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

This is so offensive I don't know where to start.

Implying someone has to have an addiction or learning difficulty to be impacted by something in childhood.

Just because it's not a big deal to you doesn't mean it wasn't a big deal to OP. Who could be experiencing eg transference of feelings about this girl or her parents which means it's impacting her day to day life in the present.

Yes YABU to use words like 'violated' over being encouraged to make friends with a neighbourhood girl over 40 years ago. Seriously, get a grip.

@Overlenders YANBU and anyone who said otherwise is a numbskull. We all deal with issues differently, if this hurt you, it hurt you and noone has a right to tell you it didn't.
Childhood trauma needs healing. You should seek help if it is still hurting you now x

Furious?

Crickey. What a nice life you’ve had if that’s what makes you furious.

You sound about 18, not 53. Surely you can’t still be “furious” about this? Live your life. And as I always seem to find myself saying on these threads, please get a grip.

I think objectively that it wasn't a massive crime of your parents to bring you together with a girl that lived locally and encourage a friendship.

This really isnt an unusual situation. Being asked to play and be friends with the parents friends or colleagues children is a very common thing. Calling it a violation is a very extreme reaction. Did you have many friends? It's sounds like maybe your parents were trying to help with encouraging friendships. Your posts just make me feel a bit sorry for Anna Taylor tbh. Are your parents still alive so you can ask them why they wanted you to be friends?

I get where you are coming from, and childhood experiences can affect us as adults and more so in middle age, so I am probably in the minority when I can empathise with how you would feel violated with not having the autonomy to make choices of your own accord at that age. I wouldnt have foisted friendships on my own kids when they were younger as they made their own decisions regarding friends etc.

I also feel the family history with your own parents is valid so yes it's ok to feel resentment etc. I know since peri menopause I have had a few episodes of resentment towards things from my own childhood and parents, and what seems trivial to others is not trivial to you so embrace the anger just now and gently breathe it out and take care of you.

Oh my god you are NOT 53 and still fuming about my parents made me hang out with a friends daughter. Everyone’s parents made them hang out with friends kids and most of childhood is about hanging out with other children you didn’t choose- school, every sports team, band, after school care , adults friend get togethers, scouts, just about everything.

I imagine as an only child your parents were looking to make sure you weren't lonely. Did you have other friends or did you struggle to make friends?

I think framing this specific thing as being “violated”, combined with saying it was “nothing short of appalling” has diminished your credibility somewhat. It’s a very dramatic description of something many, many people experienced as a child. I know somebody who was bullied horrifically by the friend who was imposed on them for around a decade, and plenty of others who had to be friends with a kid they wouldn’t have chosen to spend time with if they’d had a choice.

From your description it seems you didn’t like Anna much, but she wasn’t ever unpleasant to you? The fact that she waved to you from a car at 15 actually sounds like she was being friendly towards you, and you were being unkind to her when you deliberately blanked her. There’s every chance this friendship was forced on her too but she was trying to make the best of it, while you were focused on making sure she knew how much you disliked her.

If you’re happy to answer this (I understand if you’re not) - in what ways was your mother abusive? Is this something you’ve had therapy for?

'feel violated'?

It appears that you have never experienced true hardship in your life.

Anna Taylor is not the problem here. Growing up with an abusive alcoholic mother is extremely damaging and I wonder whether you are deflecting this trauma onto your relationship with Anna.

Why dwell on the past? Instead of looking back and trying to upset yourself, why not think about the glorious happy future you have ahead of you starting from today. You are an adult now and you have your own volition and agency. Close that chapter and start a new one.

You could also try reframing the memory by asking yourself if your parents wanted you to experience 'Anna's life' because her parents were better educated, more stable, (wealthier?) and could open your eyes to things they felt they couldn't give you. Maybe your family, including your grandmother, felt that being friends with Anna was a step upwards. I can't imagine that they didn't want the best for you.

From the sounds of it about 13.

@Overlenders YABU.

This girl clearly needed a friend and it wouldnt have hurt for you to be kind and include her with your other friendship group(s) rather than making a big deal out of it.

Your mum was asking you to be kind.

You accuse your mum of bullying but your attitude towards this girl was no better.

In the nicest possible way, you need to move on.

Times were different then. You generally had to do what your parents said. You were friends with children because their parents were friends.

As others have said, if anything, you should be more bothered by your mother being an alcoholic.

You can’t change the past, just make your own future.

Is she your half sister? Dad having an affair?

Did you skip the part with the abusive alcoholic parent ? There is layers to what people experience in life so why judge. The op has every right to feel the way she does about experiences from her childhood which are interwoven with not having autonomy over her own choices. She was probably drained from living in that environment and having a friendship forced on her and now as an adult is unpicking childhood traumas and posting on here for support so try and have a little empathy.

I’m probably way off here but any chance she could be a half sibling from an extramarital affair, and that’s why it was pushed so hard?

If you think about it, any friendship anyone has is forced by circumstances - who you go to school with, who you meet at holiday clubs, who you meet at college, university etc, people at work, at ante-natal classes, at mother and child groups, at clubs. Also at those places you will be spending quite a lot of time with people you don't particularly like or actively dislike. Spending a relatively tiny portion of your childhood with one child is neither violating nor appalling.

Did you at any point ever say to your parents 'I don't want to be friends with Anna' or 'I don't like Anna'? Not waving at Anna, just gave the impression you were being rude, not that you disliked her! Yes, clearly the friendship with Anna was engineered by both sets of parents. However, why did your parents feel the need to do this? Did you struggle socially to make friends? If you just did things like not wave at Anna, rather than say how you really felt, then your parents couldn't have known how you truly felt about the friendship. Perhaps they thought you lacked social skills? She's someone you never maintained a friendship with after secondary school, and I guess haven't seen since. The only people who know why they engineered the friendship, is your parents. Have you asked them why? Have you told them since you became an adult that you didn't like Anna?

I think this is quite normal, both as kids and into adulthood.

There were some family friends and cousins I spent time with (though I wouldn’t have necessarily chosen to, and probably rolled my eyes at at the time) but it was maybe a few times a month and it would be weird for me not to wave at them even if I didn’t really value them as a friend.

In fact I can think of 4-5 names off the top of my head.

It has taught me skills in adulthood in how to deal with colleagues and clients and how to build relationships with people I wouldn’t choose as friends so I value it as a life skill my parents taught me. I’ve never even thought of these people since school until this post.

As others have said, I think you’re misplacing the anger towards your alcoholic abusive mother onto this relatively innocuous situation.

Its not offensive, its to the point - If the OPs life now is being impacted by something so trivial in the grand scheme of things back then, she has a mental health issue, end of - and the best port of call would be a MH professional, as quite likely it can be at least improved, and also her standard of life.

I was quite badly bullied by a group of kids at the same age, it only ever enters my mind if I'm talking about bullying, it doesn't in any way impact my life now. There is a real problem if something from childhood is having such an effect years later, and the OP needs to address that for her benefit.

Its ok to feel what you feel. Other think they wouldnt feel this way in your situation but they dont know your situation, the whole picture. If you had an alcoholic mother your childhood experience is obviously affected by then. And your adult life is too.
Can you get some councelling /therapy?