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!

Amazing news about your cat, mh! I'm pleased the tesco's lady gave you a reminder that people are nice, too :) A lot of our stuff seems to be falling into place, doesn't it - I'm wishing you well.

I?m glued to the "lovely things" thread and beginning to realise my love is good! I?d sort of lost faith in it after Jon. But, you know what, I am loving and emotionally balanced. I always wanted a partner who loved me like I loved him. Jon was incapable of it, so he made me feel there was something wrong with my love. There wasn?t. There isn?t.

So it?s been quite a constructive day on the whole for me, too. Thanks to the Worboys programme I?ve filled in a missing piece; I?ve discovered I never was as self-damaging or self-defeating as other people told me; I?ve found that I love well & deserve to be well loved. Here?s hoping this sets me free, at last, to love myself that well :)

Somebody wrote on a another thread "You are what people say you are". Reading it, I thought that was a bit facile. But it's a summary of what we're all doing, isn't it - breaking free of others' pronouncements about us, so we can be our selves?

sounds like you are really doing well Grace,so pleased for you x

Thank you, lovely. I'm scared of calling "job done" too soon - there's a way to go yet One thing I've just worked out is that I didn't need to put any more into my relationships - only to take stuff out. Starting with 'sacrifice'.

grace, what a wonderfully positive post!

It's a revelation to discover that it wasn't you. That innocent child was always perfectly capable of love and loving, it comes so very naturally, it just gets buried under mountains of elephant poo.

mh good things indeed do happen. I like to believe that when we focus on the good, it brings more good.

It's bizarre, thisis - finding out that I've been the victim of a serial rapist has done me a huge favour!!! Perhaps I'd underestimated the extent of my continued self-blame ... Thinking on screen here. I've seen this thing on telly and had the presiding officer's confirmation that it really was done to me. There's no way it was my fault; no-one can tell me it didn't happen - or that I've remembered it wrong, he didn't mean it that way, everybody does it, it's not abuse. Especially the last part, actually: black cab drivers are in a position of immense trust. Very few abuse it. Worboys did.

It's as if this one incident, which I had downplayed to myself, serves to symbolise all the other stuff that really was done to me and, lacking official confirmation, I've accepted partial blame for. The policeman did say it would play on my mind for a while; there's probably more to come out from it. I'm certainly not going to thank that weirdo - but I'm bloody grateful to the TV programme!

I agree with what you said about focusing on the good. There's been a very long process for me - having been brought up to "accentuate the positive", then eventually realised that was a tool for denial, I have needed to stare the BAD squarely in the face and to keep prodding it. There are always positives, of course. But I've needed (still do, in fact) to make the effort to recognise negatives for what they really are. Having said that, focusing on the bad has been part of my long-term positive focus (still with me??!) - to break free and get well. Breaking free of lies & denial is an uncomfortable process. There are always plenty of people willing to stop you, and many of them use "positive thinking" to stop you. I'm about to mire myself in philosophy here, so I'd better stop now!

And ... YES, Little Me was loving and caring. I cared adequately for my younger sibs & my school friends. I would have done more, too, if I hadn't been punished for it. As you say, I've always known ... I just didn't realise I had the right to the same caring in return :)

thisishowitfeels I don't get a chance to catch up with this thread often, but your post yesterday struck a chord:

I am struggling with terrible nightmares. I realise that having extracated myself from their system and removed them from my life, I am left almost in a state of shock, of trauma. I am coming to terms with just how terrible it was for me, and just how bizzarre their world is. Yes the gaslighting, once it has stopped, and you can see it for what it really is, is THE most extraordinary thing ever. I just can't get my head aroud just how barking mad they really are.

When I was hit by this recently, I went to Waterstones and read the backs of the misery memoirs on the shelf. Not one sounded worse (or even close) to my experiences. It felt very vailidating that, yes, it really was that bad.

It is a complete head-fuck, isn't it, Queen? The thought that, all over the world, there are people doing these - totally insane, sinister, harmful - things to the nearest and dearest, then going out to the shops, pub, office, school gate, whatever, and acting completely normal! When will it ever be acknowledged as it should be, I wonder?

I know what you mean about the books :( After reading the reviews of "harrowing" A Child Called It, I went to a bookshop and dipped in. I decided not to read it: my reaction was "Poor you, indeed, but - really? I can top that, and I know a few dozen women who can top it even more."

