Hahaha, thank you for your thoughts Bop, I am thinking about them before I respond fully. I'm not sure why I find it funny, it's not really, just that I was expecting people to think I was a bitch! I think it is really kind that you have tried to make me feel you are 'on my side'. It feels like something I always wanted. I wish someone would have been on my side back when I was the child being bullied. You have made me feel a bit comforted, so thank you as that is quite a big thing for me.

I was thinking that maybe what happened could push me into the next stage of my processing of everything and that would be something good to come out of it.

I feel a bit reassured that someone else could be friends with someone for years before they suddenly think there are things about the friendship they aren't happy with. The fact that we had been close friends such a long time and I had never really felt the negative things I felt til recently was making me doubt my judgement.

Sorry have been so quiet for quite a while now. Have been trying very hard to get to grips with my rage, and also trying very hard to get to sleep earlier, which has made getting on here problematic. Am still reading posts though and rooting for you all. Re the friends thing - I've been in that situation a lot, where the power balance is completely unequal - no surprise when you grow up in a family where the power balance is so utterly skewed - and it's still not fully resolved, but I'm a lot more aware of what's going on these days. I had one friend who was in my life for years and years and years and once I realised that I was unhappy with the way she treated me on some occasions, I started trying to raise it with her, thinking she would want to communicate and improve our relationship blah blah blah. EXACTLY the same thing I tried to do with my parents and brother, proceeding from exactly the same flawed reasoning - ie that these people fundamentally care about me and it's just a mistake or a misunderstanding that they keep treating me like crap. Guess what, every time I tried to bring something up with her, she got really angry and turned it all against me, and the unvoiced subtext was that I'd better be careful or she would abandon me. She always talked as if the way she thought about things was the ONLY valid way of seeing things at all, and I was committing a serious infraction of the rules by daring to want to have a viewpoint of my own. She decided what friendship meant to her, and therefore that was what friendship meant universally, no discussion allowed.

Obviously the only way you'd put up with that is if you felt very, very powerless, and I did, so I buried it all for a long time - she was one of the very few friends I had, and certainly almost the only one who'd been my "friend" for that long, and she was so "normal" and successful compared to me that I was probably grateful that someone like that wanted to have me in her life, I probably always hoped that proximity to her might rub off some of her success on me! Of course it was completely the opposite, it just highlighted the appalling, glaring differences in our lives, and she never, ever really took seriously the struggle I was going through to try and emerge from the pit I'd been thrown into.

It came to a head for me when I had my miscarriage after the first IVF - I realised that I didn't want to share any of this information with her at all, that I didn't trust her to be genuinely caring or sensitive, that I didn't trust her full stop. I knew without a doubt that she wouldn't say or do anything that would make me feel any better or feel understood, and that she would almost certainly say things that would make me feel worse, while appearing to be sympathetic and "good" (a knack she had). She had witnessed my struggles and my pain for long enough without ever acknowledging either the severity of the issues I was facing or the courage I had in trying to tackle them; she was another one of those people who offered me conditional friendship - I was allowed to be her friend as long as I showed only the sides of me that she liked, and abided by her rules, but she was never, ever, ever remotely interested in knowing the "real me".

StartAfresh, we've both talked about this before I know, this thing where people only "love" the you they want you to be, not the you you are. Anyway, to cut a long story short(!), I had also been thinking for some time that there was not much point in being friends with someone for 20+ years if after all that time there was still no real trust or intimacy, so my miscarriage was just the catalyst it took to finally act on my feelings and cut her out of my life. And I'm still very glad I did, very glad indeed. I couldn't actually tell her why - I didn't have the strength at the time, and more importantly, I knew she wouldn't actually listen to me anyway, so I just stopped answering her calls/texts/emails, and while for a time I regretted never having the chance to vent my anger at her for the way she'd treated me for all those years, now I just don't care and I'm just glad she's not in my life. It felt like the worm turning in a way - all those years she'd never thought I would be the one to abandon her, seeing she always had the upper hand in the power imbalance, and it gives me some satisfaction that in fact I did. My therapist always referred to her as "punishing" when I told her about the way she behaved to me, and that's very accurate - she was very judgemental, quite hard and rigid and controlling, and those are the kinds of people I sincerely want to avoid in my life now.

Anyway, so partly what I'm saying is to you, OSAHM - is this person really someone you want in your life? Does she make you feel valued? Does she like you, the real you? And what the hell is so wrong with defending your son from being bullied anyway? And why wasn't she intervening? Do you like her, the real her? If she has been upsetting you for so long, is she maybe not the nicest person to be around? You asked if your anger was apporpriate, well IMO of course it links back to your childhood situation, everything does, but that doesn't mean you don't have the right to get angry about things that are genuinely happening in the present! In fact it could be very healing for you to have actually got angry with someone who was allowing your son (and by proxy, you) to be bullied:it's like standing up for him and for your childhood self at the same time. I don't think you have anything to apologise for. Maybe in some ways you finally had a healthy reacion to her and her behaviour - you couldn't contain it any more, and you let rip, and so yes, all the other stuff came out too - well, good for you! About time someone stood up for you and if no one else is going to do it then who better than you yourself!

OK, I don't know if things are really that cut and dried, but all I want to say is - is her "friendship" really such a loss?

OK, really got to go now - don't know when I'll make it back on, but love to all.

Thank you WTSAfresh. I recognise that you are right about people treating me a certain way because they think it is ok, or they think they can get away with it, because I don't complain. And then when I do complain, because they had thought I didn't mind, they are shocked and upset. I recognise it because it has happened to me before. You probably won't remember but I have written about it on here ages back, when I had an outburst at a work colleague who hadn't realised until then that his behaviour was affecting me so much.

People have done things to me, all through my life, because they can, because I've been too weak to stand up for myself.

My friend is not really bad like some of the people from my past life though. I don't think she even thought she was doing anything bad. I get the impression that she thought that if someone valued her enough, they would let her get away with any faults and fully accept her by doing this. Pointing out what I see as her faults, seems to be to her, like saying - you are not important enough to me for me to forgive you for being imperfect.

I can understand her reasoning. But, if her faults started to make her treat me in ways that made me unhappy, surely I am allowed to say something?

She has said to me before, when we were talking about how people often take their negative feelings out on those closest to them, who they trust the most, that she has often treated her mother badly by talking to her nastily because she knows that her mother will not reject her for it. In other words she has done it because she can. This is what makes me think that she sees people letting her get away with her treating them imperfectly as proof that they value her.

She has also talked about her father being quite bad tempered and talking to her mother quite nastily and her mother putting up with it for years and years, sometimes thinking about leaving, but never going through with it.

I know that I need to learn how to be assertive with boundaries from the outset in relationships. It worries me that if I've got to this age without being able to do it, will I ever be able to do it? I feel I will get scared next time a situation arises and I will chicken out of standing up for myself. It is making me think about avoiding close friendships in the future, which I know is probably not the healthiest way to think.

I think I better read a book on it. Does anyone have any recommendations?

OSAHM, it sounds difficult. If your 'friend' has been 'snappy' with you a number of times, and you have not said anything, it sounds to me as if you have been unable/unwilling to set some boundaries in the relationship from early on. So perhaps your friend sensed that she could behave quite badly with you and you wouldn't say anything. So then she was very surprised and shocked when you did eventually 'explode' at her and all your past grievances came out, grievances that she might have thought she had already 'got away' with.

Without knowing your friend myself, I get the impression from what you have said that it may be hard to salvage the relationship. But I wouldn't give up all hope, leave it for a while and give yourselves both time to calm down and take a step back and perhaps in time, you might be able to re-open the lines of communication. That is if you really wnat to.

I realised i didn't want to even try and re-establish the friendship i had had with the mum friend at my DD's school where her son got overly attached to my DD and we ended up having a major falling out over it all. Looking back now, i realise perhaps i should never have got so close to her so quickly in the first place and also not allowed our respective DC's to get so close too. In effect, I should have set some boundaries in place from the start and taken the relationship far more slowly, but at that time I had no idea how to do that and just went headlong into the relationship witrhout any idea of the possible pitfalls as I was so pleased to have made a 'friend' at last.

I have really come to look at all relationships, including those with female friends, just like those with men. All the same rules and bits of advice apply. ie take it slowly, don't appear too keen or desperate, get to know each othersd first, set boundaries as to what is and is not acceptable behaviour early on, lots of open and honest communication etc etc.

I find that I do more 'observing' now before I get close to anybody and by doing that I have often spotted behaviour that I don't like and if at first i might have thought that person might be a potential friend, i then hold back a bit until i know her a bit better before investing any more in the friendship. It's very early days yet, but I think for me, the cautious approach is crucial to avoid being hurt and disappointed over and over again and also for me to have realistic expecations about what i can hope to gain from the relationship. I wonder whether i am perhaps too cautious and hold back too much and therefore stop people getting close to me who might turn out to be good friends. But I am also far more patient than i was before and feel i am willing to wait and take the relationship very slowly and if it is meant to be then it will work out. It sounds so much like one would describe a 'romantic' relationship with a man, but it is to me, kind of the same, trying to find and make close female friends who will be longterm friends hopefully.

I'm sure none of that is really of any help to you but i just wanted you to know that i have had similar experiences and i suppose i have learnt something from them, perhaps I am learning things now i would have learnt a long time ago had i had 'normal' parents.

I had a situation where a friend's son was being aggressive towards mine, upstairs with the other children, out of adults' sight. He had been 'told on' several times by different children and then really made my son cry by jumping on him (the older kids said). After that, when I heard my son cry again, I got cross and had an outburst as I felt that the same boy kept being aggressive and his mother did nothing and acted like nothing was happening.

I am angry with her but I'm also angry because it reminds me of being upstairs as a child, being bullied by my brother or abused by my grandfather, out of sight of my parents, who acted like nothing was happening, even when I told them. I can't let my son feel that I will let bad things happen to him and nobody will do anything about it. I had tried to not be sensitive to this sort of thing, with the same child being aggressive over time, because I knew I might feel it more than I should because of my issues. This is one reason, as well as fear of making people angry, that I hadn't said anything before. It seemed worse though on this occassion and my feelings burst out.

After this outburst, everything that ever upset me about my friend seemed to come pouring out - and yes, I know people say you shouldn't bring up all your past grievances in an argument. And also I did it by text and letter - yes I know that is cowardly.

It is easy for me to find links between all the things I told her about that upset me and stuff from my past, but I won't go on about it all now. The thing that confuses me is, how much of the anger is towards my friend and how much is about the past. If lots of it is about the past does that mean I shouldn't feel angry with her at all? Does the fact that I have issues that relate to the things I got upset about mean that I'm not allowed to be angry with her in the present? Does it mean that none of it is her fault and anyone who triggers my issues should 'get away with' it because I can't judge how much they were in the wrong and how much it is just my issues being triggered?

I have apologised to her several times for overreacting but should I have to keep apologising (she isn't 'forgiving' me so far)?

She knows a lot about my life and I tried to explain in the letter how the thing with the boys fighting triggered my issues. She would be able to see that as she always seemed to understand me well when I've talked about things. She also knew that I was having a bit of a bad patch with some new 'developments' in my family which had really mixed me up and were making me feel sick with worry. I was feeling stressed and under pressure and she knew all about this. I feel she should be able to understand why I reacted the way I did and should be able to forgive me. She had accused me in a letter (before my letter) of not valuing our friendship but I feel she doesn't value it because she has 'ended' it.

Maybe just because I was going through some stuff doesn't mean I can 'take it out on' her, but she has snapped at me before, quite horribly on one occasion, and Therapist thinks that I should see that occasion as understandable and not be cross with her about it because I know she was worrying about some other things at the time.

...but then again, she didn't bring up everything that had ever annoyed her about me. But when she had a go at me for getting arsey about the original thing - the boys fighting - it reminded me of how she gets snappy when she is under stress and I've always let her off for it, but it seemed I wasn't allowed to do the same. And accusing me of not valuing the friendship wound me up even further as the letter had an 'ending the friendship' feel about it which meant she was the one not valuing it enough to talk about things and try to resolve them.

I was feeling that she was really saying - if you value our friendship you will let me treat you however the hell I like without complaining. That made me start thinking about whether I had been a mug all this time and whether there were other things I just 'let her get away with' because of my fear of complaining - and the things my mind came up with, I wrote in my letter. Now it seems it was too much and there is no going back from this. It was too much like a long list of criticisms.

I think I reacted even more to her letter, by writing a more 'venomous' one back, than I did to the original incident about the boys fighting.

OSAHM, unfortunately it's very hard for us to know how to correctly deal with our emotions in the moment as it is something we did not grow up doing.

I remember not long ago I had been thinking a lot about things DH had said and done which had hurt/angered me but I said nothing at the time. I remember feeling a huge surge of anger in me and I knew it was my buried anger from the past. It was just luck that I had the house to myself that afternoon when my anger struck and I got out my baseball bat (which i hadn't used in a long time) and went to DH's office and got one his favourite things (nothing expsensive!) and smashed it to bits! And it felt sooooo good to do that. To be able to just let my anger out and at the right person and in a way that did not harm anyone.

I can understand you feeling scared to be angry as I would not have actually faced DH himself with my anger. Can you work out clearly in your mind who you are angry at and why and then when you really feel the anger inside you (I feel it like a force/immense energy) find a 'safe' way of releasing it? Who do you feel angry at? And why? What did that person say/do to hurt/upset/betray you? You don't have to answer, but just thinking about these things might help clarify things in your mind.

I have had a strange time recently. I have had a lot of talks with DH about things he/his parents have said/done in the past which have hurt me deeply. There are a couple of incidents where I felt so betrayed by DH, i felt he had been so disloyal, I felt i had been blamed for things which weren't my fault without him being willing to listen to my side of the story and siding with his mother and another time where I felt he and his mother and father had colluded to do things behind my back. And I honestly don't know whether I am/was overreacting to these incidents which would indicate that they are in fact causing suppressed childhood emotions to surface where i felt the same sense of betrayal, disloyalty, collusion against me, by my family.

There is no doubt that there were many times as a child when i felt all my family were against me, that they talked about me behind my back and colluded against me, all in their absolute determination to pin all and any blame for anything unpleasant on me. And they would also just tell each other things about themselves and what was going on in their lives, but i would always be the last to know or worse than that, i would rarely be told some family news, i would usually find out completely by accident ie if somebody let something slip by mistake.

As always, at these times as a child, i would 'register' what had happened, how i had been hurt by my family, but i would never actually show or even feel the associated emotions with feeling betrayed, colluded against, and so I suppose it makes perfect sense that the situations with DH and his parents triggered these buried emotions. Perhaps also i had unrealistic expections of DH. That once we were married he would somehow always be on my side no matter what, which is of course one of the important things i had been missing as a child and must have been longing for and craving all my life, and I thought, wrongly i now realise, that DH would fill that void. But of course it was impossible for him to meet a need in me that my parents should have fulfilled and of course i was bound to end up feeling hurt/betrayed and disappointed by him. I should as always, be directing my anger at my parents for never being on my side no matter what and for keeping family 'secrets' from me and encouraging my sisters to do the same and for always blaming me for things; neither of them ever thought about me, about how i would feel to always have the whole family working together against me/seperately from me. In a subtle way it is a different feeling to the loneliness and isolation I also felt, the feeling of having nobody to support you/on your side/be on your team. I was always fighting my battles alone, it was always the rest of the family against me, even if they didn't all always speak out against me, nor did anybody ever take my side either, so the effect was the same.

I realise i must have had my guard up all the time as a child, as i knew there was only me, so i had to be on 24 watch all the time. If i had had somebody i felt was on my side, we could have taken turns and during the other person's shift i would i think have been able to let my guard down and relax a bit and know i was being looked out for/taken care of. But i have never known that feeling, of what it is like to be able to relax and know there is somebody there looking out for you. I realise i still can't fully relax in this way, even now, as i still don't feel confident there is anybody on my side looking out for me, not even DH. I can never ever fully and totally relax. Again perhaps that is why i like being on my own as that is the closest i can get to putting my guard down as i know there is nobody about who can potentially hurt me.

gosh excuse all the typos!!!

So much of what you say I can relate too. The choice business though, that is so hard. I am so up and down with my moods as well. It is so hard to deal with anger i always find myself feeling sorry for the other people. I mean i am angry with mum for never really having an opinion, for sitting ont the fence and fer always talking about hersel yet when i feel anger i find it so hard as she is like this due to her own lack of self esteem. My father is probably a control freek becuase his dad was and used to beat him. My sister is messed up and nasty because of our family divorce and stress we had i beleive she has a personality disorder. So there i go again,. i feel guilty for feeling angry ;(

WTSAfresh, re the stored anger - as well as it coming out as the memories come into our conscious mind, I think there is something else which makes me not realise I am angry. I am scared to be angry. My fear of it makes me in denial of it. I'm scared of feeling angry in case I act angry and that anger makes someone else angry with me. I'm also scared that I will be humiliated for being angry and whoever made me angry will carry on doing what makes me angry even more. This will make me feel I have been weak and ineffectual at standing up for myself. It will also make me feel unimportant - another thing I fear.

This is why I act as though everything is ok all the time even when it isn't. I actually make myself convinced that everything is ok. All the time, anger is building up and I don't even realise. Then when I can't hold it in anymore, an outburst happens in some form and I don't even know I'm doing it until I've done it. It is as though it came from nowhere and surprised me. It has caused a bit of a problem on the few times it has resulted in an outburst. I've recently lost a close friend because of it. I'm so not in tune with my anger. What do I do about it?

sb9, yes your therapist is right, about the fact that we have choices about the way we respond to a given situation where we have no power to change it, but, it is oh so hard to do in reality.

It took me a long, long, long time, and many, many posts on here, where I felt like I was going round and round in circles, saying the same thing over and over again and seemingly ending up back at square 1. ie getting nowhere fast. BUT, in can see now in hindsight that i was slowly, and gradually and painfully, inching my way from being emotionally attached and dependent on my sisters and needing them to fulfill certain unmet needs in me, to being emotionally detached from them, not being dependent on them and no longer needing or wanting them to fulfill some of my needs. I would have to go back and read through my previous posts on this issue to be able to work out how and when things started changing for me. But it was definately a long, painful and drawn out process. However I am there now and can tell you it's most definately worth it, to be free of the terrible feeling of being dependent on somebody else for something you need, where that other person clearly does not care in the slightest whether she gives you what you need, nor indeed whether she actually causes you harm as well.

Something OSAHM said on here came back to me today. Something about her therapist thinking she still had a lot of anger stored up inside her. (Perhaps when she thought she had got all her anger out?) Because I have too. I think I am beginning to realise that as you become consciously aware about things from your past that you were not consciously aware of before, (but these things had always been there and were not 'new'), you can feel a fresh and new wave of anger and the only reason you didn't feel it before was simply because you did not have the conscious awareness before about certain things that you do have now.

I have realised just how much my parents completely believed that I was inherently bad and defective (and that I was born that way) and how they always looked for a completely external source to themselves to find a reason for my 'problems' (be they emotional, behavioural or physical such as illness). Eg. they thought my eczema was food related when it was as I know now, caused by their emotional neglect, abuse and damage; they thought my 'behavioural' problems ie my anger and hostility and unpleasantness towards them were due to those qualities being an inherent part of my character when in fact the cause of my behaviour was their abuse and neglect; they thought my mental problems (depression) was due to an inherent defect in me when it was as i now realise due to them and their abuse and neglect.

I am amazed at how they could so completely fail to even once look at themselves and their behaviour and never wonder whether they had done anything to cause any of my problems. I am angry at how they also made me believe that it was just me, that i was just born 'wrong' or 'defective'. I look at myself now and realise that, like all of us, I was born 'perfect', 'intact' like all babies are, and that any 'defects' or damage that I gradually started showing signs of as i grew older, were entirely caused by my parents. I can see through the huge improvement my skin has shown, how my eczema is gradually disappearing as I process more and more stuff from my past, that I was always inherently 'perfect', 'complete', 'healthy' and that over the years my physical ailments, my behavioural problems, my mental problems, were all simply evidence or symptoms of the damage caused by them.

That is not to say that even the most loving and caring parents do not inadvertently and unintentionally cause damage to their children, but i believe that those sorts of parents are able to look inwards at themselves and know and realise that they have done so. They do not blame their children for their own faults and flaws and failures and believe their children were born with 'problems'. They have the capacity and courage to look to themselves before they look outwards for the cause of any problems and believe that to effect change in others, including their children, they must first change themselves. My parents of course never did this, they complained about the way i behaved towards them as i got older, but never once thought they could be to blame in any way for my hostility towards them. And of course it would never have occurred to them that if they changed their behaviour, that I might start then changing how I responded and reacted to them.

And my sisters are showing themselves to be as 'outward' looking as opposed to inwardly reflective as our parents in their apportioning of blameworthy behaviour, which makes it so much easier for me to keep my distance from them.

The post made me well up too but was so lovely and true so thank you. I have even said to my husband if ever we were to plit and he left for another woman i would never try to stop him seeing our daughter. Yes people should think of the affect they are having on their kids!

On a different note. My therapist is saying we have choices. Again same as wtsafresh I always want my sister etc to 'understand me' and to change things. My therapist says it may not be possible and what do i do? Let it destroy me by carrying on hoping or make to choice to move on. Sound simple doesnt it and i even feel frustrated at my therapist. I mean is this is? Accept the situation with family and live knowing this is it and so i am not depressed anymore? I know there is no magic pill but how on earth do you simply make a choice not to think about the situation etc when it eats you up?

The posts about friendships on here i have to say i have done the same but now i see it am on a different path.x

NanaNina, your post has made me cry and I don't even know why. Your words are so sincere, you seem to 'see' how much we have suffered and how hard it has been for us to rebuild our self confidence and self esteem that was shattered by our parents. Thank you for posting, it means a lot and reinforces what I said in my previous post that not everybody out there is like my parents and sisters, that there are, for want of a better word, good, kind and decent people out there.

OSAHM, fwiw, imo, I think your therapist is probably right about the liklihood that you are projecting your unmet childhood needs onto certain friends and then being so hurt and disappointed when, in your childhood eyes, they let you down. I know I have certainly done that til now and am stil doing it to a degree but with far more awareness meaning that I am hopefully managing my expections more realistically. But it has taken me a long time to get here, so perhaps you are not quite there yet.

I realise that I am also searching and hoping that the next new person I meet will fulfill a motherly/sisterly role in my life. I think the fatherly role I have already projected onto DH and then many times blamed him when he didn't live up to my unrealistic expectations or the child in me felt let down by him. What I have done now is adjusted my expectations and realised that in some ways DH can fulfil a father type role in my life, but he cannot be a father in all ways and at all times to me and somehow by realising this, I feel ok and our relationship is better for it.

I have just read the book Toxic In Laws by Susan Forward, and I wish I had read it years ago. MIL, FIL DH and myself are all in there. DH has agreed to read the book with me so we will be doing that over the next few weeks. He admitted the other day that in order to cope with his mother's constant and hurtful sniping, criticism and barbed comments he has had to develop a 'coat of armour' around himself so he does not feel the pain caused by her vicious tongue. It is such a breakthrough both for him and for us, compared to not that long ago when he wouldn't even admit his mother was tactless never mind vicious and malicious.

It is sad that I also have toxic PIL as there was always the possibility that I could have married somebody with genuinely loving parents, but it was not to be. . Although from what it says in the book, it is quite rare for a person to have completely non-toxic PIL, unless perhaps they have done a lot of work on themselves and sorted out their own childhood issues which I think must be quite rare in mine and DH's parents' generation.

I think and hope the scales are slowly starting to fall from DH's eyes about his parents and that he will gradually start to let go of the illusion of his perfect parents and his perfect childhood. If he can develop even a little bit of awareness about who they really are and about himself, i am sure it will bring us so much closer.

Feel a bit like an intruder and haven't rad all these threads, there are too many but "skimmed" quite a few. I just wanted to say that I think there are some amazing women on here posting about such intimate, sensitive things in your lives. Most of you sound so very articulate and insightful about your difficulties and in this way can reach out to others. I just wish some of the women on MN who post about being in dreadful relationships in which their children are clearly suffering would read some of the things that women like you have endured in the past and how that has affected you through your lifespan. Maybe then they would make different decisions to protect their children while they have the opportunity.

My very sincere good wishes to all of you women out there who are dealing with these situations with such dignity and courage.

I do know what you mean StartFresh, as having a few nice people to see made a massive difference to me. I then started to feel that maybe I wasn't as weird as I thought people saw me as (if they could put up with me), and that made me more confident about talking to more people, which made me feel even better etc.

I can't believe I've been so stupid as to mess it up with one of them. We have both apologised to each other so there is some hope, but not sure what will happen next.

One of the thoughts I had was that some of my other, less deep, friendships would not have the same problems even though I can imagine those people doing similar things. But I have lower expectations of them. I just enjoy doing stuff with them, having a laugh with them and having people to be with. I'm not expecting them to be perfect.

I'm not sure where my thoughts are going with this. I'm just wondering why I gave her a hard time (the woman I've just had the argument with) and not the others. It's like I expected some kind of perfection that I also expect from DH! I'm wondering if I expect too much and fixate on a few individuals who I expect to 'fix everything'. I know I expected DH to 'rescue' me and make everything ok and never do anything even slightly wrong.

I know Therapist would go on about 'projection' and say that I project onto people all the qualities that I want them to have and make myself believe they are the person I want them to be to fulfil various needs. He said it is similar to what happens at the beginning of boy-girl relationships and during the 'honeymoon period', which can be short or long, they think each other is perfect, then in time they start to see how the person really is and that they have faults and imperfections just like anyone does.

It makes me cringe to say this for some reason but I know that I am always searching for someone to be my mother, father or sibling (instead of the ones I had who were 'inadequate'). It just annoys me that everything comes down to all this stuff and I've gone on about it all so much and for so long. I don't want to be so pathetic that I'm using my past as an excuse all the time for my failings and mistakes and for lack of achievement in some areas.

When I first met my birthmother I knew how I wanted her to be and she did not fit this image. Her faults were glaring me in the face (by her strange behaviour towards me) but I would not accept what she was really like for a long time. I couldn't accept that this person who I had wanted for so long was not the person I had imagined. I kept thinking of her the way I wanted to think for a while and found it really difficult letting the truth in and having my fantasy image slowly shattered over time. I do feel I have been a bit unfair to her by being so upset with her for not being exactly how I had imagined. I regret that I have hurt her with different 'rejecting' ways because I couldn't/can't handle everything.

Hello all, me again, just wanted to get some thoughts out of my head. For a long time I have thought that I was a 'loner'; the sort of person who preferred their own company etc. But it has dawned on me (a little late in the day i suppose) that actually I am not a longer, I love company and being around people, it's just that for such a long time, i had unknowingly been surrounding myself with the wrong sort of people. The sort of people who didn't care about me or my feelings or who had no interest in seeing me and getting to know me and appreciating and respecting me for the qualities i possess.

I am beginning to realise, now that I am making more friends with 'healthy' people and i have far more realistic expections from my friendships, that I do like being around people and that there are people who will treat me well and with respect and that my friendships can actually bring me happiness. It sounds so simple and obvious now but for so long so many of my relationships brought me nothing but unhappiness, pain (which i suppressed) and disappointment, it was all i knew. Now i am beginning to experience something different, i am seeing things in a whole new light. It's like I've stepped into a different world, the world where people who were not so badly damaged as i was have been living all this time, from i have been excluded til now. It gives me such a feeling of optimism and hope for my future, that I can be happy, I don't have to live the rest of my life with a certain low level of depression/unhappiness that i was beginning to get used to because even that was better than the severe depression and misery i was feeling not so long ago.

DH finally admitted the other day that his parents did not think I was right for him ie he had made a mistake by marrying me. So I haven't been imagining it all, the sense I always got from his mother that she didn't like me. All the nasty, snidey, remarks and put downs and even worse the cruel and extremely hurtful remarks about my eczema were real and not in my head. I am angry once again at DH as I knew all along I hadn't imagined how nasty his mother had been towards me but he, DH has always tried to make out that it was me, that i was being oversensetive etc, or that his mother didn't mean any harm, that she was just a bit tactless and didn't always think before she said something. When all along he knew I was right, he knew she had been deliberately nasty to me, because he knew his mother didn't like me.

This whole thing just gets worse and worse, the more DH and I speak and the more he opens up. I just don't know what to do anymore. He made me feel so much worse than I did already by his mother's nastiness, by defending her and appearing to be on her side, against me.

I feel like I have had enough. I bought the book 'Toxic in Laws' and was going to read it thinking it might help with the problem i have with MIL, but it turns out DH is the problem once again. He seemed to think that now I was better,(ie not terribly depressed and unable to cope with very much and my eczema is better) his mother would see that I wasn't the awful useless wife to DH that she had thought I was and she would therefore be a bit nicer to me and all of a sudden we would have a great relationship. That i would somehow forgive and forget her nasty, cruel and bitchy behaviour towards me whilst I was ill, because she had now decided i wasn't all bad and would be a bit nicer to me. I don't know which one i hate more, DH or his mother (and father as he was complicit in all of this, like the silent partner whilst his mother was the mouthpiece), as it seemed like it was not only MIL who has disliked me all this time and thought i wasn't good enough for DH, but also DH himself.

When i was ill, things were very difficult for both me and DH. But does that justify MIL to be a complete b*tch to me because i was unable to be a proper wife to DH during that time? I can see she was acting out of concern for her son, but how does being so nasty to me help matters? Did she think i had deliberately got ill and was refusing to get better or something? I just don't understand how somebody can be so nasty to another person. I am so glad I have decided to have no more contact with her, although how this arrangement will work in the long term I don't know.

And DH is totally convinced that every single one of our problems is down to me and he and his issues have played no part at all. But all that has happened is that my problems have been so great and overwhelming that it has appeared that they were causing all our problems, but now I am so much better, I can see that my problems were masking issues that DH has, but he is refusing to see them. But I am just so tired of it all, I do want to start afresh, but on my own, just me and the DC's. It was so nice when DH was away (because he walked out), I felt so free, as if all my burdens had been lifted from my shoulders. Being with him and trying to make our relationship work is such hard work, is it really meant to be this hard?

SC, sorry it is a bit obscure isn't it? It came from something somebody posted years ago. Of course you can join, have you read any of the 5 previous threads?

I've looked at this thread for ages and not quite understood the meaning of 'Stately Home'. I think the penny has dropped and I wondered if I could join you? Please?

