I hate this

And just to say thank you everyone who replied. I was on my own with my kids and mum and just spiralled a bit - like I was terrified, which is so stupid now I think about it, she's not going to do anything beyond judging how clean my floors are. I used to be minding my younger brother alone a lot and trying (and usually failing) to keep him safe from dad and maybe it felt the same I don't know. But even just the company and different perspectives on here really helped me so much last night..DH got back later, mum left to stay with. Friends, and I'm more ready for her today. Thank you all!

@Holdinguphalfthesky thank you. I have done yoga nidra but hadn't heard of iRest. I tend to find things like meditation where I have to be still really really hard but I will look into this and give it a go while I'm waiting for EMDR starting 🙂

@Ipsevenenabibas good questions! DH is the reason we live so far away from my family. He respects where I'm from and my family but point blank refused to live in the same area as them. He definitely doesn't think we should go no contact with my mum.

Our kids just are part of the community - it's not really something you can opt in or out of. But DH doesn't want them to just accept some of the things that are quite normalised in it. And it's been good for me, to see some of this through his eyes.

I don't want to say what the community is please. I feel worried it would be easy to figure out who I am esp if people can go back and find other stuff I've posted and join the dots.

I didn't detail methods! @CoralMumsnet

Can I just ask if people would please not guess or say what community it is. I'm really pretty scared of getting caught/ recognised, and I didn't realise people could search for my old threads/ posts etc.

@DecafSoyaLatteExtraShotPlease thank you so much. You are absolutely right about all of that. A lot of addiction and alcoholism and, honestly, yes (though I do feel a bit like a traitor saying it) abuse too in some ways, but it is mixed with a lot of great stuff that people tend to ignore.

Mum isn't a bad person, definitely has had a shitty, shitty life herself. And I do want to break the cycle, I'm desperately afraid of my kids experiencing the childhood I had, that I would do to them what was done to me. I've had therapy in the past and have recently been referred for EMDR with NHS but not accessing it yet.

Gosh, thank you all for so many thoughtful responses. I will try to respond fully, but if I miss you, I do really appreciate that everyone has been so kind, and trying to help.

So, I can see that my first post sounds awful. My mum isn't abusive, I think it would be massively overkill to cut her off. I get spaced out around her, and self-harm and all, because of what I associate her with, which was abusive, but that was mostly my dad, who's dead now anyway. Mum can be mean and critical, and she's especially hard on me for sure. But she's not really hit me or anything since I was a child. She was just there and like passively enabling the abuse.

@CantBreathe90 yeah, you are right, I know. I prob should have said at the start I do have PTSD, so there is something wrong with my mind. I do want to get better and am trying stuff, but tonight was a bit of a set back. DH knows I self-harm. He's not happy about it, but he isn't going to make me stop.

Gaining weight is not really an option for me, I have had anorexia and it's kind of still hanging about tbh.

@Daygloboo I think you mean really well, but honestly, it's just not a "fake" umbrella of culture, it's absolutely fundamentally who I am. And although I think I get what you mean - "mass bullying" is an interesting way to put it - it's more complicated than that. Discrimination and persecution by "outsiders" means we mostly only trust ourselves. And I don't disagree with that.

@MadAsAMongoose yeah, DH isn't "us". Def part of me liked him because it wasn't more of the same, but I liked him because he recognised the value of where I'm from. He's not just any "outsider", he's genuinely respectful of who I am, and wants to be part of it as far as he can. You're right my community isn't "doing" anything for me, it's just, they're who I am. It's my identity.

The community issue isn't really important here though, I just brought it up to explain why I can't cut her off.

Oh, it's not "annoying". I don't want to get nto details, but I've been self harming since my mid teens, as a way to cope with abuse throughout my childhood. I'm reluctant to take antidepressants in case they make me gain weight, and anyway I'm not depressed.

@Theonlywayicanloveyou no DH, is not part of the community, which is part of the problem. They like him, and have definitely accepted him to a huge degree - he's more "in" than "out" with some of them. He hates how she treats me. Emotionally, mostly has my back, though I'd say things aren't great sometimes because I'm pretty hard to live with tbh. I had a whloe thread about that ages ago! And now I'm all spaced out, he's not going to get anywhere trying to "help" me anyway.