Remember I wondered why my mum had given me such nice stuff? She rang last night to ask a favour

grace You are so right what you were saying about the process and breaking through layers and layers of denial. Your own as well as others.
I'm sorry you had to go through something so shocking in order to get some validation . Yet Im happy it has helped (got does this get any more fecked up ).
I think I am still digging the layers out. I am realising with the help of thisis and queens and your own recent post something very important, that one of my own layers is sttill I dont believe it was that bad.
I have a huge amount of guilt as a result still even posting on here. It is the layer that is tied up with my formative years and 'inner child' and the reason I still am prone to seeing normal behaviour in ds as unacceptable.
The majority of the abuse I experienced at that ds's age was emotional and I am realising also that this was far more damaging to me than the physical stuff that did happen later on.
I clung to the physical incidents to validate my thinking that things weren't right and even now I think what do people really think if I say 'my mum slapped me around the face-a lot'. Do they think that is abuse? Or was it ok.
I told my MIL this the other day and she looked so shocked but up until now I have never told a soul other than you guys and dh which possibly means I am still owning the shame instead of handing it back over to it's rightful owners.

You're doing better than me, smithfield, as you've managed to grasp this shame'n'blame problem without the aid of a rapist

A couple of years after I started therapy, I found out that my father had been away (army) far more often than I'd realised. Then other family members told me about parental abandonment episodes that I'd forgotten. Those discoveries allowed me to accept that I did have 'abandonment issues', which I'd always assumed I couldn't possibly have had (despite the evidence)! Even so, I still felt I should DEAL WITH IT AND MOVE ON ... how I hate those expressions! When it comes to thoughts of how we "should" feel, and balancing those with a justified sense of outrage, I'm finding my compassion work invaluable. I suspect it helps in the way that god helps believers - having nothing supernatural about it, though, it's far more palatable to me.

It may not feel like it, smithfield, but you are doing amazing work on your own behalf. Yes, it's really bloody tiring when you realise your mind has gone round the 'spiral' once more and is ready for some more digging! What you said about DS is revealing: you seem to be associating your irritation with the emotional abuse you've downplayed so far in your own childhood. I'm sure it will take some time to work itself through, but in the meantime can only benefit you as a mother and as the child you were. As far as you can, trust your own mind. It's doing you proud :) x

Hugs 2 u guys x

I do talk about it now. Openly.

I am aware that people are shocked and find it uncomfortable to hear, and I don't push it on to people,or go on about it, but when the subject comes up, as it sometimes does, eg; Grandparents day at school, I quite openly say that I wouldn't want that woman anywhere near me or my kids. Some people know a lot, and I am aware that people "gossip", often with good intention, and that is fine.

When she had heart surgery, my real life friend said, "oh they found one then". Flippant maybe, but intensely validating for me. It's right that other people know and feel contempt for her.

I just wish that the people she "flirts" around with her council position and place on the local authority adoption committee could know what a damaged and rotten woman she really is.

grace that is what you said about these people just going through the motions of "normality" and no one knowing the vile way in which they treat their so calld loved ones.

The other thing that I am realising, and quite quickly, is that my mother's family is hideously dysfunctional, going back generations, and spreading wide.

My mother accused my brother of sexually assaulting her repeatedly as a child. She only mantioned this once, but I remember it clearly. It has disapeared under the elephant agin now. Is this why he went to live in Canada after marrying his first cousin? The same cousin who had many books about domestic abuse and rape within marriage, who is severely alcoholic and came back to the uk to live virtually next door to her eldest. Their two sons have never married and have no children. It's tempting to add two and two and make five, so I won't, but it's a mess.

I know that there is serious alcohol abuse going back generations.

I wasn't hit very often, nor was I sexually abused in the way my sister was, (goldenchild) but the emotional abuse and the serial invisibility, and scapegoating and gaslighting are and were that serious.

I remember when I first came on this thread, I didn't feel I had any right to be here. I do. And if my progress helps others then that in itself is enough.

Yeah :( There are some uneasy issues in my family, which I never will be able to explore - except in the unlikely event that any of the nieces & nephews seek therapy and come to talk to me. Even then, facts would be sparse. Both of Mum's brothers went to live abroad. When they came here for holidays they visited Mum more often than their parents. The GPs marriage, from what I can piece together, was a travesty but I will never have facts because both uncles are dead & she's in Wonderland.

Apart from ordinary sexploration games, I have no weird memories of my Golden Brother ... but I remember giving him a consciously wide berth from the ages of 12 to 15 (him), as I found him sexually predatory. Brother was gay for about 7 years after that. Both his wives have expressed sexual jealousy of me, which I've always found absurd. But maybe they pick up something ... ?? His second wife feels jealous of his elder daughters - and I can see why. My sister behaved inappropriately with her sons.

