Can abuse ever be a child's fault?

[MrsHuxtable]

I have a thread on relationships about my mother but things have come to a head and I want some quick replies.

Basically, my mum hit me a lot when I was a child (not just a slap, but properly with a hover pipe etc) and also abused me emotionally. She's visiting us rigth now and she kept being all negative about me and during the fight I told her how her abuse has damged me and is still influencing my life.

She then went on to say that firstly she hadn't abused me and my memory was wrong. She then admitted to the abuse but said it was my fault because I was provoking her and was already bad as a 2year old.

She is now feeling sorry for herself and packing her stuff. I don't know what to do. Will I just let her leave?

Can abuse ever be a child's fault? How horrible would I have had to be for this to happen to me?

This abuse as a child (age 2 fgs!!!) was IN NO WAY your fault.

Your mother is unable to acknowledge your experiences for her own reasons at the moment. Her denials of what happened and blaming of you are the only thing she can do if she cannot acknowledge her own part in this situation. Clearly it would be hard for any mother to acknowledge this kind of past history.

IF your mother wants to leave then you should let her as you are not responsible for her. Furthermore if you would prefer her to leave then you should ask her to.

Try to keep your mother at an emotional distance from you whilst she makes you feel bad about yourself, and keep telling yourself that no child deserves to be treated like she treated you, and that it was not your fault.

Ultimately your mother may or may not acknowledge your feelings, she may or may not apologise, and you may or may not forgive her - I suspect any of these will not happen anytime soon.

Focus on yourself, your child, your partner - all that is good in your life.

Maybe she does love you, who knows. She certainly doesn't however behave in a loving way to you, or even in a respectful way, and therefore you are right to choose not to engage with her unless and until she changes her behaviour.

I'm sure she does love you. It doesn't mean her behaviour isn't upsetting and abusive though

What everyone else has said. She is at fault.

Arrange a hotel for her and pop her in a taxi. Then send her a letter, telling her you will speak to her when she's able to keep a civil tongue in her head.

How dare you blame your mother.

At the age of three months you should be on solids, feeding yourself competently with a spoon, sitting quietly in a corner reading the dictionary, sending yourself to sleep, be fully potty-trained, washing and cleaning yourself and popping to the shops for your mum when she's just too knackered to do it. A plus point is if you can learn to do her a cuppa.

Abuse is never a childs fault. It's the adult being selfish and rubbish. Let her leave and never speak to her again.

Borderline Personality Disorder is a disorder of the emotions. Imagine a person who is extremely sensitive to rejection (fearful of even perceived or anticipated rejection) and has a limited ability to modulate their emotional impulses (love, fear, anger, grief, etc.). To protect themselves from their own feelings, they are prone to adopt a multitude of dysfunctional rationalizations and cover-ups.

For example, a person suffering from BPD may so fear rejection in a new relatinship that they recreate themselves in the image of a person they believe would be lovable. When the negative emotions for making such a sacrifice surface - and not having the ability to modulate them, they lash out at the target of their affections for "making them do it" - rather than face their own feelings of inadequancy / fear of rejection, ultimately damaging the relationship they so fear losing, and reinforcing their feelings of inadequancy / fear of rejection.

I think this sounds more like your mother OP.

I believe my mother has it too.

DH says it's because she loves me
She may want to love you, but she is incapable of loving you or showing any appropriate feelings toward you. This is of course incredibly sad but it is not your fault.

Read Toxic Parents
Talk to your MW about counselling
Waiting lists are healthtrust based in Scotland and the trusts cover a wide area so if you're still in Ed and Lothians (guessing from an earlier post) you'll keep your place on the waiting list.
Don't worry about red flags - red flags tend not to happen to people who are addressing their issues positively and looking to be the best parent they can be.

Best of luck x

She absolutely may love you. Doesn't mean she has carte blanche to behave how she likes (abominably) and be allowed to do so. She has no rights over you, she has treated you horribly and you don't have to have her in your life just because she 'loves' you.

