to be annoyed at my mother's constant rewriting of history??

[harpsichordcarrier]

today's gem (when talking about my sister's dire financial situation) "well of course you were very lucky, me and your dad supported you through university."

WTF???? what the flipdeflippingdoodle is the woman talking about?????

not one brass farthing did I ask for or get from them while I was studying or EVER in fact.

I was so taken aback that I just went "mmmmm" and now I am furious.

please tell me it's trivial and a long time ago and I should not be so mean to an old lady as to disturb her rose tinted spectacles.

This is a ZOMBIE THREAD from 15 years ago.

My mother once tried to have an argument about how old one of my children was. My child. Apparently she knew better than me how old my own child was. Worst still, she was arguing he was 6 weeks old when he was about 8 months.. but that explains why she claims I was walking talking and potty trained by 9 months.

It’s not just me that gets this then? hurray!

Gems from ‘I spent 30k putting you through Uni’….it was free when I went and I worked 35hrs a week on top for my accommodation and books.

Loads of references to made up childcare, we’ve never had any. My very favourite was ‘Remember when I’d make breakfast and take (DD) to school the morning?’. She hasn’t been in my house once for breakfast in 25 years, and has never, ever done the school run once, she was still working full time when DD was school age and lives an hour away. DH and I both looked at her like she was insane. Maybe it’s dementia starting?

Didn’t get the zombie posting alert! Sorry!

Why don't you say something?
calmly correct her?

It's pretty standard - this re writing of history, it's infuriating, but ignore it. Everyone knows it's bull, they just keep quiet to keep the peace.

My dad is like this

Zombie!

OMG sounds like my mother, here are a few gems:

“I made sure all my children learnt to swim”

reality - I got my 10meters at primary school, think my DB got 50m & other DB can’t swim… We never did swimming at high school and certainly never had paid lessons.

“We always encouraged our children to do their best and told them they could do and achieve anything”

reality - I spent my life being put down, lazy stupid selfish… as for school my DBs never went, 1 DB failed all gcse DB2 never bothered sitting them was also expelled from one school, still can barely read or right in his 40s. Me, I failed all GCSE’s, school was a social event and I regularly nicked off. We were also told not to even think about college or university.

At my DDs christening she spent the whole time telling everyone how she had been over every day that week to help me clean my house and get ready for the party, something I never asked or wanted her to do.

reality -
day 1 - 4 hours late as she’d been shopping, sat and had a cup of tea, left 30 min later
day 2 - no show
day 3 - again several hours late, arrived with niece in tow, said can’t stay long as taking niece and her friend out ( never takes my dcs out), asked what can she help with, I say an internal window desperately needs cleaning, her response I hate cleaning windows so she dusted 1 bookcase.
day 4 - came over made more tea and left an hour later

”Dosnt matter how old my children get, I always make sure they get a selection box and stocking from me every Christmas”

reality - never had a stocking in my life, last selection box I got I as probably about 10 yo. In fact I’ve probably had maybe half a dozen Xmas presents off her in the last 30+ years.

Bugger, missed the zombie post 🤦‍♀️

@AliceMcK
I hear you. It’s incredibly hurtful and frustrating.
Know your own truth and don’t let her consume it.

MIL claims she found out about DC2’s name on Facebook! She didn’t, because she doesn’t do Facebook 🤯
Worse though is my DM who claims abuse by a family member never happened. Will say as much to my face. Don’t speak to her now. Head in the sand denial at its worst 😥

My sympathies, my mother is good at changing things not even yet history. I've seen SM posts about how great it is being an involved gp .... she has three grandchildren, all mine. Hasn't seen them in 2022. So involved.

Definitely call her out on it, she sounds lost in a fantasy world.

Once again ZOMBIE THREAD from 15 years ago

I laughed when I read this, sorry op.

Dhs mum does this alot. She remembers things very differently to dh and his siblings.

Sometimes it’s just little things like ‘oh I used to cook home cooked meals for you all the time’ my dh says it was his dad who cooked all the meals. When they split up, mil and stepdad would make them beans on toast or they were given a quid to go to the corner shop and get a pot noodle 🫣

Other times it’s quite big things that dh and his sister say didn’t actually happen.
Things to do with money usually.