It's like living in a Gothic novel, isn't it?! If I ever get this business off the ground and my health back, I want to live abroad too. Mind you, so do my brothers! Just as long as it's not in the same country, eh

Hello again my friends...

I have a weird reversal of your situations. I am one of the lucky ones - by far the majority of abuse was emotional, mental, difficult to define, the sexual abuse I experienced was mercifully shortlived, over a period of a few months, and thankfully never progressed beyond a certain point. As an 11 / 12 year old I managed to escape / fend off my stepfathers advances / suggestions / drunken mistakes. But although my mother knows what went on, her version is 'You say you were horribly abused and raped and beaten and you weren't' when I never used those terminologies! I originally said I felt my stepdad had been 'pissed and innapropriate' which is probably the nicest mildest way I could ever have put it!

Perhaps she reacts that way as a way of rolling her eyes and saying 'well how ridiculous, I did everything a mother could for Nemofish,' so that people nod and say of course you did, how absurd of her. Or as a way of making me respond with 'no not like that, it was only x,y,z' so I appear to argue against myself, almost saying no really mother, it's fine, honest.

She has got her house on the market. I have fantasised about ringing up her estate agents and saying, your client MrsNemofishSenior, did you know x, y and z about her? Madness of course but it is tempting. This veneer of normality makes my teeth itch.

I don't understand how for so many years I would scrimp and scrape (I was a heroin addict with no money, all my wages went on, erm... well, you know) and buy Chrsitmas presents for her and her husband. I was never asked for Christmas dinner as it made my stepfather uncomfortable. Well we can't have that can we. But I can live in fear of the arsehole until I left homw, that's fine.

And I would go over there around Christmas and be nice and smile and listen to my mother talk about how wonderful, clever and unappreciated she is.

It's funny, my mother told me so many 'fascinating facts' when I was growing up, you know the kind that are meant to make people look at you and say blimey you're clever. And I find myself repeating them to other people now, thinking pleeeease think I'm clever and therefore like me, and they look at me and say ooh do you know, I looked that fact up and actually it's not true...' and I think bloody hell I don't think mother dearest is half as clever as she would like to think she is... and that makes me

nemo No, Your mother saves all her smarts for her manipulations 'you say you were..' and then exaggerating language so as to insinuate your version of events are elaborated and so made up . Good god she sounds a real piece of work.
Mine just goes for the straight down the line 'but at least we didnt beat you or put you in a children's home', although she threatened to on many occassion.' Oh and 'she took me stately homes'

I like you, therealsmithfield!

"You should thank your lucky stars that I didn't have you adopted or abort you while I had the chance!"

I have frequently wished the former and sometimes the latter! She tried to 'give me' to my uncle when I was about 10. I think he changed his mind, but I was gutted as I would have got to live in a nice big house and go to a nearby posh school! I still think back to that visit, so weird. 'And this would be your bedroom if you lived here, we'd get it decorated for you of course, and you would be going to such and such school down the road...' Wtf?!

I didn't get taken to stately homes, that would have eaten into serious smoking and being miserable time (for mum, not for me!)

I was threatened with being put in care too.

I had some friends at school in the care system and I was under no illusions about it. I decided that rather than stand up to her and 'force' her to put me in care, I would keep quiet, put up with 'the devil you know' and spend as much time living with my 2 best mates families as I could. Luckily one of the families took me on in an 'unofficial' way and I am convinced that without them I would have been raped at home at some point. And I know my mother wouldn't have done anything about it. I am so greatful to that family and I keep in touch with them, I see my 2 'foster brothers' every few weeks for coffee / lunch.

It's nice to be able to talk about this without anyone thinking that I am after sympathy or want anyone to be sorry for me (I do that just fine, haha)

My mother was aditted to the local psych hospital, she had electic shock therapy. It clearly didn't work. Whoever made the decision to admit her didn't blame me!

My sisters and I were to be taken into care at that point, but instead stayed with dad, my nan, and various neighbours. I know there were discussions about care, which we were party to. Something else that my mother doesn't get, there are some things that children don't need to hear.

Do you know, when I had my first assessment, the CPN said, to merely stick to facts. It was the most useful thing I think I've ever been told.

Yes my mum has been an in patient. Yes my older sister uses drugs, was very promiscuous, slept rough, was a beggar on the streets of London, and god knows what else, and has a conviction for threats to kill and intent to commit arson. Those things are facts, they have nothing whatever to do with me, however much my family twist reality to make it somehow my fault. How could it have been, ever?

