To be furious about this?

[Overlenders]

When I was 11 my parents forced a friendship with a 10 year old girl from my neighbourhood - 2 streets away.

This is how it happened - we went to the same church as this girl’s cousins and aunt/uncle who lived about a mile away - think neighbouring area of a provincial city.

one day I and my parents went up to the aunt / uncles / cousins house and I played outside - with cousins and this girl and her brother - we were all the same age - well within 2 years of each other.

my parents were indoors with the other 2 sets of parents. That meeting itself wasn’t bad but I thought that it was just a get together for all of us - I didn’t realise it was a specific thing to get my and the girl together.

about a month later the girl - Anna - turned up at my house asking me to go other cinema. I’ve always hated watching films as I have a short attention span unless it’s a comedy and I didn’t want to go. My grandparents were staying with us and said “that’s nice she’s asked” etc. so I only said yes to the cinema trip cos j was afraid of being criticised if I said no.

the cinema was shit tbh I find films boring. Did age 11 - do now unless it’s comedy.

anyway - a few weeks later 11 year old me was at home with my parents and said m

“I want to do x today” - I can’t for the life of me remember what x was. I can’t really hazard a guess even.

my mum said “no you’re seeing Anna Taylor today”

and thus they forced a friendship between me and this girl that lasted til the end of secondary school.

AIBU to feel angry about this? Growing independence imo is important at 11 and this was being stifled be forcing me with this girl

also though my secondary school years my mum used to guilt me into socialising with Anna saying Anna’s mum had been complaining I wasn’t making an effort with her etc.

AIBU to feel violated? Someone was let into my life that I didn’t even want or need.

Anna fyi was a doctor’s daughter who was very very snobby. Her Mum was sahm.

i was only child of 2 working parents but mum was alcoholic abusive - I’ve literally had to deal with my mums aggressive moods aged 10 - so after mopping up my mum’s shit I found Anna very ‘precious’

AIBU to feel angry that part of my childhood freedom was taken away ?

I feel a friendship was forced on me with no context for it

That actually makes sense. Your parents are not around for you to have these conversations with and so here you are ruminating over things that you cannot resolve with them.

has there been a situation with your children that has triggered these issues? How old are they?

Do you not considered that she may feel that she was being controlled and manipulated? And the person they tried to force on her was also being abusive to her from the sounds of it.

That is a relentless environment to be in. She is just trying to understand and find answers her parents clearly have not/cannot provide.

You are looking at this with an adult mind, she was a child trying to navigate her way through a traumatic upbringing.

She’s an adult now. She needs to get a grip.

Around the time my mum pushed me with this girl I can remember her saying distinctly out of the blue random no context for it .- and she avoided eye contact with me -

“you can’t live in an adults’ world - because adults push adults around and children push children around” - so maybe that was her motivation for getting me together with this girl …

but thing is .. I wasn’t living in an adults’ world. Living in an adults world is a child who’s left school, works and contributes to family bills and / or family upkeep . I did none of those things.

So sorry to hear this ❤️

And you need to have some compassion and not all of us were brought up in a picture perfect world. As a child, the way you are treated can have long lasting affects on your psyche and its not always easy to unravel it without a lot of pain.

If you are not interested in trying to help...then go look at some other persons post...this is what Mumsnet is all about, somewhere to let off steam and share experiences.

I am trying to help. Sometimes, indulging people in their navel gazing is counterproductive.

This isn’t a case of abuse. She is unhappy about the way she was ‘forced’ to be friends with someone she didn’t like very much (and who didn’t like her).
If you can’t get over stuff like this, 50 years on, you either aren’t trying, or you have sunk into a state of utter self-obsession/indulgence.

Does she even realise that others have REAL problems? Is there no perspective?

You may feel YOU are helping, with your compassion and understanding.
I say you’re enabling a load of old nonsense.

OP, I don’t know if you want to be getting the hard time you are receiving on this thread. Is this a deliberate attempt to replicate the sort of responses you would have received from your abusive, gaslighting parents? Once again, I recommend you move this thread to Relationships and/or join the Stately Homes thread. Vent in a place where people might understand where you are coming from, otherwise you are just hurting yourself and wasting your time.