OSAHM, I don't know. I think it totally depends on who it was I was talking to. If I felt comfortable with them and had a feeling they understood me and 'got' me, then I feel I could open up. I don't feel that way with the current counsellor, perhaps that's why I didn't talk about it with her? I always thought it was just that i wasn't ready etc, but perhaps it was also partly that i didn't feel i completely trusted her in the sense that she would really understand what i was saying and how badly i was hurt by the things that happened.

What would it take for someone eg Therapist to be able to persuade you to talk about it properly?

OSAHM, I am sure you're right. It's like the most memorable (in a bad way) incident with my dad, I still find it hard to write it down fully on here. I remember reading in a couple of books about feeling 'shame' about things that have happened. And i think that's how i feel and maybe it's why i can't post or even talk about it with my counsellor. I think I feel shame about what happened even though i was the victim and it should be the perpetrator who feels ashamed of his/her behaviour.

Was just reading another very interesting thread about whether bullies were aware of their behaviour and the effect it has on their victim. In my dad's case I think he had NO self awareness. But with MIL i think she does know exactly what she is doing but doesn't care about hurting my feelings. I don't think she ever thinks about other people's feelings, just her own; a classic narcissist.

StartFresh, could the fact that you stop short of describing what actually happened be holding you back from processing it properly?

If you could get past the 'exposed' feeling you get from writing it on here and write it, as fully as you can, describing every aspect of it and how it felt, would it help your brain to put it in order? Also, as you write, be aware if any past events come into your mind, even if you can't see how they are related to it at first?

OSAHM, thank you. I can so relate to your recent post. Being fed up with this never ending process and seeming to always blame everything on my issues and after a while people thinking it's just an excuse. And i thought i was much better as well like you. I know things are improving as my eczema is soooo much better these days and i used that as a sort of indicator as to how i'm doing.

But there is always something else. I felt hugely angry at DS just now. He was whining and being a normal 3 year old but i just felt so angry at him and i am sure he was just triggering me. And i think i have worked out what i am angry about; it's something my MIL did which was just so cruel and nasty and is possibly one of the worst deliberately nasty things anybody has ever done to me in my whole life. I want to write about it but find it hard because it was so hurtful and it's also very hard to get across just how much she hurt me simply by describing the incident. But also i am wondering if even the incident with my MIL is in itself a trigger for things that happened with my dad. I don't want to make her a scapegoat for things my dad did/said. But at the same time she has certainly done/said so many things that make her an abuser in her own right. I am going to tell DH tonight about the incident with her and see what he thinks. At least now he is far more open to accepting that his mother has been very nasty and bullying towards me, he no longer tries to defend her or put a 'spin' on what she has said/done to make it seem innocent/harmless. Even that makes me feel a bit less isolated. I think that has been one of the worst things for me in all of this. Whenever i have told my sisters things about our parents they have defended them and DH used to defend his mother and they all made me feel totally alone, as if there was nobody who believed me or understood me or even simply accepted my story. I suppose that's why Alice Miller talks so much about the importance of talking to an 'enlightened witness' about your experiences as you are unlikely to get the understanding, validation and acceptance you are looking for from those around you which i can see now has been my mistake.

I haven't seen my counsellor for a while. Am going to see her next week but i think i might start looking for another one as i never felt the current one really and truly 'got' me iykwim.

Thanks for the response.

I have decided not to bring up everything in my letter but only more recent events (which are enough in themselves) and to lay out what I want.

Have written letter but want to keep for a week and then reread and possibly rewrite.

Thank you

Recently my therapist said that he thinks I still have a lot of anger in me and I didn't believe him. I thought he just wanted me to keep going and keep paying him. But I've had an argument with a close friend which has made me think he might have been right. The things she did that upset me weren't massive, just a collection of little things. I had a right to say that those things upset me but I should have found a good way to say it which caused minimal upset. Instead, after an initial outburst which 'opened the floodgates' a load of venom came flooding out which was too much for the friendship to recover from. I have now really upset people and feel very ashamed.

I can see clearly how the things that upset me link in with things from the past and how the incidents, even though small, reminded me just a tiny bit of past events, and that was enough to trigger feelings much more intense than the present situation 'required'. I thought I had dealt with it all but I obviously haven't if all these intense feelings are still bursting to get out! I'm so good at denying to myself any angry feelings that I have that I didn't even know I was angry really until it burst out of me.

I have the excuse that there had been new 'developments' wrt my 'problem relative' recently and I was feeling a lot of stress and couldn't withstand much more, then things with my friend upset me on top of this and I went a bit 'insane' I think. Well it's a reason but it doesn't excuse me upsetting people so much.

I feel a bit funny about saying sorry sorry sorry it's all because of my issues and have people think 'you can't blame everything on your issues all the time, you can't hide the fact that you are a bitch behind your 'issues'. But I know deep down that SO MUCH in my life IS affected by my issues and I hate being a 'prisoner' to them like this. I feel pretty pathetic. I thought it was all sorted and I want it sorted, now, and done with. How long does it take fgs! I was feeling so much better, for quite a long time, and this feels like a big setback.

StartFresh, that is what this thread is for, and your therapist - places where you feel less alone because these people have some understanding of the feelings involved in what you have been through.

As you have said, if people have no similar experiences it is hard for them to empathise because they just can't imagine it and feel it with no experience to base this on. In this way it is not really their fault if they don't understand, however frustrating that is.

When I started seeing Therapist I realised that DH just wasn't 'qualified' to help me any more than he had already.

I have realised I have been trying to achieve something impossible with DH. It is very similar to what I was trying to do with my sisters. I was trying to make them understand how I felt about our parents and see things from my pov when it was impossible for them to do this as not only had they not experienced what i had experienced with our parents, they had experienced something completely different and essentially opposite to what I had. So in effect I was asking them to make 2 big leaps, one to put aside their own positive experience with our parents and to replace that with my negative experience and imagine how they would feel if they were me.

In the same way that i simply cannot imagine what it would be like to have had a positive experience with our parents, i realise my sisters simply cannot imagine what it would have been like to have had a completely negative and harmful experience like I did.

And I think I have a similar situation going on with DH. I have had a very nasty negative experience of his mother. And i have been wanting him to see her from my pov. But that means him putting aside his own positive experience of her has a mother and replacing it with my negative experience and it is something he simply cannot do. I have been feeling very hurt at what i have seen as disloyalty to me on his part. As i have told him how awful his mother has been towards me and he has agreed she has been thoughtless and tactless although unsurprisingly he cannot bring himself to also admit she has been deliberately malicious as I know she has.

I remember a while ago my counsellor often saying that I was in a very isolated position and at the time I didn't really understand what she meant. But I know now. I do feel very isolated and alone wrt my experiences of my parents and MIL. Nobody else within my circle has had the same experience as me with these people. And i suppose what i have been trying to do by trying to make my sisters and DH understand and perhaps share my pov about our parents/MIL is so that I no longer feel so isolated or alone in how I feel. I want somebody to understand. But it is impossible for my sisters or DH to understand. I have realised there is no point in trying to make DH see his mother from my pov. But it doesn't mean he is being disloyal or condoning his mother's behaviour.

And once again I know it is yet another consequence of my parent's abuse. By singling me out to neglect and abuse I was always destined to be isolated and alone and this gives me yet another thing to hate them for. God, the list is endless. Alice Miller wasn't wrong when she talked about the endless mourning over losses one has to do; it really does seem endless. Always, just when i think that's it, I have sorted everything out, up pops something else.

And the feeling of isolation and being alone goes with me everywhere. Perhaps that is why i seem to love and crave time on my own. Perhaps it is better to just be alone than with other people and yet still feel alone, being around other people almost magnifies the feeling of isolation and makes it worse. Unless I meet people who have had a similar childhood experience. But even then, i have spoken to people who have been through similar to me, and yet i don't always feel a connection with them as frequently i realise they don't seem to have any real self awareness or insight. They are aware of what they went through as children and often have little or no contact with their parents, but the more we talk the more i realise they haven't actually done the same work on themselves that i have done on myself and that really we do not have as much in common as i first thought. So many people i realise are scared to really face up to the truth about what they went through and to realise the pain they experienced as children, they would rather keep themselves closed off from all of that and unknowingly they pass the same patterns onto their children.

Sorry for rambling on, just thinking out loud/tallking to myself again!

PM, I think you have just taken a huge positive step forward in healing and recovering your self confidence and self esteem. I think you will benefit enormously from having a break from your family. You will give yourself the time and space you need to 'lick your wounds' in a safe, protected place, surrounded only by people who do truly care for you ie your beautiful little family as you have said. And like you said, you are not doing it for revenge, you simply cannot take anymore pain and that is a 'healthy' reason to step away from them for a while. You are starting to look after yourself and it is such an important step to take. Well done for being brave enough to even consider doing it.

Don't worry about replying to other people, just focus on looking after yourself and post whenever you need to.

Thanks everyone for your replies. The Armadillo I truly sympathise with you situation. After my conversation with my mother today I really think it is time for me to take a break.

I had rather misjudged the situation with the presents. Mother does not want to get into my house at all. In fact she wanted to get the gifts dumped, becuase after pressing her a bit I have discovered that my brother is up for a visit this weekend. Nobody was going to tell me. But she quite enjoyed telling me in the end, I could tell from her extra cold tone.She was crowing. She then went on to tell me I should ring her to arrange to see her next week, becuase she would like that. I also have to feel sympathy for my SIL because she has been a bit under the weather.

So not only am I expected to swallow the rejection, I am expected to take my mother out once my brother and his family have gone back home, and feel sorry for my SIL whio has had a cold.

MY Mother is not a mother, is she? SHe does not treat me like a daughter. I am something to be picked up and put down, controlled, manipulated, wounded maligned, gossipped about. All for her benefit.

I cannot ring her next week, it would be lie lying face down in the mud for her. I cannot do this any more. Surely there is a point where I have to draw the line.

This visit has been planned for ages- they posted my little girl's present to me a month ago- when all the while they knew they would be less than 30 mins away on the day after her birthday.

This is not a new thing, this happens all the time. They all used to go out and leave me on my own when I was a child and thye have been doing it ever since.

But I have my family. My beautiful beautiful little family. I am going to turn away from myold family, maybe not for good, but for a long time. It's not to punish them, I just caaanot take any more of their rejection.

I'm sorry not to reply to people, I am just too raw at the moment.

OSAHM, i have thought a bit more about this and think perhaps that 'normal' people simply do not have the high hopes and expectations from friendships that we seem to have. Our, or at least my, unrealistically high hopes i realise stem from the fact that i was so deprived of 'friendships' within my family that i am craving them and whenever a friendship starts forming in adulthood, i put so much into it and expect a lot in return. But i realise now that i put too much into friendships, i put into them what ideally i would normally have put into my relationships with my parents and sisters ie lots of love, care, attention, thought, generosity etc and ideally i would have recieved the same back from them had i been in a 'normal' functional family.

By putting too much into my friendships, i was expecting too much back. It would have not been too much to put into my family relationships i feel, and it would not have been too much to expect a lot back from them, but it is too much when it comes to 'mere' friendships as opposed to family relationships.

Perhaps a normal person's strong and intense feelings of affection and wanting to show care and affection and attention towards another were satisfied in childhood within their family and as an adult they were more 'restrained' in their friendships, ie gave less and expected less and were therefore less exposed to being let down, hurt and upset.

Just thinking out loud, sorry if it doesn't make much sense.

Sorry, forgot to mention that my dad did sort of refer to the instances of abuse and bullying i had mentioned in my letter by saying that he and my mother had no idea how i had been feeling all these years! How the hell did he think i would feel about them after i had been bulllied and abused by him for years on end whilst my mother watched and did nothing?!

TheArmadillo, hello. I think you are doing the right thing for yourself in wanting to take a break from your parents. Given all that you have said, it is certainly the 'healthy' thing to do. How to go about it is another matter and it is something I am struggling with myself wrt my sisters.

You have described how many of us feel, that our families don't really know or even 'see' the real us, know nothing about us or who we really are. We are cardboard cutouts to them, not real people.

Re taking a break, I have sort of done it with my sisters by simply stopping phoning them or contacting them in any way. They sometimes contact me so I will chat on the phone/answer texts but I never initiate the contact. They don't seem particularly bothered or put out by my lack of contact, tbh, I doubt if they have even noticed, they are so wrapped up in themselves, they only ever noticed me when they wanted something from me. I have a visit coming up with them which i am starting to worry about as i don't want to go but feel terribly guilty on behalf of the DC's if we don't go as i am depriving them from seeing their extended family.

I remember now, before i cut my parents off, i desperately felt also that i needed a break from them, their constant phone calls and constant badgering to visit them or for them to visit me. I felt quite desperate at one stage, i just wanted them to leave me alone but didn't know how to tell them. I remember now that i wrote them a letter, i can't even remember exactly what i wrote in it, but i know it was very polite and i asked them to stop phoning etc. The letter did seem to work as they did stop their constant phone calls and pestering for visits (because they wanted to see DD). Would that work for you? I simple, polite letter, not going into detail and trying not to offend them in any way, simply so you can get what you want ie a break from them?

I don't think showing them your post will do any good unfortunately. I wrote a long letter at a later stage to my parents, i think after i had cut them off, giving details like yours really, about why i didn't want them in my life anymore. I suppose i was hoping they would suddenly realise how they had made me feel over the years, feel deeply regretful and remorseful and offer me an unreserved and sincere apology. How wrong I was! I had a letter from my dad trying to make reinstate contact by trying to make me feel sorry for him because he was having health problems. No mention was made of the things i had written in my letter, the instances of verbal, mental and psychological abuse and bullying i had endured since i was 10. And i had a letter from my mother (whom my dad had also verbally abused and bullied for many years) saying how she was sorry that she had not stuck up for herself more!

Needless to say, i did not reinstate contact and I have not heard from them since. They will never change, they are living in their own little delusional world, with my sisters, all playing at being a normal, happy family when it is nothing of the sort.

Why dont you let your mother read this. It might sink in if she sees it written down.

I haven't been here for a while but need to put down some thoughts if you don't mind (sorry that it's so long).

I am thinking of taking a break from my parents for a bit. There are some things that are really bugging me atm - that I can't get past and I need a break.

Some seem really petty but some are bigger but they all seem to affect me the same.

When I was a child every week my parents would buy a family treat. Every bloody week it was lemon merangue (sp?) pie. I hate the stuff so much. At first they used to buy me something else but then they stopped. It was my fault for not likeing what everyone else did. I was deliberately excluding myself from the nice thing they had done. They did this on other stuff but this always sticks out. It seems so petty but really hurt. I always felt like the odd one out and this just highlighted it. And I didn't do it deliberately.

Their house also always was and always is cold - and I meaning freezing. If I go to visit them it takes about 24 hours for me to warm up properly afterwards. When I was a child/teen I didn't sleep because I was so cold. I had electric blanket/hot water bottle/several layers of clothes and all the blankets I could find. In the morning I would have to get up adn take shower. My mum refuses tohave the water more than about luke warm so I would get even colder. The radiator in my room didn't work (though it wouldn't have made much difference) but I was too scared to tell them. I thought it was a psychological thing but ds also freezes there (and he is never cold). It wouldn't have bothered me if they couldn't afford it but they could. My overriding memory of my teenage years is being freezing cold all the time. I had constant chest infections (and am asthmatic) and a frozen neck that still cause me problems.

I had a lot of issues as a child. At senior school I used to have constant panic attacks and be sent home. My parents never bothered to find out why - it was just me being oversensitive and difficult. I used to self harm (cutting) and take overdoses of painkillers but I was just told to stop on one occassion when my mum found out and that 'no daughter of mine is depressed' (dr diagnosed me with depression at 9yo but my mum walked out and changed surgeries). I wouldn't drink liquids (I survived on half a glass of water in an evening) for a couple of years and had problems because i was really dehydrated. I gave up talking for a year (when I was about 11) and my mum never told me till afterwards and how difficult it was for her. I had loads of other issues as well (not wanting to leave house/see anyone/refusing to go to school). None of which was commented on apart from that I was difficult.

When I did finally have counselling at 16 (6 sessions and didn't get on with therapist so no good) I was too terrified to tell my mum and lied as to where I was going.

My mum always told me I was the clever one and my sister was the pretty one who people liked. When she was being really horrible to me about a year ago no matter what I said she would not believe I had any friends. Because (I believe) she can't see anyone wanting to be friends with me. She sees me as very antisocial/introverted and having a strange sense of humour that no one can understand. I do have friends (brilliant supportive ones) though I am shy. I was/am also spiteful, sharp tongued and I scare people so no one wants to talk to me. Anytime I say anything she tells me to stop shouting and being so nasty but won't let me know what I have done. So I don't know what I am doing wrong.

She has rewritten my childhood so now I was the difficult one (my sister has lots of probs and was uncontrollable - previously I was the good one) - I was oversensitive, clingy, antisocial and boring apparently.

I am terrified with everyone that I will say/do the wrong thing without meaning to and they will punish me/cut me off. I have nightmares that my fantastic MIL who I rely on does this to me because I've done something and I don't know what it is. I am used to people suddenly turning and yelling screaming at me for no reason I can understand. I told my aunt once (came up in conversation) that me and my sis weren't that close (we can't stand each other) and my mum tore me to pieces after. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to say it

I am also fed up with being blamed for my sister's behaviour. When I was a child if ever I complained of her being mean or hitting me it was my fault for teaching her the behaviour in the first place so I had no right to complain. BUT WHO TAUGHT ME It's still always my fault if we disagree. I have to walk around eggshells around sis who explodes if she thinks you might be criticising her. And then my mum wonders why we are constantly jealous of each other. And why we have always screamed at each other at full volume when it's all my parents ever did. It was mortifying in public. I hated it so much and still do.

I have never been forgiven for anything I did as a child. It is constantly brought up as evidence of my failings.

I lived with them for 9 months when ds was born. My mum convinced the midwife that I was going to be such a crap mother that the midwife did extra visits till she realised I was coping. My HV used to check everything with my mum before she carried out stuff. My mum tells me I am a terrible parent who is destroying my sons life.

But mum believes my sister is brilliant with kids despite any evidence to the contrary. Sis did horrible things when ds was tiny. The worst being that I used to beg mum that I would call in sick to work when I first went back after ds if she couldn't look after ds herself. But she would promise me she would. Then I would get home and find that sis was looking after him and that she was watching telly in the dark and ds was on the other side of the room screaming his head off while she ignored him. I had no idea how long she had left him like that.

They also treat dp (my partner of 10 years) as no more than a sperm donor. They laugh at him and make fun of him. I hate it. I pull them up on it and it has got better but they just completely disregard him as if he doesn't exist.

I see them once a week atm with ds (5yo). I want to stop this as whatever I do it isn't enough until I leave dp and take ds to live with them (aparently i can carry on 'seeing' dp if I like ). They spend the entire visit ignoring me and going into another room with ds or the short amount of time they do spend with me is spent complaining how they don't see enough of me and ds and how unfair it is me keeping ds from them. Now I tend to visit them on the same day it is set in stone and they hang up on me or sulk if I don't go (cos I'm ill/have other arrangements) - nothing is a good enough reason. My mum's phone calls are building up again so she phones me every couple of days to complain how she hasn't seen me (that's all she talks about) to the point where i hate answering the phone again.

They have no idea what kind of person I really am or what my interests/likes are - even down to the kind of foods I dislike (ones I have never eaten). It's like I am not real to them almost.

I want a break for a while. If I give them a one weekly visit then they are not satisfied until I see them daily and ds stays overnight (which I am not happy to do as last time they had him unsupervised we had problems getting him back again). I can't be dealing with this anymore. We moved house to be further away from them and so they couldn't control us as much but it is all creeping back.

But I don't know how to tell them I need a break.

OSAHM, yes I think what you said here is key "Finding ways to say what I need to say in a 'nice' way might be something to focus on as well." I think it is called a 'win-win' situation. Where you say what you need to say, but without making the other person feel defensive/upset etc and so hopefully they are receptive to your concerns and willing to change in the way you want. I think it is the real meaning of being assertive, ie asserting your own needs/feelings/wishes but not in an agressive/attacking/unpleasant way which is actually very hard when you are feeling emotional and upset and angry because of how the other person has behaved.

It is actually a huge problem for me, particularly with DH. He has always said that when i want something from him (not like eg putting out the rubbish) about which i feel emotional, I always talk to him in a agressive way and he then gets defensive and it turns into a lose-lose situation. I don't get what i want and we end up in a fight. I know i have learnt this behaviour from childhood, it was how things were done in my family. We were never taught how to approach and talk about difficult subjects and feelings in a 'nice' way. So, like with friends, little things would be left and left and eventually the last thing would break the camel's back and there would be an almighty row. I know now that this is a behaviour i need to 'unlearn' but i don't know how and i would dearly love to know how to talk about difficult/emotional things both with friends and DH and most importantly, teach the DC's how to do so as well.

Thank you StartFresh. Your point about feeling you have taken so much shit for so long that now you can't take any at all and feel a 'zero tolerance' thing is particularly interesting. This and some other stuff you said, makes me think maybe it isn't so bad that I didn't say something the first few times I got pissed off and does make me feel this would be how normal people would be.

You must be right about us needing a middle way, but finding where that middle way is, is the hard bit. Maybe talking to other people about how much they will/won't put up with from other people and what they would do in our situations might help.

I can see from writing and reading that a key thing I need to work on is how to not be scared of people's little reactions to me showing negative feelings when I need to. Finding ways to say what I need to say in a 'nice' way might be something to focus on as well.

OSAHM, I absolutely know what you mean about 'idolising' friends and thinking they are a near perfect friend and somehow 'registering' but at the same time ignoring things they have said and done which don't tie in with the perfect friend picture of them that you have painted for yourself. That is exactly what I realise I was doing with a friend I used to have but who i have now not been in contact with for nearly 2 years. Before that we were 'friends' for almost 20 years. Like you have described, i thought she was a 'perfect' friend, i really liked her and thought so highly of her. And yet, over the years she had done many things and said many things which showed me that she didn't think nearly as highly of me as i thought of her. I remember when she said something in that vein, i would be surprised that she clearly thought so little of me to be able say what she did, that even after many years of friendship she didn't actually seem to know me all that well. But I NEVER said anything to her about how she had made me feel, about how she had got me completely wrong on many occasions. And like you have said, one day she said some things which were the straw that broke the camel's back and it is since then that i have decided i don't want any more contact with her. But, I also know that if i hadn't at the time been working on myself and my issues, if i had remained in my previous state of blindness about myself, even her 'last straw' comments would have not caused me to decide i no longer wanted her as a 'friend'.

I can see now that i was willing to accept, at times, being treated quite badly and uncaringly by her, simply because i was so desperately needing and wanting some little morsel of care and affection, which often i did get from her, that i was willing to put up with also being treated quite uncaringly at times. But, by the time that friend made the comments which did end our friendship, i had worked on myself enough and recovered enough self confidence and self esteem to realise that i didn't need that friendship as much as i thought i had needed it and i was able to let it go, without feeling like i couldn't cope without her. And it's not as if i had made lots of other 'replacement' friends so i could let that one go quite easily, because i hadn't. But i had made big changes inside me, and that is the reason i could let her go.

I am not sure what the answer is when you talk about the best way to deal with these situations in the future. ie where you have a 'friend' who is generally 'ok' but then does little hurtful/upsetting things. Do you say something? And risk the 'minor retribution' that you have described? Or do you say nothing and let it build until it completely cracks apart? Neither solution seems acceptable, perhaps there is a third way which we don't know about but which perhaps your therapist will talk about?

From what i have observed, most people seem not to say things to their friends if they have upset/hurt them in some small way. But they will have a moan to other people about it and continue with the friendship. That seems to be ok as long as the other person does not then tell the friend about your 'moans' and cause further problems.

Perhaps it is best to start off the friendship, no matter how wonderful and nice and lovely the other person seems to be, in the knowledge that it is very likely that other person has their own issues and that sooner or later these will be taken out on you, unless the friend has done a huge amount of work on themselves and has sufficient self awareness and insight that they have no need to take out their issues on other people. But those people, i feel, are quite rare indeed.

OSAHM, what you said here, describes so perfectly where i am at right now with various different people in my life "I feel like I've done wrong but I also feel that saying nothing when someone upsets me and acting like everything is ok is doing wrong to myself." I am in this situation with that school mum friend i talked about a while ago where i feel bad because she was a 'friend' to me at a time when i was very down and needed a friend, but then she also said some very nasty things to me over the whole issue with her son's attachment to DD, which i simply could not let go. So now we are no longer friends and i do feel guilty at times as i realise i am at fault as well as i think my issues did play a part in the whole thing, as did her issues. But at the same time i feel like i am making a stand, if i 'let her off' i feel like i would be betraying myself and i cannot do that to myself. Even though it wasn't my fault, i feel i have been letting myself down for so long, by allowing myself to be treated so badly by so many people that i am now almost operating a 'zero tolerance' policy wrt people who i feel treat me badly and disrespectfully. And i know i am being unrealistic and unreasonable about people, but right now that is the way i feel and i can't seem to change it. Perhaps over time, as i 'learn' how to manage my expectations about friends, i will relax a little and allow people a bit of leeway, but at the moment, i can't seem to do that.

But I am learning not to 'fall in love' with a new person who i might meet who i feel might become a good friend. I used to feel an immediate and strong connection with somebody who i might have had 1 or 2 things in common with and like i said, almost 'fall in love' with them. I nearly did that with a mum i met a while ago. It really was a 'falling in love' sort of feeling i had, where i felt i had met somebody who i could possibly be really close to and would perhaps fulfill the mother/sister gap in my life. But i was kind of aware of myself at the same time, i was aware that i was about to fall into the same trap i had fallen into many times before with other people and ended up disappointed and hurt and let down as the other person turned out not to be who i wrongly thought they were or they had not 'fallen in love' with me in the same way i had done with them. It is only like that another person would feel a similar strong attachment to me if they were very needy and looking to fill a gap in their life and it would be a very unhealthy relationship if that were the case.

I know i need to work more on myself and build my self confidence and self esteem so i am not so needy about wanting a mother/sister figure and have realistic expections about what i can gain from a friendship.

Right now I am only a SAHM and a wife. I don't really have any hobbies or interests that I pursue purely for myself and i think that might be a way forward for me. To do some activities and join groups that i am interested in to give myself a stronger sense of identity and self confidence.

OSAHM, your posts make so much sense and describe my own (internal voices) feelings so well.

I absolutely believe that everybody is affected by their childhood in some way. There is a spectrum, where abuse is at one end. I believe there are two sorts of people in this world, those that are aware they have issues and are working on themselves and those that don't know they have got issues. At the moment i am in the first camp and DH is in the second camp. He thinks he had a great childhood and that his parents were almost perfect and within the spectrum it is true to say that his childhood was far more towards the non-abusive end. But that does not mean to say that he does not have unmet childhood needs which he is looking towards others to now fill. I can see how some of his friends fulfill some of his unmet childhood needs and how he looks to me to fulfill other unmet needs. But I think he is forever being disappointed both by me and his friends as of course none of us can fill the void left by his parents; but he is totally unaware of this and genuinely feels it is me who is the problem by being an inadequate and not good enough wife to him.

I know his behaviour and thought process will not change until he gains some self awareness and insight, but at least now, I will no longer keep taking on his baggage as my own and agreeing to carry it for him, as i have been doing until now. I will continue, as i have begun to do recently, draw boundaries in our relationship and make it clear that whilst i accept i have certain duties and responsibilities to him as his wife, i am not willing to take on the responsibilities that his mother failed to fulfill when he was a baby/child.

PM, the sense I get from your posts about your mother is that she will do anything to try and control you and get you to behave as she wants you to. And if you dare (in her eyes) not to allow yourself to be controlled, she throws a 'tantrum' at you. She possibly has deep rooted insecurities of her own and keeping control of you keeps her from confronting her own insecurities. And so she will go to any length to control you. Does any of that make any sense to you at all? Perhaps understanding your mother's behaviour will help you to detach from it and not be so affected by it and also give you the confidence to do things your way without feeling afraid of your mother's reaction? Sorry if i am way off the mark, but didn't want to not help you if my thoughts could help in any way.

Good luck with DD2's birthday Pinky. The situation does sound stressful and it is bad that you have to have this stress when you should be able to focus just on your DD and for you and her to have a happy time together.

Thanks Pinky. I can see why you have the same fear about disagreeing with/complaining to people about their behaviour. What you wrote makes sense. I'm not sure I know why I'm like this. Maybe if I write it will become clearer.

I don't really remember EVER voicing disagreement or complaining about anyone's behaviour towards me as a child. So I don't remember doing this and suffering a consequence that put me off doing it again. From a young age I was too scared to speak out against anyone. I don't know if I was just very shy or if things had already happened to make me like this.

What did happen was I was bullied for the smallest imperfection in my brother's eyes. I walked on eggshells around him and tried to please him. I tried to mirror his moods and agree with his opinions, like what he liked, do the things he approved of, dress the way he would approve of and listen to the music he would approve of. I ignored a lot of my own genuine feelings and focussed on his. I felt I wasn't allowed to be a separate person and I didn't own myself or my life. Some people seemed to treat me in ways they wanted to without caring how I felt (partly because I never showed how I felt probably) and did things that I felt they wouldn't dare to do to a more important person.

Maybe I have got to a point where the pressure of keeping my own feelings to myself in order to protect someone else's has built up so much that it is busting out onto the nearest person (my friend) who has made me feel like I have to put up with something and not speak out because I'm afraid to upset them or afraid of their reaction.

But this is like saying that I am at fault and I haven't yet worked out whether I am or not. If someone has done something that has upset you, is it wrong to tell them it has upset/annoyed you?

Maybe it scares me so much because I am so unused to doing it. I was told as a child "don't cause a scene" when I told my mum about very bad things happening to me. I do feel like it is a bad thing if I cause a scene and I feel as scared of a scene as my mum seemed to be.

Maybe I'm at fault in that I didn't say anything to my friend as soon as various little incidents happened because I was scared to, but this meant I let the pressure build and build until when the final thing happened which was 'the straw that broke the camel's back' I had a reaction which might look like an overreaction to other people. It was really a reaction to all the little things added together, rather than to the last thing.

I'm not actually scared of "extreme retribution" from her because I know she isn't going to do something extreme like things that happened to me in the past. I'm actually scared of the most minimal 'retribution'. I'm scared of her pulling a negative face, giving me a black look, using a nasty voice, saying sarcastic things, or even feeling angry with me without me even seeing/hearing her. I'm really scared of those things, but I don't know why, as logically they don't sound like big things and they are small compared to other things I have been through. Why am I so scared of those things? I actually feel sick and my guts are clenching up and I can't concentrate on things properly.