My other sister is a drug user, they have class A drugs in their house. She has a shoplifting conviction which has hampered her legal career. Guess what...that's my fault too. They are beyond extra ordinary aren't they? I lived sixty miles away from her when she got caught shoplifting, I couldn't have marched her into the shop and MADE her do it, not at that distance and not as She Ra! Facts, facts, facts.

It's my fault because I am a pathological lioar, I am lazy, I am evil, I have no grasp of reality, and I can't remember things accurately.

Well I can actually, my memory is amazing...it has had to be, all that double and triple checking of reality. I am learning to trust myself now that they are gone.

She sent a number of emails to h in the last year, outlining how dreadful I am. It is there in black and white, she cannot deny having said those things anymore because I have printed copies of them kept with all my notes and drawings from my therapies. I also forwarded them on to members of my dad's family and to two or three friends. I found them by accident, and although I still feel physical pain at reading them, it was important that people could see the truth.

NO one can understand why she hates me so very much, how a mother can hate her own offspring with such ferocity, and feel the need to suck people into her cause with such energy. I still don't get quite how she does that.

It's so amazing that in those tirades, she is actually describing HERSELF to a "T".

She syas that I have a "considerable problem with alcohol". And so now I wonder whether actually, she has had a "considerable problem" eith alcohol. It would make a lot of sense and fit very neatly into the things that I now KNOW.

thisis and nemo -It makes me feel incredibly happy that you are both as far away as possible from those awful excuses for mother's. Yet it makes me sad at the same time to have to say that.
Both your personalities shine through on here and I just think what an absolute fucking shame (sorry but I do think its neccesary to swear in this instance), that your mother's were both so mired in their own shit they couldnt see what beauty they had actually created.

And nemo what your mother said is really beyond nasty, the impact that would have had on your self esteem! This is what I mean about emotional abuse because hearing your mother, the woman who carried you for nine months and gave birth.... say these words is tantamount to smashing a child repeatedly with a cricket bat. The wounds heal but the very thought that your mother had enough venom for you to do just that in the first place, is the real unhealing wound. Isn't it?

Yes therealsmithfield it is. Most days I have it bandaged up nicely, but sometimes I knock it and it hurts, way down deep.

I am another who has a 'hazy grip on reality' and an of course I don't remember anything correctly. In the universe that the rest of us inhabit, I have a loooooong memory (just don't ask me what day it is!) and I can remember being a baby, being fed in highchair, being in my cot and so on. My daughter amazes me by remembering holidays we took when she was a baby, remembers her cot and so on. I know from my long memory that my mother was angry with me, and has always seemed to feel that I have ruined her life.

I would have forgotten everything when she took me in off the streets. I was (it felt) almost at death's door and I had run out of options - she made me feel so safe. We talked. She was always really cool about stuff, never got upset about me using drugs, really laid back. Too laid back if I'm honest. But 6months later, when I left and moved in with dh, I thought that we were going to be a proper mother and daughter. I thought we would see each other and be like family.

But as soon as I was out of sight, I was out of mind. She hardly ever called, and if I called and thought right, I'll leave it a bit now and see when she makes contact with me, months and months would go by. Back to the old days. I was heartbroken. Then I got pregnant with dd and everything changed for me.

I am glad to say that I have accepted life as it is now, and I see things as they are now, I am under no illusions.

Hi

I'm posting this as I've dipped into this thread a few times and have had a couple of glasses of wine.

It's not really because I need a response but just an urge to get things out into the open (I will probably regret it tomorrow)

I'm not sure about what happened to me but I've always had the overwhelming sense that something is wrong.

One of the strongest memories I have is when I went on a geography field trip at school and we all stayed at my friends big farm in the area. I was about 13. The first evening I watched my friend's parents interact with her and was hit by a startling realisation: they actually LIKE her! It felt like someone was kicking me in the chest and I felt so jealous and hurt. This feeling has stayed with me all my life and I often get jealous of other people's friends.

I have always got the feeling that I was sexually abused. Whilst I can't actually remember it, I have this memory of being at the doctors with my mum (i think i was about 4/5/6) and of showing the doctor some bruises on the inside of my thigh (did I imagine it? would my mum have really taken me, and why?) this uncertainty has never left me throughout my life and still at 35.