The other thing about my mum forcing me into a friendship that had a bad effect on me - this actually wasn’t the only friendship she forced. She did this even more directly once on holiday, possibly because on holiday I was a captive audience, and called me selfish for not, in her opinion, being genuinely sociable enough

The unfortunate effect of this was I was brought up, essentially, to see friendships as a thing of obligation. Because of this - aged about 14 - I myself used to ask other kids out repeatedly and phone them repeatedly despite being told “no” 4 times! The psychology behind this was my mum had brought me up to feel that friendships were a thing of obligation rather than actively wanting a friendship iyswim.

There was one girl Claire if I phoned 4 times and my mum said

“Don’t phone her - not if you’ve had 3 refusals!” - so I thought because I was obligated by my mum to do friendships then so was everyone else!

Forcing friendships and using words like ‘selfish’ for perceived lack of sociability is damaging - it really is

The other thing was I was a fat 15 year old who was over eating out of insecurity.
me and my mum were talking about this one day on one of my mum’s rare sober moments and I revealed how I felt down about being fat and was overeating. My mum responded

“I think it’s boredom - you could’ve had a ‘good go’ with Anna Taylor round the park!” We lived near a park and ‘good go’ was her weird way of saying ‘walk’

That statement had the effect of making me feel even more down than I already felt. I thought to myself that my mother didn’t know me at all, in that case, if she thought I liked spending time with Anna Taylor.

The other thing is, aged 13, I’d lost a lot of weight if gone from a fat kid to a normal weight kid. During the time I was losing weight I hardly socialised with anyone - and I was happy like that. I was more popular in my school class after losing weight despite not socialising outside school. I was also more independent and confident. But by aged 15 I’d put the weight back on, lost my school friendship groups and become insecure.

so in essence o disagreed with my mum that I was overeating out of ‘boredom’ more insecurity- 2 different things

Op go touch some grass and grow up. You are a middle aged mother now why does any of this matter anymore? Sounds like you don’t have much going on in your current life and are latching on to this relic from your distant past. You aren’t severely damaged by having a contrived childhood friend fgs. If this is the biggest problem in your life consider yourself very fortunate.

No we aren’t still friends

For all the people that have said that I could be related to her - she could be a product of an extra marital affair - well, of course I’m open minded enough to the fact that it’s always possible, anything’s possible, but in this case I’m 99.9% sure this isn’t the case here. For a start she was born in a completely different part of the country from where we were living at the time - she only came to live in my area later. Added to this is the fact that given the personalities involved iI don’t think it’s the case .

But of course - always a possibility - however unlikely

Oh dear lord, the OP is a mother???

I think your update explains the problem - you didn't have other friends outside school so your mum was trying to help you make friends.

I think your energy would be better spent reflecting why you struggled so much to make friends at school that were willing to hang out with you. I had a similar problem and only realised I am ND when my children were diagnosed.

How old are your children. Do they also struggle with friendships? How do you get on with friendships these days? ND issues are highly genetic so perhaps this is also something your mum struggled with - there is, for example, a strong link between ADHD and addictions.

I did have friends in school though!!

my kids are 26 and 27

What’s your relationship like with your children Op?

Sorry just to provide more context - although I’d didn’t like school I did have friends there and when my mum pushed Anna on me I was staring to enjoy independent time with them - down the park etc

so from your mums side from the examples you were up at 4am to write:

She took you on holiday, but you refused to come out of the hotel room, she didn’t want to leave you there alone, so you all were stuck in the hotel. She’s right, that is selfish.

she correctly tried to help you by saying you don’t call someone 4 times when they’ve rejected you, but that is also her fault.

suggesting a walk is a good idea to a child who doesn’t exercise.

it sounds like your mum walked on absolute eggs shells around you, it seems you behaved fairly badly, and woe betide she called you out on it by accurately describing your behaviour.

You said you had friends in school but didn't see them out of school.

Why is your relationship like with your children?

I wasn’t in the hotel room both me and my mum were round the swimming pool

Yes true

Sorry to be confusing

I saw them out of school at 11 but not at 13

Ok so do you blame Anna for your friendships with the other children reducing? If so is that because you spent so much time with her you didn't have time for other friends? Every day?

How have you got on with friendships since stopping seeing Anna?

No I don’t blame Anna for other friendships reducing but I do blame her for me having less time to read and watch TV!!