statley homes thread - dysfunctional families

[Mummiehunnie]

I had a look back and could not find the old thread, for adult children who grew up in unhealthy dysfunctional families, and were abused as a result!

what is a d promotion?

I was listening to the children having a play fight upstairs and called them down to cut through it, saying I wanted a word, to avoid rescuing! I felt quite panicked thinking back to being physically forced to protect myself from my brother, we were close in age and similar strenght, also I had little will to protect myself, and he had great will to have power over me! so I would at his mercy be tortured, there was no way out, that horrible feeling came over me, as dd2 traps dd1 like that sometimes and I felt panicked for dd1, who probably is ok with it, i am not sure if it is like it was for me, thing is dd2 is controlling and dd1 is a pushover, so I worry about this happening to her!

That horrible being crushed mentally and physically, being trapped feeling I had from my brother, I had more extreme versions from the ex after he left, that pinning me down and trapping and torturing me thing! I think my brother was worse than my father with the physical stuff, as with father it was short bursts of hitting followed by a I am sorry hours later and all would be ok, where as with brother it would go on for a long long time and he would not even think he had done something wrong!

Also I am uncomfortable with relationship with mother, it is getting too close, I don't trust her, I am telling her too much, and I don't want to be reliant on her, I fear she is on her best behaviour, the elephant is in the room and she ignores it still! I want to pull away from her again, it was this time last year I did it, this getting close to my birthday thing is difficult as so many nasty things happened around my birthday the past few years, i find no joy in it, saying that I ordered a m and s cake for myself for my birthday today!

I shouldn't be posting right now. I'm tired, I'm struggling with a programming problem and I've drunk too much. Hey, let's see how it turns out.

mh, I wonder if you're over-rationalising your fears when you hear your kids fighting? I remember some mornings, staying at my sister's, where the school-and-work daily crisis triggered me massively. It was a replay of mornings in my own school years: all shouting, screaming & distress. I curled up foetally, in their guest bed, and whimpered until it was finished and they'd all gone. Naturally, you're the mother in your own home but I wonder if you're projecting your anxieties onto DDs? Could you go and check that nobody's being hurt (kids can be unknowingly harsh, they haven't got boundaries yet) and ask them to chill out?
I was just imagining that the sound, or the scenario, might be triggering you into a sense of helplessness. It's a great opportunity to put one part of it right, iyswim :)

Don't tell your mother things! Distract her, like you would a small child - change the subject Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries.

Very weird for me, where you wrote "pinning me down". I have used that expression a million times in business, but personally it's a different & scary thing. I haven't worked through it at all, yet. My one & only major flashback, which still makes no conscious sense, is all about being pinned down. Hmmm! Thank you ...

thisis, I can only say how wonderful it is that you understood, and cared for, yourself at that moment. It sounds reminiscent of my mornings at my sister's (and, perhaps, MH's kids fighting) - it takes quite a bit of self-respect to do what you did, and to understand it. Love to you & Bluebell!
xxx

Oh, I forgot to mention "Who asked you?" I know, it's so rude!! Fine & fair amongst children, stretching their boundaries - but I can't think it would ever be appropriate coming from an adult! My family's version was "Who rattled your cage?" We're all supposed to go haha. Fuck that, who said I need permission to have an opinion? (Never mind the highly witty implication that I'm a speaking pet in a cage!)
Gah.

When's your birthday, mh? Happies - and calm. x

I have been so very exhausted today, I have cancelled my plans except therapy and kids and slept a good part of the day, well dozed on and off... I feel I have turned a bit of a corner regarding some things, which then helped me in therapy and I think I made good inroads today, lots of food for thought, I just can't shake off the overwhelming exhaustion, not flu tiredness, not overtraining tiredness, not tiredness and not depression tiredness, something different!

I wrote a post elsewhere on here and what was interesting was something came up from that post and in therapy about being believed!

Grace, good advice! thankyou x

In my inner child therapy, Brenda asked if there was a time in my life, or an event, that had feelings that I wanted to build upon, that was mine and positive and fulfilling. I said my graduation. She asked to describe the feeling, and I answered, Roast beef and yorkshire pudding, a full satisfied feeling.

Today my new website went live, and I am completely up to date with not only my paperwork, but my ironing too, my kids are calm, happy, and doing well, and my relationships are all improving daily.

Today I have felt that roast beef feeling.

I am officially congratulating myself for getting through the shittiest, horridest, most distressing stuff, from the day I was born, and getting to here, to today.

I would love to thank everyone on MN for the support shown to a stranger. Especially grace. (You're quite something you know.)

thisis, that is a wonderful post, I am so very pleased for you, thank you for posting that.

now goes away and thinks to self,that could be me one day!