I'm thinking this stuff wouldn't scare most people and they wouldn't make such a big thing of it as me. I want to know why it is such a big thing to me.

I'm also scared of the guilt of upsetting her. I'm thinking 'how could I' when she has done so much for me.

I feel like I've done wrong but I also feel that saying nothing when someone upsets me and acting like everything is ok is doing wrong to myself. I don't want to go back to ActingNormal, I want to be normal/ordinary like other people. I hate it when I am fighting myself with two opposing feelings like this.

And, don't 'normal' people sometimes decide not to say anything if there are just one or two incidents where people upset them, they just let it go as a one off and let them off? They feel it is unlikely to happen again it was just a one off because the other person was not feeling themselves that day or something. But then when the person upsets them several times and it then seems like it is not a 'one off' they say something about it then - is this what normal people do? Have I not been 'abnormal' after all? Should I be forgiven for not saying things immediately instead of letting it build up?

Thanks for your replies. DD2's birthday is turning into a bit of a trigger for me, as my mother behaved so badly at the time. I had to have DD2 delivered early because there was doubt about her growth and she was not emptying her bladder. My mother of course made it all about her.I was so worried and so wanted to enjoy my last babie's birth and my mother just had to create a drama about herself. It was pure accident that she was around- we had decided that we would not involve them at all this time, after the last times, but as fate would have it she was at my house when I had my routine check which led to me being admitted to hosp.

OSAHM I think you may possibly be doing that fear of extreme retribution thing thta we do whenever we voice any disaproval or differing point of view? It was always (and still is) an invitation to a lot of abuse from my parents if I held any opinion that was not the same as theirs, or if I said actually could we do x instead becuase that would suit me better (as if I would ever say that to them!). At the moment my mother is trying to get into our house again- she is using someone else's present for DD2 as leverage - she hasn't got one for her herslef, mind! I am in trouble becuase I am busy on the day she wanted to come. I AM NOT ALLOWED TO BE BUSY. How DARE I. It is DD2's birthday and my mother is going to make a fuss about herself, I can see it a mile off. SO given that this is the pattern my life has always taken, it's not suprising when I get veyr scared that I mightlose a friendship over a difference of opinion, or by not being available one day. Does this make any sense?

I know I have to ring her again but I honnestly don't know what to say.

Startafresh, I understand your post and that makes me think it must make sense.

It also makes me think about how most people may be affected by their childhoods in some slightly negative ways even if their childhood was generally good, there must still often be little bits that weren't ideal because nobody is perfect and nobody's parenting is perfect probably. In our relationships with our DHs we should take that into account even if we might feel they have no 'excuse' for having certain faults because they didn't have childhoods as bad as ours.

Since I read Alice Miller ages ago and have read things on here I really 'get it' how people are often in denial about people they love or want to love, having faults or having done some things wrong. My DH is definitely one of the people, I think, who says things like "My parents did that and it didn't do me any harm" and he wants to do things the same way with his children to 'prove' to himself that he does believe those things were ok. They weren't terrible things but I sometimes don't agree with his 'ways'.

I have also done this denial thing myself with different people in my life. I've wanted to think they are wonderful and perfect and they are what I've been looking for to fill a certain role in my life (eg motherly/sisterly figure). When I get into an argument with them (which rarely happens because I'm very non-confrontational and 'people-pleasing') I start seeing all the things about them that have ever upset me but I dismissed them and ignored my negative feelings at the time. It then seems like a shock to realise that they have all these faults when I had idolised them as being perfect (because I wanted them to be perfect). Now that I've had an argument I'm not in dismissal/denial of all the little things which make the person imperfect (as we all are).

I'm very mixed up at the moment because I've just had one of these arguments and it is so unlike me to express negative feelings and complain to anyone about how they have been with me. It scares me to the point of making me feel sick. And I think I might be about to lose a friend because of it. Yet I felt I had to do it. I don't know if I've done the right thing or not or if I have been 'over the top' because of my 'issues' and hurt her when I shouldn't have and probably lost her friendship. But in another way I feel like it is an achievement for me to be brave enough to say what I think at all when normally I never ever do. I have such uncertainty and lack of faith in my judgement of whether I've done/am doing the right thing.

It also reminds me of something someone else said on this thread or a similar thread about becoming less likely to accept people treating them in ways they don't want as they become stronger and sort out their issues. But if the person is used to you never complaining what ever they do, it comes as a shock to them. I'm wondering if this is what is happening to me at the moment or if I'm just a bitch who has overreacted because some of my issues were triggered. I'm seeing Therapist soon and hope he will tell me what is what!

Pinky, you are making progress and you should be easy on yourself because it takes time. You also asked questions in your post and you are asking yourself those questions, and your brain will be working on the answers even while you are not consciously thinking about it. Realisations about things and feelings of certainty and clarity about things sometimes come gradually by thinking about the same thing several times over time.

I think you are doing really well, especially in the face of your insane relatives

My other issue is with DH which has been ongoing for ages. I feel like I am seeing things a bit more clearly now though. I think we both had a number of unmet childhood needs when we met and got married. I also had a load of baggage caused by being abused/nelgected. I at first thought DH had no issues whatsoever as his family seemed lovely and his parents clearly loved him dearly. But the more i got to know him and his family the more i realised that they had their own problems like any other family.

But most significantly, i am starting to realise that DH does have some deep rooted issues and insecurities of which he is completely unaware. He is not willing to let go of the illusion that he had an almost perfect, loving childhood where every one of his needs was met by his mother/father.

But, I know that his mother had PND after he was born and found it very difficult to manage for the first year. That in itself tells me enough for me to know that she was unlikely to have been emotionally available to DH when he was very young. That is likely to have left him with very early feelings of being abandoned, unwanted and unloved. And as a result i feel he has formed an unhealthy attachment to me, and is always looking to me to fulfil his unmet needs from when he was a very young baby. I remember when we first met, he seemed to be so attached to me and whenever i had to go home, he was devasted, to the point where he was in tears once. And i never felt the same way myself, in fact i was quite glad to get some space from him and go back to my place as he seemed so intensely attached to me.

What has been particularly difficult in our case is the combination of 2 people, each with their own deep rooted issues, and both unaware of them until, for me, the light began to dawn around 3 years ago, but for DH, there has been no gradual process of enlightenment.

I have realised now that he has been triggering me a lot and I have also been looking to him to meet my unmet childhood needs and then resenting him because i thought he was failing me, when in fact, it was wholly impossible for him as my DH to meet the needs that only my parents could and should have met when i was a child. I can see now, that the same is true of DH. He is looking to me to fill his unmet childhood needs and when i fail in that, he thinks I am letting him down as his wife, when in fact it was his mother who let him down as a child and it is impossible for me now to fulfil those needs. Just like in my case, those needs could only have been met in childhood by DH's parents and if that failed to happen then, it is a loss he will forever endure. But he is totally unaware of this and i know he always feels I am letting him down and not living up to his expectations as a DW. And he directs his resentment and disappointment towards me instead of his mother who is the original cause of his resentment and disappointment and feelings of being neglected, unloved, unwanted etc. If, whilst DH had been directing his resentment, disappointment, etc, towards me, I had been a healthy person with good self esteem and self confidence, i would have, I feel, not taken on board and accepted DH's criticisms of me as valid and not felt so hurt and crushed by them as i would have the self belief and self confidence in myself to know that i was fulfilling my role as a DW to him and not being a failure as he has always made me out to be. But because i was full of my own self doubts and feelings of inadequacy and lack of self respect and self worth, DH's criticisms of me and disappointment in me, were all accepted by me, taken on board as my problems and internalised as the truth.

It is only now i am realising what has been happening in our relationship. There is some validity in DH's argument that he has been neglected and I am fully aware that whilst I was in the stage where dealing with my issues was all consuming, i did indeed almost completely neglect DH as it was all i could do to get through each day looking after the DC's and sorting myself out, never mind looking after DH as well. But a lot of our issues go back even before having DC's, and DH has said that he feels i have never lived up to his expectations as a DW. And i am sure it is partly true as i always had my issues even though i was unaware of them and they did cause problems for us even before i had the DC's, but i am realising now that as well as my issues, DH has also always had his issues, of which he is unaware, and these have also been put into the mix and have caused their own problems, which i am only now beginning to see a bit more clearly. And so whilst it may be true that due to my own problems i may not have been the sort of wife DH was looking for, I haven't been as big a failure as he seems to think because his expecations were completely unrealistic in the first place as he was looking to me to fill the gap his mother had left when he was a child, a gap she left because she had her own unresolved childhood issues.

There have been so many little 'clues' along the way pointing to DH's issues but i simply have not had the clarity or space in my own mind to be able to see them until now and it is only because i have managed to deal with a huge proportion of my own issues that there is any space left in my brain to be able to see and work out what else has been going on with us.

There is too much to go into here, but the mere fact that DH's mother comes from a highly dysfunctional family, which DH admits, that she has her own unresolved issues which meant she sensed i was a victim and bullied me, again which DH admits, that DH is the eldest child, are all enough to tell me that DH has issues which ideally he should try and work on but I know i can't force him.

I am sorry for rambling on so much, i felt like all of this was a jumble in my head and i could only sort it out by writing it down. Thanks if you have read so far!

Hello, opo here, as the name suggests, i feel like i want to start again, having hopefully got rid of most of the rubbish I have been carrying around with me til now.

PM, i think and hope you will find it easier and easier to assert yourself as you work through your issues. I have definately found that, and it has been a bit of a revelation, realising just how much rubbish i had been putting up with from people. But it will happen when you are ready, you just need to keep working on yourself in whichever way suits you best.

I have 2 issues going on at the moment. One is to do with my sisters.....again.....yes, I'm fed up of it as well now. Because i was caught off guard a while ago because my sister phoned me unexpectedly, i somehow found myself agreeing to go and visit both of them and the date is getting closer and closer and i increasingly feel like i don't want to go. But i don't know how to get out of it without causing offence and somehow leaving it a long time to re-arrange ie when i feel ready. I could use the obvious excuse, illness, which would definately be believable at this time of year.

But of course then the guilt kicks in. I mainly or even only feel guilty in relation to the DC's. As I will be depriving them of the chance to see and spend time with their aunties/uncles/cousins. DD in particular loves visiting people and i suppose the guilt i feel is largely in relation to her as DS is very shy and would probably prefer not to go. But on the plus side, i genuinely feel that although i don't feel ready to see my sisters right now, i don't think i will always feel like this, i imagine that perhaps in a year's time, after i have had time to do some more work on myself, i could be in a place where seeing them will not upset me as i know it will now.

Neither sister has contacted me for a while which i am happy about as i always feel upset after any sort of contact with them.

I know I don't understand myself sometimes. I think I meant the feeling of being torn all the time is strange. But really what must seem more strange to others is the fact that I keep going back for more, but then I have made improvement-at least she isn't planting herslef on my sofa talking to my sis for two hours each week whilst I make her lunch. I need to be able to assert myseelf with her more directly but I cannot believe that she will pay any attention. I suppose I should try again. I used to argue but I got so much abuse for it, and they both said they would never change so what am I doing here, exactly?

Hope things are ok for you, OPo.

sb9, my other thread is here

sorry it's me opo, tried a new (entirely random) name but forgot to change back!

Hi PM, I'm fine thanks, considering what's happened.

I am concerned about you. What you said here "It's strange. A big part of me just does not want to see her." Why do you think it's strange that a part of you just does not want to see your mother? Is it so strange considering how she treats you and makes you feel. I think it is absolutely normal and healthy to not want to be around people who do nothing but make you feel bad/upset/guilty/angry/etc. It just so happens that the person happens to be your mother, which of course has a huge bearing on how you react to her. But if anybody else made you feel like that surely you would not think it strange you didn't much feel like spending time with that other person?

sb9, sorry it's taken so long to get back to you/ Yes the sister situation is awful. And it's not you, her reply is all about her and there is no acknowledgement much less any understanding about you and your feelings. I am really sorry to say that both you and I are like cardboard cutouts to our sisters. We exist merely to give them what they need. We do not have needs or feelings of our own which are just as valid as theirs. In my case i know my sisters have been trained/brainwashed into this way of thinking about me by our parents. It's all they know. And in my case, unless there is some sort of miracle, i can't see things ever changing. I have totally given up on them. I am completely detached emototionally, i know they will never 'see' me, but now i just don't care. They are who they are and I am who I am and the world is full of other people and not all of them are like my sisters and i know i can find much healthier people with whom to have a 'sisterly' sort of relationship. I did start a seperate thread about this which you may find helpful, will try and do you a link in a minute.

I have not physically cut ties with my sisters, i am going to see them next month, but emotionally i have. And i think this is why things blew up with DH, he was the next layer of the onion and our issues and problems were only really revealed once i had 'dealt' with the layer about my sisters iykwim.

DH is coming back tomorrow. We have agreed certain things on a 1 month trial basis and he has agreed to go to Relate in 1 month. He seems to have no idea how deep rooted our issues are and keeps wanting to sweep them under the carpet and paper over the cracks. I think he is scared perhaps of facing up to the deeper problems. Anyway, he has agreed to go to relate so i feel there is a bit of hope. I think though that he has NPD, not in an extreme way, but he certainly has tendencies and he has already openly admitted that he thinks his mother has NPD, so it is really no surprise that he also has tendencies in that direction.

Think we'll just have to take it one step at a time. Even realising he has NPD makes me feel a sense of relief as he has always tried to make out that every single one of our problems is down to me and my issues and it was a very easy get out of jail free card for him to use as there is no denying that me and my issues have caused huge problems for us. But because of that he completely beleives he is totally absolved from any responsibility for his issues causing any problems and trying to explain this to him has felt like hitting my head against a brick wall. Now an independent 3rd party will be involved i hope at least that he will listen to her as he certainly won't listen to me.

He feels deeply resentful of me for all the time that i have been 'ill' and been consumed with sorting out my issues and also being a mother. There was nothing left in me to be a wife so he was very neglected. But he keeps saying he is not resentful, he understands why i couldn't be much of a wife to him. But i can feel the resentment emanating from him all the time. If i dare to say no to him about something he explodes and if i dare to ask for something from him he thinks i have no right. He thinks i 'owe' him for the fact he stuck around whilst i was ill. And whilst i am grateful he stuck by me, i don't think i 'owe' him anything or need to make anything up to him. I have not forfeited all rights to have expectations of him just because i was ill. It wasn't my fault that i was ill. This is all causing huge problems atm, and i don't think DH himself is even aware that he is resentful and he does think i owe him even though he keeps denying that that is how he feels.

OPo sorry to hear this, I hope you are ok ans that things work out for you.

I'm not posting much these days. I think after the last visit from my parents (DD1'S) birthday I am realising that I am going to have to say something to my mother about the way she is behaving (like giving my son a prsent at DD1'S tea party but making DD1 wait until we got home . She did it when I had gone to the loo with DD1, she said DD1 had to wait- this was a ploy to get an invite back to our house)and this is going to bring on yet another wave of histrionics,but I know that I am going to have to give her a consequence to any reaction- like she won't be able to come to birthdays etc.

It's strange. A big part of me just does not want to see her. The other part of me is in a bit of shock- it feels like our relationship has broken down in a very short space of time and it is all my doing. But I know, I think, that all that has happened is my setting some boundaries has revealed her obsessivness, her uncontrollable desire to be in control of my life.

I went upstairs to the toilet in the restaurant, and DD1 came with me, after about 5 mins (enough time for her to give DS the toy) she came up looking for me and DD1- ARe you in here she's yelling- yes we are. I didn't know where you were she says over and over then starts ushering DD1 out of the room, she then told me that I had to help DD1 down the stairs- I said yes mum, she is my daughter I know how to look after her, but she was not listening. WTF? Who chases after people going to the loo in restaurants and then escorts them back again, telling them how to hold their own child's hand going downstairs?

When I got down I asked her why she gave DS a present and she didn't have an answer. It's not his birthday, I said. But what could I do- I couldn't very well take the thing off him. Poor DD1. Her birthday and her brother gets a present waay before her.

Sorry for rambling on. OPO I really hope you are ok.x

Am sorry, just wanted to say I am still around but seem to have no time to post much. Having major problems with DH. He has not come home since last night and says he will not be back til sunday. Things have been rocky for a while, but it all blew up last weekend.

To tell the truth, i don't care if he doesn't come back for myself. I think i am better off without him. But i feel so sorry for the kids. They do not deserve this. And i think he is banking on me caving in for the sake of the kids. And i have done in the past but now i just can't do it.

Have got no idea what to do. I feel like talking to the kids and preparing them for us to split up. But I feel so bad, they will be devasted. But I really cannot live with DH anymore. I don't like him and have no respect left for him.

Ok have to go on school run again.

opo please do....
Makes you feel crazy doesnt it?!

OSAHM and sb9, i know how you feel and what you mean, about being angry but also seeing the good and feeling guilty about being angry.

I think it is very common for all us to see people as good or bad and very hard for us to reconcile different types of behaviour in one person. What immediately springs to mind for me is it is not the person who is good or bad, but their behaviour which, at different times, is hurtful, insensetive etc or caring, kind etc. Therefore one can be angry about the hurtful 'bad' behaviour whilst also acknowledging the instances of 'good' behaviour. I am thinking out loud now, have not thought this through so could be way off the mark.

But it is something that is current with me too atm. It is DH who is my problem. He has shown me, at different times, very kind, caring behaviour, but also some quite nasty, bullying and insensetive behaviour. I currently feel confused about who he is. As how can he have been so nasty and hurtful at times and yet also, at other times, so caring and thoughtful? And like you said OSHAM, when i think about the good things he has done for me, i start feeling guilty for being angry about the bad things and think i should let them go. But like you said, even if i think i have let them go, they still have a hold over me and deep down i know i still feel hurt and resentful about the bad stuff he has done.

sb9, your sister sounds just like mine. Will post more later as have to go on school run now, back soon.

"When I see good things about a person I am angry with, or see that I can understand their reasons for doing things, I seem to stop allowing myself to feel angry. But deep down I still am. So I get tense, irritable, anxious and depressed."

This is it, i feel terribly guilty for feeling angry with people. I feel i must be justified in why i am angry and often have to write a list of why i feel angry to put the guilt at bay! Its awful!

Do you think that maybe as my family dont seem to acknoweldge how their actions have hurt me that its becuase i dont feel i am allowed to be angry? I dont know just thinking...

Also, i keep being obsessed about writing to my sister to explain some things (i know opo we have said about wanting then to understand) but i found a letter on my computer i had forgotton i had sent, it was very heartfelt and my reply - well it didnt acknowledge any of it. I relplied to say i didnt know what to think as it was cold and unemotional to which i had a letter to say she was 'choosing not to respond to the emotional stuff in your email because i need to distance myself emotionally from you. all i will say is you know how much it hurt me when you didn't choose me as a bridesmaid (i cried and told you on the phone that i wanted to do it because i loved you) it hurt me so much i wonder if i will ever feel close to you again. but you know this so let's forget it and move on. "

Is it me or is it all about HER??? What about all of the things I opened up to her about ihn my letter, things that she had done to hurt me, why i felt the way i did, how things have affected ME!

God makes me so mad!

Hello SpikySauce (cool name!).

My thoughts lately have been about how I want the world to be black and white and find it difficult to get my head around it being grey.

There is a person who I was in denial about being angry with for a long time and the more I let myself feel the anger the better my behaviour towards my DH and DCs got, the less anxious I felt, and the more focussed on my nice life now I felt. So it seemed really good for me to hate him.

Then he got into a new situation in the last few weeks that made me feel sorry for him. I just couldn't feel that the bad things he had done made him deserve the new situation. I could see lots of good things about him as well as bad. This confused me, unfocussed me, and stressed me out.

When I see good things about a person I am angry with, or see that I can understand their reasons for doing things, I seem to stop allowing myself to feel angry. But deep down I still am. So I get tense, irritable, anxious and depressed.

What is the answer? That people don't have to be totally evil all the way through for me to be allowed to be angry with them? It seems that even really awful people who have done terrible things can have some good things about them. And it is possible to even love someone and still be really angry with them. Perhaps you don't have to hate them just because you are angry with them.

I feel like when I feel something positive I am betraying myself and my anger and doing something wrong or weak or twisted. Maybe I'm allowed to feel positive feelings about someone who has also made me really angry though. A bit like how our children make us really angry with their bad behaviour at times but we still love them and feel lots of positive feelings about them. The difference is though, that the little things your kids do that make you really angry at the time, you soon forget. I have some people though, who made me angry about things that I did not forget and the feelings haven't faded. Those things are too bad for me, personally, to forget. Even if the person does lots and lots to try to make amends.

I know this is fairly confusing and I feel more confused than normal. I had a phase of feeling quite clear about things before this.

Hi, can I join? Finding this thread is sort of like coming home.

I will post about my situation more another time, just wanted to bookmark this.

Hello,
sorry to jump and out of this thread its just lack of time with a baby!

Can relate to so much of what is said. My husband is the same re anger towards my family. I was talking to my therapist about anger in general and it occured to me/us that i find being angry incredbily hard. I feel seething anger but flatten it. Its so hard to really get angry as I feel guilty for feeling angry. She thinks once i do get hold of my anger it will ease. But what do you do with it?!

Has assertiveness got anything to do with anger as i know i probably stored up anger from being walked all over and maybe i could assert myself more but i still feel so guilty. Hope that makes sense and anyone has any pealrs of wisdom!

ive spend the last couple of days jumping every time the phone rings. Thinking it will be her. I dont know why I should feel that way as she only every phones in a blue moon and then to talk about herself. But every time it rings I get a sick feeling in my stomach that i may have to confront her about her vileness. Because I know I will do it next time I speak with her. I know im just not ready yet either

Hello

Shongololo, OSAHM I can relate to much of what you are saying. I definitely found having a dd a big trigger to lots of issues I had buried.

I also found a job working with looked after children when I was just turned 30 a big trigger- but things were still very buried then and I didn't know what was wrong.

MY DS is being a bit bullied at school and it has brought up a lot of stuff for me. I've had quite a heavy week, therapy-wise. I have finally told someone (my therapist) about a particular teacher who behaved very inappropriatley towards me when I was 11-12. I have never told anyone before. I already knew by thta point that there was no use talking to my parents or siblings, I also <<guess what>> belived it to be my fault. I'm not sure how I feel about it and I am aware it is just the tip of yet another ice-berg of memories.
It is my DDs' birthdays next month and so I have the whole what to do so as not to upset my motherr thing going on. It makes me so angry that I have to worry about such things when I should just be planning my little girls'parties. I can really see why our DH's get frustrated by it. My DH cannot understand why I don't just stand up to her or confront her. I'm just not ready.

On the up-side I am having a lovely day with my girls today.

Thank you so much for responding to me, it's a relief to feel that someone has listened to me.

Your DH sounds a bit like mine. He is angry that my family mistreated me in the past but even more angry that they have managed to affect my life long term and are still affecting it now. He thinks they are 'twats' for what they have done and that they don't deserve all the time we have 'wasted' thinking and talking about them. He doesn't want to let 'twats' take over his life when they are worth little. He wants me to stop thinking about it but sometimes this is very hard. When things have gone wrong in our lives and it is connected to how I feel about the past, he says things like "That is another thing that is your f*ing (certain relative's) fault".

I often wonder if men get so angry about these things because they feel less manly due to not being able to do anything about it to fix it for us and protect us from it.

Like you say, I have also found that different phases in my life make different parts of the past come into my consciousness to be processed. Having children is a big one. Your DD reaching the age you were when you were first abused must also be a big one. When you look at her and imagine if it happened to her you can see how shocking it really is. What happened to you might seem like a shock all over again because your mind tries to numb it out and make it seem normal or not so bad as it is, to protect your mental health but imagining your children in the same position breaks through this denial and reminds you how bad it was.

I understand that paralysis. And I understand that lack of communication with hubby.

Last night I tried to talk to my DH about the situation with my folks. He was watching the liverpool game. So didnt want to chat. Even though 2 minutes after I stopped trying to talk to him, he decided he was tired and going to bed...

I want to be able to talk to him, if only to get a reassuring cuddle. But he gets so mad about my parents, my past, it ends up with him in a strop and me going into emotional concilliation mode. Then it all gets swept under a metaphorical carpet and Never SPoken Of Again.

Today I have achieved nothing. I have pondered my relationships with a variety of people and how messed up so many seem to be. And Ive examined my relationship with my own kids, in the hopes that I am doing alright by them.

I am beginning to think that maybe I should return to therapy, that now, 25 years on, I might actually be ready to confront my issues about my mother. I have done my father "work". But I never would talk about my mother in previous therepeutic situations.

I wonder if now, as a mother myself of a DD that is about to reach the age I was when I was abused, I am now able to see clearly how very wrong my mother was. How very cold. How very manipulative. How very unmotherly.

I have had a few lightbulb revelations over the last few days, so this experience has taught me the benefit of taking out your past and giving it a good airing once in a while. I guess we learn to deal with things at different times in our lives.

I'm not managing to cope with it.

I've got a load of thoughts that have come into my head and I can't get them into order and sense. My brain is so 'busy', like a computer that is running really slowly because you've clicked on too many things at once. I feel a kind of paralysis which is stopping me getting my everyday tasks done and that is making me anxious and tense that I haven't got enough time and something important might not get done and then something bad might happen. I hate the panicky feeling.

When anyone wants me to do anything 'extra', even friends inviting me to do something nice with them, and the children being demanding, I feel panicky and tense and irritable.

DH has asked me things like "What is wrong with you at the moment?" and "What are you thinking about" and I can't tell him. It's about stuff he doesn't like talking about and he gets angry if I talk to him about it for too long, so I can't relax enough to talk to him, knowing it might make him angry. Our relationship has improved since I talked to him less about that particular subject so I don't want to risk it.

I can't talk to my friends too much because there are normally children around and there is stuff they shouldn't overhear. Also people are uncomfortable around the subject matter and don't know what to say to me and don't want to think about it too much.

I've become scared of writing details on here any more since I got scared and had a load of posts deleted a while back.

I got so tense that yesterday I felt I was starting to treat the children unacceptably badly, so I've booked another session with Therapist even though I wanted to stop going and am in the middle of writing my 'thank you and goodbye' letter. The session isn't til Friday though and I feel kind of desperate. So I'm writing on here to try to get the desperate feelings out so I can cope til Friday.

Therapist will sort me out on Friday so maybe I can tell my brain to postpone thinking about it til then. Nothing bad is going to happen by leaving it til then. And I won't answer the phone if it looks like someone's number who is involved in the situation in case I say something 'unwise' while I am still mixed up.

Neglecting to do my SAHM tasks is going to make the panic worse so I will try to focus on getting all tasks out of the way. I'm just finding it so hard to concentrate.

Sorry, I'm sure nobody will know what to say to me.

...What you said about "Rising above it" has made me think of this Shongololo, and it does help me so thank you!

Right, I'm trying to apply the 'gorilla experiment thingy' from posts and posts back to my situation.

DD is triggering my feelings about z and because I am not even willing to suffer a little bit of anything similar to the past by 'just taking it' and containing it myself instead of taking out my mood on her, I see it as being like the mother ape standing on the baby ape so that her feet don't get hurt by the hot floor of the cage.

So I'm going to decide I AM willing to take a little bit of pain in order to protect her from it. So when she triggers me I am going to fight really strongly the urge to react negatively towards her and fight the pattern of bad family background repeating itself.

I will deal with the feelings I am having by writing about them, away from the children, when I can.

thank you ordinarySAHM - I think that I have learned to distance myself and will again - its just raw at the mo. But i know they are on an aeroplane in about 2 hours, so I know they wont spontaneously drop in again now for a couple of years!

I do know what you mean about taking things out on your kids when you have had any kind of dealings with the abusers of your past - For me its a "Im rising above this, Im a better person, I can do this without it affecting me" sitation when i am put upon....but inside its still the same old me, craving positive affirmation that I am OK in their eyes. ANd then I hate myself for being so NEEDY and all that hate turns outwards and my poor kids bear the brunt.

My DD is now old enough for me to say "Im sorry love - Im lashing out at you because of XYZ with your gran - please fogive me and understand that I love you, im just stressed."

But now typing that, im psychologically in a place where I wonder if im not projecting my need for positive love and affirmation onto my poor girlie.

Ah what a head ** it all is.

Hello Shongololo, the things you describe sound hurtful and it sounds like you have got used to this type of thing over a long time, but although you aren't surprised by it, it still hurts. Is it possible for you to get to a point where it no longer bothers you? Because it doesn't sound like they are going to change.

I have been feeling down for the last few days, tired, and feeling anger simmering, and being snappy and irritable with DH and DCs. I thought it was just hormones or tiredness but I realised today that it is obvious really why I feel these things.

It is because I was recently asked to do something which required some effort, time and concentration, to help a person who abused me in the past. I didn't feel I could say no. I would have been scared to say no. I had other things that I would rather do, which I haven't been able to do while I was doing this thing. I resented doing it. But I did it and I did it really well.

It triggered feelings from the past when I was made to do things I didn't want to do and I acted like I didn't mind because the consequences of showing I didn't like it would be bad for me and scared me more than actually doing the thing I didn't want to do. The suppressed anger from this is intense and when it is suppressed it causes depression. It's no wonder I've been feeling down and incredibly irritable! It's a bit like feeling abused all over again.

I was suppressing how I felt about doing this recent thing and I don't think it is a coincidence that I've been getting on with DD worse. Certain things she does used to remind me in the tiniest way of this person who abused me and trigger intense negative feelings which I should not have been feeling about my own DD! My mind was using her as a scapegoat because I couldn't face up to what the person did and that it was them specifically who did it. The more I have admitted it to myself the more the negative feelings have been redirected towards the person who deserves them and away from DD. I can't let these feelings towards DD come back and it depresses me if they are coming back. I feel like I'm failing.

hello, I was directed to this thread on another forum - blimey, and there was me thinking it was all my fault all these years - so nice to realise that actually, the fault may lie elsewhere and its not disloyal to actually come right out and say "They ** you up, your mum and dad..."

A brief intro - Im a mum of 3, two boys and a girl, and usually reside over at BMC. But this thread is a breath of fresh air in a peculiarly reassuring way.

