To ask if your parents also do this...

[seenisambol]

I grew up in a zero tolerance home environment. If my brother or I broke the rules (e.g. the living room was messy, we'd forgotten to empty the dishwasher) we'd be met with shouting and aggression and we'd end up in our bedrooms in tears. I remember when my brother was 11 he broke a lamp and cried for 3 hours before my dad got home as he was so worried about what he'd do.

I've had a good relationship with my parents ever since I left home 20 years ago. They're also now retired and far less stressed, which I think was a big part of the problem.

However one thing I really struggle with is their selective memory of my childhood. There's been times when I or my brother have referred to a minor incident (we would never talk about the really bad ones) and they say things like "What?! Don't be ridiculous!" or "I'd never say something like that! If I did then that's awful".

Has anyone else experienced this? Have they really blanked out everything that happened? Or are they too embarrassed to talk about it? This wasn't just one or two incidents, this was the backdrop of my childhood so I find it so hard to understand how they could have no memory of it.

I think people often have a selective memory about anger - I think they will always remember the incident as them being much less angry then they appear. I have definitely seen this where I've witnessed an outburst and the angry person later if challenged on it will say things like 'I wasn't furious, I wasn't out of control' but I was there and had to say 'I know it didn't feel that way to you but to people on the receiving end/watching it felt really extreme'.

And I don't think people are necessarily lying or trying to cover up or gaslight - I reckon they often genuinely didn't perceive they were that angry and just thought they were being firm or stern.

I’m talking about the posters you agreed with in your post of 11.50 where you said you’re sick of hearing the word toxic.

I’m not invested in your opinion either but I think your dismissal of abuse does need challenging.

You suffered abuse yet you’re sick of hearing the word toxic? Ok.

Yes absolutely in particular that my mother minimised my father’s behaviour.

That’s ironic because it’s likely you’re one of the posters @FreeRider is referring to as desperate to persuade people that their abuse didn’t take place.

I do wonder how much we do forget as adults though. My aunt moved house after 50 years and my cousin posted pics from photo albums she found in the attic in the group chat. We were all piss taking about mullets and moustaches etc and I said that the fag smoke gave the Christmas dinner photos a nice snowy look. My mum phoned hysterical that they never ever smoked in thr house. I wasn’t having a go just pointing out the obvious smoke. Anyway I messaged my cousin who then posted so many many pics with ashtrays on the dinner table, people holding babies and a fag, in all the houses at many events. From the 60’s to the late 80’s. No one was being outraged. None of them smoke now and none of us have any lasting damage (extremely lucky) BUT that whole generation were having conniptions at their past behaviour which they don’t remember. I honestly think they have been non smokers so long they'd forgotten they ever did. It’s weird.

I'm one of 6 sisters, we are now all 50s/60s. We had a truly terrible childhood but every one of us remembers it differently. If you asked each of us about any specific incident we would all have a different story to tell. I think I'm the most aware. My older sister swears blind half the things didn't happen even though I remember all the details, even when the things were specifically about her. The youngest 3 have very little recollection because they were still under 7 when we were removed into care.

Mum has completely blocked out everything that happened. She walked out on us when the oldest was 10 and the youngest just a toddler. But she still says to them 'remember when you were a toddler....' and tells a story as if she was there. She was traumatised too so I think she has just blocked it all out rather than deliberately gaslighting. We don't talk to her about it as it's not worth it now but we do still discuss it amongst ourselves.

Maybe everyone does it either consciously or unconsciously.

I do think that for me the value of these threads lies in recognising things that weren't reasonable. My childhood was in no way as bad as some here, so that's good, but also l recognise that it really wasn't right that for many years into adulthood, I was afraid to use things for fear of breaking them. I well remember crying and hiding anything I broke.
My parents went away on holiday when I was around 17. I washed up by hand because I was too afraid of breaking the dishwasher. Left home at 18 and it took YEARS for me to stop feeling I had to hide breakages from my husband. Hand washed all clothes and used a carpet sweeper because I didn't want to be blamed if the appliance broke down. When anything broke in our house, my stepfather always leapt to the conclusion that one of us, including my mother, had done something to cause it. Thought I was clumsy and unusually uncoordinated as a child because I was TOLD I was. Continually. But I thought this was normal and I was the problem.
My stepfather, however, had a bad childhood. By his lights, he was a better parent than his dad.
And I am lucky that there were lots of good times for me to remember, and some of you here help me appreciate the good bits more. My parents didn't disappear on holiday for a week without telling me, or hit me beyond the odd smack. My stepdad had a nasty temper (still does) but I get why more now.

