Did anyone grow up in a really isolated area?

[Sarahpaula]

I was born in a city in England. When I was five my parents divorced,
and my mother moved with me and my brother to a really isolated part of Ireland.

The house was not even in a village, it was not even on a main road between villages. You have to drive one mile outside of a tiny village, and then turn and drive down another two miles down a tiny bog road.

We were so isolated. I couldn't even walk to the shop.

I have had many arguments with her about this over the years. She said "well I could drive, I could drive to the shops". I said "me and my brother couldn't drive, we were totally trapped there".

I feel like isolation is abuse. I went to visit her this week, went to the house, and I feel total rage at her making me live in that isolated area all of my childhood. My brother is angry about it too.

Anyone else grow up in an isolated area and feel anger about it?

That does sound really naff OP. Feel a bit bad moving DD to a rural area, but she does have lots of school friends nearby.

We can't walk to shops from our house. Lots of people can't if they don't live in towns or cities. Maybe it's isolated but there can be advantages to that. Our kids have had the full rural life style. Horses, dogs, chickens ... during lock down they have been home from uni and loved being able to walk for miles, swim in the river, camp out
I fully admit that we had to do a lot of taxiing about before they could drive but for us that was part if the deal.
I hope they never see it as abuse. I hope they had an idyllic childhood in the country.

No I don't think it was abuse tbh. It obviously wasn't great for you and your personality and that's a shame but unless there are more issues with your Mum besides I think you need to get over it tbh.

[quote Sarahpaula]@PippyShortsocks My mother also screamed and shouted at us, and insulted us all day. Both my brother and me attempted suicide.[/quote]
I mean you probably should have lead with this rather than "living in the countryside is abusive"

@Byrtie no, we would literally see no one for three months.

@AryaStarkWolf I see the isolation as one of the worst parts of my childhood. Worse than her behaviour.

Isolation is also what led me and my brother to severe depression.

I would just like to advise parents not to make their children live in isolated areas.

Many children love growing up in the countryside. I think this is especially so when they have a strong sense of belonging and community there, so maybe that mitigates the isolation somewhat
But that isnt how the OP grew up. I grew up in a small village in the countryside but had loads of friends in the same village. A few kids lived further out and I wouldn't be surprised if they had similar complaints to the OP (although it sounds like their parents were more willing to facilitate a social life than the OP's mother was).

I hear you op. I can only think other people haven’t really experienced how isolated you were and how that obviously did not suit your personality. You didn’t choose it. In the days before internet, living away from public transport and friends was potentially miserable.

I grew up in a small village, so not as isolated, but no shops, no children in my year at school, no public bus. School was 15 miles away on a school bus with a huge catchment. No friends could come home with me on the bus due to numbers. My parents worked and both drove, and they chose where we lived. I was at home after school by myself for a few hours daily, and at weekends my parents had other commitments so couldn’t take me where I wanted to go. I wasn’t able to do after school clubs as no one to take me. It wasn’t abuse as such, that’s quite a stretch as they weren’t unkind, but it was made clear what the pecking order in the family was. That does still grate as nothing has changed now I’m in my 40s. I was bored a lot, read constantly, and got into a lot of different crafts as a result. I probably do lean towards being an introvert now, but if that was because of my upbringing I don’t really know. I’m happy in my own company at least.

I learned to drive as soon as I turned 17, moved out when I left college at 18. Moved to London. Swore I would never do the same to my kids, which is why we live on the edge of a large town.

Ultimately you cannot change what has happened so you just have to make peace with it. Limit visits if it makes you so hurt to even be there. Live your life now in the way that suits you, being mindful of your own children’s needs.
But yeah, isolated is fine for young kids and adults who choose it. Not so much for other people.

Perhaps the fact that the isolation was due to being in the countryside was a red herring. Abusers are often known to deliberately isolate their victims whether that is by encouraging them to give up their friends or job or taking away their financial independence or whatever .

Were you home-schooled? If not, presumably you had friends at school, and some way of getting there and back?

It sounds like the issue is more how your mother treated you than the isolation itself - that may well not have been much of an issue if she'd made sure you saw friends and treated you kindly. Similarly if you lived in a city you might not have ended up any happier because her behaviour would probably have been the same. I'm sorry you had such a rough time.

It's the screaming and shouting that's abuse, OP, not a rural lifestyle.
My remote childhood was the happiest time of my life.

@Sarahpaula

Okay I've come around. If you live somewhere isolated as a child, you need to have a parent who is willing or able to regularly drive you to meet friends. Being made to grow up somewhere isolated without a willing parent-driver would be horrific and, I agree, abusive.

Thank you! @Chickenitalia, yes I know that feeling of boredom.

