Anyone else have a neglectful childhood and didn't realise

[anyoneelsefeelthis123]

*My mum had me at 15 and my sister a year later. Anyone else have a neglectful childhood but didn’t really know until you were an older teen? These are some examples that I didn’t realise until I was an older teen age.

My mum would
Take me and my sister to the park every day rain, wind or shine and we would love it and get to play for ages. But she would meet some friends and it wasn’t until I was older I realised it was because she was picking up and using drugs while we played and were non the wiser

Our house was always spotless and I mean spotless and smelled amazing … because my mum would be high on speed and clean like a maniac

We had loads of beautiful gifts for birthdays and Christmas because they were all stolen and my mum would buy them off people who had stolen them

My mum came to every school and out of school event and was really sociable and didn’t work because she wanted to be with us she said but it was because she was always high or drunk and couldn’t get a job or hold down a job

My mum threw the best parties for us as kids and would let us have loads of friends over to sleep and she would do lots of games and food. All because she was off her face

We were never late for school or had untidy uninform as she would iron ours ever morning . Because she hadn’t even gone to bed yet because she’d been up all night on some sort of drug

She never had a boyfriend because she said she wanted to just spend all her time with us but it was because she new the men that she was around we’re not upstanding citizens

She always cooked home made meals every day but that was because when she was cooking was a short period of the day where she wouldn’t be taking drugs or drinking

She would take us out on the bus/train to all different days out again it was all so she could meet with friends or a new dealer or get stolen gifts off other people

I guess I’m writing this because she early 40s now and has completely changed. 5 years ago she started her own cleaning business which has grown a little bit and met her new partner when he contacted her asking if she could help clean his neighbours home as she is elderly and they got chatting. He’s a lovely man who has worked in the trades all his life. He doesn’t do drugs ever and only drinks at special occasions. He’s a few years older and his children are similar age to me and they are wonderful people who have/are doing well in life. My mum no longer does any drugs and doesn’t drink at all and has learnt to drive now she’s sober. So why the hell am I mad at her? Is it because she couldn’t change for me and my sister but did it for a man? Or is it because I actually liked her more before when she was always the life and sole and feel I’ve lost my real mum. Anyone else been in a similar situation? I feel guilty for these feelings *

It is perfectly possible for a mother to be doing the best she could in the circumstances and it also to be neglectful. Neglect is actually a form of abuse.
On the face of it, I had a very different childhood to the op. Both parents worked in professions. I was well clothed, had toys and loads of books and there wasn't a shortage of food or money. I had a good education. However I did have an abusive childhood with parents who for different reasons were unable to meet or even recognise emotional needs. It has caused a massive impact on me and is taking a load of psychotherapy to work through.

I was once talking with a therapist about how hard things had been and she said "I'm amazed you survived!" I asked what she meant and she said "Well a lot of people would have developed personality disorders or taken their own life.". I was a bit taken aback as I hadn't reckoned my childhood was "that bad" because of the physical provision I had had.

I now have a better understanding of how it can really really be "that bad" even when on the surface things seemed ok.

If she's care leaver I think she's done incredibly well.

It's very hard to parent well all the time, very very very hard if you've grown upon care with all that that entails and without benefiting from positive parenting yourself or observing positive parenting.

I understand how you are feeling, but it sounds like your DM did her best and it was pretty decent in many ways.

Yes, I'm continually saying to my therapist that I struggle when she uses the word 'trauma' or the term 'ACE' to describe parts of my childhood, or when she talks about my 'survival strategies'. But I've had to learn that there's no Olympics of suffering, and that, regardless of my parents doing there best, it was pitiably inadequate, and has left me with significant ongoing issues.

Bloody hell, as a children’s social worker I would wholeheartedly call OP’s experience neglect. It’s not ok to diminish someone else’s experience as it’s not the same as yours

It's hard to know how it feels unless you've lived that life. Stolen goods, parties, parents having split personalities (happy and partying, the life and soul, and then hungover and reclusive, and the kids don't have the knowledge to know why, it can feel like it's your fault, like you're not good enough. Like you're given so much materially but something fundamental isn't given). Kids just know when their parent is "different" to the other parents. It's a puzzle your brain worries on subconsciously until it clicks one day as an adult, and you feel terrible.

However, I have a child the age your mum was when she had you, and wow ..Still most definitely a child at that age.Your poor mum, it must have been such a challenge, and in many ways she found out what she SHOULD do as a mum and tried to do that for you both, if a bit skewed. But with love? But fair play to her as a child who'd been in care, with no one to model how to do anything. However, just because it could have been worse, still does not mean it was good enough. I just don't think there's a way to have salvaged that at the time, no resources, no support etc.

