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!

Hi Bookcase - trust me your dd needs you as her mother. She wouldn't have a 'normal' life without you - she would always feel the pain of losing you, everything you missed out on (school play, Christmases, seeing her grow up) and she would forever have an empty space in her heart where you were meant to be.

This past week and a half depression and the urge to kill myslef / make it all stop has hit me like a ton of bricks, but I know that dd needs me and I could never take the risk of having her find me. Couldn't throw myself under a bus or train either, it would be awful for the poor person driving!

No help out there for you at all? Can you talk to anyone in rl?

Thanks, Bookcase. I wish I knew! Mum hated housework; I kept a very clean house for ages as, I suppose, a form of rebellion. But I'm also plagued by an infuriating inner nag (who speaks my dad's words in my voice) telling me it's shocking, disgusting, etc. If I ask my innerchild, she kind of says "I don't mind. But I like Granny's house because it's clean." Aargh!

I want to maintain a level of ordinary, vaguely less-than-normal, but acceptable housekeeping. At the same time, I love staying in posh hotels (as far as I can remember, hah) where the surfaces glow & the sheets are slick. I just don't fucking KNOW what I really want, or which part of me has got the answer

Or how to find out.

I know you're right in my heart nemofish but every time I look at her, I'm reminded of my own childhood and feel so sad.

There isn't anyone who really understands in rl. DH tries but gets frustrated about being unable to help so we end up arguing.

My psych nurse isn't very helpful. She just keeps telling me 'there is no magic wand'. If I had a pound for everytime I heard that one! Because I've had lots of therapy they don't want to refer me for any more but I keep telling them that I didn't deal with everything then. She also keeps saying she will refer me for EMDR but nothing hs come of that. She's pretty ineffective really - I seem to make everyone like that with me eventually.

I think I would listen to my innerchild Ghoul (I'm such a hypocrite!).
You and little you deserve to live in a clean environment, especially if it's the way you would both prefer to live.

Do you think you would be able to make cleaning enjoyable somehow? Put on some favourite music, take a break every now and then for cake? Perhaps buy something you like for the clean house?

Hi Ghoul, it was interesting question with housework - mine has a cyclical pattern & is reflective of my emotional state of mind:

• when I am avoiding how I feel, I go into ultra-cleaniness mode
• when I finally acknowledge the bad feelings & am suffering, the house falls apart
• when I have worked through it & am feeling balanced again, I enjoy cleaning because I think I deserve to live in a place that looks and smells nice - but only cleaning to my comfort level and not beyond

Think that is the Adult bit of me at the end, finally. Not sure whether that helps at all?

And also wanted to say to Bookcase that I often feel that I'm not a good mother & I wish I could just be better. Well I don't know you but you sound like you care a lot and you are genuine and that matters - don't forget that.

Thank you Kirlyovie.
I'm glad you found the courage to post x

Hah, I like the cake idea! Cheers, I'll let you know ... [hgrin]

I'm busy writing my DLA appeal. The CMHT, despite having hived me off to "The Community" considers this important enough to remain involved with it. As far as I understand, that's because I still fail to convey - to myself or anyone else - just how much of a pickle I'm in. I've been 'coping' for a lifetime; I don't have the words or expressions to say & show I really do want & need help. (Come to think of it, maybe that's what the dirty house is all about?)

Bookcase, it took NINE YEARS of therapy before I even managed to convince the NHS I needed help. Probably not coincidentally, my first 'abusive' memory comes from when I was ten. I have a almost complete blank from 11 to 13, so god know what I'm about to replay! Anyway, my point is this: The better 'trained' you were to shut up & put up, the more harshly that works against you when seeking help. Here are my handwritten memos from my care worker, last week. Maybe they'll help you, too:-

Exaggerate

Flashbacks

Self-questioning

My compulsion to seem to be coping works against me

The flashbacks thing was a real shocker. I'd read all through Pete Walker's site in the week before I saw her; I'd only just realised I'm in near-permanent flashback and hadn't seen anyone from the CMHT in the meantime. My psychologist must have relayed it on to her, although it was never discussed with me. It's really important, though. For you, too, I suspect.

