To feel a bit sad when my mum rewrites history? Anyone else have this?

[dontletthemugglesgetyoudownn]

I'm feeling sad tonight, not sure why. I saw my family this weekend and we were swapping the old stories etc, then one of my sisters mentions my nephew lost his pe kit and she was annoyed by it, and my mum immediately jumps in with

'Oh yea we had that all of year 7 and onwards with dont, lost her pe kit regularly, lost £10 for the bus, got the wrong bus repeatedly, lost things constantly' everyone laughed at how forgetful I was etc

Yes I did all of those things and a lot more, I once forgot to get the bus home on parents evening and waited for my parents to finish but they left whilst I was wandering round the school and they had to come back to the school to get me. It's not neglectful because I didn't tell them I was still at school and my phone was dead.

However!! I wish she would remind my family of the context! I had undiagnosed adhd and dyspraxia, my dad was having chemo and we were driving 2 hours to see him every night in hospital I was doing my homework on the floor of the hospital room or in the back of the car, I was tired and my siblings were older, then he died and we were moving across the country but I only had 2 weeks between him passing away and starting year 8..

When we moved house I started in a smaller school and flourished, got my diagnoses and got the help I needed. I'm now an ODP and I can take patients myself in icu, I've have 2 masters. But yet when I'm with my family I'm relegated to that bumbling child when I was 11!

Grr!!!

I found this Instagram post incredibly helpful when attempting to understand others in these circumstances https://www.instagram.com/p/CWQn1vmpCHd/?utmmedium=copyy_link

Yep, thoroughly normal!

OP I’m sorry you went through such a difficult time and glad that you were able to get your diagnoses and thrive.
I wonder if your mum isn’t saying this to be mean but to have an almost ‘normal family life’ recollection of what must have been an incredibly traumatic time for her too. Your dad being ill, being in hospital 2 hours away, being widowed, moving somewhere new and starting again, and possibly also being aware that her child was struggling and not being able to give you the attention she wanted to with all the other pressures.
If you can, I wouldn’t take it too much to heart and let it fester. If it ever comes up again you could maybe just say ‘that would be my undiagnosed Adhd, good thing we got that sorted!’

I have to tell you all my relationship with my mother improved after her death.

We had the 'luxury' of her being terminally ill for 2+ years so I decided not to confront her, but knew I'd have to live with that.

She claimed they had to pay for my brother to go to uni (it was a poly and they paid for his digs). He only managed the first year and failed the end of year exams and retakes.

That I used to watch porn with my brother and one of his friends at his friend's house. Because that's who you choose to watch porn with.

I think the worst misremembering was something that happened when I was 17.

I'd taken a day off VI form for tummy ache. My mum went for her afternoon nap (she always had an afternoon nap).

I got something to eat and was about to take the plate back to the kitchen when I got a sudden severe pain that knocked me to my knees.

I couldn't get up and no amount of shouting could wake my mother.

When she did come down I said I needed a Dr because I was in too much pain to move.

She told me to take paracetamol and go to bed, this was about 1.30/2pm.

By the time my dad got home it was about 6pm and I was literally beggging her to call the Dr, I was in too much pain to move to call myself.

My dad came home, asked me if I needed the Dr, and for the first time I can remember went against my mother.

The GP called an ambulance, the ambulance staff comment on my green colour ie jaundice.

Long story short within a couple of hours I was in hospital with a tube up my nose and IV antibiotics.

My gallbladder was badly inflamed, if you have ever had gall stones or an inflamed gall bladder you will know the type of pain.

I actually thought I was going to die with her still telling me to go to bed and take paracetamol.

My mother's recollection is that she was really upset that the GP had called an ambulance.

My parents do this all the time. Mostly I can ignore but occasionally they will give their version of a story when the free sloth is something they do wrong casting me badly and it boils me. I've never bitten because it would open a huge can of worms but it is hard!
I think they do it because they don't like the way they behaved in the situation so want to erase it and replace it with the version that's more palatable to them.

Yes...mine do this...otherwise known as gaslighting!

@shouldistop

My mum was also the perfect parent. She likes to criticise parents 'these days' for their kids diets and activities. I cheerfully remind her that my play piece at school used to be iced gems and I lived on a diet of pasta with grated cheese and toast for years. We were never encouraged to do sports really.

