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!!!

My mum has the opposite - twee, overblown recollections of our childhood (not dissimilar to Anthony Martin in the Just William books).

Actually we were and remain quite disfunctional, but to her it's all sepia toned. Including rewriting things I've told her as "memories" of mine.

(e.g. I remember say, a toy from a holiday when I was five. She now insists that it was wrong, and it must have been a memory from a different holiday when I was EIGHTEEN MONTHS OLD. Which is a) untrue - I remember the other holiday and the toy distinctly, and b) just stupid. It's so embarrassing to have this prodigious feat of memory trotted out all the time as if I actually have a claim to it.)

Memories are rarely the same as reality though. Everyone remembers things slightly differently and there are a whole host of reasons some people rewrite their stories.

My mum left home when I was 8 leaving us (6 girls) behind. That was 50+yrs ago but she 'remembers' things now and tells anecdotes about stuff she wasn't even with us for. We don't bother correcting her these days. If me and my sisters talk about our childhood we all have different versions of events as we remember them.

I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that there are scientific reasons our brains do this.

It is one thing if individuals remember things differently or a child's distress at a sore leg etc is misinterpreted, but, it is another to deny what was clearly neglectful parenting. I'm not just talking about kids of the 80's going off for the day in the summer hols, but the real stuff - hitting, name calling, belittling, abuse (all brushed under the carpet and denied).

My mum forgets how abusive my dad was and only refers to after he left and paints a picture of supportive, straight talking parenting with lots of happy days. What I remember is his physical abuse, and even after he left walking on eggshells, being terrified of putting a foot wrong, her playing down things that were important to me and our lives revolving around her new partners needs.

My chin hit the floor yesterday when I was talking to her about my DC's experience of starting uni. She said she didn't think she could cope with that stress all over again. At 18 she wouldn't let me go to uni, said I wasn't clever enough. I put myself through uni in my 30's and even then when I invited her to my graduation (thinking she might be proud) she said no and why did I want to do it anyway.
And now in old age, she manipulates and twists the truth to make me look like a neglectful daughter.

My grandparents do this, especially my grandmother, in their case, they describe the life they wish they'd given their children not the life they actually did.

When they are sober, the reality of what they did is too much for them to bare. Primarily, because without alcohol they are kind, caring, loyal and generous. They would give you their last £1 and never complain about it.

However, when drunk, they are not.

Their children grew up in extreme poverty and violence and livid in squalor.

They say their children had everything they ever wanted. They absolutely did not.

Oh @dontletthemugglesgetyoudownn I feel your pain.

In my family, I'm the 'naughty' one. There are small children (2 mine, 2 my cousins) in our family now and every family event if one of them starts kicking off a bit or is a bit defiant as small children are all I hear is 'well, she's nowhere near as bad a you were! Wow do you remember when X threw that tantrum here, and there, and blah blah blah blah' on and on about how I was the naughtiest child in the world.

I was undiagnosed autistic. I recently had my diagnosis at age 37 and I only realised that I was autistic when I became a mum and my daughter was diagnosed at 3. She is me and it became very clear to me very quickly that all those things over the years that I struggled with weren't me just being crap, rude, blunt, or an awkward arsehole. Just autistic. I also suspect I actually have ADHD too but am still waiting on assessment for that one.

My directness is useful now though, because I interrupt and say 'well yes mother/aunt I did do all of those things but we know why now, don't we? Look at how much support DD has with her disability. I had none!' That shuts it down pretty quickly.

I don't blame my parents for now knowing - it was the 80s there's no way they could have. I did well academically, and I mask like a pro, evidently I did so from a very young age. But I do get pissed off that they don't view the past with a slightly different lense these days.

Oh fucking hell tell me about it.

You say or do one thing when you're like, 5, then it gets brought up repeatedly for the next 30 years.

It is so very very dull. I don't get why people are stuck in the past going over and over old bloody stories like broken records.

Talk about something interesting ffs.

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

I've very tried that. Mum mocks my choices to my friends ( e.g. If we are at a gathering at my house or a party) things like ' oh cool dad, has to be different with all this vegetarian nonsense ' I tell her she is being rude and she retorts to my friends that I've always been oversenitive and ' is she like this with you' cue lots of eye rolling!

