To think this ended my childhood aged 10?

[DavidStent]

We were on holiday in Greece when I was 10 and knew day after a normal day at the pool I went up to out hotel room with a towel round me and my mother was in bed and started shouting at me, very drunk and aggressive

She shouted

“you’re the only reason I’m still with your father!!”

I then cried through shock and she said “if you want to cry go out to the balcony!” So I went to the balcony.

i used to love playing on the Pac Man machine and my mum used to give me change - this time she gave me a shed load of change to go down and play - but even though I loved the game before - it had now lost its appeal.

me and my dad then went down to dinner where I was quiet and traumatised

We the went back to the room and sat in silence.

My mum when turned to me and said “do you want to go out for a walk with me?” I said “yes”.

when we were on the walk she said to me “you WOULD make ME come on this walk and not your father, wouldn’t you?”

We then went back to the room but me and my mum later that evening went out with a family we’d met on holiday to watch a show in a local taverna type place. My Dad stayed in the hotel.

Next morning my parents were holding hands and my mum turned to me and said :

”you see me and your father can’t split up otherwise we wouldn’t be allowed to carry on going to St Joseph’s” (St Joseph’s is the church we went to)

My mum never once said she was sorry for behaving the way she did that night - we were all just meant to carry on as normal as if nothing had happened!

After this, I lost interest in the type of things 10 year old girls are typically in to - like birthday parties, for instance. I never had another birthday party after this - when one of my friends asked me why I didn’t have a party I just said “my mother works” - but it wasn’t because of that - my mum’s always worked and I’ve had parties before - it was just because of this incident - I’d lost my mojo!

Thing is - by this time I didn’t care if not having parties made me less popular with my peers - I didn’t care much about anything by this time ! I also hated other girls’ parties - I just thought I had nothing in common with girls in my class!

AIBU to think that my childhood effectively ended because of this incident aged 10? I was never quite the same afterwards. Just for context I wasn’t even in my last year of primary school

Sorry this happened to you - and yes I do have positive things :)

Oh op how sad, yes 10 years old ' how do children progress that'
I had similar childhood, became very resilient and independent of them but when I had my own children it hit me like a brick wall, the whys,the why me, was I bad child, well obviously I wasn't but trying to progress it was so difficult, when you look through your children's eyes and know your childhood was wrong, hope you heal, hugs

Yes, but not on AIBU! @DavidStent, try the Stately Homes thread in relationships, and maybe consider getting some therapy.

Its never useful saying 'if this is the worst thing that ever happened' because this was her life and she was a child, what happens to other children has no bearing!

My mother beat me so hard with a broom it snapped in half, I was only 6 years old and had to pretend I fell off my bike as the reason I was walking so slowly and covered in bruises, I was in Year 1. I used to pray each night I die in my sleep, BUT compared to children that were sexually and physically abused daily, it wasn't that all bad , my beatings happened maybe once a month and I was never touched sexually. This didn't really help when I was child, though

Oh gosh sorry to hear this.

there was never any sexual abuse with me.

in my entire childhood I had 3 beatings. I’m not here including a snack for a misdemeanour. I mean when my mum took it on herself to decide to ‘lay into me’ and hit me round head, face etc.

When these beatings happened I was aged 4, 15 and 17

I read a lot of entitled critiques on here of people who felt their parenting wasn’t up to scratch but the way you were treated sounds awful and can understand why you would of been so terribly hurt by it :( Its definitely not something many parents would have said to their children even years ago, just out of love for them and that it’s a clearly hurtful thing to say. However there is completely different culture around parenting now, we are expected to put our children first and not blame them for things beyond their control or societal inequalities, (indeed even in the past this was the predominant prevailing belief but not so entrenched as it is now) there is now much more awareness among everyone including parents about what constitutes emotional abuse and that it is wrong to treat children like that. It’s not even just the societal pressure to not say those kind of things to children, the narratives around now and resources for reflection we have to draw up mean that it’s unlikely most parents would even in their mind blame their children like this.

@DavidStent

I completely understand. My entire childhood is your OP! Such episodes were incredibly frequent. Only difference is both my parents have always been sober, never drank, no substances either, nothing. Just them and their emotional immaturity! 🤣
Glad you're doing better now. I would suggest getting some therapy to unpack it all.

You’ve given a different picture now.

This wasn’t one event. Children should never, ever be beaten.

You’ve childhood trauma, a recognised condition and you would feel better getting therapy for it.

Oh {mention:DavidStent}@DavidStent

Oh OP I'm so very sorry to read that there was physical abuse as well 😞 in my case there was none of that, but the emotional neglect alone cuts deep. I hope you are doing well now. Sending hugs x

Op was she always awful or was this a one off.

People can exhibit this behavior when drunk but be extremely loving when sober and the child starts to learn this so it's not personal

Ie is there anything else to hold onto here.

Sorry op I've just seen the latest post.

No it definitely wasn’t one off she could be nasty when sober

She sounded obviously very unhappy. Also an interesting reference to the church.

Our society is so much freerer now but only a few decades ago divorce and all that stuff was very much frowned on

Yes - this was 1983.

My mother was 51 then - similar age to me now - and she had both parents still alive and living independently.

She was very much a ‘Daddy’s Girl’ iyswim she wanted to go to church to please mummy and Daddy!! Nauseating !

I don't think this ended your childhood. My mum always used to stay she stayed with my dad for the kids - as an 8 year old I used to reply "well I don't want you to stay, I'll help you leave if you want". She said it very regularly!

Tbh it never really bothered me - certainly never "ended my childhood". I think you're being quite sensitive over a single comment

Sorry you experienced this ❤️ and that’s also what I put it down to - parental immaturity

I think you’ll find that there is a new branch of thought, that believes that repeatedly reliving trauma, is not doing people any good.

They constantly relive their upset, it can never be resolved, and all it does is keep a certain type of therapist in work, and ruin peoples lives.

Oh, OP. That's horrible.

I'm so sorry.

Interesting. Yes, I've read about this too.

My personal experience has been that 'reliving' and talking about a particular part of a traumatic event helped stop my visceral response to the very distressing and intrusive memories of it.

However, when it came to the traumatic event as a whole, it was definitely more helpful to look forward rather than back and find ways not to dwell on it or let it define me.

I guess skilled therapists should recognise when different approaches are appropriate, but they're not always that easy to find .

Your mum shouldn't have acted that way. However, if they were the only incidents I would cut her some slack. I don't remember many birthday parties between 10 and 16 that may have just been you naturally growing out of it

Can you tell me some of the experts on this new branch of thought, I'll look into it.

Repeatedly reliving it is different from talking about it and processing it.

And what do you mean by it can never be resolved ?

Do you have experience of trauma?

That’s shit OP, but no I don’t think it means a childhood ending. Parents fuck up sometimes, and no matter what our upbringing we will ALL fuck up at least once in a big way. It doesn’t have to define our parenting though.

However I had a mum who never said sorry and it used to annoy me, so I always apologise to my kids if I’m in the wrong.

Gently, I don't think this did end your childhood at the age of 10, no.

My father was an alcoholic who said some hurtful and not dissimilar things to me when I was a child. I wouldn't say that my adult life hasn't been affected by this (and the drinking/ accidents/ arguments), but in other ways I had a great childhood. My mum was great. I also have some very fond memories of my father. And alcoholism is a long messy disease -- your mum wouldn't have just started being 'off' one day.

To me it sounds as if you're pinning a great deal of unhappiness past and present on this one incident. Honestly, I would try to stop focussing on this particular incident and see it more in the round, with the aim of being as happy, sane and wise as possible in the present.