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 *

Bless you, you've minimised as a child the full extent of what was going on and this is very sad-I speak from experience as I grew up with an alcoholic mother. Now at the age I am with teens myself I realise the extent of abuse which I buried away, my siblings seem to remember things differently from me just like your sister. I hope you're OK, it can hit you like a train sometimes, don't hide away your feelings. Hugs xx

I think this is a very fair assessment.

Sometimes we hold on to an illusion to help us get through a painful reality. Then when the situation changes, the realities hit you, and you feel a good few raw emotions that you might not have allowed yourself to feel up to then.

There is a good deal of shame associated with participation (even as an unwitting passenger) in someone else's addiction or delusion or criminality. You can feel you've been willingly fooled, which is hard to sit with.

You can also feel that someone took something from you - the authenticity of your memory, the ability to make a genuine connection with a real person - and you can realise you don't really know someone, which is a deep shock and very hard to deal with when that someone is your parent.

And there is grief - because you've lost the mother you thought you had and the childhood you thought you had. Grief is really hard to get through when the person is still there, and by all accounts doing better than before in many respects.

I suggest therapy - Al Anon or Narcotics Anonymous might be a start. A private therapist would be a good idea too. At some point, a therapist is likely going to ask what the barriers are to seeing the glass half full here, so maybe that's something to ponder. What do you feel you've lost, and the biggie - do you feel that can ever be regained, or can a new relationship be nurtured from scratch?

It’s weird. You can read things that a poster writes and feel both upset and optimistic at the same time. I hope the OP is taking the first steps on the path that many of have been/still are on. There a good people to meet on that dark wooded path and plenty of glades where we enjoy the light, the companionship and some peace . Come and join us OP, it’s OK, you are welcomed.

I meant to add, being parentified as a child is something that will take a long, long time to get over. It's hitting you now because you don't have to keep up the pretence any more amd you see how uncomplicated other people's lives have been (the adult children of your mother's partner for instance).

It is an insidious form of abuse.

I really urge you to seek support with AlAnon or addiction support.

addictionfamilysupport.org.uk/
www.adultchildrenofalcoholics.co.uk/
www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/recreational-drugs-alcohol-and-addiction/drug-and-alcohol-addiction-useful-contacts/

It’s a public forum and I’m entitled to my opinion 🤷🏼‍♀️

Ofcourse. And I’m saying that in this case your opinion is wrong 🤷‍♀️

🙌
Hope you feel better for that.😂

I do. There a few people here who recognise how complicated and difficult it is to get to this stage and realise the life long impacts of being a child of an addict. How hard it is to still love your mum but also to express the damage that was done. You need people to listen to you and not minimise what you are saying.

Absolutely. Some people are just better qualified than others to speak on this issue.

I don’t want to start a pile on to the people who only read the opening post. Or even to say that you should avoid commenting on things you’re not a card carrying expert on.

You don’t have to have lived experience to be sympathetic to the OP once you read her updates. It’s reasonable to expect people to engage with just a little more effort before diving in. Her first update is only on page 2 for goodness sake, it’s not even a RTFT situation.

I don't think people need to avoid commenting on things they're not experts on, but it's never a great sign when the only thing someone can muster in defence of their opinion is that they're entitled to hold it.

I'm the child/adult of a mother who also had addiction issues and was the eldest child who parented younger siblings. even into my own adulthood. It's really complicated. However - you were neglected, and are perfectly justified if you're feeling grief, anger, sadness and a whole host of other emotions along with the love that children have for their parents.

I went to Al-Anon as well as Adult Children of Alcoholics - I found both helpful but the most help was my third therapist who was trauma informed.

You are worthy of getting the help you need to recover from the neglect that you suffered in childhood. It will have left scars, possibly sub-concious scars, but nevertheless you can recover.

Her opening post didn’t suggest neglect to me and I stand by that. Agree or don’t. Pile on or don’t. Simply don’t care. To me it didn’t - she put it on Mumsnet with the limited details she chose to share and I made a judgement. Tough t1ts you don’t agree. My lived experience is irrelevant. If there were other very pertinent additional details they should have gone in OP. Or apparently it’s mandatory to tease out details before we comment….and of course unless I read every detail my opinion is wrong and ignorant and no manners to even dare comment…but of course, no pile on 🙄.

