Mums strange lie

[dontsaystuff]

One day when I was about 7/8 I remember my mum coming home visibly upset and rushing to the bathroom. I followed her to find her undressed, in tears and scrubbing at her skin. She was covered in arrows, dots and lines almost like surgical markings but on every inch of her skin.

She shut the door, I asked her about it often for the next couple of weeks she said that it was ‘just drawings’ and that she was fine. I could tell she continued to be upset by it and honestly feel like she changed since then.

I asked about it again a couple of years later and she completely denied it even happening, said it must have been a dream. The couple of other times I’ve asked about it she’s stuck to that story. I’d convinced myself that it might have been but it feels like it was such a clear l memory from my childhood, not just seeing her but the conversations we had after. I was very scared, confused and upset by it, still am.

Last year she got an upwards arrow tattooed on her wrist, she looked upset/guilty when I saw it. I’ve just seen a photo of her that shows a series of dashed lines tattooed on her other arm.

It’s driving me crazy, I can’t stop thinking about what could have happened, why she would get the tattoos and seeing her covered in the markings.

I understand that something upsetting obviously happened to her and why she wouldn’t want to tell me but
AIBU in thinking that it’s not fair to say I made it up especially when she’s gotten these tattoos?

My memory is of a magician putting himself in one of those boxes they use.. you can see the head at one end, feet at the other. I remember this happening and the magician was putting swords through the box.. it went wrong... blood everywhere, Cilla Black hysterically screaming. None of this happened (Not that I can find reference to anywhere) yet I clearly remember eating a chicken sandwich in my pyjamas and watching it on tv. I would have been around six years old so around 1987. Maybe I saw something on Suprise Suprise and mixed that with the Tommy Copper memory.

what garbled paranoic ramblings! Essentially at the heart this is op seeking a disclosure to satisfy curiosity about what she thinks she remembers. Except she cannnot expect a disclosure from her mum. Her mum is entitled to her privacy regards this event. . Lies? Unaccountability? It is unclear what happened and there is no compulsion upon her mum to reveal . If that makes @dontsaystuff feel she’s being misled or not included then she needs to deal with her own disappointment. As I said parents are entitled to privacy and don’t have to reveal all their experiences to their children upon asking.

So angry.

Global why about life?or a specific why?

It's possibly but not sure it makes sense, there were hundreds of tiny markings covering her whole body, ankle to wrists to neck

About 20 years ago in London (and probably other cities) it was extremely common for photo studios and model "scouts" to hand out cards on the street. They would find women and flatter them into getting a free or discounted photo shoots. The trick of course was that they would have to pay significantly more for extra prints or digital copies of the photos. Some studios were reputable in the sense they were just a business and made money doing those vanity photoshoots all day long. However it's fairly likely that dodgier people used the same trick to lure girls into weird modelling sessions or art projects.

Based on the description, the markings sound almost like an artistic choice, maybe someone trying to replicate a Keith Haring style pattern all over the body. If drawn with pen, they would be easy to remove the next day. Could be possible she was lured into a false photoshoot and it ended up being more nude than planned or it felt invasive to have all those marks on her. Or they promised to pay her and then refused.

Life isn’t a show and tell. I have had experiences that are solely mine(good &bad) that I won’t disclose to anyone . I’m not an emotional vending machine I don’t dispense disclosures on demand. Irrespective of who is asking

Absolutely agree.

Millions of people go through traum they'd rather to take to the grave.

I've had counselling for some things and there are others I'm not ready to talk about yet.
One includes someone close to me who might remember the incident or not.
If they asked about it, I'd probably deny it unless I was ready.

Not because of gaslighting them, but because I know, once that can is opened, the aftermath won't be pretty. My mental health comes first.

I might bring it up one day, but that's for me to decide.

OP wasn't told a lie initially, that only happenafter after she kept asking.

The saying let sleeping dogs lie .... comes to mind.

If it wasn't a big deal, she'd have told you by now.
Your DM maybe trying to keep it together and going there might set her back, why take that risk?

Get therapy for it OP if you need closure and let your DM deal with her issues her own way.

Being there for her is respecting her wishes.

Yeah, it's ok to gaslit your children, they can always get therapy 🙄

I think you’re mixing things up.
Im not saying the mum should explain what happened to her re the markings.

Im saying she should tell the OP that the OP seeing her crying in the bathroom with markings all over happened.

There is no disclosure because the OP was there! She was part of it!

I’m not mixed up.essentially op wants a confirmation and/or explanation about her memory of her mums unknown event. That amounts to disclosure, as op is seeking confirmation that her recall is accurate , this is still seeking an affirmative response from mum that there were body markings and the daughter saw them. What if the mum doesn’t want to go there,at all?What if the mum Doesn’t want to acknowledge, wants it to remain a closed event that isn’t discussed.

How is saying Yes to ‘I have a memory as a child of you being very upset with arrows drawn over your body. Did it happen?’ an explanation or a disclosure?

The fact the mum feels it’s a hard memory or feels guilty her dd saw it or whatever doesn’t change the fact it was traumatic for the OP too. And that it is ALSO part of her memories and her past.

