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?

My parents moved me from a dublin suburb to the absolute middle of nowhere in offaly, 7 miles from the nearest path let alone shop, when I was 15. I went from getting on a bus to the local shopping centre with my friends to sitting in my house for 3 years, not fitting into any friend group, utterly depressed, needing a lift anywhere I went, storming out to walk on a bog if I got angry. I was fuming really. I struggled big time.

BUT ... they did it for good reasons. We couldn't afford anything with the Dublin mortgage. My area had drug and gang problems. We needed to get out. They wrestled with what was best for us and made a hard decision with all the love in the world. I cant hate them for that. They did what they thought was best. I eventually escaped to university and now live in an urban area in the UK. As my mom always said and tells me now that I am a mom, 'they dont give you a manual when you leave the hospital. You try your best, and sometimes you are right, and sometimes you aren't, but you try your best'.

Try not to hate your mom. There are worse places you could have grown up. She probably what she thought was best at the time.

@Sarahpaula it sounds horrible and bleak, like something from a novel. Especially if you had known another life. I'm glad I come from a town and am bringing my son up in one where he can walk to see his friends safely.

I grew up in rural Ireland, seven miles from the nearest shop, and fifteen to the nearest town, with a non-driving, and not particularly functional mother. I absolutely adored where we lived, and after years of living in various different countries, I've moved back to raise my child in the same part of the world.

My mother was not a wonderful parent in various ways, and we were extremely poor and rather neglected, but none of that is in any way related to the place we lived in.

OP it sounds awful on both counts. Your mother's behaviour to you and your brother and your isolation.

Independence and freedom are very important to teenagers and help them start to navigate the world by themselves.

We bought our house near the centre of our smallish town. It's reaping rewards now we have teenagers who can call for friends, walk to the swimming pool/gym/cinema/shops etc. And also to the park for a game of basketball etc.

We can always move further out of town when they've left home but for now, their needs are important.

I hope it helps you by talking about it and getting some support.

I lived on a farm in rural Australia from the age of 9, so rural I had to go to boarding school for secondary. It was isolating occasionally but by far a better life than I'd had in a UK city up to that point. My friends and I would cycle to see each other.
I can understand what you mean about feeling isolated from all your friends and not being able to go anywhere but calling it child abuse is ridiculous. You were housed, fed, warm, loved and your mum did what she thought was the best for your family. I was at secondary school with people who's farms were so remote the only people they saw were their family and the farm workers and did their primary schooling over the air. They saw their friends about once a term.

@makingmammaries

I really wouldn't worry, I was brought up in the countryside and now live rurally, it's wonderful, your kids will have so many amazing memories of growing up surrounded by beauty and having the kind of adventures that you simply cannot have when you live in a city. And they won't be polluted by car fumes. I jumped on my bike if I wanted something from the shop. I wouldn't swap the area I grew up in for anything and I'm really grateful that we didn't live in an urban environment surrounded by concrete.

Plus I'm sure your children won't grow up to be the type of massive drama queen the OP is

I honestly felt brain damaged from being so isolated. My brain really wasn't well. If you isolate any animals they start to go crazy.

I feel a bit like this. We were in a small village with no facilities and there were no children my age so I spent a lot of time alone. My family life was quite frightening. You are absolutely right that our brains wire by being with other people and one of the protective factors against the impact of abuse is having strong relationships with others. I think this is one of the factors why I was so incredibly damaged by my childhood, there was no one reliable to learn good emotional regulation from so I basically just self-harmed. It was also horrible seeing everyone go out and about after school when I just had to go home alone (mine was the only village that fed into the school, everyone else was in the town). There is no way I wanted that for DD, though it was definitely the combination of abuse + isolation that made it worse.

@SurreyHillsGirl

While I'm glad you enjoyed your childhood, do you think it contributed to your growing up into an absolute arsehole?

LadyFidgetAndHerHandbag

You were housed, fed, warm, loved and your mum did what she thought was the best for your family.

She wasn't and her Mother didn't as you'll see if you read the rest of her posts.

I think there is a grain of truth to it. I grew up in a small village, with no other kids my age nearby and my mum wouldn't let me out beyond the end of our close, whereas my brother could rove all he wanted with his friends... My friends lived in the next town over so too far to cycle and public transport was awful (one bus an hour) so I was heavily reliant on lifts from my parents. I just became a bit of a loner and I think if I'd had friends closer I'd be a lot more outgoing.
My DH had a similar upbringing, except his friends were 40 minutes' drive away, the public transport was even worse, and his parents hated giving him lifts so he rarely saw his mates, who lived close enough to see each other all the time.
I was talking to a friend the other day, and she had a similar upbringing. Lived far away from her mates, who all lived close to each other.
All of us have vowed to live where there are other people around for the sake of our kids! To be honest, I want friends who live near me too!