What a beautiful post, thisis! Congratulations Thank you for your compliment. xx

oh dear, can you please help me! Have you seen uber b*tches post, caio mumsnet review, and jealous mothers blanking posts, or something like that and let me know what you think, thankyou x

marking my place for tomorrow,I need to let rip but can't find the words right now.

I'm too fucking angry with it all.

It's never ending.

Heh, mh, I only read the first few posts and the final ones - were you suggesting the OP's narcissistic? You could be right! She wouldn't be the only MN regular if so, I feel ... I think other people jumped on you because those threads are generally snappy & cross - not because of anything you said, iyswim. You defend your writing very well!

Go ahead, Rage - rage :) It'll probably do you good.

Feel very stuck at the moment. I am realising how much of my issues flow from low self esteem and how much I depend on external approval to bolster any sense of worth.
The fact that I realise this is only one side of the conundrum. I still continue to 'feel' very strongly that I need 'things' to make myself feel better.
I have a lot of anxiety and another realisation has been that it was always anxiety that belied the depression.
I have come of the Ad's I dont feel depressed but the anxiety still remains, and so does the old patterns I learnt over the last forty years to try and allleviate it.
Of course these patterns happened without me having any real knowledge of why or what I was doing.
So these patterns entrenched and are very much about needing to have things that make me look or feel better about myself. Things I dont necessarily work towards, but obsess about which in itself is probably a form of self sabotage anyway.
Partly I am thinking as I am writing this 'but isnt this narcissm (sp?)'. Isnt that exactly what a narcisstic person does? Bury themesleves under external approval and things.
The thing is even when I have had things that probably many people would be impressed by I have not valued it because I guess my brain thing well if you have achieved/aquired that lovey it aint all that. Perhaps that is my mother's voice I have internalised. I think it is probably her approval I still seek, even though I have no contact and despite knowing full well I will never get it.
That approval is set aside for middle db and to a lesser extent sis.
So there is that but also how do I seperate wanting good things/nice things for me and my family for the right reasons from the wrong ones. I mean I should be able to like/love ,myself enough to say I want to work towards x, y and z but I constantly question my motives. As in, I ask myself do you really want that or is it for approval.
Please feel free to comment or ask me to clarify where it doesnt make sense. Somehow I think if I could perhaps write through all of this it might open up in some way.
Sorry also for dipping in when I havent been around.

a lot of your post sounds farmilir to me, i have worried I am a codpendant or introverted narc many times also, that was one of the things I said within five minutes of seeing the psychologist I am seeing right now... I feel so sorry for my past poor behaviour, I am working really hard to change!

I also got out of my last session that I spend a lot of time doing why thinking and I have spent the past few days adding in how thinking also...

MH What does a codpendent or introverted narc mean, may have to look that up. What did your therapist say?
It is so hard to feel good about myself without the need to have anything tangible to 'prove' I am good enough if that makes sense.
I obsess a lot about what mid db has and want and need to be as 'good' as him.
I understand a lot of this is because my parents both came from a very poor background (and abusive too, which was probably more the issue) so they carried a lot of shame about not being enough without posessions.
I have mad progress by giving up a job I was very unhappy in. It was the 'trappings' of the job that kept me there. I wonder if this is where the anxiety comes from because I have stripped things back, here I am just me facing the world no stabilisers.
As a result I wake every morning with a stomach like an elevator dropping.

• sorry should say made progress. But maybe mad progress is fitting too.

To give an example which will make more sense. Ds had two friends come to play, we were returning the favour. I havent had (apart from close friends with their dcs) anyone from the school to our house.
I didnt sleep properly for 5 days, was snappy as all hell with dh. Then it dawned on me why.
I am petrified people will judge me. My home. How I live, and it will be seen as 'not good enough'.
I know its ridiculous but try telling my subconcious that.

her main observation so far has been the low self esteem and me not talking about myself enough in therapy, bringing in family members and ex more than my own deep thoughts.. that I am doing a lot of why thinking and going around in circles and not a lot of how thinking... she also asked me more about the view I have that one or anoher person is in charge and asked me about what I want to control that sort of stuff... do look up introverted narc and codependancy very interesting... also i looked up borderline personality disorder, she has not told me I have any of this, I don't know when they are ready if you are to tell you that sort of thing if you have it.. or maybe they don't tell you you have it and you work you way out of the disorder and warped thinking process...

I also had her observe that I made despirate attempts to make things better... like asking gp for a gastric band...

farmilair fear I have been trying to let go of, that be perfect thing... yes it is difficult to change that...

I also want to add, I have been very judgmental in past and have had people around me be judgemental and bitching about things and it has made me fearfull of their judgment... actually that is the thing I discussed with therapist I would like to control others ideas and opinions of myself...