The impact on the mum isn’t more important than the impact on the OP. One person and their needs isn’t more important than the other.
But what the mum can’t do is to keep it ‘undisclosed’ because it already is disclosed.
Not wanting to talk about it ok. The mum just needs to say ‘it’s not something I want to talk about’. That’s it. Lying isn’t simply not necessary (and wasn’t in the past either)

The op probably needs to except that she needs to drop it. If ops mum regularly did things and denied them and made her daughter feel like she was going mad then fine.. that clearly isn't okay. But this is a one time thing that the mum could have good reasons for keeping private. She is entitled to privacy, being a parent doesn't mean she has to lose that right.

And to suggest.. Op would need therapy over her mum not telling her about what happened is abit much.
The mum tried at the time to get op to leave it alone.. the only reason she has to continue denying it is because op isn't taking the hint... Her mum doesn't want to tell her. That should have been a good enough explanation.

I think having a traumatised mother who keeps a strange secret and then denies her daughter’s reality and refuses to be truthful might be a great reason for that daughter to need therapy, yes.

But that's not what's happened here..
A traumatised mother who keeps strange secrets or .....
A mother who obviously had a traumatic or upsetting incident that resulted in her child seeing her crying in the shower with drawings in her body.
I have given my theory (as someone who has been through similar)
The drawings sound very similar to those used by police hospitals to point/circle injuries to be photographed as evidence. The op doesn't recall her mum being injured but she was seven years old, memories are rarely 100% accurate. Also I didn't mention this earlier to op but she's confused by the amount of drawings.. when they did mine they (police hospital) document everything.. moles, old scars, everything. At least they did with me.
The only reason op has been continuously "lied" too by her mother is because she keeps asking even though her mum has made it really clear she doesn't want to talk about it.
If op had accepted that her mum doesn't want to acknowledge it then her mum would never have had to lie.
As I explained to op earlier, my son overheard me talking about my experience, I outright denied the conversation happened, not because I'm an evil gaslighting mother who wants my son in therapy one day. It's to me (and maybe I'm wrong) he is better off not hearing my story.
Ops mum has clearly been through something, that something is her trauma to deal with. It's just unfortunate her seven year old child walked in on the aftermath, but op isn't seven anymore, she's an adult who needs to tell her self that her mum has a right to privacy.

@PaperAeroplane so you're saying OP should be the 'adult' there, so her mother doesn't ever have to be?

You seriously asking,how? Because direct question asking mum about what op thinks she recalls is potentially provocative and upsetting . It’sa question seeking a disclosure to reassure op that she remembers correctly

Op: Hey Mum,I recall when I was 8yo that you came home with distinctive markings on your body and you were crying .
Mum: No,that didn’t happen…
Op:Yes, I recall,vividly…
Mum: No…

No one said any of what OP went through is OK.
We don't know what her DM went through as she hasn't shared it.
Bottom line is she has a right to not want to discuss it.
OP could have dropped it but has kept asking, hence the mum now denying it.

If you've been through trauma that you don't feel ready to talk about, why should someone else's want of validation come first?

OP is now a grown woman, not a child. It's not hard to understand that some things are best left unsaid.

Why the need to make people talk to satiate her curiosity.

Her mum has opted out of that memory, so if OP wants to keep at it, maybe therapy will help.

Her DM confirming it isn't a straightforward thing, it's possibly opening a can of worms she's not yet ready to deal with.

Her mum confirmed it before, OP knew it happened, knew her DM didn't want to talk about it, yet keeps asking.

That's what's not ok.

Yes, her mum isn't doing this on purpose. It's obviously something really upsetting that she may never be ready to talk about. That doesn't make her a terrible person!

I get the desire for closure/affirmation but you would have to be aware that there is a reason she didn't tell you and tried to brush it off. Supposing she does confess something awful that happened to her - you may feel much worse and guilty for pushing it - you can't unknow things

Do you think the OP is doing ‘bring upset and traumatised as a child’ on purpose instead?

Your idea that the mum can’t help it etc… is assuming that the mum is STILL. Hugely upset about it. And yet she has had tattoos with arrows done in her arms.
Having done that, one might assume she has worked through a lot of it rather than still being totally shut down about it.

Who are you to suggest the mum has gotten over it! That's a big IF and is no one's business but hers.

The tattoo could have been a nail in the coffin to that incident, to say she's conquered it but still not want to talk about it.

It could be nothing as bad as most of us think, but why poke!

Only she gets to decide when & if the time is right to revisit it.

Gosh, it's shocking how people underestimate trauma.

It seems to me that it’s you and @PaperAeroplane who are underestimating trauma. The OP’s trauma, which has been caused by her DM and which her DM is continuing to inflict by gaslighting her. If it had never been mentioned again then I could attribute it to the mother doing what felt best at the time but the tattoos add a whole other level to this, they’re triggering to the OP and retraumatising her when she sees them. If her DM is happy to acknowledge to the world that these marks have some meaning to her then it’s cruel to continue to lie to her daughter, IMO.

Yes! I watched this show on the television at the time, at a friend's house. We all thought at first that he was messing about and so did the live audience; I remember them laughing. It was so horrible.

Your opinion, an insulting one at that.

I literally said: No one said any of what OP went through is OK.

And: Get therapy for it OP if you need closure and let your DM deal with her issues her own way.

From OP: , I asked her about it often for the next couple of weeks she said that it was ‘just drawings’ and that she was fine. I could tell she continued to be upset by it and honestly feel like she changed since then.
I understand that something upsetting obviously happened to her and why she wouldn’t want to tell me.

She tried to put a lid on it, but OP keeps asking.

OP doesn't get to decide if or when her DM talks about it.