She was still learning and growing alongside you, and of course that will cause damage to everyone. I feel that myself, and I had my first at 20. I was so not ready, still developing myself. So I can definitely have compassion for your mum but also for you and your sister too. We dont ask to be born after all, but hopefully they to make the best of it. The odds were always against her and it genuinely sounds like she's made good of parts of her life now?

I truly think you can have love and neglect alongside each other though, and you're valid to feel how you feel. You lived it. Maybe the catalyst is seeing her now, at an age where women are more likely to have children, and she's got it together and it feels weird. Sad that it couldn't have been that way back then.

I truly do think she tried her best in a lot of ways, from what you say. She was probably just getting by. And it's ok to feel any way you feel about that, and it's best to really explore it and learn through therapy how to come to terms with it.

You were neglected. Yes she loved you but it was neglect.
Do you ever discuss it with her?

I agree with this.
Added into it the fact that she was an abused child .

She sounds like she did the best she could despite being surrounded by scumbags and suffering from addiction. A lot of the time women will move these men in. She had some sort of strength in her.

you can’t be serious? Taking drugs and still functioning isn’t neglect? Would you say that to a woman posting on MN now saying she takes drugs whilst watching her kids? They’re unaware so it’s fine?! No way! There is a difference between one glass of wine and off your box on class As. One you can drive a car in the event of an emergency and the other you’d drive your car into a pole.

its pure luck there was never an emergency situation.

she may well have done her level best with the odds stacked against her, but taking drugs when you are responsible for your children is neglect. Two things can be true at the same time

My mum had a childhood trauma that lead her into using valium and antidepressants through my childhood. It was only as I've been an older adult that I've realised that some of my own self esteem issues may be linked to her not being fully emotionally present because of this medication. I felt I had to protect her from my worries so never told her how bad school could be and never asked for things I wanted due to feeling we were on a lower income. I got teased because of smelling of stale cigarette smoke.

She has passes away now but we were close through my adult years and she was a lovely grandparent to my children. It is only really because I work in a nursery and get trained on various types of neglect that I could trace mine back.

Even though she was on drugs she sounds like she looked after you well.

The only damage here is what it may have done to her heart, liver & mental state when she's elderly.

Are you joking? The only damage? The OP clearly feels some damage due to her mother’s actions, this is common with children who’ve grown up with parents in addiction or recreational drug users. There is even an nspcc page for it. Will people stop gaslighting the OP and minimising how she feels.

^ oh and it’s absolutely neglect.

to not get a child with a broken bone medical attention there and then due to a party. Neglect

drugs around children is safeguarding and neglect

I think you have amazing insight into your feelings towards your mum, which are quite rightly complicated.

It sounds like a difficult situation all round. Your feelings are legitimate and you are allowed to be sad that your mum wasn't what you needed her to be. Of course you should unpack that and acknowledge the hurt it has caused you.

But I think you do also need to look at her not as your mum but as a teenager, a child that had children in difficult circumstances. It is OK to hold both the compassion for that teenage mum and your hurt about your childhood at the same time. They don't necessarily cancel each other out. And that is ok.

From my own experience. My mum was neglectful. She had an incredibly difficult childhood herself and had been raised in a house with domestic abuse. She was desperate to create her own, happy family so had 5 children in quick succession and then was totally overwhelmed with us all. I was sent to school with no lunch, hair not brushed, never read a bedtime story, never taught about personal hygiene.....the list goes on. There were lots of good things too throughout this time.

I was the most angry about it all after having my own children and it was difficult to get past that but I have done. We will never be extremely close, but I'm able to acknowledge that she is a damaged person and that she does love me. But she is flawed and I can accept that.

I do think seeking some counselling to help you unpack your own feelings would be beneficial.

That’s actually such a good point regarding how different things were in those times in terms of help, support and understanding. Good for you for still being here and getting through that, it’s hard and you made it, I know how hard that is. X

I think that being the child of an addict is a very complicated situation.

I don't know if this resonates with you, but my dad was a functioning alcoholic but I have similar haply memories of doing lots of nice consistent things and having a safe little life. I didn't have as good a relationship with my mum because I found her to be very stressed and snappy a lot of the time, whereas my dad always seemed so and laid back and gentle.

As an adult, with my own family, I realise how skewed my perspective was. While I know my dad was kind to me, as an adult, I think what I struggle with is knowing how I wouldn't be able to look after my DC while inebriated. I know that it was very risky behaviour on his part, and it does shape some of the things I remember - for example, my dad used to have a nap (just me and him in the house, I would have been tiny, pre school age) in a very specific way, and I realise now that it was because he would need to lie down after drinking. I would feel so guilty if it was my child in that position.

