Your views on a child being given a bedroom with no window for 3.5 years - I was this child

[MarcL]

Hello All - Your opinion would be really appreciated.

I recently read a thread about a 16 year old boy wanting to move into a bedroom with no window but I wanted to hear other peoples opinions on my experience. When I was 5 I had my own window and bedroom in a 3 bedroom council house, my sister had been born and was 1 year old when my parents moved me out into my brothers room which we shared for 18 months to 2 years. Then when I turned 7 my dad put up a partition wall and I was given the room with no window. This room had its normal access and then a door into my brothers room whom had the window. When it was time for bed my brother would close his door and I would have to close the normal access door making it completely dark in my room with hardly any ventilation exception from under the doors. The sun came up in my brothers room and went down on my side of the wall in our house. I had a budgie that everyday I had to carry into my brothers room so it had light. This I endured for 3.5 years, the room was stuffy especially in the Summer. To wake up and not know if it is day time is a very tough thing to understand, I'd have to go to the hall to see if it was light. The room was big enough for my single bed and a small wardrobe but I never played in the room as it was too dark, so much so I don't remember what was at the bottom of my bed (if anything). I did have a bedroom light though. I started wetting the bed and had nightmares, had my brother knocking on the wall at night saying winding me up "You're in the dark, you're in the dark" and when I moaned to my parents about this he was merely told to stop saying it, to close his door and then the entrance door was closed too....still leaving me in the dark. After about 1 year I became different and started fighting other children at school, my school work standard fell, it was like I was at war with everyone and to go from a very caring loving child to a 'you're not going to get the better of me child' wasn't healthy. Moving forward I'm not sure what I'm trying to justify on here? I have spoken to my parents about the room as being a parent myself to 3 children I can't even believe that they did this. Their excuse is "Marc you argued with your brother aged Me 6 and him just under 2 years older than me age 8 say and left toys lying around so this was the best option? Also adding that if they could have afforded a window then they would have got one BUT they didn't instead my mum said she saved one of her pay packets for a whole year to take us to Majorca in 1986 (being when I was 9 and 2 years into having that windowless room). Today they still avoid any discussions about the room, I don't have a good relationship with them and we have never been close as they can't accept that they are wrong for keeping me in that room. I know its hard for anyone to understand unless they have been through anything like this but a few last things before I ask my question.

Nobody I think can understand the dark room situation but you've all had this when you were younger and that's your parents either get annoyed and shout "Go to your rooms and stay there" and "Right you can go to bed early for being naughty (so sent to a prison room - actually no as prison rooms have windows)" but you all had windows and fresh air, when you didn't it was hell!

I have always hated the winter nights, even as a 47 year old now, I can bare it but when I was 7 and it was getting dark early that dark would last for 15 hours a day e.g. 5pm-8am this is due to the dark room too.

I have had M.E (an illness which I really do budget right) since I was very young. If you read up on M.E it can be caused from ever suffering a very stressful, traumatic experience (the room was). I even spoke to 2 doctors at the same time and brought the above up and they confirmed that yes the room experience could definitely caused this.

Waking up feeling groggy and with headaches.

My mum always said that out of the 3 children that I was the most anxious child but I think she is that stupid that she cannot see that to keep a child in a windowless room at such a young age can create massive anxieties from a young age.

So my question is this as I need to try to bury the past is how do I go about getting over something that just makes me shake my head in disbelief over this, I could never do this to my children at such a young age.

Do you think my parents were right to do this as they could easily have asked my nan for a loan for a window to be put in but never did. They never got Building Reg's to convert the room as only a partition wall was put up by my dad?

Were they right to do this?

Lastly how can a parent/s put up a partition wall and see that side of the room becomes dark and then put their 7 year old child in it?

