To think parents behaviour was not normal

[Delightedly]

I'm trying for a baby and it's dredged up loads of feelings about my parents and how they behaved to me in the past.

When I was a teenager I had appendicitis and told my parents that I thought I had appendicitis. They didn't believe me and went out for the day leaving me home alone, in pain and not able to eat or drink. I eventually called 111 and got an out of hours gp appointment which my sister drove me to when she got home from work. Anyway I did have appendicitis and it was close to bursting. The anaesthetist seemed shocked that I hadn't eaten or drunk anything for two days.

My sister eventually got hold of my parents and they came to the hospital a few hours after I was admitted. When I was discharged, in pain and just wanting to finally have a shower and get into my own bed they stopped to do the food shopping on the way back!

It was this incident (among others) which cemented my belief that I can't rely on my parents for anything. If I'd listened to them and tried to sleep it off as they suggested it could have been so much worse. Surely this isn't normal behaviour from them? Surely most parents would take their child to the doctor's if they said they thought they had appendicitis? It wasn't as if I was a drama queen.

An error of judgement is one thing it's the being unwilling to even talk about it that sounds bad. It all sounds a bit stately homes to me.

You’re not immature OP, you were neglected by your parents as a child and this is a natural reaction. Some giant cunts out in full force this morning, hello feel free to take your pathetic complexes out on me instead🙋🏼‍♀️ Completely normal for you to feel this way and I think you should go NC with them. You don’t need the stress when TTC. My parents are not parents. They dragged me up and I was often denied medical attention because of my mother’s own fear of doctors/hospitals. I now suffer with some serious ailments because of their neglect. Denying your child medical attention is neglect and a teenager is still a child. I hope everything goes well with your journey to have a baby

Hi OP apologies I didn’t mean to invalidate your own experience. Your parents clearly are a closed book and don’t discuss issues and this means things are always left hanging and underlying resentment becomes the norm as nothing is talked about. That’s the issue you have moving forward and when you have your own family just do your utmost to not let history repeat itself and be the mother you didn’t have yourself!

You are not immature nor are you walloping OP. Some people need to read your posts about more carefully.
This was NOT a one of when they got it completely wrong. It was one thing amongst a lot of other ones. And it was more than just misjudging a situation. No caring parent would misjudge a situation where their child isn’t able to eat or drink because they feel so crap.

I wouod NEVER leave my child for the day if they were in pain and unable to eat or drink for the last 36 hours. Not if my child was clearly unwell in that way.
I wouod never just ‘stop to the shops’ when bringing back someone who just has had surgery. And I doubt they would do that to anyone else too.

Observatory I wouod also add that you might want to read the OP’s post more carefully.
Having a tummy ache is NOT the same than the pain from appendicitis. Especially when it’s so severe, the pain is on a different scale.
Having a tummy ache NOT the same than been in such pain that you can’t drink nor eat.
Appendicitis is also usually accompanied with some fever too....

And fwiw, if your dd really hates swimming, I wouldnt be surprised if the headaches are tension headaches and tummy ache stress related. Aka REAL physical pain, maybe coming from stress but still REAL physical pain. Just like so many adults end up with IBS type of symptoms, repeated (tension or cluster) headaches due to stress at home or at work.

Observatorycrest mm I suspect that resentment will never go away as it's just not something there's the possibility of talking about with them. I try not to do the same myself, my husband tells me if I'm annoying him and vice versa. It's quite liberating to have disagreements and feel that it's not a personal attack. I'll have to work on doing the same with any children though I expect it will never come totally naturally.

Don't worry about being a parent yourself OP. I was brought up by a narcissistic drama queen and I am nothing like her! You will be fine.

OP I'm very sympathetic. I'm a new mum and I found that once DS was here, it dredged up all the issues with my parents that I thought were behind me. I had a very angry few months where I wouldn't accept any parenting advice from them because it was so silly and exacerbated my feelings that they were poor parents. I've gone low contact with them and found the anger dissipated but I think only counselling is really going to help me, whether or not I want to have a relationship with them.