My own little family drama continues to unfurl, and as a mature aand intelligent women of a certain age, I am still astounded by the capacity of my parents to wreak havoc with my mental health and wellbeing.

On Sunday, i had a call from my dad. To whom I have not spoken in 3 years, and who resides in another country. Are we busy thismonrning, says he.

It seems he and my mother are in the country. And have been for 3 weeks. but this is the first contact they have made with me. I invite them to lunch to see their lovely grandchildren, and he tells me my mother is "too ill" to attend as she cannot manage steps.

(Now it emerges that she has travelled 6000 miles to get to the country, plus a good 1.5 hours to drive to where they are staying (older sibling) and have spent a week in a european destination with another sibling, partner and children. Yet cannot manage a 45 minute journey to mine because I have a doorstep and another step into the hallway. ) I let that one go.

My dad duly arrives, late, because he has been in the farmers market all morning with my sibling and mother, and wont eat, thank you, as he is full up from eating pasties as said market.

Thanks for that dad, my kids are starving hungry because we have been waiting for you.

There follows an awkward 2 hours when he makes smalltalk and demands I call my mother at some point. Presnts are duly produced for my boys, (jackets with a sports logo) and for my teenager daughter? Nothing. A £20 note shoved in her hand. Not even a little trinket from the airport - or even the aforementioned market.

This from the family that have not even let me know that they are in country. And this is the 3rd time it has happened.

The hurt I feel has surprised me, TBH. I thought I was immune to it all, but I am so angry with them for treating me and mine like this. What kind of parent? What kind of granparent? Clearly I was just a duty visit. Amongst all those obscure cousins, aunties and uncles.

The worst thing...my siblings knew for some time. And yet not one of them bothered to let me know. I saw them both at a funeral a month ago. They knew the folks were going to be here, as they would have had to organise passports for babies, so they sat there all smug, playing the "i know something you dont know" game.

I feel I have grown up in an entirely negative household, where nothing I did was good enough and my anger at the preferensial treatment of my siblings put down to envy, or me being "to sensitive". My darling husband maligned and lies told
about him to all the family. My sibling continuing this trend by bringing up things from when I was 12, throwing them in my face in front of crowds of acquaintances and generally trying her best to embarrass in order to make herself seem popular.

I resolve to cut them all out of my life and yet they still have the power to upset.

Just wanted to post something that has just occurred to me sparked by another thread i was reading.

The other thread relates to a MNetter who was in an emotionally abusive relationship with a DH who had NPD. She talked about feeling guilty for meeting her own needs and finding it hard to stop feeling like this.

I have realised that I feel like this a lot of the time. The other day I even felt guilty for feeling hungry and having lunch (at lunchtime) because I knew that DH wanted me to do something for him at the same time. I have realised I often feel this way, I feel guilty for meeting my own needs. But the other day i suddenly became aware that i was feeling guilty, and actually told myself to stop feeling guilty about needing to eat lunch because i was hungry. I had told DH i wanted to eat lunch before i did what it was he had asked me to do and i was about to explain to him that if i didn't eat now my blood sugar would get really low and i would start feeling shaky and awful. But then i stopped myself and realised that it was ridiculous to feel guilty for needing to eat! Whatever DH wanted could easily wait, but my hunger needed to be satiated immediately, hunger is not one of those things that can wait. DH, to me, looked a bit unhappy, but didn't say anything, and I realised that i had actually been scared to say to him that his thing would have to wait whilst i had lunch. But that is so ridiculous. I was hardly being unreasonable for wanting to eat but until the other day i know i would have felt like i could not voice my own needs, i would have kept quiet, done what DH wanted me to do and then met my own needs, but i would have also felt unhappy and resentful about putting myself second. But i was the one putting myself second, if i did not speak up and tell DH what I wanted he wouldn't know and so i wouldn't have been his fault that my needs weren't being met. It would have been my fault. But until now i have been unable to voice my own needs in situations where they have clashed with DH's own needs as a) I have felt my own needs are not as important as DH's and if I feel that way about myself i can hardly expect other people to place any importance on my own needs and b) I have often felt too scared to say to DH that my needs will have to take priority over his on this particular occasion as he is certainly not used to me being assertive in this way and i was scared he would react badly.

The example above relates to a relatively minor thing like eating lunch, but the same thing i realise has been happening over lots and lots of different things and of course i know the whole problem originates in my childhood where I NEVER voiced my needs or believed they were important, at least as important as everybody else's needs within the family. As a child i did not voice my needs because i suppose i must have always had a sense that the others would take no notice, that my needs were not important to the rest of the family and would be ignored anyway even if i voiced them. But i remember my sisters never feeling like they had to keep quiet, they would always speak out if they wanted/needed something or something was not to their liking etc. I would just keep quite in all those situations. And my parents would always place importance and priority on my sisters' needs whatever they were and would often prioritise my sisters' needs over mine, thereby undermining my self esteem even more and reinforcing in my sisters' minds that they were more important and superior to me.

sb9, i so know how you feel, especially about fighting a losing and painful battle that there seems to be no way out of.

When you say you have withdrawn from your sister, what do you mean? Do you mean in your head only or in your head and physically? I am finding it hard to withdraw only in my head but maintain physical contact with my sisters. I guess the truth is that i have not withdrawn or detached totally in my head and emotionally as if I had, they would not still have the power to hurt me which they definately still do have.

I think the only way my sisters would have less or no power to hurt me is if i somehow managed to fill the gap in my life where there needs to be a caring, nurturing female figure. I know if i had such a person in my life, then i would be able to see my sisters, but be completely detached from them and not be hurt by them.

But so far there is nobody who can fill that gap. I don't really have any friends who seem to fill the gap even a little bit, most of the friends i do have seem quite needy themselves in their own way and so are not in a position to fill my gap. In a strange way, DH sometimes manages to fill the gap a little bit and so do the DC's as I know for sure they all love and care about me. I guess i will just have to keep searching and i know it is completely unrealistic to expect only one person to fill the gap, it will have to be lots of different people, i just need to make an effort to get out and meet lots of different people and hope some of them are the right ones. I think i have made the mistake of coming across as very needy in the past and been taken advantage of by the likes of that school mum i have mentioned on here. There was another mum i met who i seemed to become very attached to and i think i came across as very needy to her too and i have realised now anyway that i don't think she and i have as much in common as i first thought.

It feels as if i am in search of a 'Mrs Right' in the same way one searches for 'Mr Right'! It is quite funny in a way. But I am searching for a female Mrs Right, we need to be on the same wavelength and have certain things in common in order to 'click'. I have a good friend who i have known for 25 years and she and i are definately compatible, but she is single and childfree and so we now have much less in common than we used to. If she had got married and had children, she would definately have been my 'gap filler friend'. Oh well, i guess i will just have to keep on searching, like with the search for Mr Right, one just never knows who or what is around the next corner.

sb9, I agree with OSAHM, that perhaps you do need to allow yourself to feel your anger and think hard about who your anger should be rightfully directed against. Perhaps write a 'no holds barred' letter to those people and get it all out, swear as much as you like in the letter if that helps, but don't send it. Use it as an anger releasing vehicle, it might be hard to get started writing, but once you do, i really believe it will be hugely theraputic for you and will enable you to then move forward onto the next stage of your journey in healing and recovering from the damage done to you as a child.

First lady for 14months! Had to stop due to money but stopped when i was angry. Now picked up again had about 5 sessions with new lady who i gel more with...

Sb9, maybe the counselling needs to make you really angry, to get all your feelings out and make sense of them before you start feeling better? How long have you been going?

What do we do now? I have no idea!

For me, I saw her but then felt I was selling myself short and being controlled. I mean who is she to say I can only see her three times a year plus on her terms?!

I suppose I have withdrawn for now. It hurst but then it all does so its no different. I guess I am hoping that by withdrawing and saying I cant do this will make her think.
I know deep down it wont because she is not capable of it. It will always be my fault. Afterall we are in this position because i didnt have her as my bridesmaid. Never mind all of the hurtful things she had done to me prior to this.

We are fighting a losing battle. A painful battle that i have no idea a way out of. All i want is a lovong family yet i am even ruining the one i am creating with my husband becuase i am so angry and depressed. Keep going to counseling is all i can do but so far its not helped. Just made me more angry at the moment.

sb9, you are right, we are so similar. Everything you have described wrt your sister is exactly how i feel. Am so sorry you are also going through this, as i know how much it hurts.

"she only wants to see me on a superficial leverl, i cannot stand being false! I cant do it anymore." This is me. What shall we do? It is so hard. Ideally i would just like to cut them off completely as i know it would definately be the best thing for me. BUT that also means my DC's being cut off from yet another section of their extended family. They already have no contact with their grandparents ie my parents and lots of other family members like my aunts and uncles as i have not gone to any family events like weddings etc as i know my parents would be there.

I would just feel too guilty depriving my DC's of their 2 aunties, 2 uncles and now, 2 cousins (my middle sister had her baby yesterday). Whereas with my parents i feel the benefits of cutting them out of my life far outweigh any disadvantages, wrt my sisters, it's not as cut and dried. Yes my sisters always hurt and upset me every single time we have any form of contact because they are so unaware of my feelings, but if I manage to keep that contact to a bare minimum, then it means i get hurt a little bit but not too much and my DC's can have some sort of relationship with their aunts/uncles/cousins. I guess it's balancing out the cost to me against the benefit to my DC's. If the cost to me becomes too great then i guess i will have to cut them off.

Unlike the pregnancy, i did receive a text from my sister's DH about the birth of their baby and i don't think i was the last to know. So i feel ok about that. But my younger sister phoned me during the day, i think it was to make sure i had got the news about middle sister. But whilst chatting she told me that middle sister and her DH had spent the day with her and her DH and they had all been together when middle sister's labour started. And i felt so upset. As usual, i was left out of it, nobody thought to phone me and tell me middle sister had gone into labour. I really feel i am treated just like you would a friend, not a distant friend, but a friend all the same, somebody who is not part of the family, somebody on the periphery, who you may or may not talk to about family things. And it hurts so much. Why do they treat me like this? Why don't they see me as an equally important part of the family. Why don't they ever think about how they make me feel? I know I haven't done anything to deserve to be treated this way. I know it is yet another consequence of my parents' singling me out and treating me so differently to my sisters. And perhaps they can sense that i am different and therefore treat me differently and keep their distance from me. But inside i am no different to them. I am just the same as them, when we were all children i was exactly the same as them, the only difference was that my dad abused only me and my mother neglected and abandoned only me. And the different way in which i was treated has had such a huge knock on effect wrt the relationship between me and my sisters.

How do I ever get over the unfairness of it all? The fact that I was worth less to my parents than my sisters; I was not valued or precious enough to my parents, i was the child who was not worth saving whereas my sisters were. Their attitude and feelings towards me must be so intrinsic and ingrained, i know there is no chance at all of them ever realising their own subconscious thoughts about me. And this will inevitably mean they will continue to hurt me all my life, every time i have contact with them. I really don't know if it is worth it just so my DC's can see them 3-4 times a year which is all it will probably amount to.

Perhaps right now it would be better for me to have a break from them, and give myself a chance to fill the void in my life where a sister/mother/close friend should be. If I do manage to find somebody who can fill at least a little bit of the gap, i think it will make me feel less vulnerable around my sisters.

I really need to think about whether my DC's will actually benefit from a relationship with their aunts/uncles/cousins where there is actually very little contact. I just don't know. Even if there is not much contact now, perhaps it will be of benefit later when my DC's get older and can have a more independent relationship with my side of the family. At least the tiny bit of contact now will have laid some foundations for the future where i can step back but still allow contact between my DC's and them. It is so very hard. I just don't know what to do.

For now, despite my saying on here that i didn't want to go and see my sister after she had the baby, when chatting to younger sister, i ended up agreeing to go and visit middle sister and new baby and also younger sister once she has moved into her new house.
But I am not going to rush over, will only go and vist when i feel ready.

Sorry I have to jump in and out of this forum but with a baby its hard...

OPO - You are so similar to me. I want to desperately make my family understand me snd they just dont. I once sent a letter to my sister, she sent one back to say she didnt agree with anything that i had said but idnt see why we couldnt just be friends?

At the moment my sister has said she only wants to see me 3 times as year as i have hurt her so much?! I saw her like this a few times and she was lovely and then on her last visit I text her and said i didnt feel comfortable with this arrangement and so wouldnt be visiting.

I just spoke with my dad who mentioned my sister and her kids and what they were doing etc and then i phoned him back to say that although i didnt sound it i was interested in them but it hurts too much to hear about them as i dont see them. It said it was in my hands.

Its not in my hands though, she only wants to see me on a superficial leverl, i cannot stand being false! I cant do it anymore.
She said she will never get over me hurting her not choosing her as my bridesmaid but she had hurt me so much for me to make that descion yet does not whant to know that, the message is i was a bitch to do this and it is all me...

PM, thank you. You are spot on. Especially about stepping back and revealing the gap i had been wanting them to fill.

And yes, i think you and OSAHM are both right about not giving them any ammunition to fire at me. I think the distant but polite approach may work.

PM, your therapist has given you good advice. About only giving them and the relationship the time and energy it deserves and stopping from doing all the running and chasing. I suppose right now i have gone to the other extreme, completely ignoring, which i do not feel comfortable with. Before i was doing alll the running and chasing which left me feeling hurt and upset as it was obvious my enthusiasm for the relationship was not reciprocated by them.

I was about to send a text today saying the relationship was not working out and that i wanted to take a break. But i didn't send it as it didn't feel quite right. I think i will just reply to my sister's recent text with a short, polite reply, as the ignoring was making me feel very uncomfortable.

I had thought about the distant but polite approach but wasn't sure if it was a good idea as it still meant there would be some contact. But i think i can handle a bit of contact, this time i will not be getting drawn in like i was before and hoping for something from them that they will never give me.

Thank you so much PM and OSAHM for your time and effort with my problem. I really appreciate it and I am glad i have pondered over it for so long. I feel comfortable with your suggestion PM, it feels right and appropriate for this situation so i am going to go with it.

Thanks again. Hopefully i will sleep better tonight, i was up most of last night and the night before; am sure this was playing on my mind as my sister texted me 2 days ago now.

Have just sent her a text. Short, polite, very little detail but not unfriendly. "We're all fine thanks. Busy as usual. Good luck with the house move." It was quite hard but not as hard as ignoring and definately better than the fake friendliness and enthusiasm and familiarity i have been using until now. I guess it's about pitching my response to match the depth of the relationship. The real depth as I know it, not the fake depth we have been kidding ourselves with all this time.

I agree with Pinky. I think all of that makes a lot of sense.

Don't say something they could all use as ammunition back against you by telling them you want to cut off.

Is it that you want them to know what you are doing so you can feel some revenge? (which I don't disapprove of, I just think it could end up making things more difficult for you though).

I think it will be better revenge as they get a growing sense of you just being polite but having a 'take it or leave it' approach to the relationship and not needing them anymore because your life is fine without them. They haven't made you feel included in the past when you've really wanted to be and maybe that gave them a sense of power and superiority, but you aren't going to give them that anymore by 'chasing' them. You have now decided they aren't good enough for you to make any effort to include them in your great life!

OPO
I don't know if this will help you, but the way my therapist has advised me wrt my siblings is not to do any more than step back from the relationship -in a way revealing the 'gap'that you have been struggling to fill. It's not banishing them from your life so much as putting the relationship in perspective- giving it the weight/time/emotional investment that it is worth- which is basically not much, becuase anything more is detrimental to your own life and happiness.
I can only speak wrt to my siblings, and I know for a fact that there would be no point trying to discuss it all with them- for one it would all go straight to my mother, and TBH I think my siblings know well enough how crap my childhood was and how shabbily they have treated me, they just don't want to acknopwledge it, so I see no point exposing myself in that way.

I just respond politely to friendly messages and ignore rude/bullying ones, but I'm not doing any of the running in these relationships now.

I don't know if that helps at all.x

OSAHM, hello and thank you so much for your response. You are right in that they have no real idea of what i went through, nor the effect it has had on me. But I suppose i just don't feel ready to open up so much to them, it's like baring my soul to them and i just don't trust them enough to do that. Makes me feel very vulnerable and they have never been considerate of my feelings or ever shown they really care about me.

I have been thinking today of sending them a short text saying something like "Our relationship is not working out as i had hoped. I would like to take a break. Good luck with house move/baby. OPO" And just leave it at that for the time being.

The thing is although they don't know all the details of what i went through, this is partly because they didn't bother to read the letter i sent to them and my parents years ago. That letter did have some of the basic details about my father's abuse but my younger sister told me that she hadn't read it all, only skimmed through it. So, i get the distinct impression that they don't want to know, even if i were to write them a detailed letter about it all, including the things they (my sisters) have done to hurt and upset me over the years. If i got the impression from them that they were open and willing to listen to me and would be understanding and sympathetic, then i think i would be more willing to open up. But they do not give that impression at all and so i don't feel comfortable telling them.

I feel they want and are only happy with a purely superficial relationship where we meet occasionally, pretend all is ok, pretend my parents didn't really do anything that bad and i have just decided to cut them off for my own reasons which they do not agree with or accept as justification, but purely for the sake of appearances and out of a sense of duty, obligation and habit they are willing to maintain our relationship.

I went along with it for a while and it was ok, but i soon started feeling uncomfortable with it all, like it was just a continuation of our old family dynamic but minus our parents and that's exactly what it was. But they are not open to creating a 'new' dynamic and admitting into that new dynamic the truth about me and my childhood. So they want to continue in the old way and i don't. And i can't force them to change their thinking, even if i told them everthing i went through in minute detail, i still don't think it would make any difference, they would still find some way to ignore it and pretend it didn't happen, because they simply do not want to face the ugly truth. And for themselves they can do that as their own particular experiences weren't that bad, and so they would rather just stay in their world which includes my parents who were probably just about good enough parents to my sisters.

The more i write the more i can see that my sisters and i exist in two different worlds and until and unless they cross over into my world we will always be so far apart, there is really no point in having any sort of relationship, other than one purely out of duty/obligation because we share the same DNA. And i want more than that but with them that's all there will ever be. So all i can do is either continue on their terms or walk away.

OPO, wouldn't the easiest option be just to send a very short reply eg "fine thanks, hope you are well" and then forget it?

In a previous post you talked about wanting your sisters to understand why you feel the way you do about your parents and about them and they don't understand so far. You also said that you hadn't ever really told them exactly what happened. Well, if you wrote them a letter and you did write exactly what happened, in detail, would they be much more likely to understand then? Could you write down details about things your sisters have done as well and explain why it has had the effect it has on you? It seems like you really want them to understand and can't 'rest' until they do?

At the moment it sounds like you are saying to them - bad things happened, I'm not going to explain, but you just have to believe me, and then you feel upset because they don't believe you. People will probably do anything not to believe that their parents are bad because this is hard to handle. And if they didn't experience the same things as you then they probably want to believe it was the same for you as it was for them.

My younger sister has texted me again, just a general "Hello how are you" text. I haven't replied to her previous texts and I just don't know what to do. I know the advice on here was to just not reply and that in itself would send out a strong message. But i am finding it very hard. It's just not me. I am not really one to ignore people without at least telling them why I am unhappy first and giving them a chance to respond/change. If they do not give me the response i am looking for then i am quite happy to ignore.

Wrt my sisters, i feel i haven't really told them all the reasons i am unhappy with them. I know if i tell them i will probably get a bitchy response back, or they will fail to take responsibility for their actions and try and blame me and tell me i deserved to be treated badly by them. But even if i am risking a nasty response, i still feel i want them to know why i am unhappy. I do not expect a healthy response from them as i know they are unhealthy and damaged (although they don't know it themselves), but i feel i have this need to tell them why i am ignoring them.

Should i just hang on and keep ignoring and not responding? Or should i give in to my need to respond and explain why i am ignoring them? I really don't know what to do. It seems so mean to just ignore them, but otoh, i doubt if they spend much time wondering why i haven't replied. They probably think i am in a mood about something and that it's just me because i was born moody and grumpy and it's nothing to do with them and they should probably just ignore me til i get over it.

My middle sister's baby is due next week and i haven't heard anything from her for quite a while so that makes it a bit easier as i don't feel i am ignoring her as such. But i have no idea what to do once she has had her baby and i recieve a text from her or her DH. I thought i would just say something like "Congrats on the baby. Glad all went well (assuming it does). OPO" I don't want to mention about visiting as i don't want to visit her but would like to see the baby.

I would really appreciate some advice and opinions here, it's really bothering me.

Thank you for not forgiving my family. The thought that healthy-minded people despise their actions is surprisingly helpful.

There's some very useful food for thought in your post. Am I punishing her more than any other member of my family, even when others committed real crimes? It's a good question.

Maybe one small part is that she is so like my mum - lots of exaggerating and demanding attention. When I was an administrator she told people I was a 'manager'; to me she said 'you're just a secretary' - that is so insignificant in some ways, but it also shows that things had to look good for other people but I had to be put in my place (it says something that she thinks 'secretary' is a put-down). It's so hard to say what the point is - loads of memories and thoughts are swirling around and nothing is clear. I'd be reading this thinking "she called her sister a manager, what a bitch" .

Years ago, she would have been in her early 20s, I told her that a friend had said something about my difficult childhood and my sister said "yours was fine, what's she talking about?", then when I reminded her of the 5 years abuse and the same dead father she thought and said "hmm. yes, I suppose it wasn't very nice for you". She then went through a phase of feeling sorry for me, but it hadn't occured to her before. There's another 20 years of this leading up to her cutting me off. How could I start to approach her? She doesn't want me to.

Do you have her address and would writing a letter be an option if you wanted to get back in contact?

Compare what other relatives did compared to what your sister did in getting 'arsy' when you talked about moving on and there were probably a load of misunderstandings because it is so hard to find the right words for things. Does this make her seem not so bad?

She has probably done/said things that have made you angry and you have a right to be angry, but you can still love/like her and feel angered by her at times, unless she has done/said things that you can't forgive. Just like, for example, our children make us angry often but we still love them. Stuff that is 'smaller' than what your other relatives did is surely more forgivable. Has she done anything that you consider unforgiveable that you maybe haven't written about here?

No - not a bitch at all. I bounced in throwing very strong words around, you just reminded me how loaded those words are.

I need another word "decided not to hate because I did that for 35 years and it wore me out".

I can't use any language with my sister, she cut off all contact 5 years ago. I'm think I'm trying to work out what I feel about her.

...and I just feel the need to say, again:

I don't forgive your uncle for abusing you or any family members who let it happen if they had any inkling what was happening, and I don't forgive your relatives for neglecting you, or your mum for not giving you enough support when you talked to her about it, making it more about herself than about her child.

I'm very sorry these things happened to you.

TryingToMakeSense, sorry if I came across as getting at you and I admire you for having the courage to even talk/write about it! And I can understand that you want to just 'fix it' and get on with it, and that it must be frustrating to see your sister not seeming to get anywhere, and painful because you care about her and want her to make progress.

I can imagine if it was me, wanting to force her to see a therapist, but knowing that you can't force people. Can you tell her how good your therapist was for you and how much progress you made and suggest that it could benefit her too? (I guess you've probably said all this.) I think there is definitely a limit to what an 'untrained' person can do to help someone else who has been abused. (My DH used to be so frustrated with me for never seeming to get over the past and nothing he did or said was making a lasting difference.) I realised I was expecting too much of him (too fix me), and maybe you are expecting too much of yourself if you think you can 'fix' your sister? Is she reluctant to see a therapist?

Just like I probably used slightly wrong wording in my reply to you and came across as being a bit of a bitch, maybe you could modify the language you use with your sister without using the word 'forgive' in relation to the person who abused her and use words like 'deal with your feelings about it with a professional trained in these issues so that you can start to leave the past behind and live a nice life'. Forgiving without dealing with the feelings properly is like trying to do a quick fix. Try to be patient with your sister even though it hurts to see her not progressing fast x

Maybe she could benefit from posting on this thread?

I didn't say it right. It's the first time I've written this down and I've missed out so much. I'm also just starting to find my way saying any of this to other people.

My uncle was the abuser. I will never forgive him. He knew what he was doing was wrong and he still did it. He knew to hide what he was doing - I can't forgive that level of calculation.

My sister doesn't know how I feel about my parents. We haven't spoken for over 5 years and I had another year or so with the therapist where we talked through so much pain and anger. I could sit in the chair in the therapists room and burst into tears telling her about my day at work. But I kept talking and talking over and over until I stopped crying. My sister doesn't know any of this.

I understand why she felt betrayed by me. We used to be so united in our pain until I wanted to try and move my thoughts on. But I couldn't help her - we covered the same ground so many times and nothing changed, I felt so stuck.

I don't want to say anything that would hurt another poster. I'm just one more person who doesn't want this stuff rattling away in my brain - I want it out.

I don't think seeing her would remind me of bad things. She was mentioned a lot in therapy as her life was so much of mine.

Maybe forgiving was too strong a word - it should be "I can't forgive, but I need to create a distance or draw a line, behind which I feel safe".

Thank you for taking the trouble to reply. It's made me feel more real, if that makes sense.

...And yes, I can see how abuse could make someone act NPDish because when you've got so much stuff you are trying to make sense of and emotions you can't deal with and you are desperately trying to find some way to feel self esteem because it has been damaged, it has the effect of locking you inside your own head where it is difficult to see other people fully or care about anyone other than yourself because you are so preoccupied with your own problems.

I think I used to be like this.

I think a lot of people's relatives on this thread are like this and that is a big part of why they have neglected/abused them.

On this thread people are trying to deal with their issues so that they will not also be 'locked inside their own heads' forever and emotionally unavailable to their own children.

TryingToMakeSense, I would NEVER forgive someone who sexually abused me as a child. I thought I had forgiven someone who physically/mentally abused me but then realised it was denial of what happened because I found it too hard to face it. Since 'un'forgiving him I am feeling a lot 'saner'! I'm not holding onto the anger as I've been gradually processing it. Forcing yourself to forgive can be a way of blocking or masking anger which can then try to get out in other ways often without you knowing what caused it.

I can see that you wanted to get on with your life and not let what happened drag you down, but I can also see how your sister could be angry with someone who forgives someone who abused her!

Do you not want to see her because it would remind you of all the bad stuff that happened?

I've read a few of these threads and feel almost compelled to write this and post it where it has a chance of being understood. I feel as if I'm joining in with something I've always wanted to be a part of without understanding why. I've just has a bit of a moment where lots of fog has lifted and I can see my family clearly. Maybe I just need to share something with people who will understand.

Bear with me.

My family went through some traumas when I was a young child. My father died when I was very young. It's hard to explain the outside pressures at that time without going into loads of detail, but the atmosphere before he died was very dark and scary. After he died there was physical and sexual abuse from a family member which affected all of the siblings. We were emotionally neglected and when we annouced the abuse there was much shrugging and mum managed to make herself the biggest victim ("it always stays with you" - about her, not us).

I was too young to know what my mum was like before dad died, so I don't know if she was ever capable and not the self-absorbed person I knew. I've always known her as frightened and dishonest - that seems like a strong word, but she would always hint instead of ask for something or she would exaggerate - everything would be tinged with dishonesty.

My sister who is older than me was always the most talented, funniest, most artistic of the siblings. We used to endlessley discuss our upbringing. I know now how unhelpful this was, as we never used to try and make things better, we just used to go over and over how bad we felt and how we had been let down and hurt. I didn't want to feel so 'stuck', so I took myself off to a psychotherapist. It helped. I'm still an anxious person, but I don't find the trauma overwhelming any more. I have forgiven my parents and my family. I still think some of them were wrong and bad, but thinking that doesn't help me get better, so I forgave them. This must have hurt my sister as she immediately turned on me. She won't have anything to do with me. So now I can see her personality at a distance. She is never at fault for anything, someone else has caused every problem she has ever had. She has to be the centre of attention even if that means she is the centre of a storm. She can cut someone out of her life without a backward glance (including siblings and husbands). She is fantastic at projection - apparently I sulk a lot, this bemuses me, as I get cross, shout then calm down again; she sulks like mad then blames someone else for her not being able to voice her opinions. Arggh! It's all starting to sound a bit confusing. Are these NPD traits, or just the behaviour of someone who has been badly hurt? I can't see myself trying to contact her again, am I wrong to not be too bothered about this?

OSAHM (well done on the new name, btw) thank you so much, such excellent advice there, and very accurate, I think.

I have been reading this book- 'Playful Parenting' and it has been helping me enorrmously,I really recommend it.

OPo can I just say that I had never told anyone anything negative about my childhood until very recently. There are still things that I cannot bring myself to say out loud, but I am getting there gradually.

OSAHM, you have picked up on something important I think. Like you say, i am reluctant to go into detail about what i went through with my dad, particularly to my sisters. I always talk in general terms to them and they really have no idea or any details about specific incidents. But if i imagine myself talking to them in this way i always see myself getting no further than a few initial sentences before breaking down in tears and not being able to stop crying. And then i feel scared about how my sisters would react to seeing me break down and cry like that. I have never sobbed like that in front of them, i feel too vulnerable to be able to do that as i am not sure whether they would be sympathetic and supportive and understanding. I have a feeling they would be cold and uncaring and i think this is why i haven't opened up to them.

But i haven't really opened up to many people and talked in detail about the single most horrific incident i experienced. I once or twice briefly talked about it to my counsellor and i remember wanting to get off that particular subject as quickly as possible and so i quickly told her what happened and then changed the subject. I have also only briefly mentioned it on here.

I think i am scared to go there really. I feel like if i do, i will cry and cry and never stop. And i don't feel like i have found somebody in RL i can trust enough to know they will look after me if i break down completely. I feel reluctant to post on here about it as whilst i am sure i will receive lots of support from all of you, i will be alone at home crying by myself and i really feel i need to be with somebody i trust completely who will listen and understand and be there for me.

But thank you for making me realise that there is still something quite significant that i need to talk about as i was feeling that i had pretty much resolved most of my issues.

sb9, PM and OSAHM, thank you for your responses and sb9 and PM, am sorry to hear you have had similar experiences with your sisters. I am glad I'm not the only one but sorry for you as well.