My parents indulge in gaslighting for sympathy and laughs too. If you were to talk to my parents you'd be told I had to be taken off them for my appalling behaviour, that I was a wild child. Not neglect or abuse or their drinking. Abusers externalise all blame and responsibility and don't even blink.

I feel you entirely OP.

My Dad died at the same age your did and my mum became ill a few years later.

Any struggles of mine have been white washed over the years and it's all focussed on how hard it was for her.

I was similarly undiagnosed with ADHD and OCD and all of the struggles I had with that are recalled cacklingly.

It hurts but they'll never be told. I think it eases their pain to ignore the struggles we went through. It's not your fault.

@Animood

Oh fucking hell tell me about it.

You say or do one thing when you're like, 5, then it gets brought up repeatedly for the next 30 years.

It is so very very dull. I don't get why people are stuck in the past going over and over old bloody stories like broken records.

Talk about something interesting ffs.

Yes! This! If she isn’t making things up she tells a really unfunny story from 35 years ago. I was cooking bacon for the first time in the grill when I was about 8. I asked ‘how do I know when It’s cooked enough?’ My brother said ‘well if it’s black with Smoke you’ll know’. She thinks that is hilarious 🤷🏻‍♀️ and re-tells it all the time.

My mum has started to do this more and more and I just gently smile and nod as I think this is linked to very long term struggles with anxiety and depression. I think she hangs onto stories and narratives that she’s comfortable with and avoids present challenges. She rewrites them as well, things that have never happened.

My SDCs notice it, it’s so obvious. She’ll relay a 20 yr old (fake) story and laughingly call me a bimbo.

I have a degree, membership of a professional body, leadership role in a PLC and run a lovely home. She hasn’t seen me for who I am in 20 years, but I love her to pieces.

She hasn’t seen me for who I am in 20 years, but I love her to pieces.
Perfectly put.

What happens when you point all of that out ?

It’s interesting reading other people’s experiences - my mum too makes things up.

I used to think it was mainly because she’s got a narcissistic streak and can’t accept she doesn’t understand or remember situation as that’s usually when she does it.

I think she really struggles with critical thinking/basic logic so try’s to fill in the gaps in a way that makes sense to her.

Do the people of other parents that did this also have narcissistic tendencies ? Some of these certainly read like that. I’ve posted before about my mum and her style of parenting. I don’t think she was especially good at dealing with a child’s emotional needs. At all really.

@5zeds

She hasn’t seen me for who I am in 20 years, but I love her to pieces. Perfectly put.

God just this.

It can sometimes be they're frightened to acknowledge the adults we became. We're not little and vulnerable, dependant and naive anymore.

Infantilising us prevents them from being able to be challenged, undermined or corrected.

The autism / ADHD is interesting.

I don't have a diagnosis but enough traits for it to be probable.

I had (still do but not as extreme) thing about starting and finishing things myself. I loved doing jigsaws, so if I left one half complete and went to bed my mum would add a few pieces and laugh at my meltdown when I took 'her' pieces out, and sometimes broke the entire thing up.

Why would you do that? Autistic or not, if you have a child who has something they are sensitive about then why would you deliberately upset them and laugh?

Yes! This! If she isn’t making things up she tells a really unfunny story from 35 years ago. I was cooking bacon for the first time in the grill when I was about 8. I asked ‘how do I know when
It’s cooked enough?’ My brother said ‘well if it’s black with Smoke you’ll know’. She thinks that is hilarious 🤷🏻‍♀️ and re-tells it all the time.

Bloody hell yes.

Like the time I peeled too many potatoes.

I was 7, I came home to an empty house and had to peel potatoes for tea, I didn't know how many to peel and I was terrified of not doing enough.

Does anyone else have that thing where they extract an 'it's all right' or an 'I don't mind' when it isn't all right and you do mind.

This isn't just rewriting history... Your mum's very selective memory mostly seems focused on putting you down, OP! No one deserves that, no wonder you find it upsetting, it's blatantly unfair, and a form of bullying.