I wouldn't just let her go, I'd be helping her her on her way.

Apologies, I haven't read the whole of this thread or your other threads about your mum, just wanted to say that my mum is similiar and what I found really helpful is this site: daughtersofnarcissisticmothers.com/

It may or may not apply to your mum, you'd have to have a read and decide for yourself. But for me it was like a lightbulb moment, and all her behaviour made a bit more 'sense' and kind of disempowered her.

Reading just your op, these are a few excerpts that I thought might be relevant from the website:

"Everything [the narcissistic mother] does is deniable. There is always a facile excuse or an explanation"

"She demeans, criticizes and denigrates. She lets you know in all sorts of little ways that she thinks less of you than she does of your siblings or of other people in general".

"She will deliver generalized barbs that are almost impossible to rebut (always in a loving, caring tone): ?You were always difficult? ?You can be very difficult to love? ?You never seemed to be able to finish anything? ?You were very hard to live with? ?You?re always causing trouble? ?No one could put up with the things you do.?

"She has to be the center of attention all the time. This need is a defining trait of narcissists and particularly of narcissistic mothers for whom their children exist to be sources of attention and adoration". - was it your mum that paraded around in her underwear?!

"A peculiar form of this emotional vampirism combines attention-seeking behavior with a demand that the audience suffer. Since narcissistic mothers often play the martyr this may take the form of wrenching, self-pitying dramas which she carefully produces, and in which she is the star performer. She sobs and wails that no one loves her and everyone is so selfish, and she doesn?t want to live, she wants to die!"

Not sure if that rings any bells with you!

Whethergirl yes, it was my mum hangin out in her underpants.

I'm not sure about the narcissism. I will read up about it on that site. I have a feeling it might be more of Borderline Personality Disorder thing. Need to read about that as well.

I also feel that she must have some depression issues because of the way she is letting herself go in all sorts of ways.

She also says inappropriate sexual stuff and doesn't get why you wouldn't do that.

I feel like if I find out what is wrong with her, I can handle her behaviour better.

Wilson My health trust is Forth Valley and I will move within that same trust, so I guess that would solve the waiting list problem. I think I'd feel more comfortable talking to the midwife than the GP.

A 2 year old's fault? Sorry but your mum is toxic.

Let's not pathologise though. That will only weaken your resolve. You are pregnant, you don't need this crap. Walk through, sit in your lounge, turn the TV on. Tell her to button it, if she interrupts say, "ZIP IT LADY OR FUCK RIGHT OFF, YOU ARE IN MY HOUSE NOW AND YOU CAN HAVE SOME RESPECT FOR ME!" in her own langauge if needed. "ONE SPITEFUL/SHITTY COMMENT AND YOU ARE ON THE STREETS!!!!

I'm sorry she's still there, but I can understand why - it's just not that easy to tell someone to fark off out of your home and your life. I hope she stops soon. One thing I felt (and still feel?) is massive anger at having to deal with my mother's drama, the tears, the pathos.... I felt it for about a year and it resurfaces if I see her again, even though she's been generally ok since I stood up to her. Huge amounts of anger. It needs dealing with!

On another note, wow, all the things that people are saying their mother says, or would say...it's like reading sentences verbatim from my own childhood, both parents. They really did use every single trick in the book!

OMG, I want to get on a train up to Edinburgh and throw the cowbag out (with details of how to get to the airport, i'm sure htey have hotels at the airport where they are used to people with not great English).

Anyway, if you are going to put a roof over her head for the next couple of nights, tell your DH he must believe you that you are an adult survivor of child abuse. He has to be on your side.

I like Ohanotherone's suggestion, just pretend she's not there, if she says anything, tell her shes welcome to leave whenever she wants, or she can go up to her room.

tell yourself this is it. Remember, she's alone because the way she has treated other people, if she'd been nice to them then she would be surrounded by loved ones (I'm sure I remember from your other thread that she had a lot of family and people she'd known her whole life living very close to her). She is reaping what she sowed, she could be happy, she could be nice to people, she's chosen not to. That's not your fault, that's hers.