I guess being an adult and knowing the reality of the situation sheds an alarming light on your situation.

It's not that you were actively neglected by her as you clearly weren't, but you know now that she was living a high risk life and therefore dragging you into it. Anything could have happened to her, she was bringing you to the park with other addicts and the drug scene is just full of unsavoury characters. She could have overdosed or lost her grip on the situation so easily. She could have triggered social services involvement and had you removed. You recognise this now.

I am so glad your mum had the foresight and ability to keep bad men out of your life and to keep things together. That's what my dad was like, he may have been drunk every day but what I remember is taking our dog for a walk every day, reciting a story every single time as it was depicted in stones along the way (we were going to the shops to buy beers!), making fresh bread from scratch, watching Disney movies etc.

But it definitely doesn't always work out well. I'm not sure what the answer is to be honest; my dad passed when I was 27 and I loved him but sometimes I do feel angry. He put my mum in a difficult position; she worked herself so hard in a high paying job as my dad didn't work. She was so stressed and snappy with us all the time because she was so busy all week and then had to spend the weekends cleaning. We lived literally a street over from the school, but my mum told me she would have to leave work to pick my eldest sibling up from nursery and bring her home, then go back to work.

This was the 90's, I think things were just seen differently. Only when I was much older, pregnant with my second child, my mum recalling the time when the headmaster of our primary school had taken my dad to one side as he had obviously been spotted drinking or drunk many times, and saying "the other kids are alright, but you can't do this with [me], she is too young".

I never confronted my dad about his behavior, nobody did. There were also other issues in my case, which colour my perspective further, but I honestly don't know what the best solution for you is. Maybe therapy to process your emotions? I just live with the feelings tbh, and let it guide my judgement with my own kids.

The op was actively neglected ( mum spending lots of periods in bed/ vomiting and therefore not available to parent. Medical needs were neglected)

I also think it's important to make clear that the OP is entitled to have space for her own feelings.

No matter how hard her mum tried, the objective truth is it wasn't okay, and the OP shouldn't feel guilty about struggling to come to terms with her childhood because of this.

Sorry I missed that, I didn't spot that in the OP.

I think it's important to recognise that children have an idealistic view of things too, and you won't always be aware of what's going on in a conscious way.

You also don't get to live a life of doing drugs without ever being hungover and coming down. It's not acceptable at all to be in that condition, or high, when you are responsible for children.

From your post, it sounds like you think your mum only did all the ‘nice’ things because of drugs. You see your childhood memories as ruined and no longer pure. I feel for you I really. I also can’t believe your mum had two children as a child and in a way I think she’s incredible. You are also incredible. Your feelings are VERY valid. Work through that anger and that grief.

It sounds like your mum took drugs a lot but it also sounds like she did love you very much.

And I agree with others, that children always see the innocence. That’s why people always look back at earlier decades as if they were great (they weren’t).

@anyoneelsefeelthis123 Report your thread and get HQ to copy your second post into the OP, otherwise you’ll keep getting unhelpful responses based on just your first post. As a MH nurse, I was waiting for the ‘other shoe to drop’, so to speak, but not everyone will realise that. More generally, how are you doing? How is your mental health? There’s a reason that these types of childhood experiences are considered traumatic, but our feelings around them can often be very complicated, especially if other people are telling us they had it worse-or conversely, that it must have been terrible. Things are rarely that straight forward. There can be a lot of guilt, even around enjoying the good bits”, and this is particularly so if you’re trying to build an equal, adult relationship with the mother in your life now, while remembering what was then. I would seek out some support, even if it’s just straightening out for yourself what really happened. Just telling your story can often be enough. Take care x

Although I missed it myself, even without the OP's follow up, I'm quite disturbed by the amount of posters so ignorant and basically saying, get over it, your mum did so great, criticising her calling it neglect etc. You should really be ashamed.

This is the problem OP, with posting this on a public forum. You are going to get replies from people with no perspective who can't relate, and will just say things based on the face value of your post.

I described the good things I remember too, but I also remember lots of bad things in our life all stemming from my dad drinking. The shame and worry. It's really something I do think you could use professional help with. I wish you all the best 🌸

She clearly was actively neglected!

drugs around kids, kids not getting medical attention when they need it, hanging around unsavoury characters, not to mention the emotional toll of having an addict as a parent. These are all neglect and safeguarding issues and issues that everyone on the forum would condemn if a poster said they were doing, and would all praise social services for intervening and removing the children.

Honestly the amount of posters that think this stuff is a ok is really worrying, especially considering many of them are parents themselves.