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

It sounds as though you need to work through this in therapy. Having had similar it is helpful to understand not only why it has affected you and how to stop it affecting you as much moving forwards. Often there is a pattern of abuse as others have said and isolating one instance as causal is unlikely but clearly you are wanting to unpick your feelings around her. Maybe ask your GP for some psychotherapy?

Im Sorry this happened to you. I had similar things happen in my childhood, my parents weren’t particularly happy together yet for some reason stayed together and my mother definitely confided in me more than she should have, I was like her therapist at times and it gave me a lot of anxiety. I never wanted friends round because I was embarrassed if my parents started arguing and shouting at each other, I remember begging them to please stop when a friend was in and it really affected me. Despite this I’m very close to my mum and now as an adult myself I realise parents aren’t gods and they aren’t perfect. They had their faults but they were good parents and still are. I try to look at the bigger picture and not just snipits of time.

So sorry to hear this op

I emphasise. I am no longer in contact with mine due to unresolved childhood issues and cruelty

I'm sorry OP and I understand.
When I was 8/9 I first heard my parents have a massive argument about my dads affair with his work colleague/squash partner. They stayed together, but my mum wouldn't let it go and would constantly do things like write on the family calendar "squash with affair partner" in a heart (sarcasm obviously) and ruin days out and occasions with bitter comments. Once my dad bought home fish and chips and I remember her smashing her portion with her fist. It's always stuck with me and I feel, like you, my childhood from then on was totally changed. I obviously feel sympathy for my mum and blame my dad for his affair, but I honestly wish they'd have just split rather than feeling like I was living on edge all the time waiting for the arguments and nasty comments. It used to make me physically sick and I swear it changed my personality completely. Obviously, people suffer worse. It was still shit though.

I can really identify with that idea of childhood ending at about that age, not in the sense of like some childhood idyll being shattered forever in one moment, but more like coming to an age where I could conceive of the idea that there might be something wrong in my mum that she behaved that way, and it wasn't just a matter of me being naughts and getting into trouble - that other kids were not punished in the same way for the same things - and also having reached a point in childhood where you start to have more control over your own action, so taking those two new skills together I could avoid winding her up, and life became a lot calmer. Before that age I thought we were normal, I thought we were a loving family, I kept going back and going back to my mother expecting her to behave with love and kindness and blaming myself for my bad behaviour when she didn't. I think the point where I stopped believing that, at about 9 or 10, you could call that the end of childhood in a way. Does that sound familiar at all OP?

Yes it definitely sounds familiar.

i thought my mum getting drunk, beating me across the face at age 4 was normal. The way my childhood changed is my emotions became more ‘flat’ iyswim and I lost interest in typical things you’d expect a 10 year old girl to be interested in such as parties, being liked by her peers etc. after this, I couldn’t care less about any of this !

i dont think so
obviously you think so

i am sorry she was an alcoholic

alcoholics talk rubbish, remember that - she wouldnt have meant it