We all forget things..if it didn't seem significant to them they won't remember

I think it’s a mix of genuine forgetfulness and also denial with some parents. I was quite a happy sociable child but as a teenager I developed some issues and became isolated. One of my parents has rewritten my childhood and says I was always on my own. I think it’s just a way to remove any influence they could have had and to say it’s how I naturally was.

If I say anything even slightly negative about my childhood, my mum starts with the dramatic ‘yes you’re right, I was the worst mum ever’ nonsense, or she does as your parents do and pretends the incident never happened/ I’m exaggerating. It’s very wearing. She is a frequent topic of discussion when I see my therapist!

Nope I really have no right to do that and never will . But you don't know that because you don't know me . 👍

My parents left me quite damaged, and it's only in middle age that I can see how awful it was. I was the family scapegoat, and still am. My DM ridicules anything I've brought up, denies it all, and says dismissively, 'Oh you were always so dramatic! Hatty's SO touchy! was the family motto'. She belittled and criticised me throughout my entire life, and still does. My father hit me a lot for real or imagined infringements. It was the 70s and considered normal to hit children. Nowadays I'd have been taken into care.

Anytime I've faced difficult circumstance - abusive marriage, difficult divorce, real financial hardship with the DC she has simply said, 'It's character forming. Chin up! No one wants to hear you complain' If she asks how you are and you say 'I'm not great today' (I have a chronic condition) both she and my father roll their eyes and say, 'Oh dear. Here we go again. We should have known better than to ask!'

It's really hurtful. It took me to roughly the age of 50 to realise that every other person in my life sees me as cheerful, laid back and easy going. It is only my parents who continually paint me as 'difficult'. They are both late 80s and DM now conveniently says 'Oh I don't remember that' if anything from the past is brought up. I avoid seeing them as much as I can apart from the minimum of duty visits as I always, always go away feeling a bit shit about myself.

This is a really interesting and sad thread. I'm glad awareness and help for mental health is so much better now as I think that is key in so many of these scenarios.

Now that’s definitely abusive.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 so ,
God
Bed
Stewie
are abusive words 🤣🤣🤣🤣 and MNHQ no longer allows the word fuck 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 i really don't know how I'm gonna cope through the rest of the day 😉

seenisam...: "I'd never say something like that!"

My late mother was like that, what was worse she would say it the next day or even during the same day that she had made the original statement.

She was the sort of person who was never wrong (in her eyes), and refused to admit to anything that might show her in a bad light.

We got on better when I was an adult, in fact she was very supportive of me and a lovely grandmother so I forgive her. However, facts are facts and it is still irksome when memories pop up.

What a toxic post 😂

Just tell him. You have nothing to fear any more. 🌺

I confronted my mother about her behaviour towards me as a child, when I was about 27. Her response was "Oh, I never realised. Is it because I broke up with your dad?". This was after I said to her "You were very unfair to my brother and I when we were growing up".

She was a stressed out single parent who married a horrible man. And then they were both emotionally abusive and neglectful towards us.

Now she acts like nothing happened and treats me like a normal adult (although no warmth, not really like a mum). I don't think I know what a mum is to be honest. I just make it up as I go along. But with lots of cuddles, no name-calling and I always feed and clothe my little girls. And take interest in what they do. I guess I know what not to do.

But yeah, no acknowledgement from my mum about what she did. I won't hold my breath.

It’s not codependency and they’ve never been able to be financially generous towards me. Though dad has always helped where he could.

I still have a relationship with my mother because she was mentally ill and really to a point still is, though not as bad as she was during our childhoods. There are times when she could be nice and she isn’t a horrible person, not really. I know she does love me, but struggles with life and can’t be very supportive and couldn’t cope with her children when they were young. Despite having a LOT of support from my wonderful Nan. I’ve given my mum far far more support over the years than she’s given me. But honestly, though I do have some issues stemming from my childhood, im not as messed up as I might have been and I would say that I am one of life’s copers. I think my childhood and lack of support from my mum made me able to cope with most things and that’s a good thing really.

the other reason is my dad. They’re still together and my dad really is a good guy. He wasn’t the perfect parent, but who is? He would shout occasionally, and we had the odd smack from him, but that was a standard 80s, 90s childhood. He has always been there for us and would always help where he could. It would break him if we went no contact with mum. Mum has ruined his life in many ways and we’ve all told him he should leave her on many occasions, but he won’t. He’s worked so hard for us, having 2 jobs the majority of my childhood as mum refused to return to work and used to run up thousands in credit card and catalogue bills buying herself, or my youngest sibling things. He doesn’t deserve to never see his kids or grandkids.