OSAHM, I really understand what you say about doing the disconnecting in my head and still maintaining some sort of relationship with my sisters. I agree that that is possible. The only problem is that for me, i think it is only possible for me have contact with them after I have managed to disconnect from them in my head. At the moment, there are still some ties there, and they therefore have the power to hurt and upset me and i just do not want to put myself in that position again, not until i am ready and feel sure i can be in contact with them without being hurt. Perhaps if the baby was not due for another 6 months, i would have had enough time to work on myself and fully disconnect and then be able to contact them but without being scared of being hurt by them. But as it is due any day now really, i simply am not ready. Of course my sister will have absolutely no understanding of what i am going through and will simply reinfoce for herself her existing image of me as selfish and thoughtless and inconsiderate. (She will conveniently forget how many times i have been there for her in the past, how thoughtful, considerate and unselfish i have been with her when she needed me, how generous i have been, not only with my time, but financially and practically eg I gave her all our old baby stuff that we no longer need. We could have sold it all and made a bit of money, but instead we gave it all to her and she now has everything she needs for her new baby, without having to spend any money nor go to the shops etc, but i know everything i have done will be forgotten if i don't go and see her after the baby is born).

As it is now, i haven't contacted either of them for nearly 2 months, neither of them has been in touch to see if i'm ok. For all they know i could be ill in hospital. They just do not care about me and i wish so much i could stop caring about them as it is a very unequal relationship; they hold all the power and the ability to hurt me and i want to break their hold over me.

sb9, i must just respond to your post about your marriage falling apart. Me too. I am constantly triggered by DH and i realise i have been triggered by him since we got married (9 years). I too blow up at him over minor things and he is fed up and i don't blame him. He knows he has done nothing to deserve to be treated in the way i have treated him and he is beginning to feel he just cannot continue like this. But at the same time, i am finding it very hard to change my behaviour.

To give something positive, OSAHM is right about trying to be aware that you are being triggered and actively trying to trace back to where in your childhood your feelings originated. This has definately worked for me and I definately blow up a lot less with DH than i used to.

My current problem with DH is about how i communicate with him. I grew up without learing how to talk about difficult feelings. Without learning about to tell somebody, without hurting their feelings, that they have done something wrong, or could do things better in some way. When i was growing up, we never really talked or discussed things as a family. We all kept things bottled up until it was the last straw for somebody, then there would be almighty row during which all the bottled up resentments would come out, in an aggressive, accusatory, hurtful and tit for tat way. Nothing would get resolved, we would feel a sense of relief that the bottled up tensions had been released, but there was never any resolution. There was no post row, calm, constructive, reparatory discussion.

DH is always complaining that whenever i want to tell him something i am tactless, undiplomatic and careless about his feelings. And he is right. I have got no idea how to approach him about something i feel emotional about, my emotions seem to drive me, i don't think about what to say and how to say it, i just bluntly blurt things out and of course it never has the desired effect. I don't get listened to, instead i get DH's back up as i am accusatory and agressive in my approach and he digs his heels in. I am beginning to realise that deep down, i want to hurt DH and am glad to be able to point out when he has done something wrong. And the reason for this is that over the years we have been together DH has been forever pointing out things that i am not good at, things i can't do and there has been very little i could say that he needs to get right or improve on. So when finally there is something i can genuinely say that he is not very good at i am quite pleased. I feel glad that for once I am good at something and better at it than him and i like being able to point out his inadequacies and mistakes. I realise that over the years we have been together and i realise more and more just how badly i have been damaged by my parents and just how much i need to learn i have felt very inferior and inadequate next to DH who, whilst not perfect, is one of those rare, relatively undamaged adults, with minimal issues, all due to the parenting he received as a child. He was loved, cared for, cherished, nurtured etc, he got pretty much all the things he needed as a child and so no wonder he is now a healthy adult. I meanwhile got none of my needs met and not only that, was also severely abused and totally neglected as a child. So DH cannot understand how i felt as a child nor how it has made me feel now and i cannot understand or imagine what it would have been to have a childhood like DH's, to be a child who was loved, wanted and cherished.

Writing all this makes me realise just how far apart me and DH are. I do sometimes think i would have got on far better with somebody who came from a similar childhood to me, but who had worked on resolving his issues and had insight and awareness into his behaviour. But then two damaged parents would not be good for the DC's, at least they have had one undamaged parent all this time whilst i worked on my issues and i feel glad that hopefully DH would have counteracted some of my problems during the DC's younger years when i had not really sorted myself out so in that respect i am glad i am with a far less damaged person than myself.

Going back to my issues about communicating with DH and being happy to point out when he has finally done something wrong instead of it always being me, i think a deeper cause of my behaviour must be from my childhood. Perhaps i am hurting DH by tactlessly telling him when he has made a mistake when i actually really want to hurt my dad but of course i can't so i am taking it out on DH. I remember my dad used to hurt me by always putting me down and pointing out things i had done wrong/badly and I am now taking revenge for this on DH. I haven't been doing it consciously, as i have only just realised this as a possibility, but perhaps subconsciously my experience with my dad has been behind my behaviour.

I also find it very hard to talk to DH about things that I am worried about. I tend to stew over things alone in my head until i get really worried and eventually burst out and tell DH about whatever it is, but by that time i am resentful that i have been worrying about this thing all by myself which is of course ridiculous as i have only been worrying alone because i haven't told DH. If i had told him he would have been happy to help me resolve whatever issue had been bothering me. But i seem to find it impossible to talk to him about a problem at the outset, i always take on the problem myself, i never seem to realise that where during childhood i had nobody to unburden myself to, now i do have somebody who is willing to listen and share my problems. I literally feel paralysed, my tongue feels paralysed, my mouth seems to clamp itself shut and whilst i can say what i want to say in my head, i can't seem to get the words out. I think i always have a fear of what DH's reaction might be if i did manage to say what i want to say, but i know this fear is irrational. There is no need to fear DH's reaction as he is not my mother or father. My mother's reaction to me talking about my worries/fears would be to either ignore me or become so worried/fearful herself that I would end up reassuring her instead of the other way around, meaning i was still alone with my fears as she had not taken them onto her shoulders, instead she had put her own fears onto my shoulders so as a result of telling her i felt even worse not better. With my dad i have no experience of talking about my problems as after he destroyed our previously close relationship by his abuse, i was wary and fearful and distrusting of him and so of course would never dream of going to him to talk about anything. So between the two of them, my parents left me with nobody to talk to and so i must have learnt just to keep everything inside and that is exactly what i am still doing now. Except that a lot of the things i worry about are to do with the DC's, and i end up feeling resentful of DH that I am the only one worrying about things to do with the DC's when we are both their parents. But of course DH is completely open to and willing to listen to and share my worries about the DC's, it is because of my childhood that i find it hard if not impossible to talk to him and open up.

It isn't her. It is with any therapist though there was one I refused to go back to as he gave me the creeps.

I told her how I felt and she was very sweet about it and I feel a tiny bit more hopeful now.

I won't see her now for 3 weeks though.

Done it!

I am going to change my username to OrdinarySAHM or something like that - see you when I'm renamed!

OPO, I sense this desperation to make your sisters understand and believe you about what happened and how bad it was for you. I used to feel that I just needed someone to understand and believe me before I would allow myself to really feel what happened and deal with it. I'd had it so drummed into me 'not to be a wimp' and 'not to cause a scene' that I was too worried about being crap in some way if I 'succumbed' to my feelings and allowed myself to feel it fully. I wonder if you felt that just one person really knew the details and understood and believed you, if the desperate feelings about your sisters not understanding would subside? Perhaps they are not the ones to look to for this as they aren't capable. Over time Therapist gave me so much reassurance that I eventually let myself feel the past things that still affected me and process them more. You do seem to hold back from really saying details of what happened but probably if you could force yourself to say them to a therapist it could be a turning point?

Bop, don't be angry with yourself for feeling needy as it isn't your fault, it is the fault of your upbringing. Any of the people around you who you consider to be 'normal', if they had gone through the same things as you, are likely to have reacted similarly to you. You are a normal person who has reacted in a normal way to abnormal childhood experiences. Your DS is fine if you have already given him a reasonable amount of attention. Compare what you have done for him with what your parents did for you. I'm sure you will find that you have done a lot more, so, your DS is NOT going to be affected by his childhood the same way you were. Too much attention would be bad as well as too little, but I'm sure you haven't given him as little as you received yourself.

Pinky, I recognise that awful feeling from childhood of the knowledge dawning on you that NOBODY is going to help you, and the alone feeling that follows and causes you to shut off. I'm really sorry you felt this. I also recognise that rule of - you must keep up the illusion that your childhood is ideal to make us (the parents) look good and you will not shatter our image of what we wanted it to be like and cause us to feel disillusioned and disappointed. They are so wrapped up in their own 'stuff' that they take it as a personal criticism of their parenting when their child says there are problems! But it is only something to criticise if the parents don't do their job and help the child with their problems and put effort into making their child's life live up to the ideal they had imagined before having children! It seems some parents are just too weak to take on the task that they 'signed up' (literally in my case by adopting me) for! I'm wondering if my parents felt deep down that they were inferior in importance to us compared to our natural parents but didn't want to face this feeling of inferiority and maybe this was part of the problem. So they were extra defensive and couldn't face the fact that they weren't doing such a fantastic job that their kids had no problems.

I also recognise the panic that your children might feel any of the same things that you did to the same extent as you did. You think that if your parents acted like it was normal not to notice bad things going on with their children then it is LIKELY that you won't either. But it WASN'T normal, they were just ACTING like it was to defend their own self esteem and feelings, but at the expense of yours. YOU are NOT likely to not notice your children's feelings, especially as your experiences will make you better able to recognise it if they feel anything like the feelings you felt.

I wonder if they didn't want you to speak because sometimes when you spoke, the things you said showed them up to be crap parents. They want to think, and for others to think, that they are great at their job as parents, so they can feel self esteem, and will not accept anything that sounds like criticism. But being a great parent takes lots of hard work and if they don't do the work they will not be 'great'. I think most people don't realise how hard parenting is going to be until they do it and unfortunately some people become discouraged very quickly and 'give up'! They need to know that - it is supposed to be hard and there are supposed to be problems for you to work through and that doesn't mean that you are crap parents it just means you have work to do. If you don't do that work to such an extent that your child is affected long term then you are crap.

You need to feel equal and important but your parents may not be the ones to look to, to make you feel like this, if they are incapable because they are too wrapped up in their own issues. The fact that you feel inferior and unimportant doesn't mean that you are, it is not your fault, it is due to their failings as parents. You might need to look for other people to give you something of what your parents should be giving you if your parents are never going to be capable of providing this.

OPO, deciding to disconnect from your sisters doesn't mean that you aren't 'allowed' to contact them in any tiny way at all does it? If it makes it easier for you to send a quick reply when your sister tells you she has had the baby, rather than a load of aggro being caused by you not responding, which would make your life difficult, then why not take the easy option? Most of the disconnecting can be done in your own head! Ie, disconnecting your thoughts about them enough to not care what they think of you or how much you get from them. Think about other people instead of them. (Easy to say I know.)

Sb9, would you be happy to see a therapist? At least you recognise that the anger isn't really about your DH but about his behaviours triggering feelings from past experiences that he reminds you of in some tiny way. If you can find a way to process the original things that made you feel bad, the anger with your DH will subside a bit. You could process the past stuff by therapy, writing about it on your own, writing about it on here, talking to friends, reading books on this type of thing, whatever way feels best for you.

FabBaker, do you think you would feel 'I don't want to go' with any therapist or just the one you've got? It is scary making yourself talk about things which stir up bad feelings, but if the way your therapist does things makes you feel uncomfortable around her then maybe she isn't suited to you? Could you say you feel under pressure when she is silent and just waits for you to speak and you would be more relaxed about talking if she asked you questions to get you started? The therapy probably will feel really upsetting for a time while you are reliving experiences so that you can process them but if she is a good therapist then it will be worth it in the end when it starts to get better. It will probably feel worse before it feels better though.

Fab all I can suggest is that you tell her these things.

I know what you mean, though. My therapist is quite chatty and I find this much easier, though it has taken me ages to trust him at all and I still have reservations. I don't know about you, but for me I think I find reasons not to like him becuase I still fear the guilt of talking about this stuff. I feell very guilty poting on here.

It is early days with this lady, yes? Maybe give her another go, tell her how you feel and she may be able to adjust her approach?

x

I have my second therapy session and I really really don't want to go.

I have no idea what her plan is for me other than to eventually join a group which I don't want to do and it is unnerving when she says nothing and waits for me to talk. I just don't want to go.

Thanks for you replies, Hana, attila. I do know it really. My therapist thinks I should maintain contact with them but I find this conflicts me greatly.It is the one thing that makes me feel unsure about him. I think he is right in as much that right now I would feel way too guilty if I cut them off completley. But the fact is that my brother and sister have effectively cut me off since I started setting boundaries with my mother and sis- manily because of my mother's intensive programme of disinformation. My father has never really given a shit about me anyway so at least he's being honest in not even attempting any contact. The only one I have left is the main protagonist- my mother. I have realised that she can drag members of my old family and old family friends into her army of emotional blackmail but thankfully she cannot touch the people that are actually good for me- namely DH, his parents, my own friends, my children. I worry that she may influence my children, especially my DS who she is a bit obsessed by.

The truth is she does not want to see me to chat- she just wants information about me, or to malign those around her to me and I am not interested. SHe does not like talking to me as I wont talk to her in the way she wants- namely joining in with her derision of her friends and our family. So what exactly is in it for her? Maybe she will get bored and leave me alone. And maybe by thaty time I will have the right level of emotional detachment from her not to care.

I can see I am just not ready to make this decision.

OPO that resonse you describe from your sisters is pretty much exactly what my sister has said to me when she tells me she is 'done with me'.

Oneplusone,
Not been on for a while but i had the same situation with my sister. She had her baby and i visited her after 3 months when i was in the area,. Oh yes I had the whole ' you dont care about me' ect etc...

When i had my baby two years later she actually said that she would visit after 3 months as thats when i had visited!

While I am on, hope i can get some advice. My relationship with my husband is falling apart and dont know what to do about it. We were so good but this past year its just going wrong. He said i am taking my anger out on him and i know that things he says and does is annoying me but think some of that is down to my past. For example i hate it when im not listened too and when he 'ignores' what i have said i blow up. I need to save my marriage...

tmsb, thank you. I want to disconnect from my sisters and I am trying to and I think I have made quite a lot of progress in this area but i don't think i'm quite there yet. As what they think still bothers me and if i was truly completely disconnected it would not bother me. But I don't know how to sever the final ties that seem to still exist.

Perhaps it's because my middle sister's baby is due any day now that I am still thinking about them. I am worried/wondering what will happen if i decide i don't want to go and visit her after she's had the baby. I don't feel I can go and see her and be all fake and act happy and excited and pleased. Of course i have nothing against the baby, it's my sister who i have the problem with. I would like to see the baby, i just don't want to see her.

I am glad i haven't written any sort of letter to either of them, i have just not contacted them at all but once the baby's born i know they will contact me and whilst it is fine not replying to everyday texts from them, i am scared of what will happen if i don't respond to a call/text from her about the birth of her baby. I know she will probably have the typical narcissistic response "How nasty and selfish of opo to not come and see me or congratulate me about my baby, she clearly doesn't give two hoots about me so i won't bother with her anymore". But the truth is that once upon a time i did care about her a lot, but she has hurt me so much and treated me so shabbily that she has destroyed my feelings for her. But of course she will never see it that way, in her eyes the fault will be all mine, i am being moody/selfish/inconsiderate, not because she might have done something to cause me to not contact her, but because that is the way i am, a horrible, nasty, inconsiderate, thoughtless, ungrateful person.

I am sure both my sisters look down on me and consider themselves superior because they treat my parents better than i do and they profess to care about them whereas i am just an unloving, ungrateful person, and that is just the way i am, my behaviour in their eyes does not have it's origins in the way our parents mistreated me, in their eyes it's just part of my nature to be a worse person than the two of them.

I can tell by what i have written just now that things are not completely resolved for me wrt my sisters, still some more work to do in that regard.

Pinky

I don;t think the dysfunction caused by your toxic parents will rub off on your children because you have what your parents never had - insight. You're thinking about it and are aware. Again two qualities your parents never had.

Would not be giving your parents the time of day. They aren't worthy of you or your time honestly, you're a million times better parent than they ever were to you and your siblings because you've all suffered differently at their hands.

with best wishes

Attila

This is the link:-

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/6190357/My-husbands-father-is-drunkenly-abusing-us.-I-cant-take-his-bully ing-any-more.html

Hi all,

Have any of you seen the Daily Telegraph's section called "Lifeclass" recently?. (Just type lifeclass into their search engine on their home page and you'll find it). The lifeclass column is well worth a read anyway but I thought both Felicity's letter and the response to it would strike a chord with you all as well.

The columnist answers a question this week about her husband's toxic father and how to deal with him.

Hi All,
Haven't been on here for a while.
Pinky, futile hope I'm afraid. I think you know that. Doesn't stop the grief at the lack of a proper parental relationship though.

Soryr for typing I have DD1 on my lap! I hope you can make sense of it.

I suppose the thing I really worry about is not that I am mean or cruel to my children, because I am pretty certain I'm not. What worries me is that my dysfunction is going to rub off on them.

Another thing I have been thinking about is that when I remember things I often remember how it was for my siblings, but not for me. Is this normal? Like that last thing about father locking us out off the house. It happened to me but the main significant memories are of me letting my siblings in when they were locked out. MY sister always says that she went thruogh a lot of horrible things and this made my 'ride' easier.This has had teeo effects
1) I feel that my problems are insignificant compared to hers
2) That she in some way suffered for me, and that makes me responsible for the things that happened to her.

Toomanystuffedbears- that is exactly the thing, isn't it. Getting free of the apron strings, as it were. Toxic parents like to keep their scapegoat trapped in the parent-child dynamic, adn this is what we need to set ourselves free from. I suppose this is why I feel ambarrassed talkign about how much I was in the control of my parents even after I had been away to art school- I had always longed to just leave and never go back and not to worry about what they thuoght of my life choices, but instead they have influeneced my every move, until now.

I guess part of desire to still see my parents is the hope that I can adjust this dynamic so that I am on an equal, adult footing with them, but is this a futile hope?

smithfield-from your post I think you have overcome the reflex to justify or rationalize their abusive natures. Imho, you are at the point of truly sincerely disconnecting from them in every way.

I want to say that it may be a natural step in growing up (the phrase 'cutting apron strings' comes to mind)...but there is nothing natural about dealing with toxic people, especially parents/siblings. Dissolving the enmeshment is a significant acomplishment, and I am very happy for you.

Oneplusone, if you disconnect from your sisters, maybe you will feel relief instead of pain (fog). Can you give it a trial run? Don't announce it, just withdraw and see how you feel (try not to be concerned what they might feel).

I remember clearly one incident where I was feeling very low at school. I would have been around 13-14 years old Lets face it I was one of the school 'freaks'. I told one of the teachers that I felt life was too hard and seeemingly pointless. I went home, put on my 'acting normal' face and my mother tore strips off me because the teacher had rung her and how embarrassing it was etc. etc. I felt awful. I do not understand how I could feel so low one minute then just go all sort of numb and seemingly 'normal' the next. Is this normal? I have no idea. But I learned not to confide in anyone about my true feelings, becuase I could not trust them and they got me into trouble, and that teacher was so cross with me. I think I had already been hitting myself when I felt upset by that stage. I used to slap myself and bang my head against the wall- I would rage against myself for having these feelings- and I carried on doing this until fairly recently. Is this normal? I doubt it, but I don't really know.

I was bullied at school, at the bus stop, on the bus. I would race to get the first bus home to avoid some particular girls and would frequently wet myself on the way home becuase I didn't go to the toilet at school for fear of missing the bus. I was so lonely and would cry and cry. My mother would comfort me in her own inimitable way- which was to tell me 'what the trouble with me was' so all my flaws would be pointed out, explanations given as to why people would not want to be my friend, or else it would be how all people are horrible and nasty and should be avoided. All in very soothign tones, mind, unless she was bored with it then I would be told to stop feeling sorry for myself, or she would be in a rage and I would just hide in my room. SO yeah, mum, I'm sure it was a BIG SUPRISE when a teacher rang you to say I was unhappy at school. Not so long ago I talked to my parents about how I was bullied. My mother said 'you should have told me, we would have moved you to another school' huh?? what does she mean she didn't know? her ability to rewrite history is quite alarming.My father said 'people of character learn to rise above these things' thanks, dad.

All through this time I had virtually no day to day contact with my siblings, except for the ordeal that was mealtimes ('does she have to speak' etc.) I was very isoalted in so many ways.

When any of us went out in the evening, and we were a bit late, my father would bolt the door from the inside so we couldn't get back in. Then he would sit in the sitting room in the dark, getting drunk and getting angry. I remember my brother climbing up to my bedroom window to wake me so I could let him in. I remember my sister crying hysterically one time because she was locked out and some boys kept driving past shouting at her. I had to let her in. And my father was in When it happened to me there was noone else ther to let me in, so I just had to bite the bullet and ask father to let me in, and he would take his time about it.
The next day, you would get the silent treatment.

How do I avoid being like this with my own children? I feel such rage inside me and I fight it down as much as I can, but it is so hard. I have this feeling of being unable to cope, unable to read their feelings effectivley, a panic that, for instance my little DS is actually really unhappy at school and I am unable to read his true feelings, and he is unable to confide in me. Is he 'acting normal' for me, already? I have a terror of being like my parents.

Sorry for my ramblings.

Just a quick one, just want to say it's coming to the end of a long day with DS and much of it has been really lovely but i haven't had any contact with any other mums today at all and I find that really really hard. I'm still the more needy one in most of my friendhsips, even tho my friendships now are so much better tahn the ones I had in the past - I'm one of the only full time SAHMs I know (most work part time) and so have a lot more days to fill, and I find it's me texting/ringing other people more than the other way around,a nd that still really gets to me - I hate being so needy still, there's this abandoned child still really strong in me who goes round trying to find someone to play with (I can remember doing literally just that when I was about four, and how crushing it was when none of the other kids were available - my own family of course were all completely wrapped up in their own stuff and ignoring me as they very often did) - anyway, like I say, it just makes me really really angry that I'm still this vulnerable and helpless up to a point - even though the people I meet now are nice and decent and caring on the whole, there's still this imbalance, other people don't need me as much as I need them - the imbalance that was shaped by my childhood. sick as a parrot. Ds has just thrown ball at computer, pulled the front of my top down asking for a feed, and tried to dismantle the printer, so I think he wants some attention! I HAVE given him loads and loads and loads of attention today, and I don't think I should be worrying about him feeling the same way I felt - but it's hard not to. Bye, anyway.

I should have explained what i meant by 'indecent proposal' re the money from my parents. I see like the offer in the film of the same name, they take the money thinking they can handle the questionable morals involved but it nearly destroys them and their relationship although they manage to pull it back together. I keep wondering if i take the money thinking i can handle the fact that my gut instinct tells me not to and just focus on the rational side that says it will help the DC's. But maybe it will destroy and unravel all my hard work in sorting out my issues. Accepting the money may stir up feelings i had never thought of and cause more problems than it solves.

I feel down today after a number of up days. I feel very sad and upset at how my sisters have been so unsupportive and do not believe that i really suffered because of our parents. Especially when i think about the past 2/3 years whilst i have been putting myself back together so i can try and function as a normal healthy person, something they take for granted as they were never attacked and nearly destroyed like i was.

I feel angry that they think i would cut my parents off, it's now been over 3 years, for nothing. It's true that they have no real idea of the nightmare that has mostly been my life these last few years, no idea of the emotional, physical and psychological toll sorting out my issues has taken not only on me but on DH, our marriage, the DC's individually and our family as a whole. But even so, without knowing any of that, i would have expected that they would realise that i would not have taken such a drastic step had i not been so deeply and continuously hurt, damaged and traumatised by our parents. And even before i cut off our parents, they were certainly not my dad's biggest fans, they were as critical of him as me on many occasions and my middle sister was always trying to persuade our mother to divorce him. But now all of a sudden, he's the good guy and i'm the baddie. I know, according to all the books that this is a very common scenario and my sisters need to maintain their illusion of loving parents as they cannot face reality etc etc, but it still hurts. Their reactions and behaviour have hurt me a lot and I don't think I'm quite over it yet.

Sorry to post and run, only had a few minutes just now.

Thatnks Bop. I will try that tonight.

Fab I think you are so right- my mother for example has everyone convinced she is a devoted caring, loving mother. She is so clever at it. When the psychologist came to my house as a child (I had been referred by the school as they were worried about me), my parents put on a virtuoso performance of the concerned parents with a difficult young teenager. He seemed not to notice that I was wafer thin whilst the rest of my family were rather overweight and all my clothes were at leats 3 sizes too small.

I never saw him again after that. And I never told anyone anything was wrong at home. Not ever.

\'

I don't think I will ever understand why the social services allowed this to go on for so long and were so stupid as to not see her manipulating them, and then when they did realise they let her carry on.

In the papers they talk about how for the last 20 years they have tried to keep families together as if it is a new thing. Rubbish. I am 37 so it has been going on a lot longer than that.

I had a good day yesterday and then felt low in the evening.

have to go to school now, can explain more later.

oh gosh Pinky that rings so many bells. When I first tried to broach the subject with my parents their immediate response was "but you were such a happy child" - yes,I appreared to be most of the time because there was no space for me to be anything else. As you say, "Any 'demands' I made outside of this remit would be dismissed as unreasonable". SOOOOOOO true!! It's shockingly manipulative, isn't it - we will punish you for being anything other than happy, so you don't have any choice but to try and be fucking happy, and then we will use the fact that you appeared so happy to deny that we ever gave you grounds to be anything else! To twist and distort the truth/reality ad infinitum GOD I hate these fuckers, I am so angry... I am trying so hard at the moment to start getting on top of these bullies in my own head. But that's another deep and dark dredgy topic.

Back to their denial of our unhappiness at the time - there WERE actually fairly frequent occasions when I was clearly not happy - running from the table sobbing at teat time really often for example, in primary school years - and one particualar incident where I confided in my mother about the bullying I was getting at school and how I really couldn't cope with it any more and how desperate I was, all with uncontrollable crying, like a dam had burst - and these things were just completely ignored and dismissed, like you say they were just seen as unreasonable and so they didn't have to deal with them. And they could just pretend they never happened and nothing had to shatter their delightful image of our family as an idiyllic place in which to grow up. I want to vomit.

And of course my brother had all the prerogative on anger. I wasn't allowed any.

Actually, the "special" stuff came more often from my father than my mother - there was a creepy emotionally incestous thing going on there, he made me his mistress in an emotional sense, would confide in me and tell me things he had never told anyone else, even my mother - and then tell me that so I knew I was the "special" one. He is such a shit. There was no outright sexual abuse as such, but there were a couple of really awful things he did that bordered on a kind of sexual violence/control, and those two things scarred me for sure, maybe also because they were emblematic of our relationship in general. I think one of the reasons I stayed single for as long as I did was that they made it so that unconsciously I was emotionally "involved" with my father as I say in a kind of mistress role, I was tied to him and not actually free to form a healthy, loving relationship with a man for myself. So I always ended up with men who were unavailable in some way, because I was unavailable myself, but I hadn't a clue as to how that was all working for a very, very long time, and traditional counselling/therapy did bugger all to uncover that.

Pinky, I wonder if you could separate out the two parts of you re the issue of continuing to see your parents - one side of you clearly feels you have to or need to in some way, while another side absolutely doesn't want to. Could you maybe draw or model the two parts (you being an artist!) and give them some physical dimension, and then try and initiate a dialogue between those two parts? Just to see what comes out? Maybe it sounds completely nutso, but I personally can vouch for the success of this kind of approach, and it sounds as if you're really torn at the moment.

Fab That is real progress. I went through something a bit similar over my sis. Therapist did this thing with stones, you know, where you pick them out as people based upon their size, texture etc.then place them according to their relationship to you. I couldn't let go of the stone I had for my sis, I have spent so much of my life worrying about her, feeling for her,as Bop has said before, I was the one responsible for grieving for all her problems, and in that session I finally came to realise that I was not to blame, just becuase I had been born and 'cramped her style' as it were, and lots of events subsequent to my birth where I was blamed for things when really they were nothing to do with me. I realise now how manipulative she has been, how cruel she has been to me, and once I stepped back from our relationship a bit she showed her true colours. I hated her for quite a while, but now I am just letting go of her, I think. Well letting go of the idea of having a proper sister, if that makes sense.

What was done to you was very cruel. and I find it hard to understand how it was allowed to happen, so casually, and I think feeling anger, and allowing yourself to feel it without guilt, is crucial.

Bop "I do believe a lot of the abuse was not just what happened, physically and verbally, but also the unspoken messages that were drilled into me" my therapist has said to me that he thinks this is very much what has happened to me. These 'subliminal' messages have been absorbed by me just as you describe.

When you mother says you were 'special' etc, I can reltae to that, too. I was always happy, loving and caring, apparrently -That was what was decided for me, I suppose. Any 'demands' I made outside of this remit would be dismissed as unreasonable - there was no space for me to be anything other than empathic and compliant. THese aspects of my character were exploited to the point that I trusted no-one- I expected to be hurt physically, emotionally and my view of the world became skewed. I even believed I was a freak for being left-handed.
Now that I have a third child of my own, I can see my mother's scary mindset- my firsat two have their characters developing, my little DD2 is a happy, easy-going baby, and in my mothers insane twisted world that would be it for her- there is no space for her to be anything else.

My mother thinks she has loved and cared for me all my life. She is nuts. And I have arranged to see her this week. And possibly another appearence from father. Last time he said not one word to me. Not a one, except to shout at me for asking him very politely to offer the biscuit to my baby's hand instead of shoving it in her mouth. I don't want to see them. And I don't like the way these meetings disrupt me emotionally both before and afterwards.

Bop, thank you

I still feel very angry with my mother and I don't think I feel bad. Has to be progress, doesn't it? I normally feel sorry for her but the anger is taking over right now and I just want to throw cold custard at her.

Hi Oneplusone
You wrote:
"... my sisters certainly never think about my feelings so i will no longer think about theirs. It is a hard habit to break, i have thought about them over myself for most of my life, 39 years. I don't feel entirely comfortable doing this but i know it's the right thing to do to protect myself."

I am kind of going through these thoughts about empathy and my middle sister. For some reason my brain wants to think about 'what if' middle sister became seriously ill-and this is truly out of the blue. And I am to think 'well, she's had no empathy for me, why should I show her any' and then not quite say "so what?" but close.

"Emotional prostitution"-that is such a good summary of how we supply them, isn't it? That is the reason for all those gifts, exactly. Thank you!

