AIBU in resenting having to pretend everything's fine?

[StucklnAMomentCantGetOutOflt]

Hi
I just wanted to know whether there are other people in the same boat and what (if anything) you did about it?
I have tricky relationships with my parents. They divorced when I was six. Both remarried. Both were aware one stepparent was abusive and neither did anything to protect me from that abuse.
I was scapegoated in that household until I left at eighteen. I never went back.
I have had periods of non-contact with members of my family.
The current situation is as follows:
I am in a text message relationship with my mother. Kept to the bare minimum. Elephants in room avoided completely. Have spoken a couple of times but not seen each other in person for years.
I am in an email relationship with my father. He tends to email pep talks, control conversations, big me up/confirm his approval if I have met his expectations. Emails are written by me to keep up the facade that everything is fine. Based on past experience, it is not worth opening up how I really feel. Nobody wants to hear it or accept it. I get told I am the opposite of what I claim to be or made to feel that I should not feel negative emotions, ever.
As a result I do not feel there can ever be honest communication and it is easier just to have neutral/bright and breezy false conversations. Those conversations also get feedback/appear to be judged.

I want to be able to say No, I'm not strong, thanks for the compliment but I actually cry every day. No, I do have emotional baggage whether you hate the phrase or not and I probably do need some form of therapy (cannot afford it but that's another thread) whether you believe in psychology or not.

Do I accept that people rarely change, that I am never going to be told what I want to hear or ever get an apology for my childhood, that I have to accept honest conversations are to be held with my partner only?
The emails and texts I receive make me unreasonably angry. I was non-contact for a long time but that did not bring closure either. Do any of you have these types of relationships with your parents and what kind of parents have you yourself become?

Thanks in advance

I'm not sure how you want the voting to work. I haven't had your experience so I am just going to ask you a question - with each parent you have roughly three choices: 1 your 'elephant in the room' relationship, 2 telling them how you really feel about them and 3 not having a relationship at all. What benefits does the 'elephant' relationship bring you over the other two?

But yes, I do think you have to accept that they will never change or apologise.

Shit. I didn't realise voting was on. How do I switch it off?
That's a fair question. I guess the only benefit is a lack of guilt over being non-contact so low-contact is a compromise and that I am not completely alone/feel orphaned when I do have parents who, in their own way, love me. I just don't want to feel lousy about myself anymore, I want to feel well but I am depressed and have been for a long time now.
Perhaps that does burden other people so a fake rapport is better for all in the long run as it doesn't cause others to worry.

The truth is too painful for them to hear or acknowledge.

If they acknowledge your pain then they must take responsibility for causing it and they are coasting along in complete denial.

You can't change others. However painful. You can't make people behave how they should behave. You have no control over their past or present behaviour.

What you have is control over yourself. How you behave, how you react, how you cope.
And you have put protective measures in already so you are further forward that some.

If I were you I'd look into proper longer term counselling. Lots of places offer free or reduced rates.
You need to gently start sort out your past in your head so you can name this abuse, grieve over your lost childhood and put it away where it can't constantly hurt you. This will take years. I have a close friend who's been through similar.

You've done the right thing going low contact. It might be that no contact is appropriate. It's impossible to know without you working through your past to sort this pain out.

I'm so sorry you've gone through this.

You will draw a line under it. You will thrive and raise positive and loved children in your future.

Your past doesn't define you, it gives you the resilience to thrive when you reform it into a force for good.

I am not sure how I feel about them tbh. I love them but I resent the choices they made. I should be well over that by now and also not blame them for choices I have made.
I did say how I felt to each one but was told one had done their best (this is probably true) and the other could not change history, what was in the past was in the past and how could they say sorry for it?

Decide for yourself that your parents are never going to meaningfully apologise and make your peace with it if you can. There's some online therapy app things which may be helpful and less expensive than seeing a therapist. Can you cut down on your contact with them even more? Be kind to yourself

Thank you. If they acknowledge your pain then they must take responsibility for causing it I think they think I was a troubled teenager and was the cause of conflict. I look back and do not see that (not compared with what I read on here anyway).
I love my children but I am not sure that I have been a 'good enough' parent at the worst of times (another thread).

I was lucky, my abusive Father died when I was 16. If he hadn't have, I'd have been NC. I was LC with my Mum and thankfully it was a time when we couldn't be in constant contact. But I challenged her when I needed to and shut her down.

I had to accept that they were never going to be what I wanted or needed, mourn for that and get myself over it.

In later years my Mother became more disabled. For my mental health, I had to challenge her on my childhood and how she was. I think she had a personality disorder. The only person who I had an emotional relationship with was my DH, who died. I like how independent and resilient I am. My background has given me qualities that I might not have had.

On the Stately Homes forum, there are lots of links and they are useful. They open up reading around the subject.

As for the type of parent I became, an abusive childhood does have an affect on that. Even if it's over compensating. A lot of women have PND and a hard time after birth because you realise how bad you've actually been treated, when you should have been cherished.

My Sister is seeing a psychiatrist, in her 60's because it's only on retirement that her trauma is showing. She remained childless and threw herself into a career.