OP, it sounds very lonely. I grew up in a small village... Not as isolated as you but I couldn't walk to visit friends or go out or anything and there was no public transport. My parents were kind and loving and would drive me places, but the lack of independence was frustrating. Family was most of my life rather than just a part of it as a result and I didn't have a chance to spread my wings and do things like meeting friends on my own and organising myself to get places till I left home. I think this infantilises teens when they should be learning independence.

Combine that with an uncaring abusive mother and it's no wonder you and your DB felt and still feel emotionally empty to some extent.

Having now read past the first page (tut tut Lady Fidget), I agree with others. The issue isn't the rural location of your childhood but your mother. I think you're focusing all your energy on hating that and not about how you were treated. Have you had any talking therapy? I had an abusive mother myself so you have all my sympathy and honestly having lots of therapy is the way forward.

@madcatladyforever My experience was much the same, started when I was 9 and finally ended when I was 14. For 3 of those years we were in a very small village in Bangladesh - the nearest English speaking Doctor was 200 miles away. No school - for 2 of those years we had no schooling at all, my parents were supposed to be doing correspondence lessons with us but gave up after less than half a day - no shops (wasn't safe for us to go to the local bazaar as we were the first white children that most of the locals had seen and they used to follow us if we tried going out) no friends, no television, no pets etc.

I'm 52 now and still angry about those years. If I try to talk to my mother about it, all I get is 'But You Got To See So Many Countries' - as if that's a positive thing when you are child! Most children just want peace and security. Due to various things that happened during that time I'm now being treated for C-PTSD.

I'm afraid most people don't understand, and some seek to undermine your experience, if they haven't been through it themselves.

@SurreyHillsGirl, thank you for your kind and sane approach :)

I'm sorry OP, it sounds like you were abused for sure. But i think you have conflated the two issues. Living rurally is not abuse, but you lived rurally AND your mum abused you. She used your location as part of her control/abuse.

If a woman was posting on the relationship board saying her husband left her alone without the means to get about and see people and isolated her from everyone all would agree it was abusive.

I'm so sorry you had a crap childhood. It sounds neglectful in every way.

I lived in a really isolated area - middle of nowhere, absolutely miles from my school and friends.

Personally, I loved it. I loved the countryside around me, which I knew like the back of my hand. I loved our huge garden. I loved being outside for hours a day. I loved the company of my siblings. I loved our pets. I loved the freedom of being away from school and not having to think about it.

I don’t think it’s inherently wrong or cruel. Different environments suit different children. You might have grown up in a city and had horrendous experiences with being bullied by local children or exposed to unsafe situations.

I’m sorry you were so unhappy though. It must have been very hard.

Sorry to hear your childhood was so abusive. It sounds as though your mum used the isolation as one of her tools of abuse and neglect.

Which must have been awful for you. It doesn't matter whether others had good experience of rural life. You didn't and it was part of an abuse package against you.

Hope you are getting help and support.

I was going to say that you are unreasonable, because all the children that I know who live very rurally, seem to lead such idillic childhoods.but then I remembered that I spent my teenage years in a tiny village miles from anywhere and I was BORED so much of the time. I only saw my friends at the weekends and I had no real freedom or independence, whereas mates of mine who
Lived in town were in and out of each others houses, and the park, all the time. My weekday afternoons and evenings were spent doing homework, walking the dog and watching coronation street. I desperately wanted to be hanging out with my friends in the park, snogging boys and doing whatever it was normal teenagers did.

Did you go to school OP or where you home schooled in a house without comms/phone access?

In our school sixth form there were several children who joined us who lived rurally, not as rural as the OP, but definitely dependent on limited transport, be it mum's taxi or buses. They really felt it even at a much lower level than the OP, and this was in the Uk where summer holidays are much shorter.

The only thing is I wonder whether the rural location was by choice or so low cost that it was all that the OPs mum could afford. Or because divorce was not even allowed in the Irish Republic until 1996 and probably carried a stigma even after that.

I grew up in an isolated village with no other children apart from siblings. As a teenager it is really crap although I wouldn’t call it abusive. I would NEVER live in a rural area again, I definitely think that it has contributed to my poor social skills as I had no contact with children outside of school. At least kids these days have the internet but I was born in the 70s, it was miles to the nearest bus stop and I spent
most of my days reading and going for bike rides alone.

I grew up in extreme rural Ireland too and certainly don't feel it was abuse. We had a fabulous free childhood, roamed for miles and miles and had many adventures. We also could have friends stay over whenever we wanted, stay at friends whenever we want to, stay at our grandmothers who lived in a less isolated area. As a teenager, I got lifts to work(worked from the age of 15 in hols and at weekends), then from work which was in a village walked to friends, met up with other friends, stayed at friends houses etc.

Living rurally isn't abuse. It sound like your mother isolated you but that is a different issue to living rurally.

Why didn't they get you a bike?

Did you never see/stay with your dad?