I am reading The Emotionally Abused Woman by B. Engel. My dh, bless his heart, said he hoped he wasn't the reason for me reading the book. I asured him it was all about me and my crap childhood.

Sorry I have not been on the thread for ages. It was getting me down for a while there and I needed a break.

v quick one, struggling so much to get enough sleep at the mo and was so late the other night when I posted - u nfortuanately I often only seem to get any headspace to write from when it's late at night - but I've been exhausted all weekend so have to try and keep it brief tonight - anyway, OPO, thanks for all your replies, and jsut wanted to say I can relate to so much of what you've written both in your posts that were replying to mine, as it were, and this new one too. I too keep finding I hate my parents more, just when I think I cna't hate them any more! I too have struggled with the money thing - have had to accept a lot of financial help from them in the past as they left me so incapacitated that I was never able to generate/earn enough money to live on myself, despite having quite a few talents and skills that had I not been so damaged and handicapped could have earnt me a great deal of money. More recently, my mother offered a few times to pay towards my therapy, and each time she baled out after just a couple of months, always found some excuse. The last time we spoke about it I made it very clear that if she paid it was to be seen as reparation for damage done, NOT them "helping" me out of the goodness of their hearts, because they're such loving, generous, concerned parents blah blah blah (oh I know that syndrome, OPO, I know it! I bet our parents would get on really well!!!); anyway, my mother appeared to go along with this but she obviously never really felt it in her heart, and when it became clear after a couple of months that this "blood money" wasn't going to stop me from being angry at them and hurt at all they'd done to me. hey presto the money stopped. So, even though she too said it was "no strings attached", it clearly wasn't. As usual, she was trying to buy me. I didn't get why you called it an "indecent proposal" type thing at first when you wrote about their offer, OPO, but then it clicked - yes, of course, it IS a type of prostitution! Emotional prostitution.

I really see your dilemma, and I feel for you in this. I don't see myself taking anything more from my parents now, but last time we spoke my mother did say they were planning to divide up most of what they have between me and my brother in a few years time, so if (rather unlikely now) that happens, I shall be in the same position. And I will find it as difficult as you to reconcile. YEs, they DO owe us, big time, and yes, we could certainly use the money - like you, it would be wonderful to have something solid put aside for DS's higher education, for example - but they would ALWAYS see it as them being generous and loving, and I think in my case there would definitely be strings attached. I have got to the point where I am prepared to forfeit my share of whatever there is to inherit when they die, even though it would be really, really useful to us, and god knows I deserve the compensation. My brother has been very successful financially, in a completely different league to me and has no real money issues - and how much of that is due to the fact he had someone to dump all his rage and venom and self hatred on all through his childhood and adolescence, and beyond? So he could actually function; so he felt that much better about himself. And more - somehow he was ALLOWED to succeed and be a normal person with a normal life: I do believe a lot of the abuse was not just what happened, physically and verbally, but also the unspoken messages that were drilled into me - that I had no right to a normal life, that I was somehow different to everybody esle, and less important, and that it was not only OK, it was imperative that I be constantly suffering in some way.

I dont' really know how to write about that stuff. It's so intangible. I just know it's true. i was brought up to believe that I deserved to be in pain, unsupported, isloated - alienated from everybody else somehow. And that it was somehow criminal of me if I DIDN'T want to accept that, and if I tried to make my life a better one. I can't emphasise this enough. My parents of cousre would deny all that most vehemently. they insist that I was loved and cared for; they even try to make out that they considered me "special" in some way and that I was treated better tahn my brother in many ways. Absolute bullshit; the way our respective lives turned out I think is proof of who got the most from our parents, but hard bullshit to challenge, especially when you've been fed on a diet of that since you were born. I wish I could verbalise and articulate this better, but it's murky.

OPO, you're right about the fear and the effect it has on your brain, I'm sure. As parents, we read about the effects of the things we do to our children; we were those children ourselves, and the abandonment, abuse, terror MUST have had an effect on our developing brains - the way all the pathways form and so on. The associations we made. How can we possibly expect ourselves to behave like healthy adults when we were those children who were deprived of what we needed in order to develop healthily?

Had better stop there before I get even more carried away and am on here till all hours again. Love to all. Oh, and Fab, I'm really glad to hear you're feeling angry at your mother - she bloody well deserves your anger, and I hope you aren't still feeling cross with yourself for hating her, that's a healthy attitude to have towards her! She abandoned and negelected you and then she came between you and people who would have cared for you better and so exposed you to people who abused you - there's a lot to be angry about.

Hi all. I find I am slowly telling DH more and more about my childhood than I ever have and also what I have been going through more recently in order to recover and try and repair the damage done to me by my parents. And I can't help but remembering a dream I had years ago, long before I had the DC's and before I had any real awareness of just how much childhood stuff I had buried inside me. In the dream DH and I were standing in a queue at the cinema and the only weird thing about the dream was that I was naked . I am still not sure what that dream might mean, but I am wondering if somehow a part of my mind knew even at that very early stage in our relationship, that one day I would 'reveal all' to DH, not literally in a physical sense as in the dream, but all my innermost deepest darkest secrets, thoughts and feelings. Because if that was the meaning behind the dream, it is certainly gradually becoming a reality and is no longer merely a dream.

I am constantly amazed at my dreams and at how 'predictive' they have always been. A part of my mind seems to be able to see into the future and see and realise things that my conscious brain takes years to work out.

Anyway, a revelation I made to DH very recently, before i had even really thought it all through properly for myself, is that I feel that because of my dad's verbal and psychological abuse, I was 'brain damaged' as a result. Or perhaps not brain 'damaged' but the part of my brain that is supposed to process certain emotions such as fear, did not develop properly, perhaps it shut down, perhaps it was damaged, or perhaps it just stopped developing and has remained til now in the state it was when i was 10. I also think other areas of my brain 'over developed' to compensate as I think my intellectual side is far more developed than my emotional side.

I think the level of fear i was exposed to as a child was far too great for my brain to process, it simply was not developed enough at age 10 to handle the terrifying experiences with my dad to which i was subjected. So my brain and body adapted by somehow managing to avoid processing the extreme fear and suppressed it, stopping it being processed as it should have been and thus not allowing me to consciously feel the fear i would have felt otherwise as the level of fear would have been too much for me to be able to handle and could perhaps have caused serious or even fatal damage to me. The body's instinct for survival means, I think, it will do whatever is necessary to avoid death. I believe it is possible for a child to die of fear and although it may sound melodramatic, perhaps that is what would have happened to me if my brain had allowed me to actually feel the full extent of the fear i know i would have felt as a result of the most terrifying incident when i was 10.

As it is i know i did feel some level of fear during that incident as i remember feeling terrified at the time, not only at what my dad was doing but also what he potentially could do to me if he wanted to and i knew there was nothing i could do to stop him, what can a 10 year old girl do when faced with a grown man attacking her, and also i could see my mother standing a few feet away, doing nothing to help me, nothing to stop my dad. I remember she looked terrified herself, and she was only watching, i was the one my dad was attacking, i can only imagine now, 29 years later, the fear i must have been feeling at the time.

I think I am not ready even now to feel that level of fear that i would have felt that day years ago. A few weeks ago, out of the blue, i got a very nasty and threatening text from that mum at school who i have been having problems with. I remember when the text came through and i saw it was from her and i read it, i started shaking and i felt completely terrified. Perhaps that text triggered my feelings of terror from the incident 29 years ago, but i think i wasn't ready to feel that level of fear even now as i remember consciously, but still, almost automatically, stuffing my feelings down inside me so i wouldn't feel them consciously in my brain, and i remember it took some effort to control the feeling of terror and to compose myself and to act normal, act like the text hadn't bothered me in the slightest and to even act a bit jokey and tough about it.

Then my eczema started flaring up after months and months of improvment and i have no doubt it was caused by the suppression of my feelings a week or two earlier. Then an incident with DH triggered the release of the suppressed feelings, and immediately my eczema started clearing up again.

This is the first time I have been so consciously aware of stuffing my feelings down and putting on an act of pretending i wasn't scared or bothered by what had happened. But before i stuffed my feelings down i remember feeling a little bit of fear and terror, enough to make me feel shaky and to make my heart race. I feel so sorry for the little girl that i once was who was made to feel the same level of terror, to the point where i must have been shaking, heart pounding, and not caused by the actions of some crazy stranger, but her own dad, whilst her mother watched and did nothing.

And it makes me so angry that my parents, in making this offer of money to me, seem to think they are doing me a favour and being so generous in wanting nothing back from me by saying the offer had no strings attached. They are not doing me a favour at all and they have no right to expect anything back from me, even if they gave me millions of pounds. Because they owe me, they owe me because of what they put me through, the damage they did to me which has taken me months and years of sheer hard work to try and repair and their audacity in offering me money as if it was an act of kindness and generosity on their part when they have taken so much from me makes me so angry.

And making the offer via my sister to make sure she was aware of how kind and generous they were being, even in the face of their ungrateful daughter who had so cruelly cut them off when they had, all their lives. been nothing but the kindest, most caring and loving parents that ever walked this earth, makes me hate them afresh all over again, when i thought could not hate them any more than i already did.

I am sure that is what is behind their so completely "kind and generous offer". Another attempt to show just how lovely they are, making such an offer and wanting nothing in return and if i accepted it, it would confirm just how nasty and ungrateful i was and how lovely and kind and selfless they were and had always been. They are trying to make sure that my sisters stay loyal to them and do not even contemplate cutting them off like i have, which is why, i am sure my parents have already given a substantial sum to my sister to help her with buying her house. I am sure she now feels completely tied in to my parents, she has to be loyal to them and 'love' them, no matter what she feels inside about them.

I am sure that deep down my parents may be feeling insecure about the loyalty of my sisters towards them. Now that my sisters are having their own children, perhaps my parents are scared that sooner or later they will start questioning their own childhood experiences just as i did once i had my DC's. And in order to prevent my sisters from cutting them off too, they have effectively 'bribed' them into staying close and loyal to them. I am sure my parents are not even themselves consciously aware that this is what they are doing by giving their money away like this, but i am sure that deep in their subconscious that is what is going on.

I am still contemplating accepting their money, because it will help pay for the DC's education and i feel able to take the money quite cold heartedly and feel no obligation to give anything back to my parents in return. I see the money as a drop in the ocean of the huge debt my parents owe me because of the damage they did to me and the endless losses they have forced me to endure and the hardship, pain and suffering they caused me, including the actual physical distress and pain and discomfort caused by my eczema. Even if they are not aware of this or would not agree with this does not change the truth of it.

rose - my DH wrote to my father and he doesn't have anything to do with me now but since I have spoken to him about 3 times in 37 years, I can live with it.

I am feeling very angry with my mother right now about what I posted about a few days ago.

Bop, sorry my responses are so bitty, i keep finding more in your post that i can relate to. Again I COMPLETELY understand what you are talking about your DS not having your side of the family to love and adore him like your family in law do, i feel exactly the same wrt my DC's. I also totally know how you feel about how hard it is to be a mother to your own DC's but without having a mother yourself and the consequences of this, just like you have described, no emotional or practical support or help, no respite as it is really only one's own mother who would take on the responsibility of our DC's in order that we can have a break and rest from it all. And we are perhaps even more in need of a rest/break/respite than other SAHM's as, as well as the hard work of looking after young DC's, we are also doing the hard work of healing and recovering and repairing ourselves from the damage done to us in childhood, and this work is also very tiring, draining, and often painful.

I have been on the point of near collapse at times with it all, i have nearly been admitted to hospital twice because i was so run down my immune system was shot to pieces, i have been sobbing down the phone to my counsellor once because i was so ill, i couldn't even get to school to pick up DD, but i didn't have anybody i could call to help me out as i hadn't been able to make friends with the other mums, again, all because of the toll trying to deal with my issues was taking on me. It was so very hard, a double whammy once again, i was in this situation because of my family and yet they were the very ones ideally wanted to help me, and yet there was no way i could ask them without ending up back in my old situation with them as like you said, they were offering a relationship, but only on their terms which were damaging and abusive to me. Awful awful awful, i will never forget the anguish, despair, pain and lonliness i felt during that particular period of my life. I literally had NOBODY who i felt cared enough to help me. I had to somehow claw my way out of the black hole i was in, totally by myself, with no help or support, not even from DH who at that time had started a new demanding job and was consumed with that and was gone for most of the day and emotionally he was unable to help as well as my issues were causing problems between us too and we were very disconnected from each other. All in all, it was nothing but a sheer and utter nightmare. I remember DH was also run down and constantly getting ill as well during that time, so he couldn't look after me. Being ill and having nobody to look after you and nobody who even cares enough to phone and ask you how you are is hell and made me feel so sad; i felt if i had died nobody would have even noticed or cared.

Sorry to ramble on about myself, but what you wrote struck such a chord, especially looking after DC's when you have nobody to look after you.

Bop, I absolutely know what you mean here: "Anyway, the truth is - in my own old family situation - that while I am the one who has chosen the physical separation - to protect myself and give me healing space/breathing space to emotionally separate from them - they are the ones who have ALWAYS rejected me, profoundly and consistently. They don't want and have never wanted a relationship with me. Or my son or my husband. The problem I struggle with is that they make it look as if I am the one rejecting them - because they DO offer a relationship, but it's a totally conditional one, it's one where I am only accepted if I basically agree with them, if I accept them treating me they way they want to, however destructive that is for me; where I have to take them on their terms but they don't have to take me on mine. and in the past it worked like that, because they had all the power and I had none; I tried and tried to insist on my terms, and they would appear to meet me a little bit; but underneath it was always the same. so they drove me away."

I used different words, but i have posted the same thing, a while ago now. Now that i have cut ties with my parents, the 'external reality' finally matches up with my 'internal reality' ie how i feel inside and in my head, alone and apart from my family, not a part of the unit. Because that was how i was made to feel by their behaviour.

Bop, so sorry for forgetting it was you who posted about the chimpanzee experiment, and thank you to AN for pointing it out to me. The experiment seems to sum it all up for me, my parents used to me to protect themselves from feeling their own pain and instead made me feel it instead. It is so interesting that in that experiment iirc, only some of the chimpanzee mummy's stood on their babies, whilst others didn't. It shows that damaged parents exist in the animal world as well, not just the human world, and that the protective parental instinct is not always present, even in animals as i always thought.

PM, I know what you mean about starting to gradually feel like you are a grown up, a real and proper person with your own personality. I can relate to that so much, i feel the same. I feel I know who I am, like i have, to use that corny phrase, 'found myself'. Just like Alice Miller says in the title of her book, 'The Truth Will Set You Free; Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self'.

I feel so sad to read about what you went through at your parents' house whilst you were at university. No wonder you were unable to find your creativity in your studio when you tried to go and work in there, your energy must have been completely sapped just coping with the emotional and psychological abuse and cruelty and harrassment you were being subjected to.

I have found that the more i heal, the more creative i can be. In very small and not very noticeable ways. Eg I seem to be able to be more creative in the kitchen, i can adapt recipies or even make things up which turn out quite nice. In the past i was completely rigid, i had to stick to the recipe completely and was 'scared' of deviating in any way, i had to have all the ingredients otherwise i couldn't make the dish. I seem so much more relaxed these days, i will happily substitute ingredients, i don't get worried if i don't have all the listed ingredients, i have even been experimenting and completely making things up. I was far too scared to do this before. I know it doesn't sound like very much, but for me, it's such a big deal, because i love cooking and used to wonder how other cooks were able to be so free and creative in the kitchen.

Bop, thank you for your post about whether i should write to my sisters. And you are soooooo right. I am so glad i read what you said before doing anything. Me not responding to them keeps me in control. If i write to them then like you said, i will leave myself open to getting a nasty response from them or no response at all which will leave me dangling. This way it's them who are dangling and i realise now that my wanting to write to them was me, once again, thinking about them and their feelings instead of my own. ie i didn't want them to feel bad because they hadn't heard from me or to be left wondering why i hadn't been in touch. And i think you are right in that perhaps what was holding me back from writing to them was that i was a bit worried about their response or if they didn't respond and how it would make me fee. I totally agree that by simply not contacting them i am sending them a very clear message. And this is exactly what my youngest sister did to me when we fell out over me cutting my parents off and she clearly did it without a second thought to how it would make me feel. So she certainly doesn't deserve the consideration i seem to want to give her by doing her the courtesy of writing and explaining why i will not be in touch. Once again it is my instinct to think about other people's feelings over and above my own. It is only healthy to do that with people who will reciprocate, my sisters certainly never think about my feelings so i will no longer think about theirs. It is a hard habit to break, i have thought about them over myself for most of my life, 39 years. I don't feel entirely comfortable doing this but i know it's the right thing to do to protect myself.

AN, thanks for the credit , seriously I'm really really glad the chimp story was so helpful to you. It's funny, I shared it meaning it to be helpful to us in our relationships with our own mothers, but it's turned out to help you more re your own parenting; that's a great result though. Im struggling to post more at the moment, the stuff I'm dealing with now seems so deep that I don't know how to make sense of it on here - I sit here and I have absolutely no idea where to start, just want to cry. I'm just finding it hard at the moment, the family stuff - I often tend to think of myslef as the protagonist in all this, as if I created this situation and I am the one perpetuating it - and to some extent that is true in that I am the one who created the official, physical separation that now exists, and I am the one determined to uphold that separation, for the sake of my sanity, my own family's well being, my self respect.... BUT, but, but, but - seeing myself as the cause of it all is EXACTLY what they do and what they trained me to do. That's the whole root of the problem, isn't it? They have always cast ME as the one who is/has the problem, and themselves as the "normal", "straightforward", honest, rational, objectively "right" ones. It's exactly what you were talking about re your friend, AN - she's been made the scapegoat, she's carrying the can with all the family trauma that no one else wants to admit to being part of stuffed into it. Not through any fault of her own, far from it; but just because groups are like that, groups without honourable leadership, without a genuine commitment to integrity and caring, will devolve all the crap no one else wants to look at or deal with onto the nearest, weakest, available victim/scapegoat, the one who has least support from others, the one least able to fight back and say No, fuck off, I won't take your crap - the most vulnerable. The most vulnerable one is penalised for being the most vulnerable, as if that in itself were a crime. Skewed thinking? This is the really skewed thinking, amd I'd guess we were all victims of that in one way or another. AN, I'm glad at least that your friend has a friend like you, that must be worth an awful lot to her.

Anyway, the truth is - in my own old family situation - that while I am the one who has chosen the physical separation - to protect myself and give me healing space/breathing space to emotionally separate from them - they are the ones who have ALWAYS rejected me, profoundly and consistently. They don't want and have never wanted a relationship with me. Or my son or my husband. The problem I struggle with is that they make it look as if I am the one rejecting them - because they DO offer a relationship, but it's a totally conditional one, it's one where I am only accepted if I basically agree with them, if I accept them treating me they way they want to, however destructive that is for me; where I have to take them on their terms but they don't have to take me on mine. and in the past it worked like that, because they had all the power and I had none; I tried and tried to insist on my terms, and they would appear to meet me a little bit; but underneath it was always the same. so they drove me away. I wish I could give more particulars, this probably seems really theoretical and abstract, but that's all I can write about at the moment.

OPO, I know it feels like you're leaving it dangling, believe me I know! but trust me, you ARE actually sending a really clear message by saying nothing, by not being in touch with your sisters at all. I'm not saying don't write - you have to do what is right for you at any given time of course - but maybe before you write or send a letter, think about how you will feel once it's sent. what if they don't reply? what if they reply with yet another burst of "oh opo is always so over sensitive, she's just making it all up, she's paranoid"? (or words to that effect). Will you wonder how they will be thinking of you? Or if they will be? I suppose the thing I've learnt over time is that ANY form of communication keeps the relationship alive in some way, or at least that is true with my mother - I wrote to my parents to say I wanted a break from them a few years ago, and it made NO impact on them whatsoever, I can't stress that enough, NONE AT ALL. It didnt shift their thinking one little bit, it didn't elicit any more love from them, it didn't nudge them into thinking "oh something's seriously wrong here we'd better get ourselves together and sort this out, she is our only daughter after all". They just carried on pretending absolutely NOTHING was happening. It disgusts me, thinking about it now. Them, I mean. If I managed -god forbid - to alienate/hurt my son to the point he didn't even want to see me as an adult, I would stop at nothing to make things right between us, nothing. NOTHING could be more important to me in this life. So, anyway, opo - I know this is your sisters and not your parenst so not quite the same - but I just think it's worth preparing yourlelf emotionally for the various possible outcomes if you do write to them. The message you are sending at the moment is a silent "fuck you" which is pretty powerful in itself. But god yes I do know about feeling like it's all dangling, and I struggle with that all the time still myslef - but I've been back and forth so often now that I know that ANY kind of communication with my lot leads to further heartache and heartbreak and resolves absolutely nothing. We're looking for closure - but we're not going to get it from them. As pinky's therapist said, "why expect a pig to do anything other than grunt" - I LOVE that quote, thank you Pinky!

I have found now actually that when I get to the point where I'm feeling really low and vulnerable (and there have been quite a few of those lately) and I still can't quite belioeve that the situation is this bad and I cling to the idea that phoning my mother would help, at least temporarily - if only to scream abuse at her down the phone, instead of beating myslef up or taking it out on DS - so when I get to that point and I think OK maybe I should phone - and then I actually physically can't. There is still a part of me that desperately wants them to listen, as if the problem were just one of communication.... the greater, healthier part of me has given up, but this other part still hurts so badly. If we spend time with MIL, it hurts to think he should have a whole other extended family to adore him too - but he doesn't. When I am struggling at home on my own - and while it's a constant joy to be a SAHM, it's a constant struggle too, especially with all these issues I'm still dealing with - it hurts that I haven't got a loving mother I can at least phone for some support. It really hurts. I am so heartbroken that even though I've made my dream come true, I still can't experience the joy and the love and the normality of being a mother in the context of still being part of my old family too, a mother who is also a loved daughter and sister. Not that I ever was a loved daughter and sister, but deep down I always hoped that it would change, sooner or later; I had a subconscious wish that getting married would make them love me, which I only identified after they nearly destroyed my wedding day for me; and then even after that I had a subconscious hope that becoming a mother myself would make them love me, which again i only really managed to identify some months after DS was born. Isn't it hard being a mother without a mother? I have friends whose mothers live a fair distance away, but they speak virtually every day, and they feel so supported by them and if they go home to visit or their mothers come here, they get a real rest. I haven't had a real rest since DS was born; he hasn't gone a single night without waking several times and he's nearly two. Now I'm feeling angry about that - not with him of course (although it's hard to be always loving when you are so utterly desperate for rest) - because they are failing me here too. My mother lost her own mother before she married, and always took pains to tell me how hard it was for her not having her mother to help her when she had children herself - so you would think that would have made her more committed to being there for her daughter, to make sure I didn't miss out the same way she did, right? If she were a normal human being and not some kind of freaky machine, yes. She actually resented me having anything that she hadn't had herself, even central heating, lol!

I always talk more about my mother, but my father - eeyyuucch, too late to go there now, but not a nice man. To me. Very nice to lots and lots of other people - really not nice to me. I'm getting too tired, Rose, hi to you have been reading that alfie kohn book, some parts of it very useful indeed and already having an influence, so thank you very much for that; also thanks for your words re my niece, there has been development but it's still not good - too long a story for now though. Really sorry to hear about that horrible response you got from your adoptive father.

((((Pinky))))

Got to go. Beyond tired.

Roseability thank you so much for replying to my post the other day, especially when you have so much going on yourself. Well done you for standing up to your parents, but that as usual they come up very badly short.My therapist said to me the other day, 'why expect a pig to do anything other than grunt' and I feel he may have a point.

I have been struggling with stuff, too. My mother had got her friend to ring me, saying she could hardly speak or function she was crying all the time etc. Well I rang her and she sounded perfectly fine to me. I have noticed that when I speak to her she is not interested in chatting, she just wants to find things out about what I am doing. It's hard to explain, becuase it's not as though she is genuinely interested in my life, she just wants to know stuff - maybe so she can talk about it to other people,I don't know. But I was cross with myself because she asked me soe direct questions and I couldn't do anythign but make excuses. I suppose I shouldn't care, but I don't want her taking little snippets of my life to twist then into nasty gossip for other people to hear.

BUT..I am getting a funny feeling recently..like I am a grown up, and a real personwith a life and a personality. It is strange but the 'good' things about me do seeem to be emerging, little by little.

I agree so much with what you guys have been saying, about passing on the baggage- it was exactly why I started this process too. OPO I feel I was terrible in the early years with DH, I brought all the toxic chaos of my childhood with me but I think the fog is lifting here, too.
I am actually having days like today- where I feel very little anxiety and wow it is wonderful, isn't it? I think I have processed a lot of stuff as regards my anxiety over 'losing' DD1. SHe is quite a runner but I have been letting her walk with me to places and she really is learning, and so am I. I was very scared when I knew I was havign a girl- and I have been terrified of damaging her from day one, but she is such a happy, confident little person. I know that a lot of my fears over her and my DCs behaviour is about my mother and father, but I foind the days when my anxiety is low that their 'voices' in my head are very quiet, and sometimes not there at all.

I have been soo tired recently and I think much of this is down to my brain trying to disengae itself from my mothers toxic thought processes.

I too have had to accept that I cannot do all those 'supermummy' type things ATM. My priorities are to make sure I create a good home life for my DC's and get myself 'well' for them. Baking in school etc. will have to wait a bit, but I don't think this will harm my DC. If I try to do too much and get all anxious and messed up, that would harm them, I know it would.

AN my heart goes out to your friend. I recognise her pain of being the one cast out, set aside to be the thing to blame. The day I moved away to uni my mother got rid of my bed at home and that was that. I had to stay there once for a few months, in my sisters room but they treated me as their skivvy. I would take them breakfast every morning and my dad would roll his breakfast tray out as I came up the stairs (I could hear it) and then pretend to be asleep when I went in. I made them breakfast every morning after coming home from my cleaning job, then I would clean their house before going to my studio, where I would try to work but I just felt like such a shitty failure inside and so unloved, and unlovable it was impossible. I would go home in the evenign and my parents would be getting drunk in the sitting room. Dad would have a bottle of whisky next to his chair and mother a bottle of gin and as they got drunk they would get angrier and angrier at me, their faces getting redder and the hate in their eyes and I would go to bed and cry. I wished I could die so many times over and felt like a coward for not doing it.

I don't know why all that just came out. sorry for going on so much. You all seem so articulate and insightful and I just ramble on about my own crappy memories.

Right not "write", duh!

It wasn't me who first wrote about the chimp experiment it was BopTheAlien, and I want her to take full credit because I am really grateful. It really shook up my thinking onto the write path!

Thank you BopTheAlien

I would like to add that I don't think women have to become mothers in order to feel fulfilled! Just that if you do become a mother, you need to feel you have done a good enough job of it.

OPO - Your last post has touched me. The bit about it taking guts and bravery to admit mistakes in our parenting is so true. To be able to apologise to our children is crucial. I was not the best mum to my newborn DS and although I am in a better place now I still make mistakes. I suppose for toxic parents to admit they have caused so much damage and messed up the most important task in life is too hard and painful. It is easier to go into huge denial and blame the child in some way.

To offer a child unconditional love particularly from a mother is the most important gift. Although as women we may need other things in our life e.g. a career, hobbies, friends etc most of us would admit that this is what matters most to us. I am maybe being a bit taboo, but I do believe a woman has to feel she has been a good enough mother in order to feel fulfilled in life. It is natural. For our toxic mothers, they have failed this most crucial role in life and therefore are bitter and twisted individuals.

It is a long hard road to question ourselves as mothers and try to change but I would rather take this route than the 'i'm in denial about being a perfect mother' route.

AN thank you for that story. I do so identify with your friend, because it's me. . Everything she has been through i have been through. It once again reminds me of the story you posted on here a while ago about the chimpanzee mummy's standing on their own baby chimps to stop them from feeling the pain of the hot floor beneath.

It shows so clearly how our parents are/were highly damaged and defective individuals when they had us. Something was severely wrong with their ability to parent in the right way and as a result the child under their care was damaged. They are unwilling/unable to face up to their own defects/damage and also unwilling/unable to face up to the damage they have inflicted on their own children. Because it is possibly the hardest thing one can do to face up to this fact. It takes guts, courage, strength, perseverance in huge amounts and not everybody is up to the task. Some people are weak, cowardly, lacking in integrity, and so choose to take the easy path and bury their heads in the sand and blame others even their own children for their own faults and failings. My parents fall into this category. But somehow, i was fortunate enough to be born with the courage and strength to overcome the damage they inflicted on me and for that I feel so grateful. Of course i feel sad for my losses which can never be recovered, but at least i have managed to remove myself from those who wish to damage me and have come a long way in healing myself.

Rose well done for writing the letter. And I am sure the response you got did not surprise you. Unfortunately your adoptive parents will never give you what you are looking for, the only thing you can do is to stop looking. Much easier said than done i know.

Don't feel you have to respond to posts, you have got a lot on your plate and need to focus on looking after yourself and your family. My younger DC is now 3 and it is only now that i feel things have got a lot easier, you have a 12 week old baby who is not sleeping well (not that any 12 week old baby sleeps well) so don't worry about anybody but yourself right now.

Well done for writing the letter Rose, and being strong enough to cope with a newborn at the same time as fighting your issues! You sound like you are doing really well!

So I wrote my parents a letter and I got one back saying that my adoptive father wishes no further contact. My GM would like to be kept up to date via phone. Vile, vile people!

The letter was merely questions about my past and a chance for them to come clean about things. It also asked for an apology for the horrible things they have said to me and to say they didn't mean it.

My DH is in the process of writing to them and telling them how awful they have been. I doubt it will make much difference but at least they will know it isn't just me.

I have been reading your posts and I am sorry not to be replying directly. My DD is now 12 weeks and not sleeping well and I am dealing with a lot of family s**t at the moment. I am meeting my GF for the first time next week.

Thinking of you all and have a good weekend

Sort of related to my last post, thoughts I have had about why my friend's family treat her so badly might help some people:

Her mother didn't want her at birth, went a bit 'mad' and went into hospital for a while. Her aunty took her and demanded that she would be the one to look after her and her father let her aunty do this.

The mother came out of hospital and went on to have 5 more children who she kept.

My friend grew up with the aunty and her husband and their son and they were all abusive in different ways and no affection was given. They eventually threw her out for having a boyfriend when she was 17 and she went to live with him for about 10 years. They said that if she left she would never be allowed to come back and they would never speak to her again. She chose her boyfriend because he showed her affection and they did not.