It doesn't sound as though your bright and breezy approach is working either. Going nc is not easy, especially when it is your parents. I am now nc with a family member, not a parent, but someone I felt very close to , like a sister if you like. Over several years I realised that this person was doing and saying things behind my back, and other people's, which caused huge problems in those relationships. Even when I realised, I tried to take the same approach as you, until they did something that was the final straw for me and I decided to go nc. I told them my decision by e mail and my reasons for it. Since then, I have never initiated contact and if they send me anything - cards etc, I pass them, unopened, to a trusted family member to dispose of as they see fit. Although I do occasionally feel sad, it is bout the loss of the relationship I thought I had, not the one I had, iykwim?
I suspect you feel similar when you contemplate nc. All I can say is that for me, when maintaining a relationship is such hard work, the initial guilt of going nc did fade and I am glad I took control of that situation.
It sounds to me that you are still hankering after a relationship that you are not going to get. If you didn't contact your parents, would they initiate contact with you? Maybe, rather than going nc, you need to allow these relationships to fade away? Don't initiate contact. Only respond to their contact if you need to. Don't respond everytime. Then just stop. Set a filter for emails from your father to go straight to a separate folder and only open it once or twice a year. Then stop opening it at all. Or get your dh to read and tell you anything important and to then delete them.
Don't feel guilty. Your parents failed you, you didn't fail them.

Can you cut down on your contact with them even more? It's already very low contact.
If you didn't contact your parents,would they initiate contact with you? My father would - he would post me printouts of his emails. My mum would send my children cards.
You are still hankering after a relationship that you are not going to get Probably. There have been times when we were close enough. I am also estranged from my brother - that relationship faded away.

You will always be depressed if you carry on behaving as if everything is fine. You cannot keep pushing down hurtful emotions and not expect it to affect you. If you do not deal with this you will have a total mental breakdown.

You need to speak to your GP to access therapies to help you to come to terms properly with your past. Push for this.

WWID?
Personally, (but I don't have depression so not sure if this is realistic) I think I would write emails or letters to my parents, calmly explaining what you have told us and more. I would explain that, irrespective of them preferring me not to feel negative about things, that I do.

Basically, I would pour my heart out and bare my soul as calmly as possible and explain how you felt and feel because of your experiences. You need to purge yourself of this pain to ever be free of depression.

I would write the facts - what happened and how it made me feel and why. I wouldn't allocate blame.

I would then not contact them. Leave them to contact you, which they will hopefully do, when then have had time to properly assimilate what you have said. Unless they are despicable parents rather than just misguided, they will want to to be happy. I think they do but don't want to admit the damage done to you by their decisions.

I know someone who never dealt with their abusive upbringing. It was too painful but it ended up causing a breakdown, many years later. They always put a smile on their face but they were damaged inside. That affected their children, just as your children will be affected by your depression.

If you deal with this now you can prevent your children from seeing you as a negative, depressed soul. They can learn that talking helps, that problems can be resolved and that people can choose to take action that can make them happy again. They can learn that communication is key to virtually every experience in life and the better they get at it, the happier their lives will be.

Please don't confine yourself to the life you are half living now.

I don't have anything sensible to add to what other posters have written but it does sound like everything's come to a head in your own mind. You've got a lot of thoughts and emotions churning round which is completely understandable after such a difficult upbringing.

In which case, it needs dealing with. Talking to a counsellor to help you sift through it all is probably the best way forwards. As someone else said, there are cheaper options (online or maybe a community counselling service in your area). Find a therapist that you feel comfortable with.

It will take a while but you will find peace. Good luck!

I would be open and honest with them and tell them how you feel in an email, send it to them and see what happens. I doubt there will be a pleasant response but at least you have told them and given them the opportunity to admit they fucked up, otherwise I would go on no contact because they’re not worth it.

I’m sorry you went through this.

Defo get counselling. I got mine free in the nhs. And then a few years later from a local mental health charity. It helped me loads.

It feels like talking to a stranger the first time but then you get used to it and it’s like talking to a knowledgeable sensible friend that you can trust and who will never gossip behind your back.

This will give you a new perspective on things and the strength to make a decision on how to move forward.

It will change your life for the better.

Good luck.

Dear @StucklnAMomentCantGetOutOflt

it is easier just to have neutral/bright and breezy false conversations. Those conversations also get feedback/appear to be judged.
This sounds so exhausting. It must take so much of your mental as well as physical energy to do this. No wonder you feel depressed - this is taking a toll on you. Winding up before each contact, behaving in the fake, jolly way you are expected to during contact and then trying to relax, and go back to your "normal" everyday life with your children.

I also think this is very likely affecting your life with your children at some level and needs to be dealt with, sooner rather than later.

It is hard, but could you talk to your GP and see if you can get on the (probably long) referral list- or investigating the other sources mentioned?

I'm unsure whether or not you work outside the home but, if you do, does your company have an EAP (Employee Assistance Programme) you can use? You'd get a few (six I think) sessions which you may find useful.

In the meantime, try not to let your parents or anybody else minimise what you've been through, or gaslight or control you in any way, eg:

He tends to email pep talks, control conversations, big me up/confirm his approval if I have met his expectations

I get told I am the opposite of what I claim to be or made to feel that I should not feel negative emotions, ever.

You know how you felt as a teenager when you left home and you know how you felt throughout the years since. Don't let anyone whitewash your life.

I hope you manage to get the help you need OP. 🌹

I don't love my parents, or respect them like them or contact them much at all.

If one of them emails me (usually about ll sorts of very lovely people I don't know) I will reply bright and breezy.

I did once try to open up a meaningful conversation with DM, like you I met a version of myself I had never met. DH thought it was fascinating just how alien her version of me, as a child and an adult, was. Since tat one attempt, about 30 years ago, I have never had more than a polite conversation with either, may have seen them 5 or 6 times over those years, including 2 funerals!

Don't fuss over them. They are who they are. You need to look after you and counselling might be just what you need.

Good luck!