My mum recently in a heated phone call stated in a sarcastic way "Well I'm sorry if it messed you up when you were younger but that was what was best for you and your brother" which I find to be the most ignorant comment I have ever heard. I am not a negative person very positive and have a massive strong will to never quit 'Life is a fight, fight to live', I'm happily married to my wife and have 3 wonderful children, own my own conveyancing business and achieved many amazing things in my life even though M.E can knock you on you ass far more times than you'd ever believe. I never quit anything but this childhood room business niggles me no matter what. I think its a case of my parents cannot and will no accept responsibility for their stupid actions when I was so young.

Cheers for reading this and all comments welcome as this may make me realise they were right or confirm that they were wrong. Cheers Marc

I actually also contacted a friend who lives in my old house now and he has taken a photo and filmed the room and house. He stated that when the people moved in back in 1986 they knocked down the partition wall as that room was too dark. They also added a window where it should be and this is my wall paper on my mobile phone now as that's what I wished to see for the 3.5 years I was behind the wall.

Depends how much time you were in there and whether they listened to your feelings at the time. I think the experience of being the younger sibling who gets the smallest room, the middle seat, the camp bed, the extra stool at Xmas dinner etc is v common. I had to sleep squashed between my older sisters for a while (in the 1970s).
Also many teens are loathe to open their curtains or windows in any case.
But what matters really is how you felt then and how you feel now. Counselling prob worth looking into?

It sounds like your parents did their best. My bedroom was up a ladder in the loft - I also had no window. It was either that or share with my brother which I didn’t want.
Therapy may help. You can’t live your life fixating over a window you never had when you were 7.

Are you perhaps jealous of your brother for getting (what you believed) to be a better room?

Desecrated coconut what's harsh about it? Please explain.

You need therapy, I’m sorry you’re struggling but your parents’ attempt to give you a private sleep space and the resulting windowless room just isn’t the cause of all your problems. I was friends with a twin at school who had the internal bit of a partitioned room with her brother. She grew up to be a healthy and successful adult. We had a historic apartment in Chicago for a bit with no ceiling lights, only lamps and in DD’s room the only tiny window was within touching distance of the building next door so her room got almost no natural light and we kept the window permanently locked anyway as it wasn’t restricted plus we had central air; so may as well have been a windowless room. Pretty sure she’s fine…

It sounds like the room and lack of window have come to represent the problems in your family in your mind.

I had a similar situation- I was sent away to boarding school at 11 and my siblings weren't. We lived in a large house with enough bedrooms for all of us. While I was away, my family moved to a house which was too small for all of us, because my mother didn't like the neighbourhood. She didn't like the new one either, btw! I had to sleep in the cellar (next to my father's tool bench) when I was back for the holidays. The story about it does explain my position in my birth family quite well, but the cellar itself wasn't actually too horrible if you discount the spiders and the fire risk.

Talking to a therapist won't make it all okay, and it certainly won't make your parents see that it was traumatic for you. It might, however, give you a useful outlet and a space to work through it all and find a way forward.

I didn't realize boohoowoohoo was a poster, I thought you were doing mock crying 😂

This sounds like an extremely dramatic response to a very small issue. Sounds like your parents did the best job they were able to do with the resources they had. Both my parents shared beds with several siblings. Certainly not traumatised by that though my dad complained that his one brother used to wet the bed which was irritating. I expect you has it better than your parents so they cannot understand what the problem is. You need therapy to understand what's really going on as it can't be about a windowless bedroom.

Same!

Desecrated coconut sorry but you made me laugh!

I really think you are focussing on the wrong thing here. A room without a window would not have created all this. It's not ideal from a fire safety perspective but wouidn't have caused trauma. I suspect there are many other things going on with your family relationships here which you are incorrectly attributing to the windowless room.

You say yourself that the issue was mostly at night when it was dark (although I'm not sure why you wouldn't just get a lamp?) when it would have been dark outside anyway. And during the night you would have mostly been asleep anyway.

I can say quite categorically that my DS wouldn't have given two hoots about having to sleep in a windowless room! He wouldn't have even noticed. Not to say everyone is the same but I really don't think this alone is the cause of your trauma and ME. I suspect there are many other things going on in your childhood that need to be unraveled.

