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!!!

There are 5 of us and my Mum tells stories of when we were young and mixes us up, all of the time. I can't remember what I ate for dinner last night though so I can hardly judge

@Tigger85 that's difficult! interesting...Just occurred to me that the borderline between empathy and having had the exact same experinece is blurred here. its like when toddlers parallel play, rather than play with eachother.
seems to me they're just not able to separate themselves from your suffering, therefore the only way they feel things is if they've actually gone through it themselves.
They've probably never had a chance to reflect on anything much, or just that they're not very bright.

Thank you! I'm really sorry other people have similar experience though

My dad does this all the time. He makes up stories and when people call him on it he denies all knowledge that it's made up

At my wedding he have a speech with a completely made up childhood story about me. It was ridiculous

My mum, lovely in most ways, was not the best parent I have come to realise as an adult.

Despite her being a primary school teacher, my own educational attainment was shocking, and she didn't seem the least bit interested when I failed all my GCSE's.

Things that I've also thought back to now -

Being a latch key kid from about 8 years old

Being badly bullied at school and by local kids for most of my childhood without her or my father doing a single thing about it.

Not being encouraged to do anything extra curricular - no cubs, scouts, martial arts class, sports clubs etc.

I know they aren't the crimes of the century, but as a parent it's not behaviour I will be repeating.

As for my father, he left when I was a late teenager and I didn't have much to do with him for many years - purely because he had such little impact in my life, at the time I just didn't miss him. We have a good relationship now, but seriously I can't think of any bonding activities we ever did apart from going to the football.

Funny isn't it, not one parent will say ' Oh, well I'm probably not best placed to give advice ' when it comes to our own kids..as far as they are concerned parenting was much better in their day and they know everything so we should follow their every uttered word.

Hi OP,

I'm so sorry for the loss of your Dad and the terrible time you went through in your early teens. I think having a quick chat with your Mum about not trivializing the things that you went through might be a good idea.

I read the title and thought 'yep, that's like my Mum' but really her mis-rememberings aren't terrible. She's 60-something and tends to 'remember' what people have said, by remembering how she felt when they were saying it, so for example if she felt that someone was being difficult, she will use words they would never use when describing what they had said. I no longer take my Mum's reports of what someone has said as fact!

My dad did this, but not in the horrible way many PPs have described. It was more that in his head, if you've done something once that's the way it's always been.

For example, when I was 17 I made a cup of tea a bit too close to a driving lesson and didn't finish it . From then on until the day he died if he saw me with a tea he would comment that I "never finish a cuppa". Which is 100% not true, it happened once!

I was also, as everyone is, skint as a student. In his head, that meant I was skint. Fact. Forever. When I was 26ish I mentioned that me and my flatmate were getting virgin installed. He was aghast. "But how can you afford that!?"
"Well, you know how I've been driving to a hospital 4 times a week for the past 5 years and staying for 12 hours at a time? They actually pay me fairly well to do that..."

Recollections may vary

@BobbieT1999 😁

I'm annoyed for all of you!

There are a few ways of dealing with it OP. You could try the "Yes it's so lovely to be constantly reminded of one's shortcomings!" But that'll probably result in being told that you are so touchy and can't take a joke.

How about reminding everyone of the context whilst simultaneously painting her in a good light? Eg "Yes, I used to forget things...I was pretty tired...remember we used to do all that travelling to see dad...I remember doing my homework in the back of the car trying to write neatly, I knew all the flat bits on the route where I could write and the twisty bumpy bits where I would stop trying to write and look up so I wasn't sick, funny the things you remember, I used to do some of the homework in that waiting room that smelt of lemon disinfectant and I used a chair as a table..we'd get home at midnight, d'you remember, I was exhausted so you must have been absolutely wrecked!! I don't know how you managed mum, it was amazing how you kept it all together and we were able to see so much of dad. Then when we moved I was so glad you were able to find that new school for me, they were brilliant and getting the diagnoses and help made things so much better, so fab that you were able to find such a good place for me even though you were dealing with all the house move stuff alone...strange times they were... "
Then she gets to be the hero, she gets any retrospective mum guilt assuaged by knowing she was doing pretty much the best she could, but everyone including her gets reminded that it wasn't exactly a cakewalk for you, even though it was nobody's fault.