What annoys me most is that she completely forgets how differently she has treated my brother and I. When I was 18 I worked full time and attended college on a day release from work, they paid for the diploma. I was offered a better paid job not long after graduating so I had to pay the cost of the course back. I didn't have the £1500 so my mum paid it and I paid her back £100 a month for 15 months. I didn't go to my graduation as I couldn't afford a nice outfit and hiring of a gown.

My mum has since supported my brother through various college courses etc, funded trips to Australia and South Africa, bought him a house that he pays minimal rent on.

I once raised that she made me pay back the money for my college course and she completely denied it.

If this doesn't confirm the existence of the patriarchy, I don't know what does. So many women of your mother's generation seemed to believe that boys were somehow superior and deserved better treatment. I've seen it so often. My mother didn't have boys and I think she really resented me as the youngest for not being a boy.

Not much consolation for you OP, it's horrible to be gaslit like this. My DF liked to 'pull my leg' about all my shortcomings as a teenager. I was nearly 60 when he died, so you'd have thought he'd have got over it. Besides which I was none of the things I was accused of, if anything I was overly compliant - not drinking much, no drugs, Saturday job that I used my wages to buy my clothes, sensible outfits etc, but you'd think I was some kind of wild child!

It would be mean to keep going on about you losing things even if you didn't have a diagnosis. The fact that you do have one makes it ten times worse. I know I'm just a stranger on the internet but if you were my daughter I'd be so proud of what you've achieved. You've done brilliantly and it's so sad that your mum doesn't focus on that.

Sorry, to be clear, the first bit is to @shouldistop and the last two paras to the OP.

Yes my mum does this.

Not on purpose or maliciously, but she will quite often invent whole conversations/parts of conversations that never happened, but she genuinely believes they did and won't accept that they didn't, even when other people were there too.

Eg, when we were younger a frequent thing was she wouldn't be able to find something in the house, and she would ask one of us where it was because "you said you were going to lend it to your friend", or she'd accuse my dad of having given it away because she reckons he mentioned that.

She also mentioned recently that when she, my dad and my sister went to meet our family dog for the first time (rehoming), his previous owner said he had used sedatives on him as he's hyper. My dad didn't pick her up on it as it's not worth the row, but he shook his head and looked bemused...it has never ever been mentioned before, it just didn't happen. But if we'd have questioned it, she'd have aggressively argued that it 100% was said and got pissed off with us for denying it.

It's weird because she's not someone who would purposely lie at all, but this happens quite a lot and always has. She just genuinely believes these things. Maybe she spends a lot of time dreaming or daydreaming and just confuses it with reality?!?! Who knows.

There's a thing with memory where over time what you are remembering isn't the original memory itself but a memory of a memory. And then a memory of a memory of a memory. Which I think I can see in my dad's version of let's make up the past. No history of abuse in our family, and my heart goes out to those here who have lived through that, but he still tells me stuff about my childhood that isn't true. But if you say the wrong thing once, that becomes the new memory the next time it comes up.
I'm not explaining well but it's an interesting but of neuroscience!

Also agree re misremembering their own parenting - my mum will swear down that she never smacked us, but she definitely did! And I don't even know why she denies it because most children still got smacked back.

Wow, this has been an eye-opener. I thought it was just my strange and cruel mother that did this but it seems it’s quite a facet of human nature, which is comforting in a way.

One petty and frustrating incident for me was when my husband had been on a road trip and got back shortly before I needed the car to pick up my mother. When I arrived I apologised for needing to clear out the snack packets and work paraphernalia from the front seat and she made a very snarky comment, not at all jokey, about how my car was always a complete tip so she’s used to it. I’m in my 40s and she’s talking about the time when I was 17 and living between home and my boyfriend’s house for a couple of months, keeping my belongings in my car. It just felt so awful for that one particular time in my youth to be remembered over everything else.

On the other end of the spectrum, the worst and most hurtful one is that she has no recollection of an incredibly tragic incident that occurred at my boarding school where a girl was killed and many injured.

I was 10 years old. We were all in danger and away from home. I just can’t believe she has no memories of perhaps being worried for my safety, trying to get through to the school, having to collect me whilst the school closed for investigations, about my recovery or how she felt about me returning to school afterwards. Nada.

It’s a real illustration of our relationship in truth.

My mum actually makes things up which is a pain when you know she’s wrong.

@Squirrelblanket

My sister does this. We had a pretty ordinary, happy childhood but it's very different to how children experience childhood now. E.g. we were of the generation that pretty much spent the whole of the summer holidays out with our mates building dens etc and barely seeing our parents.