I hear you about the ME and you are right, as a fellow CFS sufferer, childhood trauma can be a trigger…however it does feel like you are fixating on the window issue itself. As your parents said, they were trying to give you the benefit of a room to yourself. There are plenty of people who live in very poor conditions as children that don’t go on to develop physical or mental health issues and I would encourage you to explore what other aspects of your childhood left you feeling unsafe and unsupported and triggered unhelpful coping strategies.

OP, it obviously DID impact you. You don't need external validation to confirm this. I hope you can find peace with it now that you've acknowledged the damage it caused you. 💐

On the face of it, this doesn't seem like such a big thing. It seems like your parents were trying to do their best to give everyone privacy in a small space with a tight budget.

However, recalling another post where most posters suggested the parent should be acknowledging how her (now adult) child felt, even though she didn't agree with it or even see the issue, perhaps this is more what needs to happen? You say you've tried this and your mother hasn't given you the response you wanted...I think you need to try to find a way to put this behind you. It's ok to see a possible connection between an event in childhood and how this then seeped into other areas of life; but you need to acknowledge that you're the grown up now. You're in control of your life and how you live it. You can't control your mother's actions or how she responds to your comments. Try to accept that it wasn't ideal, you've raised it, you're never going to get the response you want and move on.

I’m with @Highlyflavouredgravy on this.

Is it ideal? No. Would sharing a bedroom with your brother been better? Perhaps. Who knows? We’re parents doing our best.

I think I'd swap a windowless room for the genuinely horrible childhood I had.

You do seem quite fixated on a situation that doesn't particularly sound like abuse or neglect -- just some circumstances that weren't nice, which almost everyone has as a child.

Which leads me to wonder why you still haven't got over this? Maybe there are other issues around this that you'd rather not focus on... Whatever, you'd probably benefit from therapy to work through why this is still bothering you so much and why it's a stick you still want to beat your parents with (they must be getting on a bit).

That room sounds horrible but your parents can't redo the past and they obviously didn't think it was a problem at the time.

Flightorflounder - thank you. We were normal children but when we did argue we were sent to our rooms as punishment. I do feel a bit stupid typing so much but it also gets to see peoples own views on here example: didn't you have a lamp? or 'it's just a couple of years' 3.5 years and talking black blinds? How many children age 7, 8, 9, 10 say to their parents I just want blackout blinds and love the dark? I liked the comment from a person who was falling over their siblings and would have preferred their own space even if it is dark which is typically normal thing to think as I would go back and have to say I'd have preferred to have still kept our bunkbeds and shared. I think this site is a great site as its already pushing me to go and talk about it. Some basic things though we do take for granted but take them away and everyone realises how important some things are.

P.s. I would be more unhappy at my parents having me sleep in a room with a budgie, had they never heard of lung diseases related to being in close contact with birds!

In some countries it’s quite common for children to sleep in windowless rooms as it’s considered safer - DH is Indian and slept in one and is perfectly normal. I think you’re fixating on this, sorry.

I'm sorry that you've had some unpleasant responses on here. @MarcL. What you've described sounds awful for a child to go through.

Perhaps come over to this thread where people are discussing how some parenting can affect you well into adulthood:

September 2023 - well we took you to Stately Homes www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/4902615-september-2023-well-we-took-you-to-stately-homes

I think you've fixated on that being the cause of your anxiety and physical disease (which you have no way to prove or not) and now you can't get over it.

If you had a physical light in there- either a ceiling light or a lamp- then I don't think that it's a big deal. My little one is in the box room, which obviously does have a window, but it has a gro blind and black out curtains that only get opened every few months as they're a pain to get back in the right place again. She has a nightlight, a ceiling light and a star projector to give her light.

What is your relationship with your siblings like today?

You're talking as if you were locked in the room for three years.

Bluebellsforest, your sorry the oo has had unpleasant posts? Good god really?

Kickingeap exactly makes a mockery of those children that really did and do suffer