MH I relate to that and I know that a lot of these 'fears' ar based on the fact I was constantly critisised and judged by my mother. I also think that hearing her constantly critisise and judge other people especially when I was so young made me think 'all' people do this.
Dh said to me 'most people dont', but Im not convinced I believe him. So I guess I believe people will go home and say 'you should have seen her house it was ....'
Thanks for listening you have helped a great deal already. I will look those terms up.
This is highlighting how desperately I need counselling now to tackle these thinking patterns. A very good friend pointed this out, I know she is right.
What you are saying about talking about members of family instead of yourslef rings true for me to, but I think I am ready to look at 'me'. Its good because it means Im taking back control, change is in my power not theirs.
I am 16 patients away from seeing an nhs clinical osychologist. I keep teling myself to hang in there because I dont want to have to do it privately, although I will if I have to.
I think I probably do have a personality disorder. Kind of inevitable really.

Self-defeating personality disorder

I can identify with quite a few of the symptoms of this one on winkipedia...

Ive just looked up co-dependent and 'inverted'? narcs, and this doesnt apply to me. Dh is polar opposite to a narc and Ive no desire to be with one after escaping my mothers icy grip. Phew. Interesting reading though.
So maybe I am the narc after all. Arghh! . Is there such a thing as 'paranoid freakish worry disorder'?
Yes I relate to the self defeating one. Have bad knees so cant run. Went to physio was given excercises but despite being frustrated I cant run I still havent done them this week

therealsmithfield

You are NOT a narc. They would never assume that they had a problem, only everyone else has the problem. You are seeking helps. Narcs never do this because they are alreafy perfect and do not need help.

People are way too wrapped up in their own insecurities to be judgemental about you. Your DH is correct, people do not judge others. Only people with their own stuff judge, and they do it as a projection of their own insecurities, it makes them feel better, nothing whatever to do with you.

I think this is why the child thing is so helpful, you get to start again, do disrobe all tose definitions and expectations from our unhealthy and dysfunctional families, and find out, a bit at a time, who WE really are, from within, not from without. From what our feelings are telling us in the moment, not the desperate and twisted perceptions of ourselves from others.

Go within yourself, what are your senses telling you right now, the sound of the rain, the smell of the wet tarmac or grass, a sunset, the sea. Those people can NEVER tell you what your senses are telling you right here and right now.

Another briiliant thing that Brenda spoke about was the ideas of being "a part" and "apart". Definitely worth a meditate, that one.

Lol at you being a narcissist, Smithfield!! I just copiedthis from Vaknin's summary:

Also called "covert narcissist", this is a co-dependent who depends exclusively on narcissists (narcissist-co-dependent). If you are living with a narcissist, have a relationship with one, if you are married to one, if you are working with a narcissist, etc. ? it does NOT mean that you are an inverted narcissist.

To "qualify" as an inverted narcissist, you must CRAVE to be in a relationship with a narcissist, regardless of any abuse inflicted on you by him/her. You must ACTIVELY seek relationships with narcissists and ONLY with narcissists, no matter what your (bitter and traumatic) past experience has been. You must feel EMPTY and UNHAPPY in relationships with ANY OTHER kind of person.

Somehow I don't see you desperately trying to fill your life with narcissists

Like you, I've careered through self-diagnoses of various PDs, sometimes revisiting the same one three or four times! I assume it's all part of the learning & assimilation process. Certainly no clinician has diagnosed me with anything other than PTSD and depression - they've had plenty of opportunity. I'm proud of you for getting yourself on the psychologist's waiting list, smithfield. Having done so much work already, I imagine you'll find it both fascinating and effective.

I'm only just beginning - rather timidly - to come out of an extended period of 'taking away' or stripping down, as I think you put it. In order to give myself a chance to find out who I am, I've steadily removed all the trappings until I feel there's no "me" left. I am, however, still here. Nobody's muttered hateful things at me for my dirty house, crappy appearance or lack of finance. I haven't noticed anyone looking down on me for wearing trackies and having dirty hair. Here I am, then: my worst, unspoken fears have proved unfounded and I exist - hurrah! - even without 'things' to define me :)

mh - thank you VERY much for "why thinking" and "how thinking"! Am starting with the "How?s" this very minute

apart and a part like that... is it to do with symbiotic relationships?

It has been helpfull to be reminded of the definitions and others experiences of personality disorders, thanks x

Just after posting, I found this, smithfield. It describes very well the process of de-valuing the externals, in order to re-value our real selves. I love that she calls this process "growing up" as I that's exactly how I think of it! It answers your "Am I a Narcissist?" question, too :)
ezinearticles.com/?Am-I-the-Narcissist?--A-Look-at-Inverted-Narcissism&id=1373231