Thank you @Fudgewhizz ❤️

[quote Sarahpaula]@AryaStarkWolf I see the isolation as one of the worst parts of my childhood. Worse than her behaviour.

Isolation is also what led me and my brother to severe depression.

I would just like to advise parents not to make their children live in isolated areas.[/quote]
Living in the country isn't the problem though, loads of people live in the country, the problem is your mother wasn't helping you and your brother with lifts/getting friends over/leaving you cycle to the shop (which is very possible if you were only 3 miles outside the nearest village) and for verbally abusing you

Cross posted with your update about how you were treated.
That’s not ok, and possibly more of an issue tbh.
Being so isolated physically will have added to the mental isolation.

Have you ever tried to seek help to work through this all op?
Your childhood was basically crap, and you deserve to be heard now.

It's not, in itself, abusive.

You could've walked (I regularly walked 3 miles as a teen to the shops) or cycled.
Your mother's behaviour to you does seem abusive, and failing to provide you any stimulation was probably part of that.

Living very rurally, however, is not abuse. It's the dream for some.

@Byrtie yes it really depends on whether the parent is willing to drive you places or not. My mother definitely seemed to like to have control over us. And kind of keep us prisoners. It really was hell. She wouldn't let us see our father either.

Being left for three months in the house in the summer, and not seeing anyone else IS abusive. She wouldn't bring us anywhere. And as I said , screamed and shouted at us all day long. It was awful.

Just visiting her house this week brought all the bad memories back, I have been crying.

I guess I have to accept the bad past and move forward. Lots of us have abusive pasts.

I am free now.

My mother also screamed and shouted at us, and insulted us all day

I think this is the main issue - not the countryside
I grew up in the countryside, could go on bike rides, etc, out for hours playing, was lovely.

I was brought up very rurally until I was 7 and loved it, total freedom, beautiful countryside and so many interesting animals and things to do. Tiny rural school, the school bus wouldn’t take me down the rough track to my house so I had to walk by myself - it was quite far maybe half a mile, I suppose that was quite neglectful but it didn’t seem so at the time. We were very poor and never went anywhere.
We moved to a city when I was 7 and I had a horrible time- cars everywhere, no one would speak to me because I was a bumpkin, no money in the city was much worse for me. I had to become streetwise very quickly. I got bullied for my clothes and accent for a few years.
I moved back to the country in my 30’s to have babies and bring up my family. Ive worked in youth work for many years both city and country- young people in the countryside can be bored and there are different challenges such as isolation etc but many get around this by meeting online now (even Pre-Covid). There are drug issues and underage pregnancies etc in both settings but I do think the countryside is better for both mental and physical health. The sense of geographic community is more obvious in rural settings
Having no money or access to transport is rubbish wherever you are. It sounds like you had a neglectful childhood in that your needs weren’t met by your mum, OP. When you choose to bring your kids up rurally part of the deal is that you spend your life ferrying them around and making efforts to help your kids meet up with other kids.

We were three miles away from a tiny village shop. I did go there. That was not enough to do.
Everything else, cinema, supermarket, parks, any other shops , anything were very far away, that you would need to drive to

[quote Sarahpaula]@PippyShortsocks My mother also screamed and shouted at us, and insulted us all day. Both my brother and me attempted suicide.[/quote]
I'm sorry for how you were treated, but surely if you were treated well and had a good childhood otherwise, the rural area wouldn't have been as much of a problem?

I grew up in a mining town in Africa. The next nearest town was a three hour drive away. All the kids went to boarding school from secondary age as the town A, didn’t have a secondary school, and B, it was thought better for them to be educated elsewhere.

In the last year of primary children were taken to a big city several hundred miles away as most had never seen a multi story building or a busy road.

Because it was a mine for precious gems you couldn’t just visit, you had to have clearance to go there which took about a month to obtain, so quite apart from the fact the nearest town was three hours drive away people couldn’t just visit at random.

Across the road from my house was the desert. Literally.

And while I wouldn’t have wanted to stay there when I left school I think it’s an experience that made up a huge (and positive) part of my life.

People who talk about “living in the sticks” in the UK actually have no idea what that actually means.

Yes I had similar, but we were a big household of 9, so it didn’t feel isolated from humanity, just from friends.

Part-time work whilst at school wasn’t a possibility as no public transport.

Walking and cycling always felt quite unsafe as the roads were single track and winding although perhaps should have done it more.

My school friends were 5-30 miles away so I never saw them outside of school and an occasional social event where I’d need to get a lift etc.

My parents were good at always giving us a lift if we asked, but they would always be very, very late to pick us up from anywhere, which was humiliating (and freezing) on many an occasion. This was before mobile phones.

Must have been tough on you, especially given the circumstances of the move.