Once my sister became a parent she pretty much seemed to decide that our childhood was awful and borderline neglectful. I just think times were very different in the 80s! We've had to agree not to talk about the past now as we just end up arguing.

Maybe her childhood was different to yours though. I studied child psychology and one of the discussion points was that all children have a totally different childhood, even from their siblings. Any difference in the family dynamic as a whole will impact on how individual children are treated and what they experience as they come along. So many different things influence that dynamic and your sisters recollections will be entirely different to yours even if the bare bones of the family are the same starting point. For example I am divorced, but my first child had five years of his parents being together and remembers those times and his Dad being part of the family clearly, my second child has never known anything but living in a lone parent family with a fairly absent Dad as we split when she was so young.

This is very interesting about memories. I wonder if it also works in the other direction?

I don’t have any examples as extreme as some on this thread. But I’ve had a step child for 12 years - I first met them when they were 3. Over the years they’ve insisted that when they were little they came to my house (before me and their father lived together) and that I had a pink bathroom. As in pink toilet and sink, etc. They swear they remember this from the first time they met me.

But it’s absolutely not true. I’ve never ever lived anywhere with a pink bathroom. Yet this is baked in their memory as fact! It’s weird because DSC must perceive that I am the one remembering it wrong, or rewriting the history. But the truth is, it just didn’t happen at all.

I wonder if sometimes that’s the case in these other examples. There’s the perceptions of the two people and then the truth in between.

LittleMysSister
Also agree re misremembering their own parenting - my mum will swear down that she never smacked us, but she definitely did! And I don't even know why she denies it because most children still got smacked back.

Exactly the same here!! My mother swears she never smacked but she certainly did! In fact I remember the last time she smacked me- I was 14, wash day ( as they had back in the day) it was summer , I was wearing shorts- she slapped me hard across the thigh. I turned around and slapped her across the face. It was the only time I had ever slapped back, but I decided that was enough.
I will never forget the look in her face- shocked and stunned- she never slapped me again.
But I remember many times being slapped as a younge child- as you say it was common place- police would give kids a cuff around the ear, teachers would use a leather belt, all my friends were slapped by their parents- it was the done thing.

My mother flaty denies it- and gets angry if I even mention it- telling me I am nasty to make up such wicked lies.

Oh and she also said to me recently “I used to bake all our biscuits and cakes myself”.

I’ve never laughed so hard inside my own mouth in my life!

I was bought up on fish fingers and Alphabites. There was never any elaborate cooking or baking going on in our house. She even told me herself about three years ago that she’d decided to finally have a go at learning how to bake as she’d never done it before.

You should have said that I think.
Everyone used to take the piss out of me in a similar way, although I didn't have any of the extra stuff you had going on, I can't believe anyone would joke about what a "mess" a child was when their dad was dying, sounds like a really tough time.
Since I was diagnosed as autistic though its like people don't bring it up anymore. Because it's no longer funny, it's signs they clearly spotted but didn't realise it meant I was autistic.

Also. Your parents left you at parents evening, that's 100% on them isn't it?

@ssd

And BTW *@dontletthemugglesgetyoudownn*, you weren't a "bumbling child of 11". That's your mum speaking there, not you. You were a young girl with a very poorly dad who was trying to navigate her life without much direction. And it sounds like you coped very well under very difficult circumstances. So replace "bumbling" with "courageous"

Brilliantly said!!!!!!!!

I was coming along to say the same sort of thing, @LondonWolf. I find it really fascinating (in a weird way) how different recollections can be. I have an older brother who claims he can't remember almost anything from our childhood. I remember fairly seriously unpleasant stuff. And my youngest brother really doesn't. It took me ages to figure out that it's a combination of two things - one is that because I had such a horrible experience, I'm very anti hitting and smacking children, whereas DB honestly believes that smacking a child is fine (he doesn't have children). So he naturally thinks 'hmm, Sarah is a bit of a snowflake about this'.

The other thing is that he's only a few years younger, but it's enough that his experience was quite different. My mum had an accident that made it really hard for her to get about for quite a while, my dad's job was precarious for a long time then he got a new one, and they move a couple of hundred miles and lost a lot of value from their house for various reasons - all of that happened when he was too young to remember, and by the time he was older, things had stabilised again. But for me, it must have been a really formative bit of my childhood.

“Mum you know it’s rude to mock someone in front of others don’t you” is all you need to say.