I confronted my mum about the emotional abuse and she said "oh, you're just remembering the bad bits" so I left it.
When I was about 12/13 I remember arguing with my parents about feeling they didn't love me. They got really angry and said: yes we do, we sent you to private school. And when I questioned them about not giving me any respect, they laughed and said: we don't have to, you're the child and we're parents, you have to respect us.

My WHOLE life has been take up with trying to abate the pain of whatever happened. I find it so hard to live on a daily basis as I am exhausted by trying to deal with the overwhelming pain, plus the uncertainty I COULD VERY WELL BE IMAGINING IT ALL.

I live every day in a abyss of self hatred yet pretending everything is ok and hating myself for imagining it all as it MUST be a figment of my imagination and I am mad, right?

I feel so disappointed with my life as I've never been able to acheive anything, instead have acted out my inner issues with heavy drinking/promiscuity/denial etc.

I slept around so much when I was younger because I desperately wanted to feel loved. It was at the level that I needed to go home with someone every friday and saturday night to feel ok with myself.

I'm now married with a son but feel like i am clinging onto the railings of life most of the time and envious of other people's success and happiness. I hate myself nearly every second of the day and get so scared I will project these problems on my son. I don't want him to feel the way I do about life.

I am going to the doctors next week to ask for counselling for pnd (although when i get there i will be honest and say the problems have been going on for a long time.

thank you for reading x

oh, I meant to say "parents" although "friends" wouldn't be such a bad choice of words because I haven't had many xxx

Chubba, have u asked 2 view ur medical notes?

yy chubbachupp I was amazed and very jealous when I realised that parents can actually like their children, that they actually put time and effort into taking their children out, taking an interest in helping with homework, and are genuinely concerned for their children's wellbeing.

My mother never bought me a toothbrush or got me to brush my teeth until I was 6, by the time she took me to the dentist because I was complaining of constant toothache, they had to remove all of my milk teeth apart from 4 at the front, as they were very badly decayed. I blamed myself, I felt guitly and that the dentist would be angry with me. Looking back now I know that the dentist must have thought my mothers behaviour was appalling.

It has taken me a long time to piece everything together and think through everything and say, 'it was wrong that these things happened, it was unfair and I have a right to be angry about it.'

I was abused in two separate situations and when my mother found out, she did nothing about it. She just shrugged her shoulders and forgot about it, telling me off for making such a fuss and overreacting.

I have found achieving anything very difficult as I just don't believe I can, I believe that I am useless and no good at anything. This is changing though

Your feelings of imagining it are totally normal. That is because you didn't get 'validation' from your parents. This means that, for example, if you were being bullied at school and told your mum, saying you were scared and upset, she would say 'what are you making such a fuss for, how dare you tell your teacher you are being 'bullied' and make a show of me, I had to go to the school for a meeting because of you.' This gives you the signal that a) obviously the most important thing is that my mother had been inconvenienced because of you, and that she clearly feel that you are making a fuss about nothing, and she's an adult so she must be right about that. So you must be 'wrong' to feel upset by the bullying, not only that but you now feel guilty for 'making a fuss' about it in the first place. So you get the message that 'to be bullied is okay.'

I didn't know which way was up as a child and as an adult, I had no idea of what 'normal' was, I just hated myself, like you, for being so wrong about everything and so obviously unable to get anything right.

I sucks but I hope this thread can give you the means to untangle all the guilt and anger. It has certainly helped me to talk with people who understand where I am coming from, most people with normal families just don't get it.

Sorry all, for the epic post!

Hi, chubbachupp. As nemo says (thanks for your very wonderful posts, Nemo!), the healing strts with validation - acknowledging that these things did happen TO you, they hurt and they were not your fault. It's astonishingly hard. We put so much effort into believing our parents are ordinary-but-special, that they love us, that we are safe with them ... our entire childhood was dedicated to believing this despite the fear, pain & disappointment. It sure does set you up to be out of touch with your feelings, and for looking in the wrong places for the assurance we want. As you found :(

When I was 10-11, there was a girl in my class called Linda who lived in my street. I used to call in for her on the way to school. Her family was even larger than mine, and her house even smaller. At breakfast, their little front room was crammed with kids at a round table, all making a noise, eating their breakfast, looking for their gym shoes, etc. The atmosphere was warm, chaotic and fun. Linda's mum, unflappable, poured tea, found shoes, remembered about spelling tests and football games - all without snapping or yelling or smacking. I was astonished that mornings could be so pleasant. Linda's mum must have noticed I preferred her mornings - she started inviting me for breakfast. My parents banned me from their house.
Sigh ...

Keep writing (here or in a diary, or both). You might surprise yourself :)