She said "exaggerate" because, like most other people with psychological disbailites, I feel ashamed of it. So I minimise.

Back on my housework thing: I now see it's exactly what every cod-psychology website would tell me: it's a cry for help! Argh. I still have no idea how to handle it constructively (will try cake!)but am one tiny step further on ... x

Kirlyovie - that's it exactly! You're so right! Umm, I still don't know what to make of it / do about it - but thanks a miilion [hgrin]

< Looks at vaccuum cleaner. Cuts cake. Dances to radio. Gives up. >

Thank you for that Ghoul. I have bookmarked the Pete Walker site.

I keep telling DH that just because I appear to be coping, it doesn't mean everything is fine. I think I'm scared about what my mind is protecting me from because I have a blank for most of my childhood.

During my time in the therapeutic community I think I managed to successfully maintain the coping image and fooled the lot of them!
I remember sitting there and listening to other people talking, as if I was a therapist not a patient.

Yeah, some of the therapists in mine said they were aware of a tendency to devolve responsibility for the group onto a competent member (me). They told me to look at them and say "help". That, in itself, was a massive step for me. Shame yours didn't do the same. Wishing you luck & safety ...

Grace, sorry to be a pest but as you know I'm fairly new to all this.
You say:
"I'd only just realised I'm in near-permanent flashback"

Could you explain that to me please? How youI mean anyone, not you in particularcan be in flashback and not realise? What does it feel like?

Constant tension. Constant inner dialogue of self-criticism. Inappropriate responses due to perceived criticism. Blanking out, losing the plot, temporary panic, loss of ability to do simple tasks. What I'm experiencing now, as it happens; I've had to re-type every other word. And it's all because I'm trying to directly answer a direct question about 'not-coping' (aka not shutting up & covering up). I hope some other people will give you better answers! Google 'emotional flashback'.

.. and Complex PTSD, which is what childhood abuse gives you - along with people who've had to live in refugee camps, grew up in a war zone, been in concentration camps, were consigned to abusive orphanages, etc.

Every time I suggest Dissociation or Complex PTSD as an alternative diagnosis for Borderline PD I keep being fobbed off but it sounds so right to me.

I need help but can't do it on my own and I am on my own. The NHS won't help me.
I feel like a scared little child. How can I be a mother?

You can be a mother, because you are one :) You've identified the elemts that were lacking in your own childhood, and you're giving them to DD. You've identified the elements that shouldn't have been in yours, and you're eliminating them from your DD's childhood. This is wonderful.

Don't expect to be prefect. No-one is. Striving for 'perfect', to the point of despair, is a CPTSD symptom. How about just lviing with that knowledge for a while?

About feeling abandoned my the NHS - I felt that, too. I'd fallen off the private system, and was too 'copey' for the NHS. At the time I was in London; I have to say it's been a lot better since I moved to smaller places. However, my moves coincided with a load of extremely helpful encouragement from the members of another forum. They advised to write my WORST feelings down and take them, as written, to my doctor. They asked me how I was feeling, then fed it back to me; "You've felt suicidal four times in the past fortnight". I am egging you on, to do the same.

I made weekly appointments with my GP, each time with another self-loathing & self-doubting, honestly miserable letter. The mere writing of the letters helped me to grasp that I was ill. I had two assessments with CMH (one of them, at least, yielded my current med prescription, which works) before being referred for therapy, after my third. And I started reading. I'd done a bunch of self-help type stuff before, but this process - the long and uncomfortable one - started, for me, with a small acknowledgement that my childhood had royally fucked me up. I have one or two counsellors from the loony bin to thank for that, then the members of this forum and the other one.

I am only one poster, not an informal team, but I'm hoping to encourgae you in a similar way. The mental health system is besieged by people who are "unhappy". How can they tell the difference, on one meeting, between someone who needs a change of lifestyle and someone who needs a change of head? Keep telling it like it is, and don't 'cope' when you tell it.