That is just a reflection of your very limited insight and awareness. People who work with addiction and those people whose lives are impacted by addiction and childhood neglect are much more aware of the issues at play. The same could be said when people post about fears about childhood sexual abuse and people who know literally nothing about it pile on and say you're paranoid and that people on mumsnet think everyone's a paedophile. Or when people with no legal knowledge come along and say totally unrealistic things like 'of course you won't have to leave the house, you're his common law wife'. I think it would be better if posters with no skills or knowledge actually just declared that openly.

So what you are saying is that the OP should have asked that only people who work with addiction etc should answer? Or perhaps this should be mumsnet wide? We can only, in your very educated and experienced opinion, comment on things we have lots of experience and expertise on?

Alternatively, it’s a public forum and OP asked for opinions and I gave one, one that I neither need your permission to hold nor care that you profess to have access to some higher knowledge and insight to trump my opinion. A common sense one that I stand by and lots of people share. Hmmmm.

Giving a strong view on an issue you know full well you don't know much about is many things, but it's not common sense.

There are some disgusting posts on here. I dread to think how they treat their own dcs. I've reported this thread.

I hope karma gets you nasty wicked people. I'd like to say more but won't as it'd be deleted.

Op most of us are genuine and caring. I hope you can heal from your traumatic childhood ❤️ It's good you and your sister can talk about it.

The mumsnet rules do not say you need to know an issue well (not saying I don’t - just not commenting). You/others having some subjective (unverified….) higher knowledge does not mean you get to silence me and others by shouting ‘wrong’. The text book def of controlling right there. It’s ok to disagree but the vitriol and aggression is not ok. Again - she asked on a public forum for opinion. I gave one. One I stand by.

Wow. Implication I mistreat my kids cos I - respectfully - suggested there were not addiction issues based on OPs first post. And Karma? Ok. There seems to be a real issue with disagreeing respectfully without piling on, pressing the “wrong” button or personal attacks like this. We aren’t 5!!

You seem very keen on your own right to post and not so much on other people's. If you post something on here, that means people get to comment on it.

When it's something that's obviously badly informed, and when you clearly made the choice not to bother reading all OPs posts despite you not having an understanding of the issue, people are allowed to say that just as much as you were allowed to post in the first place. It's very, very common here for posters to be told they don't know what they're talking about. The fact that you continue to stand by your nonsense means you're going to get more posts in that vein in response.

Starting to talk when you decide you want to explore the niggling thoughts is tricky. I wonder if anyone else would like to tell their story? It might be helpful to the OP and others lurking.

Like the OP I had spent so much time telling people the story I wanted to be true it was hard to pivot to the truth. I had a few goes when I was younger but got a similar sort of response to here and felt I was being whiny, disloyal, attention seeking etc. it wasn’t until I was a good deal older and had different friends who gently teased it out that it got better. I remember the first time someone said the words ‘it sounds like your mum was an addict, that’s serious stuff’.

I could now do quite a succinct opening post, eg ‘my mum was (is) and alcoholic, I know she loves me and that things look different from the outside, but a lot of what happened fucked me up a bit. Still working through it and now that she’s older is got more complicated’. It’s taken a long time to get here though.

I'm so very sorry to hear that. Thank you for posting and backing the op.

Not once have I suggested others shouldn’t comment. I posted my original reply after the OP commented first.
of course I have sympathy for the OP but that’s not the issue here: it’s those with some ‘knowledge’ piling on and suggesting I shouldn’t/others shouldn’t post as we are ignorant. What gives you that right?
OP I’m signing off here. I hope you get the support you need to work through your issues.
have a great day, Mumsnetters…

You are ignorant of the issue, though. As your posts show. What gives us the right to point that out is the same thing that gave you the right to type it in the first place. The forum rules allowing both. Again, it's a double standard. You can say whatever you like, but people replying in a way you don't like is the problem.