When things went wrong with the boyfriend she felt very alone so she knocked on her birthparents' door and hoped she could build a relationship with them, telling them she forgave them for anything they had done. They said "What are you doing here!" and rejected her. She has tried over the years to build relationships with different family members, which there are loads of. Several times one of them has been in regular contact and things have been going well, but then under pressure from my friend's birthparents, blood sister and the aunty who brought her up, they have cut her off again. They blank her in the street or find ways to let her know about things they are all doing together which she is not included in.

They say that she is a troublemaker and a nasty piece of work and that if people don't really know her they will soon find out what a nasty piece of work she really is. They act like everything is her fault.

I could never comprehend why they would do this but now I think I get it. The birthparents can't face up to the guilt of rejecting my friend at birth and her aunty can't face up to the guilt of bringing her up abusively. Instead of dealing with their feelings about this and feeling their own pain they look for ways to see my friend as the bad one. They want to keep her well away from the whole family because her presence reminds them of what they did and they can't cope with the guilt. So they tell anyone who tries to be in contact that she is bad and tell them to cut off otherwise they will cut them off. The one who was in contact is so scared by the prospect of being cut off by the main family that they cut my friend off.

How weak they are for refusing to feel any of the pain from what they did but instead making their child feel alone and abandoned and rejected and ostracised and demonised - making her feel pain instead of them when she has done nothing to deserve it! They, as the senior adults who could have withstood the pain better, put all that pain onto a baby, then a young girl, then a young adult, then a younger woman who now lives with an ingrained lifelong pain.

I feel some of you might identify with aspects of this story , but that it might make it clearer how the way you have been treated is not your fault

AN, yes, I agree with you about what being normal means for those who were abused/neglected as children. I suppose for me, I have been so consumed with dealing with all this stuff over the past 2 years that I haven't been able to do 'normal' family things, be a normal mother etc. I have been comparing myself constantly to the other mums at school and feeling a failure, hopelessly inadequate and just not as good as them at being a mother. I used to look at the mums who volunteered to help out at the school, some of them had 3 DC's as opposed to my 2, and feel so rubbish that I couldn't do such things, even though i only had 2 DC's. I knew in my head that even though i had one less DC than the other mum i had a lot more on my plate to deal with, but still, i couldn't help feeling a failure.

I feel a bit different now. I seem to be beating myself up a bit less about not being able to do as much as some of the other mums and I know that it's not due to me being useless, incompetent and disorganised, but simply due to the fact that i have had to use so much time and energy in sorting myself out that there was nothing left over for any 'extras'. I have always known that rationally but not 'believed' it emotionally i think. It wasn't my fault, it was my parents' fault and i no longer feel guilty about all the things i haven't been able to do over the past few years whilst i have been dealing with my issues.

Thank you also for your comments re the offer from my parents. I feel anything i receive from them is a form of compensation and i don't feel i will owe them anything as a result, they owe me and are simply paying off some of their debt to me. Even if they gave me millions of pounds it will never make up for what i lost, my childhood, so i don't feel as if i will have to have contact with them afterwards. Nothing would persuade me to have contact with them ever again, so i hope for their sake they are not expecting anything if they do transfer the money to me as they will be sorely disappointed.

Re my sisters, i feel like i cannot just stop contacting them and leave things 'dangling' as it were. I would rather tell them i have thought a lot about our relationship and feel that for the time being it would be best to have a break as i don't feel they need or even really want me around. They have each other and i am clearly an afterthought for the both of them and i feel i deserve to be treated better than that. I also have been deeply hurt by the way they have treated me since i opened up about my childhood abuse. They do not believe i was abused and i cannot have a relationship with anybody who thinks I am exaggerating/lying about what I went through. The fact that they do not believe me shows their complete lack of respect for me and my integrity as a person and there are also so many other examples that prove what they think and feel about me. The wedding present thing is just one tiny example.

I also need to work out how to deal with this other mum at school i have had problems with. The problem is her son and DD are good friends and are always asking for playdates after school, although it is always her son who asks DD for a playdate not the other way around. She has now told her son that DD is not allowed to go to their place for a playdate because she and I had an argument about her calling me rude because i was unable to return a phone call from her immediately. This is completely untrue. I put a stop to the playdates as they were getting far too frequent with her son coming round to our house after school uninvited and even after being specifically asked not to by me. Their teacher had even noticed that her son was becoming possessive over DD at school. But how do i deal with a woman who you cannot reason with?

OPO, I also meant to comment on your change in feelings towards your DH as it was similar for me with mine. It seems like my brain looked for ways to see his behaviours as similar to people who hurt me previously so that I could take out my unresolved feelings from then on him. It was safer to take them out on him.

I think the same thing happened with DD where my brain looked for ways to see her behaviour as the oldest sibling as being similar to my brother's in the past so that I could get my feelings out onto her . I didn't actually take them out on her apart from being irritable with her but the things I felt seemed so wrong and venomous and evil! It's what made me start seeing Therapist.

It was getting better and better and then suddenly quite recently something slotted into place in my brain and I just don't feel those venomous feelings anymore - not towards her anyway.

This first thing that caused this acceleration of my 'curedness' was what someone wrote on here about the baby ape experiment. I'm sorry I can't remember who it was because I want to say Thank You again because somehow it made such a difference to me! The thought that I wasn't facing up to my own pain, because I was scared to, but feeling like taking it out on my DD (like the mother ape stood on the baby ape so she wouldn't have to withstand the pain of the hot cage floor) really 'woke me up'.

The poster went on to talk about her mother and said something like, her mother is not willing to suffer any amount of pain from her past, even to shield her children from it (by not ending up taking it out on them). I was like this too because I had the irrational fear that if I felt some of it, a huge deluge of it would descend on me and engulf me and my life and I wouldn't be able to cope with it. But the thought that my children were going to feel it (even to a lesser extent), indirectly, through my snappiness and rejecting behaviours, instead of me made me really ashamed. How could I put it onto small vulnerable children without the life experience to cope with difficult emotions instead of onto myself! So I decided I COULD take the pain of facing up to things from the past because I would do anything to shield them from anything like that.

The second thing that accelerated my 'curedness' was the last EMDR session where I couldn't stop thinking about punching people I was angry with in the past over and over again. I could really feel myself doing it and could feel a release as I did it. I didn't have much faith in EMDR at first but something magic about it made me feel like I actually had in real life, vented my anger on the people who originally caused it! I really think it redirected my brain channels and linked my anger back up with the people who deserved it and away from innocent people I felt like taking it out on.

Another big thing was finally seeing that the things that happened to my brother were NOT a good enough excuse for the things he did to other people and that he deserved the consequences and deserved my anger and other negative feelings. I realised how my unhealthy attachment to him had come about and recognised that it was unhealthy. Once my anger towards him was unblocked, my 'brain channels' could be redirected.

Re being normal - some of it is realising that the way you have reacted/turned out IS a NORMAL reaction to the sorts of things that happened to you! If the people around you who you consider to be normal had gone through the same things it is likely they would react similarly! When you no longer see yourself as being abnormal because you know this, it helps you to be more normal.

OPO, that is a really good idea about asking your parents to put the money in accounts for the children but telling them you still don't want contact (if you don't).

Re your sisters - do you actually need to tell them you are having a break from them? Can you not just stop contacting them? Or is letting them know part of a kind of 'revenge' thing to make them see what effect their behaviour has had? I felt this sense of revenge about my parents knowing that I felt our relationship was irreparably damaged and why. Although admitting to revenge feels 'distasteful' it has helped my anger a lot to feel that they haven't 'got away with it' with no consequences.

AN and Fab, trying to be normal is just what I have been thinking about this morning. AN I feel more normal than i have ever have too, i'm also not acting nearly as much as i used to.

Thank you for your post about my parents' offer. I think it came via my sister as my parents are at least respecting my request for them not to contact me in any way and they have communicated things via my sisters before as well. In fact around 2 years ago they made another offer of money, again via my sister, which i turned down completely. It was a smallish amount of no real consequence and i didn't think twice about turning it down.

If I were to accept the recent offer, I was thinking of writing a very short note to them saying that if they wish to transfer this money to me then I am willing to accept it strictly on behalf of the DC's and I will open an account in the DC's names and my parents can transfer the money into that account. And i will use it for the DC's education in the future. If they do not wish to transfer the money then so be it, but either way i do not want any contact from them.

The only language my parents know, or at least my dad, is money, he has always been financially generous, even whilst being emotionally and verbally abusive. Perhaps it is his way of trying to say sorry for what he did. It is of course nowhere near what i actually want from him but he is not capable of doing what i really want and i have to accept that.

I am going to think about it for a while, my sister told me about the offer about 2 months ago and i have been thinking all this time and still not been able to decide.

My middle sister's baby is due soon, in around 3 weeks. I haven't heard from her in ages, i haven't contacted her in ages either. I don't feel at all excited about her baby. I feel flat inside. I feel how a stranger would feel about somebody they didn't know who was about to have a baby. My sisters treat me like I am a stranger, i am not part of their 'inner circle' so no wonder this is how i feel. I want to tell them i want a break from them but i don't know how to word my letter. Perhaps they will just get the message if i simply don't contact them?

I am sure they will criticise me for my lack of enthusiasm about my sister's baby. I don't even want to go and see her or the baby after she has it. After the way she treted me about the news about her pregnancy, i simply have no interest in her.

They do not realise that just like my parents, I did at one time, truly love and care about both of them, but they have completely destroyed my feelings for them by the way they have treated me over the years and now i feel nothing for them. Not love, not hate, just nothing. But they will never see things this way, they will blame me and tell me i deserved to be treated badly by them so it is a hopeless situation.

Something in me is holding me back from writing to them though. I genuinely didn't have the time for quite a while due to the summer hols and DC's being home etc, but now I do have the time, and i am not doing it. I wonder why? I think i want to wait until after my sister has had the baby before i write to them both. Even though i don't want to go and see her and the baby i think i just want to at least know that everything went ok with the birth and that they are both ok before i can say what i want to say.

I'm the same. I feel I just want to be like everyone else.

Aha, knowing what is normal and what isn't and trying to become normal - this has always been my ambition! I'm feeling more normal than ever before, even thinking of chaning my name as I don't feel like I'm acting so much!

I found myself saying something about children's behaviour (my foster brother to me and my children to each other) being normal to my therapist and that felt like a huge step forward.

So maybe if you think of yourself as coming from your foster parents that were good, before the bad ones, you will feel more 'rooted'? I think it is really important to feel you know where you come from and it is hard to explain why. We just feel it strongly. It is difficult to explain to DHs etc if they don't know what it feels like to not have lived with their original parents and kept them.

Understanding more about what happened and why is really important as well and it sounds like you found out a bit more truth from your visit.

I think of myself as coming from a bit of a 'mess' really, but I'm ok with that now as I feel proud of myself for surviving it and learning from it and getting back to being 'normal' and 'natural' by having my own offspring family and learning how to be 'normal' with them! I feel I have a place in the world if I have them. Thank god (or whatever powers are at work) that I was able to have children as I can't imagine how awful it is for people who want them but can't!

It is funny, AN but when I had travelled to see my foster mum when I was there I did feel like I did belong somewhere and it felt good and I have also been more settled since I have been home.

I don't really feel I fit in anywhere and I have not been happy living here for ages.

OPO, That money thing is a massive dilemma! It would benefit you and your DH and DCs and it would seem to show that your parents want to show that they still have feelings for you and want to treat you the same as your sister by giving you the same amount of money. These are the good points. The bad points may be that if you accept it you will feel forced to have more contact with them than you want and that they will feel that one grand gesture lets them off the hook for everything they have done wrong (which would make you feel very angry). If you were going to be back in contact, what would they have to do for you to make you want to? Or is the answer, never, there is nothing they can do to make up for it? If the latter then maybe that would go towards a decision to wait to receive the money in their will.

Like Attila said, your parents themselves haven't actually spoken to you about this and I wonder why this would be. If they have intentionally told your sister, hoping she will repeat it to you, that could suggest that they are dangling a carrot to try to manipulate you into getting back in contact. You just won't know really though unless they communicate directly with you. And we know from recent posts that lots of us are likely to think the worst things until we know the truth because our experiences have made us less trusting. Maybe the best thing would be to do nothing and wait and see if your parents contact you directly and then depending on what they say and how they say it, think about it again then, but for now, don't let it clog up your brain and sap your energy.

FabBaker, you wrote quite a lot compared to what you normally do and this seems like a good sign - as though your thoughts are more free than before so you can get them out more easily.

It seems like getting some time and distance away from OM has reduced his 'drug-like addictive' effect on you allowing you to think more clearly about the situation.

I don't think you should be cross with yourself for being angry with your mother because if she hadn't done what she did then you wouldn't have ended up with those awful people.

Hi everyone

It is quite pleasing in a way that this thread hasn't made it to 1000 posts yet. I hope it means everyone has been doing well.

I had my first therapy session yesterday though I am not sure how it is going to go. I am getting more pain than progress by going atm but maybe that is how it works.

You may remember my emotional affair last year with my first love and all the pain and upset that brought with it and the inability for me to just cut all contact. Or if i did, to stick with it. Well, a few weeks ago we were meant to meet. I cancelled him and told him it was best for me if I never spoke to him again. I realised lots of things, gave a lot of thought to how I was feeling, and I am pleased to say I have not had any wish to contact him for about 4 weeks now and while it might not seem a lot, it is a big deal for me. I am just so glad I didn't see him and I am feeling much lighter with cutting him off.

I recently met up with my foster mum and her son and grand daughter and that was amazing. It has brought out some very feelings though as I never realised I was with them as long as I did so my mother demanding she have me back - then changing her mind the next day - was a much bigger deal than I realised.

I was sent to a children's home as the FM had had enough of my mother. I was very happy there for 6 months and then sent so a foster home where the mother and daughter hit and kicked me and the father sexually abused me.

I am so cross with myself for hating my mother for doing this.

Sorry. Just needed to get that out.

Better go and do some laundry now.

Best wishes to you all.

hello
I've been hiding a bit. opo my mum rang me the other day wanting to visit 'with no agenda'. therapist said to me what I thought.. that when someone says there is no agenda there usually is. I would be very wary of this information from your sis.

My parents and my sis are forever offering things- help out financially etc. it never comes to anything but they enjoy dangling things at us as I think they either like to think they are kind and generous and this enhances this fantasy image of themselves, or they think it gives them some power. But they never actually give us anything.

When they have done small favours- like getting my old toy cot out of their attic to give to DD1- you would think they were getting the moon for me.

I would avoid it. If it coems when they die so be it. My sis is obsessed with inheritance and money. If they offer it now or offer to leave it to you, either way if you discuss it with them it will most likely be 'used' and leverage of some sort, IMVHO.

I would not be taking the money from these people and I note this has also come from your sister.

I have no doubt at all that you would indeed use the funds for a better quality of life but would you also feel that you have been "paid off" by them as it were, would they see it d'you think as their full and final settlement with regards to their ill treatment towards you over the years?.

Hello all. Am back after a long break from MN (enforced as we went away to a place with no internet access).

Am afraid have only had time to skim through recent posts, so many since I last logged on.

I have made huge progress with DH. To cut a long story short, when we first got together and got married etc, i treated him pretty badly. I had not dealt with my own issues, wasn't even aware that i had issues. He knew he had done nothing to deserve being treated so badly by me (i would get angry at him for nothing, be hostile, rude and agressive towards him) and i couldn't see that i was using him as a scapegoat, taking out my buried feelings on him which should rightly have been directed towards my parents. After years of being treated badly by me, naturally DH built up inside himself, resentment, bitterness and anger towards me. Although he tried to hide his feelings towards me, they would occasionally spill out and I would then feel that it was DH with the problem, that he was being nasty to me and that i had done nothing to deserve it. And in recent years, my behaviour towards him has been a lot better, but the feelings DH has stored up inside are from some years ago. So we seemed to be feeding off each other in a horribly negative way and i was unwilling and/or unable to see, until now, that the original cause of our problems was me. But i have now been able to see what i was unable to see previously, and have also realised that, as always, even though it appeared to be me that was the cause of our problems, if I trace it back to it's fundamental and original root cause, the problem is/was my parents and the damage they had done to me as a child. Somehow, once i realised that my bad behaviour towards DH was not because I was inherently bad/nasty but simply because i was damaged by my parents and had never learnt to communicate effectively, never learnt to trust, never felt that i was loveable, or worthy of respect. All my issues caused huge problems in my relationship with DH, but the ultimate responsibility for this lies with my parents.

Somehow realising this has meant that all my hostility towards DH has evaporated and i am positive that our relationship will improve from now on. Until now i was refusing to accept that our problems were solely down to me and i would always try and place some responsibility on DH. But the truth is he was only ever reacting to the bad way in which i was treating him I was the original cause of our problems. Until now i simply could not accept that fact and always denied it to DH and to myself. But deep down i knew it was the truth; I simply did not want to face it. But it was not quite the whole truth as like i have said, the root cause was my parents.

It's as if I am suddenly seeing DH in a whole new light and any negative feelings i might have had towards him i know now rightfully belong to my parents.

Apart from that, I have not contacted my sisters for over a month. I have had a text from my youngest sister, which i have not replied to. I still haven't written to them saying i need a break, but will do so when i have time. It's as if they don't exist anymore, i am no longer stewing over them, what they might be thinking about me, whether they are angry with me etc etc. I just cannot be bothered to waste my energy on them anymore.

Have had some more problems with that other mum i mentioned a while ago. She really is a nasty piece of work and again i blame my parents for the fact that i ever got involved with her. If i was a healthy, undamaged person, there is no way i would have let her get her claws into me the way she has done. I will have to think of a way to deal with her but right now she is not really a priority. I think my relationship with DH needs a lot of attention and that is what i am going to focus on.

One more thing, have had, via my sister, a sort of 'indecent proposal' type of offer from my parents. Apparently they have helped her out quite substantially with the house she and her DH have just bought. And she has told me they want to give me the same amount they gave her, with no strings attached. When she first told me about it my initial reaction was 'no', and i still feel i would not want to touch their money with a bargepole. But it is a substantial amount of money and would help us enormously and would make a big difference to our life and most importantly would make a big difference to the DC's as DH would be able to work a lot less and spend much more time at home.

So i have a dilemma as to what to do. I don't want to accept their money, but it would make a big difference for the DC's. It is almost like compensation for all the pain and suffering i have had to go through, and although no amount of money would ever make things better, it would help in a practical way. I would appreciate your advice on this as i really do not know what to do.

My sister has said that even if i turn the money down now, it will come to me anyway when my parents die as it is a sort of 'advance' on my inheritance.

PinkyMinxy - this internalisation of the belief that we are 'horrible people' is a common side effect of being brought up in a toxic family. I have felt it too, all my life. Only now am I beginning to unravel this skewed perception of myself.

Firstly it is easier for toxic parents to blame the child for the difficulties in the relationship rather than their own parenting. It is more convenient to blame perceived or real character traits in the child. On a much lesser scale I have done it myself when I have a difficult patch with the kids. It is easy to think that my DS is stubborn or 'difficult' where as in fact it is because I am tired or stressed. Sometimes the character traits are real and different to ourselves but as long as we don't perceive them as 'bad' just because they challenge us. A child might well be strong willed but this is wonderful and will stand them in good stead for the challenges of life

Toxic parents take it much further. They criticise the child endlessly because they haven't conformed to their ideal. This ideal is somehow needed to feed their narcissistic personaltiy (for I believe all toxic parents are narcissistic to a degree).

My parents carry a guilty secret. Their affair with a wife's/husband's best friend. It tore the family apart and made my mother's illness much much worse

They have projected their guilt onto me and have wrapped themsleves up in so many layers of denial over the years. My adoptive father once said I was a 'fake and a phony'. I now realise he was talking about himself. He stole his best friend's wife and then manipulated and dominated her to such a point that she was prepared to 'steal' her own daughter's little girl. Just so he could have a 'fake' family of his own because he wasn't capable of getting a nice family of his own accord.

I now realise that I am not the bad guy in all of this.

PM - I too think negatively about people and their motives. Even people I cherish such as my DH family. I do realsie this is beacause I have never had the unconditional love from a loving family

hello everyone.
I have been on holiday. I have read up to date and it was quite suprising to see so many of you tal;king about things I have been thinking about myself.

roseability AK book has been very helpful to me, along withh the 'How to talk' books. It gives a good frame of reference, I think, since as you say I have only a dysfunctional family expereince to draw upon.

About thinking negatively of others, skewed thinking. I struggle with this. It becomes one of the bits of evidence I use to beat myself with - I have such horrible negative thoughts about people and their motives that I think my family are right- I'm a horrible horrible person. But if you consider that my parents, especiually my mother has spent my lifetime thinking up horrible nasty motivations for people's actions and telling me these theories over and over again, and that my family, who should have been my main circle of trust and support have subjected me to constant emotional and sometimes physical abuse I should not be suprised.

My mother sent me a text on holiday saying she missed me. Nice? Possibly, but I can't think that. There must be some underlying motivation. Spontaneous acts of affection do not occur where my mother is concerned. I don't think she meant she missed me because I was on holiday- I think she mean't she missed me because I have made myself so unavailable for her to control me. It is all manipulationn and I cannot take anything at face value. She misses me but has been spending her time maligning me, making up malicious stories about me to tell my siblings.
My sis phones telling me she loves me and enjoys hearing my voice, then next thing I know she is disowning me via a text message. Then I get another message from mother on holiday telling me my sis has some minor investigative surgery. All manipulation. My sister is forever having biopsies, threatened hysterectomies, lumps removed. They might well be real- she is vastly overweight, smokes and drinks large quantities of alcohol and has as far as I know been on ADs most of her adult life, so she most likely has poor health.
But I would still maintain it is manipulation, emotional blackmail. Last time she 'dumped me' my mother told me sis had been in a car accident. I called and it turned out it was a minor bump in a taxi.

So I can sypmathise with all those who struggle with these unpleasant thoughts. I feel as though I have a constant battle in my head. Anywhere I go I question people's motives, believe they think badly of me. If someone suggested somethign ridiculously bads about me I would think well they may be right, I may be that thing. I need to genertae some self belief, because at the moment I ams till open to any negative suggestion about me. I am almost faling over myself to absorb them in fact. When someone says something nice about me I question their motives and/or their judgement. Or I just think well, they don't really know me that well, do they?

Sorry, I went on a bit there.

"Where do you think this skewed thinking comes from? ..."

I do exactly the same thing, think the worst in people,dont trust people becasue when they let me down im not suprised in the least!

Rose, your GM does sound dangerous! Emotionally dangerous and manipulative I mean. She really does seem like she wants to get what she wants and the thought of how it makes other people feel isn't important/doesn't occur to her. I wouldn't blame you at all for keeping your children well away from her.

Smithfield, Thank you - for making it look understandable (rather than me just being a bitch) why I would react the way I did because of past experience teaching me not to trust people. We were talking about it in the last therapy session - about not really trusting ANYONE, but it may not be true that nobody can be trusted, it may just be that I trusted the WRONG people in the past, not because I was stupid, because I was a child who had little choice.

I thought I hardly felt anything about my parents, but how hurt I felt when I felt they had deliberately tried to get at DH must prove that I DO still care how they feel about me? I was starting to come round to the idea that they were just crap at their job of parenting because they weren't 'cut out' for it but still loved us and never meant for anything bad to happen to us or to cause anything bad. I was starting to think the badness of my childhood was more my bro's and gf's faults and a few boys around at the time MORE than it was my parents' faults. Ie, the actual perpetrators' faults rather than the people who failed to protect me from them. I was in so much denial about the perpetrators doing wrong for so long and blamed it all on my parents, but I was starting to see the truth more I think. The thought that my parents COULD do something deliberately to hurt was scrambling my head again.

I'm so glad I told myself not to be stupid and just phone them up and not be scared of them anymore (not sure what exactly I'm scared of except their disapproval/annoyance which would be barely expressed anyway). I told myself even if they had done it on purpose and were angry with us I didn't need to be scared. As it turned out there was nothing to be scared of anyway.

AN I'm pleased with myself for not just letting it fester in me like I normally would though'

I have been making a concerted effort recently not to 'instantly' think the worst of people in any given situation.

When opo wrote about the friend that thought opo deliberately ignored her for not answering a call or text instantly...that's the kind of thing I would be guilty of 'thinking' of someone .

Well done AN for having the courage to openly communicate about it rather than let it 'fester' like you said.

Where do you think this skewed thinking comes from? Is it because we have a lack of basic trust? Or because people we trusted the most let us down so badly and did the worst things?

I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

I feel 'better' for trying to think more positively about peoples intentions. I still fall down a lot with this though. I find it so difficult to trust anyone.

Well there you go...perhaps I've answered my own question!

rose I have not got much time now, but I have to say I found your revelation about your GM really shocking.
Do you think it was her who instigated all of these things or step GF? Is he very controlling? Could he have pressured your GM. Not that it excuses her actions in anyway. She was an adult after all.
It just seems so 'deliberate' which makes her seem all the more sinister to me.
This is actually very close to what my aunt did. I will have to tell you the story another time though.
I honestly belive you are safer 'emotionally' by being as far away from this woman as possible.
Good luck with meeting your true GF.

Ah thank F for that!

I had a stern word with myself and just got on with it and phoned them up and asked them why they hadn't sent him a card and it turns out they DID forget! They sounded completely genuine.

I feel pretty stupid now! But very relieved!

All that venom I was feeling! I feel guilty for thinking it!

And I told DH and it seemed to cheer him up as well, so I feel I did the right thing for DH.

I feel like a paranoid venomous witch for jumping to conclusions.

I'm pleased with myself for not just letting it fester in me like I normally would though. I feel I've done the 'grown up' thing instead

Would a normal person just phone their parents and ask WHY they hadn't sent their DH a birthday card?

The fact that they haven't sent him one this time or last birthday must mean it is deliberate surely, as normally they are very good at remembering and sending cards on time.

If I think back to last year, the only thing that could have made them think DH had done something bad is that I wrote to my bro and said that DH didn't want him to visit me at our home in the future but would rather I still visited him somewhere else without DH and the children. I said that I had thought about what DH said and I had also decided that was the best plan. I didn't want to involve the children with someone who could be in any way negatively affected if my bro's mind was still 'unstable' or became unstable again. I didn't want to take even the slightest risk. My bro probably told our parents all of this.

Even though it stemmed from what DH said to me, I decided myself that this was the best plan as well so I don't feel DH should be 'blamed' and not me.

I feel guilty that I SHOULD have said "Here is a joint decision we have come to" rather than making it look like DH's decision because I wanted to avoid my bro being really angry with me.

I feel my parents shouldn't blame DH for reacting the way any normal person would at the prospect of someone who became unstable enough to break the law and hurt people spending time with their children.

I also feel that my parents are taking my bro's 'side' against ME by reacting against DH's opinion/decision, because they know what he did to me and do they expect me not to have any feelings against him for that? Do they not feel angry with him at all for what he did to me? I thought they would respect mine and DH's decision and not do something to try to get back at DH!

Should they not be trying to do everything they can for me now after all they got wrong in the past? Surely the least they can do is send birthday cards to me, my kids AND DH.

I feel disappointed in them for doing something so petty.

Of course, maybe I'm getting it wrong and they actually forgot to send him a card or some other valid excuse. Maybe I feel so bad for nothing when I could just phone them and find out the reason (but I'm scared).

We are booked to visit them in a week's time and I feel like I don't want to make DH go there if they have something against him. I wouldn't go without him, they can either accept me as a package with DCs and DH or fuck off.

I could just do what I normally do and act normal like nothing has happened and I don't feel anything....then build up a nice bit of rage inside me and feel depressed for a few weeks because I haven't expressed it!

Maybe I'm being utterly pathetic about 'just' a birthday card. I do feel sensitive about birthdays anyway (something to do with the adoption I think). I don't get much emotional input from my parents but sending cards is one of the few things they do so it seems a bigger deal than if we were getting more out of them generally.

I'm feeling this as another little rejection of ME by them and I'm thinking I'm not taking anymore and if that is what it is then I will give up on them even more and see them even less.

Feel free to tell me not to be pathetic or tell me I'm overreacting if that is what you think because maybe I'm just tired/hormonal/stupid/neurotic. I just don't know.

Thank you for your kind words. It has been quite a while since I posted here so I am a bit out of touch with what has been going on.

I found out that my GM had an affair with my grandfather's best friend. They married and adopted me and basically cut my grandfather out of my life (probably to hide their sordid secret). My poor mother's illness was made worse by all this

My GM then instigated me calling her mum, even when my biological mother was still alive. I think my adoptive father is a pathetic man who stole his best friend's wife and grandaughter.

It is just awful what went on. I am meeting my grandfather for the first time in a few weeks and my adoptive parents are terrified. Their toxicity has stepped up to a new level.

The one good thing is that I now have a good relationship with my aunty.

Bop - I think it was you who was worried about your niece. My adoptive parents have lied about my aunty, tried to manipulate me against her. After all these years their sordid secret and toxicity has been outed and I am now close to my aunty. I am sure your niece will discover that you are a lovely aunt in time

I'm feeling more upset than I feel I should that my parents didn't send DH a birthday card this year and he says they didn't send him one last year either (though I can't remember). They did send me one and we have never forgotten either of theirs.

He thinks that something either I or my bro have said has made them think that decisions I made about limiting contact with them all were influenced by DH and they are 'punishing' him for it.

I'm wondering what I said to make them think like this and wondering if my bro has said things maliciously to 'stir' or said things to them in a verbal lashing out sort of way when things I said to him made him angry.

They are normally particular about remembering birthdays and normally send a card a few days before the day to make sure it gets there. It isn't like them to do this and it isn't like them to do something petty or deliberately hurtful.

I feel guilty that what I have done has caused DH to be upset (although he doesn't seem as upset by it as me).

ActingNormal Someone on this site - turns out it was a known "problem poster", but nonetheless I found it very hurtful at the time.

OPO, how is it going having no contact with your sisters? Or have you had some? Is it helping?

Skihorse, do you mean someone on MN has got at you about being on this thread or someone in RL?

Rose, I hope you are ok, how are you today? Do you feel any relief from telling GM you don't want contact? I don't think you should feel guilty for your children because cutting a toxic person out of their lives is a GOOD thing.

hi ladies, just sticking my head above the parapet to say "watch out". Yesterday, the fact that I have posted on this thread was used against me and I was accused of being a potential "emotionally devoid" mother.