I think some parents perhaps look at those times with rose tinted glasses to protect themselves. Dh just replies ‘oh, I don’t remember that happening’ or doesn’t say anything at all.

Mil would only get defensive and upset if he told her it didn’t happen.

My mum has always done this, listening to her you would be forgiven for thinking I was the devil incarnate and my brother was the angel Gabriel.

She’s 93 so unlikely to change now. I either shrug or laugh at the really ridiculous stuff.

YANBU she sounds like a nightmare. What happens if you tell her she’s wrong and / or “remind” her what actually happened?

My mum does similar and it’s infuriating. Of course the way she remembers it always paints her a good light and blameless

FFS, that’s 2 zombies in one afternoon.

Argh I really wanted to know what the beef was between Cam & greensleeves 🤣

I fucking won't I promise you. Some people might think it's trivial but some parents rewrite seriously awful parts of family history for their own comfort. If they didn't love and support their kids they shouldn't be allowed to pretend they did.
My parents decided to create an alternative past in which something terrible that happened to me didn't happen. They went on to paint a lovely picture of my childhood as being happy and carefree in every way (thanks to them of course). This was far from the truth. If I ever mentioned that I hadn't in fact liked a particular teacher / school / activity / anything, I was met with incredulous looks, laughter and "don't be silly" because I had LOVED everything. I was forever being called silly for not participating in their fantasy. It was all to make themselves feel good and so that they could believe they were great parents. It carried on through my adult life. They replaced me with a fantasy daughter. They told people I had a better job than I did and lots of money.
They have been a model to me of how not to be a parent. So far I've succeeded and I will NOT lie to my kids like that.

Why do they do this?!

My mother is the same and it always catches me off guard and I don't say anything quick enough and then don't want to bring it up again.

"Oh remember when you left our loving home to live on your own at 17 and we had to help you to get by"

Erm what now. I'm sorry I must have missed that between college and working 4 jobs. And yes she kept claiming child benefit for 2 years despite the fact I didn't live there.

Google - The Body Keeps the Score. I listened to a podcast from the author and found it really illuminating. Here are some basic notes from the Podcast:

Human nature is to re-write history to make the memories more fuzzy and acceptable, even if they are not accurate. People deeply rationalize their bad/poor behavior and this helps them to survive. Language helps us form realities with other people, form a sense of unity, it allows you to define your common reality.

A healthy memory may not be an accurate memory. Dreams allow you to maintain what is relevant/helpful and ignore what is not helpful. Memories are extremely flexible: siblings may all create a different story about their communal past. People create a new story as a coping mechanism.

Internal Family Systems: We have a multiplicity of minds – we all contain multitudes of characteristics, there may be parts of us that we may not be aware of sometimes, our ways of reacting and engaging may change depending on circumstances. When you experience trauma you develop a personality that helps you to cope. If you are chronically humiliated, you may become tough so that no one will put you down again, a part of you may come out under certain circumstances, hidden parts of oneself may emerge when triggered.

Some people are designated as Managers protecting you from feeling unsafe, exiles trying to avoid trauma, fire fighters responding to crisis, etc, different people can be assigned different roles in the family, and this may impact on how they remember the family life and how they respond to triggers.

Mine is always oh u had such lovely
childhoods.
no. No we didn’t. What we had was a narcissist father. Who thought going on expensive holiday and having an expensive car would make us remember the shouting, degrading talk and the creeping around and the fear we had.

Some people have a truly remarkable and shameless ability to rewrite history.

OMG, my mum does this and it’s so flipping annoying. It’s usually over small things though which don’t matter that much but I know never happened. Examples:

1. There were always enough sanitary protection in the bathroom for you and DSIS. No there wasn’t, I had to use my pocket money to buy it.
2. She claims to have made me an ‘emergency period bag’ for school. She didn’t.
3. She won £15K on the lottery and then bought a car with it. I remember it so clearly as is cost £5555 (special offer that she showed me in the paper) We discussed it recently and she claimed that never happened.
4. She says that she always left out taxi money for me when I went on nights out and came home. She never once did. My friends and I always split the cost.
5. She claimed she ‘always worked’ She didn’t have a job until I was about 14 and before that was on benefits

I’ve now decided to let her get on with her fantasies and leave her to it as she always says I’m ‘hurting her feelings’ when I point out the truth.