@speakout

*LittleMysSister Also agree re misremembering their own parenting - my mum will swear down that she never smacked us, but she definitely did! And I don't even know why she denies it because most children still got smacked back.*

Exactly the same here!! My mother swears she never smacked but she certainly did! In fact I remember the last time she smacked me- I was 14, wash day ( as they had back in the day) it was summer , I was wearing shorts- she slapped me hard across the thigh. I turned around and slapped her across the face. It was the only time I had ever slapped back, but I decided that was enough.
I will never forget the look in her face- shocked and stunned- she never slapped me again.
But I remember many times being slapped as a younge child- as you say it was common place- police would give kids a cuff around the ear, teachers would use a leather belt, all my friends were slapped by their parents- it was the done thing.

My mother flaty denies it- and gets angry if I even mention it- telling me I am nasty to make up such wicked lies.

That's so funny that you say that @speakout, because I almost added the exact same thing to my original post!!

I remember the last time too, and it was the first time I smacked my mum back. She swiped at my arm as I was walking away from her out of the living room, and I turned around and did the same to her. Never happened again. I must have been about 14 too.

I guess people just don't feel comfortable admitting they used to hit their children as it's obviously now seen as completely unacceptable, but it's really frustrating when it comes up in conversation and they get pissed off and accuse you of lying, when they must know they are not telling the truth. Just own it and admit it was different times then, I'm not accusing you of abuse mum!!

I've experienced this a lot over the years. It's been a long process to see it for the gaslighting that it is, largely because the claims are subtle, insidious and generally centre on things that appear inconsequential. It's only when you build them together that they form part of a picture which reveals itself to be essentially a form of abuse - their narrative is dominant and The Truth, you are either silenced or positioned in ways that make you appear silly/hard work/the problem.

As my eyes have been opened to all this I've become more confident in calling it out. I don't do head tilt/tinkly laugh, or respond with a comic re-telling of the anecdote to my version - that would be to sink to their level and play their game. I quietly and calmly put the story right. I'm strong enough now to deal with any responses to this, which have ranged from anger to defensiveness to waterworks and more. And that in itself is revealing of how that person was indeed intentionally trying to manipulate and hurt me in the first place.

Or rather, I did do that until I realised that you can't reason with toxicity and cut all but essential contact. I'm sad but psychologically so much healthier for it. My view is I'd never behave like this to my children and I would be livid if anyone else tried to do it to them so I shouldn't tolerate being treated like this myself. Finally in my mid forties I have a high bar for treatment and will only have people in my life who are emotionally well regulated, mature and decent.

As a child, I was very compliant/well behaved, worked hard at school and had good academic achievements. My brother was a nasty piece of work from a young age (including violence towards me, mum and later girlfriends/wife and loads of manipulation) and didn't achieve as much. I cut contact with him when my first child was born- my mother is well aware of this and my reasons.

Yet my mother attributes anything positive either of my children do to being like him.

Eg- Doing well in a maths test. DM- Oh, you get that from [brother] he was always the mathematical one in the family (despite me getting far better grades in maths and studying it at a higher level)

• DD getting good grades in A level drama/performing in plays etc. DM- She's just like [brother], he stole the show every time. (He once had 2 lines in the junior school nativity and she has memorised them)
• DD does well in singing exams. DM- I'm not surprised, [brother] was always musical. (No idea where she gets this from, he never played an instrument and only ever sang, very badly, if totally pissed. Whereas I was in to music.)

Less positive behaviour is attributed to me. If either of my DC ever refuse to do what they are asked we are all reminded of the one time that I went out when she had told me I should stay in. They don't mention that I was 18 and went to my Saturday job. They were away for the weekend and arsehole brother had gone out on the Friday night without his keys and was threatening to kick the door down if I wasn't there to let him in.

I am going to share a very trivial example of this too, which is very silly but really pushes my buttons. When my first niece was on the way, I started doing some knitting for her, as you do. A few weeks later my mum started crocheting something similar. I thought this was fine, but she got in touch to say she was worried her gift would steal my thunder so she'd tell DB and SIL it was to be kept at her house for when they visited. Again, fine.

I, my dad, DB and SIL all remember this conversation the same way; DB has an email mum wrote to him telling him this was what she'd decided (though god knows why it merited a formal decision).

Ever since, every single time she sees the blanket lying around her her house, she sighs tragically. 'Oh ... I made this for DNiece ... but it was left behind ...'

DNiece is ten. I don't think I have managed a single visit to my mum's house since, without hearing the tragic tale of how she made something for her first grandchild and it was cruelly rejected. It's like she set herself up to have something to be a martyr about.