You are not alone. My parents appear to have utterly forgotten they dropped me off at my Nan’s when I was 3 months old and picked me up again when she died and I was 9. I would occasionally go ‘home’ at the weekend but more often than not I didn’t. So I get told something about my childhood that has nothing to do with me or just is a flat out lie, and I just get told I’ve forgotten.

Mum has now started making up stories about when our DD was little. Apparently she did all the morning school runs for me while I worked. For starters they lived 100 miles away when DD started school, then when they moved closer they were 50 mins away and working full time. Neither of them have ever done a school run, it’s just bizarre. I’m starting to think it’s either a cognitive decline thing, or they just believe their own lies? I honestly don’t know.

This really resonates with me . My father was very abusive to my mum and I remember how broken she was when he left her virtually destitute . He refused to divorce her for 10 years it was so controlling. She worked so hard to pick us back up ,sometimes I didn't think she was going to survive it .She messed up being a mum quite a few times but I refused to give up on her because my dad broke her this wasn't who she truly was. My dad hated that I was so protective of her . He died over 20 years ago but when my mum bought herself something nice she would always say " your dad would never have let me have this" I told her he's dead and gone you don't need his permission . My mum was so pleased that I had such a caring husband .My mum died around 2 years ago and I wish that she could have had more happiness I still find it hard that just one person can cause so much harm as my dad did. It's so lovely that your mum found happiness 💐

I’ve just come back to this thread because it happened today and it’s left me stunned and I just need to vent.

So my DM was emotionally abused and sometimes physically hurt by her mum. Their bond was really challenged at the start and my Grandma (her mum) described being happy and excited at being evacuated and sent somewhere she didn’t know away from her parents in the war. So you can see where it came from from the difficult attachment relationships.

My DM had two girls. Me and my younger sister.

We grew up with scary lost tempers from them both. Our dad was an alcoholic and physically aggressive to me and DM (not sure about DS). My DM was so caught up with her own stuff she was very unpredictable and could be scary.

In adulthood she has marred every single significant life event with her own neurosis (the most recent of which was shouting at me (inbetween registering my dads death and organising the funeral) for saying I might invite mutual friends of theirs that she had ghosted because they wronged her in some way. No words of comfort or checking in with me about how I was doing and the only thing she said to me before the funeral was to check if she looked alright). You get the idea.

So my DSis and me have had different life paths. I studied, worked hard, worked on myself and waited to have DC until I felt I could do it better with someone more stable than my dad. She pretty much repeated our childhood for her daughters, and at one point I told her she needed to change it or I was contacting Social Services. They wouldn’t have done anything as it was emotional stuff more than physical which is harder to evidence. But it did the trick and things improved for a while but she still ruined her youngest 16 and 17 birthdays by getting angry and shouting and making her cry.

My Oldest niece is now NC with DSis whilst she goes through therapy. Good for her. Fully support her with this.

I asked my mum if she thought my sister would be willing to work on things to improve the relationship. She said yes but DNiece is not wanting that. I said well I think she needs an apology. A bit like you needed from your mum may be, as it’s similar’ (my mum had tried to talk about her abuse to her DM and was shunned by her family so I thought she’d be sympathetic to oldest niece).

Well this did not go down well. She got cross and said that DN ‘wasn’t rejected’ like she was!!

No insight that she wasn’t a great parent or that my DSis wasn’t. I’m not perfect of course but neither of them did any work on themselves and neither of them are willing to admit they messed up.

It’s like she is the most ‘victimiest’ victim and noone else had it as bad as her so we should all shut up and put up.

And the worst of it is I moved away to be LC and then got lulled into thinking that her processing her own issues meant change and so I encouraged her to move close by so I could take care of her (I know!!! Idiotic!) and now I can’t be LC. 😞

I get a headache every time I see her because I am having to watch what I say.

Sorry to rant. I’m not expecting responses but it helps to get it out!