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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

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Relationships

"Cuckoo in the nest": is that you?

38 replies

Waltraut · 02/10/2011 16:35

Where does this feeling of not belonging in a family come from?

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RandomMess · 02/10/2011 16:36

No idea but I have it too

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Waltraut · 02/10/2011 16:38

Loads of people do, it's quite surprising really.
Was just talking to a friend, she moved countries to get away from the feeling.

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RandomMess · 02/10/2011 17:00

Well surely it's all tied up with childhood and roots and stuff isn't it?

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Waltraut · 02/10/2011 17:01

I know, but what exactly?
I was born, my parents loved me, I've always been different to them (tastes, views) I remember feeling it from such a young age.
Have a younger sibling they (naturally) gave more attention to, maybe it's like a long-term feeling of rejection?

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TimeForMeIsFree · 02/10/2011 17:04

I grew up feeling 'different' and like I didn't belong. I used to think I might be adopted because I just didn't fit in. I have 3 sisters, one of which was my dads favourite and the other two were favourites of my mothers. It was horrible, I hated my childhood/time at home. I am estranged from them all now and my life is so much better for it.

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Waltraut · 02/10/2011 17:12

TimeFor It is horrible not ever being the preferred one, not even for a little while.

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Waltraut · 02/10/2011 17:18

What I was thinking is that in my family, it's like it was a combination of things, my dislike of the things they liked (for example tv programmes) and my different sense of humour and different tastes in clothes (hard when they are buying you clothes and keep persuading you to get things you hate). Years of that must have made me a bit more unlikeable that my brother, and then because he fitted in better, I saw him being preferred and I objected, making it worse? I don't know.

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TimeForMeIsFree · 02/10/2011 17:20

When I was 15 I lay on my bed and I promised myself that if things got any worse I would kill myself. That was my bolt hole and in a weird sort of way it was knowing that I had a way out that helped me to cope with it. I was never the preferred one.

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TimeForMeIsFree · 02/10/2011 17:26

Walraut I can relate to what you say. I had brains, loved study and wanted to go to college. I was mocked and name called for it, told I would never be anything. I liked nice clothes, looked after myself, I liked sport and exercise, I liked TV programmes that expanded my knowledge so an knew quite a lot. I was name called and mocked for that too. I was accused of thinking I was somebody special when in fact I didn't. I was just different and they couldn't cope with it.

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PersonalClown · 02/10/2011 17:28

Sounds like my life.
I don't know my father (so rejections issues there!), my mother couldn't care less and openly favours my brothers as the children she wanted. I was the 'accident' that ruined her life. She had me at 19.

I am the different one to the family. I live and breathe football and music. They live for soaps and the dramas of life. They are card carrying chavs. I am gothy/alternative.

I only see my family once a week and that is because they dote on Toad(ds). If they could bypass me, I'm sure they would.

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Waltraut · 02/10/2011 17:29

"accused of thinking I was somebody special" I can't imagine how anyone can say this to a child but I got that too

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TimeForMeIsFree · 02/10/2011 17:39

I think my mother was jealous of me. That's how it came across anyway. She seemed to despise me. I can distinctly remember, at 8 years old, all ready for bed, asking her for a kiss. Nope! No kiss goodnight. No love or affection. I was shipped of to my Grandma and Grandads every weekend and school holiday and thank God I was because at least I do have some happy memories of my childhood.

I ended up getting married at 18 just to get away from home. A few weeks before I left she had broken a hairbrush hitting me around the head with it. For no reason other than having a mind of my own, an opinion.

Walraut I was called stupid, goofy, lanky, Olive Oyl, bitch, you name it, I was called it. My mother used to dress all four of us girls alike, matching coats and shiny shoes, giving everyone the impression she was the perfect mother.

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RandomMess · 02/10/2011 18:22

I think it was just not being accepted and loved for who I was, nothing I ever did was going to be good enough, nothing less than the plans they had for me were going to be acceptable.

I ran away to uni and we're now pretty much no contact and have managed to marry someone who is equally the family cuckoo so reinforcing my own negative feelings bit of a disaster all around!

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AnyFucker · 02/10/2011 18:29

I can identify with this

I was also asked "who the hell do you think you are, you think you are so special" as a child (in hindsight, I was of course right to think I was better than them...)

I was also told as a child that I "cramped his style" (my father, that is)

and lots more that could fill a fucking book

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Flubule · 02/10/2011 18:30

I am different to my family. They don't like me very much but I am not a massively likeable person and if truth be told I dislike most of them in return.

Where did it come from? No idea. Where does any aspect of your personality come from?

I like, love and respect the family I have now (mine).

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TimeForMeIsFree · 02/10/2011 19:06

I didn't think I was better than them at the time but I certainly do now! I am so pleased that I am not like them, they are not nice people. My youngest sister was pregnant at 15, baby born at 16, went on to have 3 more children and had never done a days work in her life. My mother worshipped the ground she walked on, praised her to high heaven meanwhile me, who worked hard, did everything the right way, never got a look in. The only time they showed any interest in me was when they needed money.

My personality didn't come from them, I'm not a bit like any of them. I am the person I am in spite of them.

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AnyFucker · 02/10/2011 19:29

in spite of

oh yes

I worked fucking hard (in the face of obstacles, not least the attacks on my self esteem as a teenager) to do well in life

and I did... in spite of them

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TimeForMeIsFree · 02/10/2011 19:44

What doesn't kill you makes you stronger!

I am the strongest person I know.

And I have bloody fantastic kids who have grown into bloody fantastic adults who will never know what it's like to feel unloved or out of place. That's a good feeling and gives me a real sense of pride.

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queenrollo · 02/10/2011 19:50

i felt like the cuckoo in the nest - then when I was 13 had it well and truly confirmed for me when I found out that my 'dad' was actually my stepfather and they only told me then because the secret came out in a way they couldn't hide it.
I don't care what they say or how they try to justify things i was treated differently than my younger sibling (my half-sibling). Still am.

I didn't meet my birth-father's family until i was 22, and suddenly so much of my personality made sense to me.

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TimeForMeIsFree · 02/10/2011 20:10

That's a nice outcome queenrollo, it's a shame it didn't happen until you were 22 though.

I would love to have found out I was adopted because then I would have been able to make some sense of things.

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Tigerbomb · 02/10/2011 20:19

I'm a cuckoo but only amongst my wider family iykwim. No problems with my parents generally but the rest of my family (aunts, uncles, cousins etc) don't like me at all. They adore my younger DB and invite him to everything but I am ignored. This has been the case since I was small. It still hurts now

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TimeForMeIsFree · 02/10/2011 20:23

That's awful Tigerbomb. And it does hurt. But look at it this way, would you choose to socialise with such mean and unpleasant people? My guess is you wouldn't so perhaps it's your DB you should feel sorry for

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ItsMeAndMyPuppyNow · 02/10/2011 20:24

And I have bloody fantastic kids who have grown into bloody fantastic adults who will never know what it's like to feel unloved or out of place.

That's wonderful.

It's what I've vowed to do too, if I am ever lucky enough to start my own family. I see 3 generations (possibly going back waaaaay further than I am able to judge firsthand) of abuse in my family, with every generation replaying what went before, and passing their issues on to the next generation. The buck stops here.

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TheOriginalFAB · 02/10/2011 20:28

I have felt it all my life and probably always will.

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TimeForMeIsFree · 02/10/2011 20:31

It might sound bonkers ItsMeAndMyPuppyNow but I couldn't wait to have children, just so that I could do things differently, I was determined that the life of my children would be different to the life I had. I never had much money but they never went without love. I wasn't perfect but my kids think I was so I must have done well