I was very upset by the fact that my abuse was used to beat me with - I never wanted to have to hide my "dirty little secret" - but anyone who's sensitive might think about changing their name for posting here.

It doesnt necessarily have to be the end of your relationship though. Think of it as taking a break.
I know what you mean about the kids (I still struggle with this at times). But remind yourself that what your kids need most is their mummy. If your GM distorts your relationship with your children because of the constant tension/ pressure from her contact. Its better for 'them' if you grab space from her.
You know you are not a bad mother. She knows you are not a bad mother. She installed your buttons at an early age and she is pushing them. She is trying to get 'at' you because she cant currently get 'to' you. She is angry and passively pushing/ offloading her anger onto you.
Hope you have a good nights sleep Rose and feel better for it tommorrow.x

Partly relieved at the thought of not facing those draining phone calls and my little boy picking up on the tension. But also worried what people will think of me and sad that she thinks I am a bad mother

She is such a bitter, jealous person. However I didn't want to cut her out for my children's sake. I don't want them to be cross at me when they are older for cutting her out of their lives

Thinking of you all and your struggles with toxic families. Will post tomorrow with more details

Rose- Just seen this. You poor thing. It is so tough looking after two little ones and your GM clearly cant stand not being centre of attention. Makes me so .
How do you feel about telling her you no longer want anything to do with her?

I have had a huge row with my GM. It is a long story which I am too tired to go into now, but she basically tried to imply I am a bad mother. I have been having more tense phone calls with her which is affecting my health (stomach cramps/anxiety). I was doing so well but she seems to prey when I am most vulnerable e.g. just had a baby. I have told her I don't want anything to do with her anymore

It would be nice to have someone to chat to on here as I am feeling drained and sad again

I will respond to other posts later but just want to type a quick post about the EMDR session I just had.

It was supposed to be about anxiety and there were certain events from the past which I was expecting to be talking about/thinking about during the EMDR but the strangest things came into my head which I didn't even think were very significant (and maybe they aren't I don't know)!

It kept coming into my head about times when I climbed up trees really high then realised I couldn't get down and one time when a boy said something/did something which made me have sudden rage so I pushed him and he nearly fell out of the tree and could have died! (but he grabbed on in time and didn't fall). I can't remember what he said/did that particular time to make me angry and I don't think it was significant, but what was signnificant was the fact that I had been building and building an internal rage against him for some time because he had been touching me inappropriately. Each time I never said or did anything and wouldn't let myself think about it afterwards because I felt shocked/scared by it but I wasn't scared to react to him in the tree or on the times when I had physical fights with him for the others in the street's amusement. Although I was much smaller and weaker the amount of rage I had meant that I sometimes won those fights. I managed to unleash some of the rage on some occasions.

There were other people I built up rage about but only unleashed it on certain occasions which had nothing much to do with the things they had done to cause the rage in the first place. I was scared to react at the time but not scared to react on the occasions that I did. I think it was more like the rage overtook me before I had a chance to think about it.

During the EMDR I then couldn't stop fantasising about punching the same few people over and over again really hard. I could feel the strength in my arms and I felt invincible. The rage was really coming out but I couldn't stop for ages, I felt I had to hit them loads and loads to get it all out. I wasn't thinking about hurting the people I was thinking about how incredibly satisfying it felt to vent my feelings and get some relief. Then I was thinking "I want to do this to YOU, not rage against myself with self destructive behaviours - YOU are the ones who deserve it" (about certain people from the past). Then I imagined kicking them to one side like kicking shit off my shoe because those people just don't matter or mean anything to me and I don't want or need them or thoughts about them in my life.

There is definitely something in this EMDR thing because I actually felt like I HAD hit them and felt myself start to relax in some way after. I felt a kind of peace coming!

I don't see what this has to do with anxiety though, the EMDR just seems to produce random processing of random things for me! Therapist thinks that anger and anxiety are very close though and is waiting to see if today's session makes some difference to the anxiety.

This all feels like gibberish to me at the moment (although I do feel quite good). Maybe it will make sense in a few days!

smithfield i agree with Bop about the tears. Tears are always a good thing, something is being released inside you and when you are done crying, i am so so sure you will feel a whole lot better, you will have moved on a stage in your journey to heal yourself.

Bop hello and thank you for your wonderful post. One thing that struck me when you wrote about you being a brilliant aunty and your DB not reciprocating at all wrt your DC. It's exactly the same pattern we have had with others, I have been a good sister/daughter/friend, but with these toxic people, it all goes unnoticed, unappreciated and is certainly never returned. But i sincerely hope that once your nieces/nephews are older, and surely some of the good you have done for them will have registered in their minds somewhere, that they themselves will show how much they appreciate you and care for you. You will be waiting all your life for your DB to act in a decent way, but hopefully your DN's will not be so damaged by your brother so as to grow up just like him. I hope for their sake too.

I have had another big realisation about myself, and again it was something i knew was there at the back of my mind but i was scared to look too closely at it. I realise that i was a deeply, deeply sensetive and thoughtful child, and i still am a deeply sensetive, thoughtful and caring adult. But i didn't want to face up to the sort of child i must have been as i knew then that the abuse by my father and my mother's neglect must have hurt me so so badly, because i am sure a deeply sensetive child feels things more intensely and painfully than a less sensetive child. And whilst some of my experiences with my dad would have traumatised even a less sensetive child, being the child that i was, i know i must have been indescribeably hurt, traumatised and devastated by his abuse and i just didn't want to think about how badly both his and my mother's behaviour affected me. But even the fact that it has taken me this long to even be able to talk about it, to open up, 39 years before i felt strong enough to face the pain of my childhood, tells me how deeply i felt hurt and betrayed by both of my parents and i know i must have loved them unreservedly, with all my heart, before it all went so wrong. This depth of feeling i am sure also explains the severity of my physical symptoms, my eczema and allergy attacks.

I can see that not all children are as deeply sensetive as i was. I can see that DD is not so sensetive, whereas DS seems to be more like me, very sensetive, capable of deep feelings, even at his age. Perhaps that also explains the natural affinity i seem to have with him, that i do not have with DD.

Bop, i'm glad you can understand what i mean when i said my sisters and parents are all from the same planet, whereas i am from somewhere else, but like you, my DH is from the same place as me, so i feel at home with him.

Rose - good to hear from you, and thanks for the book recommendation, will look into it.

Sandcastles, I wasn't following the thread way back when but have read some of the early posts and your name is familiar, your mother sounds like such a piece of work... hello again anyway.

Smithfield - interesting what you wrote about your mother's family, so she was a replacement baby too in some way - sorry, I know it's not the main issue for you but I have such a fascination with the theme when I find it as it is relatively rare! I wonder if some of the reason she was so crap as a mother was the death stuff in her family, it was her mother who was the only one who survived out of loads of children wasn't it? And then if she internalised some of the trauma of her dead older brother, and then obviously never did anything to process or resolve that, I wonder how much that shaped her. NOT that it justifies or excuses in any way how crap she was with you, of course. I actually still want to go into more depth about all that death stuff but am cream crackered tonight. As usual! Am slowly coming to terms with it all more and more though. Actually feeling very good about a lot of stuff at the moment, am very happy with the shape of my life on the whole even though it's always a struggle one way or another. It's starting to hit me that among my contemporaries, I am NOT the least fortunate any more - and this is quite a shock for me. My identity was bound up in that; I had it programmed into my DNA that I had to be the biggest loser of then all, and for a long time I was.

Recently I have been finding it very hard that a lot of my mummy friends with DC1s the same age as my DS are now either pregnant again or have already had a DC2. I can't help but envy the ease with which other people can decide to try for another DC and bingo, they get one - the odds are so stacked against us having another, and I just don't have that knowledge that this thing, which for most people is utterly natural and attainable, is easily within our grasp if we wish it. But, having said that, I have heard a couple of stories recently from mummy friends of stuff they are going through, and it is really, really hard, heartbreaking stuff, devastating, life-changing stuff - and i realise that I am in many ways much better off than they are. And while I feel very much for them and wish they were not in the awful situations they're in, the realisation that even with the spectre of infertility looming over us again, we are not in the worst possible position compared to others in our sphere is quite a shock. I don't know if that sounds bonkers, or if I've explained it properly - it's just that this thing in me, this unconscious thing that I had to be the one that suffered more than anyone else, that was forced onto me by the spooky death dynamics and horrendous bullying and emotional neglect in my family - that thing, was actually TRUE for so long. Even though of course there are countless cases of far worse abuse than that which I lived through, even though i was always aware of this (and it often compounded my guilt and self loathing when I wondered why I was so fucked up and others succeeded in life despite immnense hardships) - I'm beginning to see that a big part of it was this thing, this NECESSITY for me to suffer. Even if some components of my life were ok (although in the past they mostly weren't!), the "law" that governed me was that I had to lose, so I did. I couldn't move beyond the death of my "sister" and later that of my nephew. I had to be the marker, the one that kept them alive somehow in the face of their tragic deaths. OK, I know this isn't making much sense, it's far too late and I'm still digesting this stuff myself, so I'm going to give up trying to clarify it for myself, for now - just going to add that this thing, that has been almost a part of me for all my life, seems to be - maybe, touchwood! - finally loosening; I am allowing myself to loosen it.

Hi all,

so much to respond too, but I can't get everything down here in the limited time I've got, so will just try and get whatever comes to mind out... Smithfield, I think OPO is right, it must be extremely hard juggling work and motherhood and the guilt at feeling like you're failing at both is a well known phenomenon. And in your case if you're being expected to cram a full week into four days, it can only make it harder. Can you get any help, eg a cleaner, to make it easier? I'm at home full time but wouldn't cope without a cleaner, partly cos DS is very high maintenance and it's nigh on impossible to get stuff done when he's awake, he'll follow other people round if they're hoovering quite happily but if I'm doing it he starts crying for my attention. Also because he still wakes frequently in the night (and at lunchtime... sigh...) and so I need to rest whenever I can in the day. Anyway, I'm going on about my situation, but what I mean is you're not alone in finding it hard to cope - and I think that's true of an awful lot of mothers, even without a specially dysfunctional background - and so you more than deserve whatever extra support you can muster up/afford/whatever. It's NOT because you're crap or weak!!!! It's because life IS actually very hard, the way it's set up for us. The crying today actually sounds very good and healthy, sounds as if the thing with your boss has released something from way back, and just letting that grief be heard and felt must be healing in itself.

OPO and Smithfield - re siblings - wow, where do i start? OPO, like I said in my post to you way back on your birthday, it's very clear that our families don't need us the way we need(ed) them and that's a terribly painful place to be, when you see them all interrelating and fulfilling each other's needs, and you're the one left out, the one who's entirely dispensable... horrible, it's quite chilling to think of being brought up that way. And yet we were. I'm really glad, OPO, that you've reached the conclusion that you're better off without them, because I think it really will be liberating for you, as you are already finding. It's a measure of growing up, isn't it, to be able to face the facts and say "I am never going to get my needs met by these people, so I am going to give up trying." I think for you it's been so hard with your sisters because as you have said yourself, you almost replaced your mother/parents with them - so all the feelings that you buried about your parents' abandonment and betrayal of you were linked in instead to your relationship with your sisters. I wonder if you might have more grief surfacing actually about your parents now that you're cutting out your sisters?

Anyway, I know exactly what you mean by this: "My sisters and i are only related by biology, in our hearts and souls we are from different planets, we are different species and cannot live comfortably and happily together." That is SO true. I also feel like the gulf between me and my parents and brother is so huge that we are from different planets, inside. It's become really clear to me over the last few years of having DH in my life (celebrated our 5th anniversary on hols, hooray!) - because he and I ARE from the same planet, and now I can see the difference in a way that was difficult before because their way was the only way I knew in the past, not least because i always attracted people into my life who were more or less like them. But yes, with my family (of origin) there is no possibility of meeting half way - it's their way or my way, because the two ways of being and living and seeing things just aren't compatible. So in my situation we have what we have now - they go their way and I go mine (or we go ours, my little family and me) and ne'er the twain shall meet.

Pinky, you sound like you're going through the mill at the moment - your sister sounds awful too. You couldn't make it up, could you, how crap our families are! I hope you're managing to deflect her crap anyway. She's not going to change, you're not responsible for her, and you don't deserve that crap. That word again! Well, they all spent long enough making those of us who post on here feeling like we were/are crap, I feel like throwing the word back out there at them, THEY are the ones who are crap, crap mothers, crap fathers, crap brothers, crap sisters. CRAP!!!!!

My crap brother is so crap he never even sent a card for DS when he was born. I had gradually stopped speaking to him over the last year or so before I finally got pregnant; he made no effort at all to keep the relationship going, never rang me hinself etc. The last time we spoke I think was when i was on the phone to my nephew and DN innocently asked if anyone else in the family wanted to speak to me, and so my brother came on - didn't actually initiate the contact himself - and then it was just to try and give me a hard time about not phoning my parents (they'd obviously been whining to him, poor helpless victims that they are), and so I just said repeatedly that "if people didn't want to listen to me, then there wasn't much point in talking" which he just pretended he hadn't heard. Surprise! I had tried often enough to raise the issues with him - wrote him a long letter once too - and he just brushed everything I said or wrote aside, just dismissed it as flakiness really, that, or got really angry.

Even though I made huge efforts at making our relationship work for a good few years, and trod as gently and diplmatically as I could around him - my god, the number of times I bit my tongue in the face of his appalling behaviour - the times I did try to bring stuff up that I needed to say, he really didn't want to hear it. One time when I was really trying to bust him on his vile, violent temper, after after I (and his family) had been on the receiving end of it yet again, he just started going "la la la, I'm not listening" over and over again!! This from a middle-aged man in a very high up, responsible managerial role at work, an intelligent, educated man with two teenage children and the perfect family image. It's funny now, because I can just see what a prick he is now; it was almost unbearable at the time (this was years ago, before I'd met DH) because back then i still so DESPERATELY wanted their love, wanted them to listen to me, respect me, take me seriously. Is there anything more painful than begging people for their love, and them refusing to give it to you?

Anyway, so contact had fizzled out, until he heard I was pregnant, via my niece; then he rang to congratulate me. I let the call go to voicemail and didn't return it (I had already taken the decision then to cut off from them all as I had tried and tried so many times before to resolve things and got nowhere) and that was it. I've never heard from him since. That's how much effort I was worth to him. One phone call. Quite apart from being his only sister/sibling, I've also been a fucking brilliant auntie to his kids - I have put so much love and energy into those two, and cared about them so much, done loads to protect them from HIS toxic behaviour, played and laughed with them masses, and acted as a safety valve for them when they had no one else to talk to, no one else who listened to them - and I do think that I made a pretty big difference to them when they were growing up and that without my input they could have grown up a lot more damaged than they have done. I still send them crissie and b'day cards and presents - used to spend loads on them even back when I had virutally nothing myself - and you would think that out of basic decency he woudl feel he really ought to do something for my DS, but no, nothing, not a thing. Which makes it easier in some ways as i would have such mixed feelings about anything that came from him, but i still think it shows once more how utterly crap he is. Fucking useless crap brother.

missed out a sentence there. It is chaos here right now. Will try and get on later.

'I feel crushed and useless.'- yes exactly how I felt today. I know I am tapping into internal feelings that I have pushed down deep inside me.
I think perhaps the desire to leave work and stay at home is part of my need to get away from anything that may 'expose' me as being the crap person I am. I'm not saying 'I am' a crap person but it is something that clearly exists deep in my subconcious. So deep I have no real control over it being triggered.
Like AN was saying about the way the brain processes stuff.
Yes opo I relate to what you were saying about only hearing criticism at home and never praise.
I feel like the 'real' me is so badly damaged and has 'so' many protective layers it is hard to reach the real me. If that makes sense. The real me (the child if you like, before all the crap that happened during my childhood) has learnt so many tricks to avoid being seen. A hard exter
Sorry for going on. I have been sobbing since the incident today, as though some valve within me has been released.
Yes, opo I think some of it may be grief for my siblings. I have no real relationship with any of mine. My db has not spoken to me since he last called. I upset him, and that is that.
It is too hard to bare sometimes it really is.

smithfield i am sorry you are having a hard time today. But i think any mother juggling work and children finds it hard and never feels like they are doing a good enough job in either area so i strongly feel you are not alone in how you feel about this. Just take a look at the going back to work threads, i read them and feel too scared to go to work as i know i will feel bad just in a different way to how i feel now being bored with full time SAHMhood.

The other feeling of being crap and useless, yes me too and yes you are being triggered i am sure. I always felt this way anytime DH even mildly criticised something i had/had not done in the house or if he even mentions his mother can do something well at home. I feel crushed and useless. I have realised that DH is not trying to demean me or put me down, but he is unwittingly tapping into my deep rooted insecurities caused by my parents who always made sure i knew how useless and incompetent they thought i was. i never heard one word of praise for them, not once. Do you think there could be something similar going on for you?

Now if DH says anything to me that would have made me feel useless in the past, i actively tell myself in my head that i am not useless and DH does not think i am useless, he is just telling me about one small thing that i could do differently, that's all. It's kind of a self help CBT type thing perhaps (have never had CBT but that's what i imagine it is).

And even if those around me now are not always mindful of my feelings, i am now an adult and in control of my life and i no longer need to do things that i do not want to or put up with being treated in a way i don't like. I have choices and options unlike when i was a child and felt i had no choice but to live with the very people who were hurting me so much.

smithfield, hi and thank you for your post and thank you for reading my recent posts, i just seemed to have so much to say all of a sudden.

I think you have picked uo on something i haven't realised myself perhaps. That something has shifted since i decided to cut ties with my sisters. It's interesting you say my posts seem free-er as that is exactly how i feel, like i have been liberated, i no longer feel tied to people who i know i have absolutely nothing in common with, My sisters and i are only related by biology, in our hearts and souls we are from different planets, we are different species and cannot live comfortably and happily together. Forcing ourselves together only creates tension and unhappiness, we are much better off apart.

I can relate to so much of what you have said. The inability to move on past the knowledge of how our mothers mistreated us. And the inability to meet other's needs because we have a lifetime of our own unmet needs to make up for, me too. Although it is DH who mostly goes without as i try to meet the DC's needs first, then my own and DH is last on the list and often i run out of time and energy in meeting the needs of the first two items on the list. But things are slowly and gradually starting to improve on that score so hopefully DH is feeling a bit happier.

And again i can relate to what you said about not only being robbed of parents but also of sibling relationships which could have been fulfilling and sustaining in adulthood had they been nurtured whilst we were children. I know i have grieved over these losses, perhaps you are currently going through a grieving process about this?

I have been feeling really down about that mum friend i have been talking about. I realise so acutely now that our 'friendship' was never about me and her, it was always about how she could use and exploit my weaknesses and neediness and vulnerability at the time when we became friends, for her own ends. She used the information i had given her in confidence because i thought she understood and i thought i could trust her almost as a lever to get what she wanted from me which was to use DD as a friend for her son who was have problems making friends at school. I went along with her agenda at first unknowingly and i suppose i gradually started realising that she did have an agenda and i started trying to distance myself from her and i think she began to sense this and she turned nasty when it became apparent to her that i was no longer willing to let myself or DD be used by her. I am sure she behaved in the way she did because she has unreolved childhood issues of her own that she told me about, although she thinks she is 'sorted' but i know she is not because i can see how she is replaying her own history on her son without realising it. And her severe over-reaction to me no longer wanting to play along to her agenda is of course something i recognise having done myself. I just feel so sad that at a time when i really needed a friend and thought i had found a friend in her, all along she was just using me for her own ends.

On a completely unrelated note, i have realised that every time i ignore my deepest innermost thoughts and feelings, every time i ignore what the child in me is trying to tell me, i have a severe bodily reaction in the form of a severe allergy attack. This has happened to me 3 times now and it is only now that i am beginning to realise what is going on and how my bodily reactions are connected with what is going on in my head. Or more to the point, the bodily reaction occurs when i ignore how i really feel and do something opposite to what my innermost feelings are telling me to do. I am sure this sounds very weird but is this something any of you can relate to at all?

I am so used to ignoring my innermost needs and feelings. Again it is a habit learned in childhood where my parents made it very clear and i was very quick to learn that my needs, feelings, desires were of no importance and should always be ignored. And this is a habit i continued into adulthood. But i have only recently learned how to 'tune in' to the voice of my inner child, or my innermost thoughts, feelings and desires, or my authentic, and real as opposed to false self. I need to now learn to not go against my true feelings if i want to avoid the sort of severe bodily reaction i had yesterday. It is exactly as Alice Miller says "The Body Never Lies".

I realise i am now and always have been a deeply sensetive person, who loves deeply and therefore can also be hurt very deeply and i know this is true by how much i have been hurt over the years by my parents, sisters, friends etc. Perhaps a different child, a less sensetive child would have been less affected by what i went through. But the child that i was, was hurt so deeply by my father's abuse and my mother's neglect and her sisters' carelessness and thoughtlessness, it has taken me/her all this time to even begin to face up to what she has been through and begin to recover and heal so she can once again live a meaningful life.

I think i no longer have to numb myself as those around me now are sensetive to and care about my feelings, unlike those around me when i was growing up.

Hi Rose- How are you? How are you managing juggling two? I found it quite tough in the beginning I have to admit. I will have a look at that book.

I have had a dreadful day today. Have been completely triggered by my boss. Now I have calmed down I do understand where he was coming from. That he was trying to help me because I told him I was struggling. Like a typical man he wanted to fix things.
He was talking about being more organised and forward planning.
All I heard was 'blah, blah, blah...you're crap' I take anything so personally especially from him because I see him as a parental figure.
I refused to cry in front of him but I went to the loo afterwards and balled my eyes out.
I felt just like I did as a child, I was in touch with the hurt and frustration I felt so often as a child. That nothing was good enough and that no matter how hard I tried to please my parents it was never 'enough'. They would always latch on to the 'one' thing I hadnt done right. So I feel/felt like giving up. What is the point?
I know this was me being triggered but I find it so hard to deal with.
I think maybe underneath I feel like Im crap so if I hear someone say anything negative I hear 'your crap' and that is ALL I hear and it bloody hurts.
I dont know how to get over this really, because I have to be able to take criticism or advice at work without crumbling.
I would also like some 'honest' feedback here. I feel like I am struggling to cope. Four days a week work (or trying to do a full-time job in four days)plus housework and two small children. Am I just weak? I feel like Im crap at all three and there is never enough hours in the day. I feel like I am drowning here?
Part of me just feels that I am being crap and weak and that I 'should' be able to cope. But then again maybe I 'could' manage my time better.
I just dont know anymore. I feel like I hate this job and I want out. Like a square peg in a round hole. Or am I just wanting to run away from the feeling of being crap. Which is a very painful feeling for me. Sorry for the self indulgent post. Feel a bit lost atm.

Has anyone read Alfie Kohn's Unconditional Parenting? Some great parenting advice and some of the issues we face are explored i.e. something we all have in common are very conditional parents

opo- Hi-I am still reading and listening with interest albeit when I can snatch some time. I am having difficulties posting at the moment. Partially because of lack of time but also I seem to go through these phases where I shut down a bit and feel completely unable to post.
The tone of your recent posts really struck me. It feels like something in you has really shifted? As though since you finally made the difficult decision of cutting ties with your sisters you have felt free-er to express yourself?
A couple of things struck a chord with me as well. The part where you said you just didnt know how to get passed your mothers treatment of you. I feel stuck like this too. Its as though everyday Im carrying this deep sadness in me and I dont know what to do to heal myself any further. Cutting her out has helped but there is still a lot of anger there too and this I find more problematic than the sadness.
I feel like I cant meet other peoples needs easily because I have a lifetime of unmet needs to make up for. This for me is also problematic.
Also where you were talking about the isolation. I felt that too as a child. Greatly. I grew up in a family of six! but totally alone and I am only just realising that I carry that with me. It has been the main dominant feeling when I have sunk into depression. That sinking feeling that I am totally alone.
I always thought that the age gap was the issue, but I dont think that now. I think thast my parents were responsible for playing all of us off of each other. Just like your mother. That is another kick in the guts because I feel not only has she robbed me of the childhood I should have had but of the adult life where I 'could' have had close bonds with my siblings. Something that I crave so much now I (and my brothers) have children. It's a whole other lot of grief to get over.

sandcastles - I do remember you. I found that very interesting what you were saying about your counsellor. That what your mother had laboured to you all those years may not have been true, but her attempt at controlling you. Keeping you in your place with emotional abuse.
Im glad knowing that has made you feel better. I guess I could apply that thinking to my situation. Maybe my mother didn't think I was fat, thick, trouble (all the things she implied and re-enforced to me for many years) maybe that was her way of 'controlling' me because of her own deep insecurities.
Im glad I know these things. If I didnt know how would I be with my children? Yes the urge is there sometimes for me to shout (especially to ds, who seems so demanding to me) YOU ARE SO SELFISH! But knowing what I know I can keep myself in check.
If you were to have a third child you would not behave as your mother did. Her actions were designed to keep you down and to isolate you. You know far too much to 'allow' this to happen to any of your children.

As an aside, recently I have begun to trace my family tree. I always thought that my mother was the youngest of three (actually of four, but the third child died). That her brother was the eldest and sister the middle child.
As it turns out mums sister was the eldest by 'some years'. She was the scapegoat. Then came mums brother. He was the golden child. Then came the brother who died at nine months, then my mum.
This (apart from the death of a sibling) mirrors my own family. I am the eldest by some way and the scapegoat. None of my mums siblings are close. They go years and years without speaking.
I feel quite shocked by how history has repeated itself.
I know I am in danger of scapegoating ds. Or creating difficulties in his relationship with dd. I have to be so careful and I worry all the time abvout recreating the damaging patterns of the past.

Me again, just snatching a few minutes whilst DC's are occupied. Have been thinking a lot about recent problems with the mum 'friend' i have mentioned a bit.

I feel so sad that this has happened to me. I can't even quite beleive it, that as well as all the pain and heartache i have had to cope with wrt my family, i have also had the misfortune to get involved with a toxic friend. I feel realy hurt that it has all ended up this way. I feel i did absolutely nothing wrong within the friendship, i was just getting on with my life, minding my own business, but because of this other mum's own personal unresolved issues, i have once again been the target of her paranoia, anger and nastiness.

I said to DH recently that i am thinking we should get a dog as i am fed up of people, at least pets are loyal and don't stab you in the back like most of the people i have been involved with seem to have done to me.

Hi sandcastles, I do remember you from the earlier threads, but thanks for the re-cap of your story.

I can relate to you being terrified of falling pregnant again but in a slightly different way. I was the eldest of 3 and i am convinced that if i had had only 1 sister things might have been very different for me. But because i had 2 younger sisters, both close in age to each other but a big gap between me and them, it was always 'them' and 'me' as you will no doubt realise if you read some of my posts on this thread. I am also terrified of falling pregnant again as the absolute last and worst thing in the world for me would be to have 3 children and risk one of them being left out in the cold as i always was. DH has had a vasectomy, but there is always a slight risk and if ever AF is a bit late, i am petrified of what it might mean.

So i do kind of know where you're coming from even though my reasons are very different.

I agree with your counsellor that your mother was emotionally abusive by telling you she had tried to get rid of you. I'm glad your counsellor can see your situation clearly. Although my mother never actually told me that she didn't want me, her actions made it very clear that she was not interested in me at all and that she much preferred and felt closer to my 2 younger sisters. I have always thought i was emotionally neglected by her but i suppose it is also emotionally abusive to reject one of your children and favour your others.

I can totally relate to you feeling like your sister is not interested in you. I feel exactly the same. Neither of my sisters are interested in me, apart from when they want to use me for something which is when they will get in touch, but apart from that, there is nothing from them. It hurts a lot as you say. And the only way to handle it is to have no expectations as then you cannot be disappointed. But it is very hard if not impossible to have no expectations of one's sister, one's own flesh and blood.

I have struggled with this for a long time. I have finally decided that the only way for me to avoid being continually hurt and disappointed by my sisters' thoughtlessness and lack of feeling for me is to end the relationship and that is what i will be doing over the next few weeks. I have written a letter to them which i am going to leave for a while before sending.

My situation is different from yours in that i have 2 sisters and it has always seemed to be a case of they have each other and don't need me. And instead of constantly wanting to be included by them and always feeling rejected and unwanted and unimportant to them, i have decided to walk away. Instead of feeling sad about my decision i feel strangely excited and liberated, i am sure doing this will open new doors for me, to friendships that are far more 'sisterly' than my relationship with my actual sisters has ever been.

Hello guys...

This has moved on alot since I last posted in the SH threads. I was on the original, woth pages etc, so some of you may not know my story.

Brief recap, my mum didn't want me & - in short - made no real attempt to try & love me or show me love. It all ended when she said that throwing herself down the stairs while pregnant with me failed to induce the miscarriage she wanted so much.

There was a life time of nasty retorts etc, until I cut her off at 19. Best thing I did!

I have been having counselling for a different subject, but the past was of course, raised during a session recently & proved to be very tightly linked with what I am fighting at the moment. Which is, I am terrified of getting pregnant again! I have 2 wonderful girls, but find myself having panic attacks at the thought of getting pregnant with #3....very telling I guess, is that I was #3! Dh is currently looking into a vasectomy, so it isn't going to be a lifelong worry, but it has been overwhelming me recently! Not so much now I am back on the BC pill, and we have had sucess this month!

Anyway, during the last visit my counsellor told me that I only have my mother's word for it that she didn't want me. That she may have said it as a 'power trip' kind of thing, to keep the control. You know how it can be, when you fight you find the worse thing you can say, which you know will really hurt the other person.

It was a turniing point really, because I have honestly never thought of it like that before. The counsellor also said that mu mother was extremely emotionally abusive, again not something I had realy thought of, just thought she struggled to love me, never thought it was emotional abuse!

And I do feel better for knowing this, although it doesn't take away the hurt & the wondering why, if that makes sence!

Also, it seems that my sister is turning into my mother & I feel like I am losing touch with her! I am in Australia & she in the UK & save for limited Facebook remarks, I get nothing form her! No emails, no cards for my birthday/christmas. Along with Dad & my brother, she didn't acknowledge my younger daughters birthday nor my eldest's. Which hurt! Alot.

Counselling is teaching me to expect nothing, so anything I do get is a bonus, but I hate that I cannot rely on what is left of my family!

I hope i haven't killed the thread with my incessant posts. Please do not feel under any obligation to respond or even read, i just needed to get a load off my mind. Hope you're all back soon!