Hope you will consider counselling too. The best advice I've had here is that you can't change the past or your parents behaviour, you can only control your own feelings and try to learn tools to deal with your parents and ways of coping. All the best to you and your baby. X

Once when DS2 was six..he had a bad tummy ache no vomiting. Didn't eat or drink. I was concerned and I googled, symptoms said appendicitis. Said it to DH who completely shut me down and Said I was being dramatic, in the end we had a. Shouting match. I told him to fuck off and took ds to a and e. He was on the verge of bursting and had to have emergency surgery.
I felt awful fr not trusting my instinct sooner.
Dh feels really guilty and doesn't like to talk about it.
Dh is not usually a bad parent but he does have a "man up" mentality to physical Illness.
He now trusted my judgement and will listen if I say one of the kids are unwell.
His attitude sounds similar to your parents, I suppose only you know if they treated you unfairly or neglectful.
My own parents were abusive and I can empathize.

Your sister, who drove you to hospital, is she older than you? How did they treat her?

Dear OP, they always shut down when it's something you want to discuss, because they know damn well they were wrong and they don't want you to bring it up.

If I were you, I'd go over to the Relationships board and the Stately Homes thread.

My parents also had a 'man-up' attitude to illness - I think my brother and I had less than 5 days off due to sickness during our entire schooldays. We were no more or less healthy than other children as I recall.

However, when I was about 14/15, I had a bad pain in my stomach. It wasn't period pain, couldn't eat or drink and it made me vomit/retch if pressure was put on the area. My DM dropped everything and got me an appointment at the GP that morning. Luckily it turned out to be a stomach bug, not appendicitis, but her instinct was that of a normal parent I'd say.

Mybrexit thanks for the childcare tips. Which I didn’t ask for, this is not my post. My DD issues was not swimming it was relating to swimming with the boys as she was going through puberty. She does like swimming she was just embarrassed. And as for appendicitis I am aware of the difference as does my Oh who happens to be a doctor but thanks for the tips on that too. However I am a mother and know when my DC are ill and would seek medical assistance if it was needed and certainly woulsnt leave my DC rolling around in pain and head to work. And I also wouldn’t head to the shops on the way back from collecting my DD from hospital after having surgery. I do not keep my DC off school for minor ailments but doesn’t mean I dismiss them when they are ill.

Calling it as a parent is hard. Sometimes we make mistakes and we have to live with them. Several parents around here, including myself, have called it wrong in the past and had to live with the guilt. Your mum's inability to discuss it shows it lives with her still. However, that said, this goes much deeper than this incident and you feel you were overlooked and less loved.
Having issues with your parent's parenting should drive you to find a way through your parenting maze. For instance, my Dad is a knob. He will always be a knob but it took me many years of living with that knowledge before I accepted I could not change it. What that has done is to drive me to ensure my kids are not parented the same. In fact, my kids never have to go short on support, never have to disguise their feelings and we never dismiss them just because they may not be able to verbalise their issue.
Bad parents can shape our parenting into a more positive experience.
You going out there and getting on with stuff without the need for their approval is the best nose thumb to your past you can get.

This is very interesting and often about perception, I have two step aunts. One recalls their childhood as being very strict and unreasonable, and that they were treated less favourably than the older sister. My mum was about 18 when they came into her life and whilst still living at home was working full time and able to observe objectively. She feels they weren't treated harshly and had lots of privileges but also understandable boundaries, curfews etc (they are seven and nine years younger than her). Aunt two does not see this at all even with hindsight, has gone on to raise her own children with no real support or discipline - a teacher whose children both failed even basic education, and who moved away from her pregnant nineteen year old leaving her with nowhere to go but to live with the much older alcoholic boyfriend. She sees herself as a free, loving, parent/friend. No one else really does.