Hope some of that made sense. x

It makes alot of sense, thank you.
DH has been telling me to call the crisis team but it's such a lottery. Im sure I got the cleaner last time. I end up straight back in coping mode because I have to explain myself in detail.

I ran away tonight. I handed my little girl over to DH and left. I wasn't going to come back but I missed her so much. I'm not coping anymore and I do keep telling people but maybe I'm doing it with a straight face because it doesn't seem to be getting through.

I hope you're not up because you're struggling too, Ghoul x

Thanks, lovely - my sleeping's all over the place because I'm fighting my recovery! Bugger! I'm so sorry you were that upset tonight. And so glad you remembered what's really important to you. That's a big thing, you know?

I'm not entirely sure you aren't in the middle of a breakdown. I think you should listen to DH, and let him take some of the load off you. Big hugs & stuff. xxx

bookcase Could you go back to your GP and as ghoul says write down the facts and take them with you.
I think it hard for most 'stately homers' to assert their needs and make themselves heard. It's the very crux of the matter because as children all our needs, feelings, thoughts had to be supressed quite often in order to survive.
I am another who as ghoul so aptly put it goes in to 'copey' mode in front of others (even on here at times). I've been to-ing and thro-ing with NHS for last couple of years but this last time I finally revealed a lot more about what was really happening to me.
Im now on the waiting list for clin psychologist (its a start) and they had previously said I didnt need one.
bookcase, I hope you (at the very least) keep posting on here for support. You need and deserve some help with this.
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Sorry not about much my dad is here for a visit-not good emotionally and no time to post about it

Thank you Ghoul. Don't be sorry, you weren't to know and I'm really good at intellectualising how I'm feeling so tend to come across as if I'm okay. I can relate to sleep being wonky. Before DD I slept all day and was awake most of the night.

I think i will copy and paste what I have written here so they can read it at my next appt, smithfield. I'm glad you've been referred to someone who will help. I hope you can take some time for yourself while your dad is staying with you.

Hugs to all xxx

Catching up again....sometimes this moves SOOOO fast.

I totally identify with the cleaning thing. My bathroom, especially, is disgusting. My "mother" and her mother would be appalled...but I suspect I may be sticking two fingers up and laughing. I will do it eventually, and it won't kill anyone as it is. They were both completely obsessed with hospital standard cleanliness, at all times.

Which is actually very funny, as I read that back!

I live in bumpkinland, and because of that, been very fortunate, not only in the speed at which I got appointments, but I think also, the quality of the care I have received. That second point, in any other forum would, I know, open another can of worms, but there it is.

Copeyness......yes, just yes.

I think after discovering the corespondences from my "mother" to people, and being able to actually see the gaslighting and lies and weird shit, in black and white, and recognising it as the whole of my life with her in it, was the point at which, the copeyness switched to me, for the first time ever. It gave it a distance, a different perspective. Gaslighting in print, that you can show to other people and ask for second opinions. I can't begin to describe how it feels having that stuff there, in print, within my reach now. I am very glad that I had the courage to send it to so many people....members of my extended family and....... that shining the light in dark corners thing.

Someone said to me, stand in front of a full length mirror and say....."it's all about YOU", over and over and over, until it starts to go in. Do it every day, until you start to believe that your life is about YOU!

This place continues to take my breath away.

ummm, just dipping my toe in...is this the right thread to discuss toxic mothers/npd etc!!? i think i need some help with it all but don't know where to start.

Hello peppermint, and welcome.
Yes, you've definitely come to the right place. Tell us all about your toxic mother (I have one too, as do lots of the folks here). Wherever you choose to start is the right place to start.

thanks...it's been a long time coming but i've just spent the week from hell with her and i need to learn how to deal with it once and for all...however, my 6 mth old has just started up so it might come out in dribs and drabs!!! back soon!