rather unlikely things. And even now, that I would say she doesn't fall in the deep states of suicidal despair/brutal anger/psychotic whatsoevers anymore here behavior and her memories are sometimes simply... odd. 

Or - which is another problem - my memories are odd. But maybe for that another post. 

Thanks for reading thus far and I'm sorry for this immensively long post! 

Do any of you have any idea how to deal with this?