You are right to still feel let down by this incident all these years later OP. Your parents behaved like twats. From reading your post, there are little glimmers in there that they may not be total twats though. Your mother is clearly ashamed by the incident. The fact she won't talk about it (which I'm not saying is the right response) shows that she knows it was wrong and is shameful. She cares enough to feel regret over it. You also say that they're excited by the prospect of grandchildren. This is great, maybe once you have a child you should give them a fair chance at being grandparents, they may surprise you. My parents were never neglectful of me, I had a very nice childhood on the whole. But they act completely differently as grandparents than they did as parents - they are extremely kind, affectionate, patient and are total pushovers. They were mainly all those things to me as a child (but never pushovers), but to a lesser extent - it's all been amplified massively for their grandchildren. I often point out my bemusement at this. If I were you OP, I'd maybe one day say to your parents that whilst you don't necessarily expect them to have a massive conversation about it, you just want them to know that the appendicitis incident had a massive effect on you and shouldn't just be brushed under the carpet. But that you'd like to move on from it with this new chapter of grandchildren. But the best thing you can do, is use your own experience of being a parent to make sure you never make your own children feel how your parents made you feel.

It makes me wonder if the appendicitis incident colours your perception of everything else, or is just a him on which to hang your prior feelings of being treated in an inferior way to siblings (would be interesting to see if siblings saw it the same way)

I think you are being very petty.My DH had appendicitis and NHS direct told him to tke some paracetamol and rin back in a couple of days if his abdominal pain hadn't settled, so how do you expect your DPs to know better than them??
what day your own DC wil turn round and tell you how you were a bad parent because of one or 2 incident in their childhood and see how you feel when this negate s decades of self sacrifice and caring.
Grow up - no one is perfect!

You are right to still feel let down by this incident all these years later OP. Your parents behaved like twats

I agree. I would also add that some of the posters on this thread are behaving like twats.

Op said she wasn’t in much pain. So it may be understandable why the appendicitis was missed. I might leave an older vomiting child - depends on the age. I wouldn’t leave my 13 year old at the moment, but I might leave my 17 year old if I had to go to work & I had arranged someone for them to call. Clearly if they turned out to have appendicitis that would be a big mistake.

More relevant maybe is why you feel you were treated differently from your siblings? Why do you feel that way? Is there a big age gap?

It's one thing to not believe that you had appendicitis.

However, you were ill & they left you for the day to go out-because they wanted to or had to?

Stopping to shop when they had just collected you from hospital was just awful though imo.

Oh op that is shit, they just did not care, it sounds that if it was your siblings that were in that position, they would have stayed with them. Tbh it is a form of emotional abuse, favouritism, it has long term impact as you are seeing. I would distance myself from them as a way of self preservation that they do not deserve a relationship with you or your children. Yes your mum was upset, why did she not apologise and admit she was wrong, like an adult. .

@lovetherisingsun completely agree. Sad little twats who pick and twist.

Honestly, OP, the appendicitis story is familiar and one I have heard from several good parents as it’s not always easy to judge whether a pain is serious or not. So yes, that’s a perfectly normal mistake to me.

I think it's normal to misjudge a pain but if my teenager specifically told me that thought they had appendicitis I would definitely take them to a doctor.

My parents went out and left me with a sore throat and some tablets to take....they contained penicillin and I had an r tend allergic reaction, huge body wide swellings, v high temp, hallucinating. On another occasion they left us a casserole to heat up with green beans in, intended to cook in the casserole as it re-heated. My brother and I ended up with raw bean poisoning while they were out.

The thing is NONE of this makes me feel sad or neglected because e were very emotionally secure and knew we were loved.

Your parents, OP, has not given you that sense. You were emotionally neglected and made to feel sevjnd best.

It was pretty unsympathetic to shop in the way home, too. And most parents would have been consumed by guilt to have missed the appendicitis (even if easily done) and fallen over themselves to over compensate.