I call it Toxic Mum Syndrome. The kind of person who always delights in regaling their audiences with "hilarious" (= embarrassing/humiliating) anecdotes about somebody else (who is typically in the same room at the time: no point humiliating someone if they're not around to witness it!)

My own mum specialises in (greatly exaggerated) medical anecdotes, ideally involving embarrassing bodily functions. Her role in these stories is always "the saviour".

My dad loves to rewrite history. He tells this long story about how he caught his partner being violent towards my sibling and threw her out of the house. He paints himself as some kind of amazing hero protecting us. He never mentions that she was back the next day. The violent incidents had gone on for months at that point and continued for many more months before she finally left him. Her being thrown out of the house was because they were arguing, not because of anything she was doing to my sibling.

He likes to tell this story in front of people and wants his children to back him up and publicly thank him for being so heroic. I honestly think that he believes it himself.

Omg OP we have lived really weirdly similar lives it seems!
I confronted my mother about it and let's just say it didn't end well.

I recently caught my DM telling my sister I never stuck with anything and always quit.
My karate - the instructor often didn't show up and then dad would rant about it the whole way home.
My gymnastics - instructors moved away and my parents wouldn't sign me up anywhere else.
My swimming lessons - I was often the only child that showed up, so the instructor would give me some vouchers and send me to the big pool alone.

My aunt lives in a complete fantasy world of her own imagining of events. Her favourite story is about the time my DM dressed up as a snowman complete with pillowcase head and went and stood outside the neighbours house living opposite until they opened their curtains. How they screamed, how hilarious it was, etc. Except it never happened. DM went to a fancy dress party as a snowman and a photograph was taken of her wearing the costume. She will swear black is white on occasion just because..... Minor compared to you OP but annoys me a great deal as my DM is sadly no longer around and I don't want her memory coloured by such nonsense.

My mother and sister both have these false memories, most of them fairly harmless but they also both completely lie and make things up, they have some weird grief/trauma one upmanship thing. My mother used to say I was perfect when I was born, not a mark on me or any blood, that my sister and brother were a little battered looking because the deliveries were much quicker. My sister's son was a fairly long delivery and they were going to use the ventous but luckily she was then able to push him out before they used the ventous, apparently he kept crowning but going back in but then the midwife caught his head and pulled him out by hand. My mother was my sister's birth partner. I had my D's who has congenital neuro abnormalities and a large head (99th centile) my mother was with me during the birth and she witnessed them use the ventousvon me which failed, then I went round to theatres and had a forceps delivery. My son obviously had a mark on his face from the forceps and a funny shaped head and bruising from the ventous, I also have severe birth injuries causing double incontinence needing surgical repair as a result. After witnessing me go through that her story changed to her having episiotomy and forceps deliveries for all three of us, my sister also immediately claimed that she had a failed ventous delivery then forceps delivery with episiotomy but it was even worse because she was haemorrhaging and there wasn't time to take her to theatres it was done in the normal delivery room by one midwife. Both are complete fabrications, they both had normal deliveries, my sister went home the next morning (delivery at night) and there wasn't a mark on her D's. They made it up to minimise what I went through and to make out they had it worse. I also have had one miscarriage and a late tfmr after having my living D's and my mother now claims to have had two miscarriages, apparently she lost them both down the toilet but at the same time they were both obviously boys which would have made them second trimester losses. Both my father and grandmother have told me that my mother has never had a miscarriage.

I can tolerate them rewriting history about childhood anecdotes but I cannot sit there and listen to them outright lie about the births and fake miscarriages when I actually have gone through what they are pretending they have.

That's really irritating. You should let her know you're not ok with it. Where is her tact.

@SarahAndQuack

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.

I don’t think that is trivial actually. I think it’s annoying as fuck!

@Tigger85

Oh that’s awful. I’m so sorry for your losses and so sorry you have to listen to that from your mum and sister. They sound really poisonous actually and I would imagine that it’s hard to want to spend any time with them.

My mum does this all the time. I’m not sure if it’s to make herself feel better or to try to keep me in my place.