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?

What age is your mum? Or age range?

I remember a "thing" when I was younger that may tie in with this and I am early 50's

My first thought was it sounds like the sort of markings you get during a plastic surgery consultation.

Maybe some trauma surrounding her self image and the tattoos are her way of coping with it - similar to the semi colon tattoos some people with depression get.

I have an incredibly vivid memory from my parents’ wedding day when I was about three of being chased by a swan. I can, 33 years later, describe to you the garden I ran through and my mum coming after me and shooing it away and grabbing me by the wrist. It’s my biggest memory of that whole day, everything else is quite fuzzy. I would tell her this story and she’d say it’s never happened and I didn’t believe her for years because I KNEW that swan chased me.

My parents got married before I was born. Absolutely none of it was true but it’s still in my head as a memory.

My first thought was markings for surgery. Or some kind of cult.

How strange and confusing for you, OP

Can you draw them and share them here? May offer some insight.

Or a psychotic/delirious event, occurring 'naturally' (not induced) and these marks still mean something to her

This is quite a sensible possibility, which I hadn't considered.

I'm curious about @PyongyangKipperbang's "thing"!

I do agree childhood memories can get distorted. I'm not sure a seven-year-old would mistake a dream/fantasy for reality, to the point where they constructed memories of asking for conformation and being given a dismissive explanation. I have very few memories, though, and have blanked out nearly all the trauma so can't speak from experience.

Yes, exactly. I also have a vivid memory from early childhood, a rather more horrible one, of the woman next door losing a baby to cot death, and running in screaming for my mum. I remember her nylon housecoat, the fact that she was barefoot, what the baby was wrapped in, that my mother was peeling potatoes at the sink. Only this all happened before I was born, too! A friend of mine also ‘remembers’ a cousin choking to death on an orange segment at a birthday party in his house, even though he was out at a sports practice the entire time.

OP I’m not trying to just go against the grain but you were a child. Children misunderstand things/make things up all the time. You may have just convinced yourself of all of this and I don’t really get why everyone is so sure your young child’s memory is absolutely definitely what happened.

I believe you OP.

Me too. The false memories people are writing about are a bit different. The Swan thing could have been a one off dream and the cot death and choking child actually happened and the person was told about it and created a memory. OP's story is an ongoing thing where the OP remembers her mum saying it was just drawings on different occasions. Then later denying it. Then getting tattoos like it.

@user1473878824 because it's so strange. The other examples from PPs are 'memories' of things that really happened and were described to them, or a very young child's construction of an event that's often talked about - being chased by a swan - and occurs in stories.

I don't think I've led a particularly sheltered life. I watched my mum cover up black eyes and throttle marks (in reality). I've never heard about a woman frantically scrubbing lines & arrows off her body before today. If this was a scene in an old TV drama or something, I'll be corrected.

I believe you too.

When I was growing up, I would often see my mum in the garden, her lips moving, talking to someone. When I’d ask her, she’d either say she wasn’t (but I saw her,) or she was talking to the cat (but the cat was nowhere insight.) It wasn’t nice that she couldn’t just tell me the truth.. ‘ I talk to myself, I talk to such and such who passed away’ whatever.

She stayed at my house in December. I passed her door and I heard her talking whispering, on and on. I couldn’t hear what she was saying and listened for a while and just went to bed. I’ve also had her deny saying things or that things happened.

I think I would, as someone else suggested, say this has disturbed and bothered me for years. Please can you briefly just explain what it was? Also what is the symbolism of your tattooes? Hopefully she can just answer 🙏

Maybe gently start a conversation about the value of therapy in dealing with trauma even when it happened many years ago.

It might well be that she has been doing therapy, since she now has a little tattoo reminiscent of what you saw. It might be possible to steer her into discussion of joint therapy.

I'd like to gently suggest therapy for you too.

Was your mother ever a member of any obscure religious groups? What is her religious/ ethnic background? Don't answer if too outing.

You could also seek a hypnotherapist and see if you could 'go back' to that day in some way.

There was an episode of Cracker? I think where they abducted a girl and dress all over her. Very similar to this description

drew

The Big Crunch, S2, Ep 4+5.

Oh, interesting, @Kittylickingplate. 1994 and it does look scary!
Would you have been seven in 1994, @dontsaystuff?

Exactly - it should be all about the OP. Let DM keep her trauma private

Agreed

Way to miss the point....🙄😒

Have you spoke to her as an adult about this? Or only as a child? I can understand that she might have denied it back them as maybe it's to do with something not age appropriate for a child, but if you approach the conversation now you might get a different response? I agree with @MummyJ36 's response and think it's worth a try especially in light of the tattoos.

I'd just completely omit what I saw when I was a child, and just ask about the tattoo conversationally. She's either going to talk about it or she's not.

Your memories and feelings around them are valid. But you'll likely get more answers if you don't bring that period of time up, and just let things unfold naturally, in the present, rather than potentially forcing the past on her

I just think of mental health problems, does that sound plausable? Could she have just done them herself during a mental health episode?

Either way I think it's bad she tried to make out it was a dream.

Was there another adult in the house when she came home, who was looking after you?
do they remember?can you remember how long she was out?