I am really really sorry for you that you didn't kick her out on her arse. You deserve so much more than to think you have to put up with her, or that you owe her anything. If a horrible person is lonely and unhappy, they have nobody to blame but themselves.

you do know she was sitting in the dark, silently, in order to manipulate you, don't you? No doubt you were supposed to go and beg her to cheer up, apologise for upsetting her, take the blame upon yourself. Whereupon she will graciously forgive you for being so nasty to her. again. while reminding you of all the times you have been nasty and what a victim she is.

Through an accident of birth, she is your mother. That means nothing in itself. It's simply a biological incident. You owe her nothing, not after her treatment of you.

You didn't choose to be born to her.

She chose to abuse you.

Who owes who?

I am so sorry that you too had an abusive childhood.

I wonder if you could get your head round the idea that your mum DID do her best. HOWEVER, it was not good enough. She wouldn't have been a competant parent no matter whether it was you she gave birth to or another child. It is abuse. She was not a good parent. AND it was NOTHING to do with your actions or behaviour.

Her actions are her own.

Let her stew in her own juices.

she hurt you badly and you feel sorry for her you must be very kind children never deserye to be hurt they are children

Firstly sorry but really don't have time to read 7 pages tonigth but just a thought provoking question for you:

How bad would YOUR child have to be for you to hit them with the hoover pipe?

Let her go if you haven't already

I really hope you find the strength to distance yourself from her

You owe it to yourself and especially to your baby - don't let her infect your baby

The royal college of psychiatrists have some good info on personality disorders

www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinfo/problems/personalitydisorders/personalitydisorder.aspx

Hope you are ok

So sorry she hasn't left - although I do understand why you didn't let her, because you don't need the guilt on top of everything else she has tried to lay on you.

Narcissism isn't so much about loving/liking yourself - it's about making EVERYTHING about yourself. Whatever happens, it's how it impacts on the narcissist that is the most important thing, not on the actual sufferer. So for e.g. - say you had a car accident, rather than worrying about how hurt you are, your mum would be more worried about her own health and reactions to your accident - "How could you be so careless, I don't need this stress right now, how inconsiderate you are to make me worry so much" type of thing.

Martyrdom is another weapon - she makes out she is much worse than you might think, so you feel guilty and ridiculous for thinking bad things about her and even reassure her that she isn't as bad as she is saying. This completely exculpates her from any responsibility in her head - plus she has the satisfaction of knowing that she has brought you down that little bit further.

Whether it's conscious or not, it's an evil set up and you are best off well away from your mother. When your baby is born, not only will you come under more fire, especially when your DH hangs around for longer than 1 year (oh the bitterness that you manage to hang onto yours when hers left!!) but she is quite likely to start whispering things to your child. Poison in the ear, trying to tell your baby what an awful mother you are - you don't need it, or her.

Make the break now if you can. And don't let her NEAR you when the baby is born.

Good luck with your reading about all these different issues! And do try again for a different counsellor - sounds like your first one wasn't much cop but another one may be better suited to you.

MrsH, I can only say what everyone else has said and definitely, please, look into counselling for yourself.

And while you're there, have a think about your husband's family, and his attitude towards conflict. Did he grow up in an abusive situation as well? Because most of the time, when a parent is as clearly abusive as yours, you'd expect your spouse to be your champion. Especially when you're pregnant. The fact that he's there urging you to speak to her, trying to explain your point of view to your mum, etc., has me concerned. He's meaning well, I'm sure, but it sounds like he's reinforcing your instinct to play nice and make everything all right again, which is exactly what your mum taught you to believe, as a child. There's something going on there for him that's causing that, and it's undermining you.

Not to pile on him, just something to bring up with the counsellor, I think, at this stage.

well yes a 2 year old can be bad. Any child any age can be bad. They can do some real nasty things and they push your buttons because they know it can get a response.

however that behavior is often down to what the parent has done raising said child and there is no justification for them to abuse the child.

No never ever!