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!

smithfield: I spent my first 22 years caring for children, trained in it and didn't do too bad a job. But I found my whole attitude to children changed after I'd done some heavy inner child work (with Homecoming, though I needed a therapist's help for some of it). Haven't tried writing this down before but, basically, I gained in gentleness and tolerance - compassion? - after caring for "Little Grace" that way. Hard to explain.

Oh, btw, remember Fucky Nell? We're still making friends She likes to be called Little Nell these days.

I only know of iceberg models in statistical theory! Will google it wrt psychology :)

Yes it's definitely an abandonement thing. I am half way through John Bradshaw's book, but reluctant to do any of the exercises before the children go back to school, because if it's anything like what I went through with the therapist, it's not a pretty sight.

It's funny, I've done it with my mother and sisters, but cannot do it with h. Maybe because there was never even any attempt at love from them? I do believe that h loves me, in the best way he knows how, but I know too much now. But he is, despite living apart, the only intimate grown up that I have. Despite the horror.

I was aware at the end of my therapy, that Brenda (therapist) was frustrated a little and knew that I needed more. She seemed to be aware that great progress was made, but the job wasn't done.

Yes it's definitely an abandonement thing. I am half way through John Bradshaw's book, but reluctant to do any of the exercises before the children go back to school, because if it's anything like what I went through with the therapist, it's not a pretty sight.

It's funny, I've done it with my mother and sisters, but cannot do it with h. Maybe because there was never even any attempt at love from them? I do believe that h loves me, in the best way he knows how, but I know too much now. But he is, despite living apart, the only intimate grown up that I have. Despite the horror.

I was aware at the end of my therapy, that Brenda (therapist) was frustrated a little and knew that I needed more. She seemed to be aware that great progress was made, but the job wasn't done.

So good she said it twice!!!!!

Ds has always been a dreamer, I am, my dad was. Actually, dd is too, at school. There's no way to know, it could be learned, it could be genetic, it could be that they just hear music in their heads all the time like I do, it's hard to ignore!

I don't know if it's dissocation, it could be, he's had a crap life emotionally. I have seen massive improvements in him though. He's oing really well at school, got himself up the streams to do the academic thing, which is what he wanted, and he won the annual prize for music last year, which was fantastic.

My mum decided, as she IS the font of all knowledge, (via radio 4) that he was autistic, so I dutily rushed to the GP and HV, where he started playing in the toy kitchen making everyone tea. I can feel the fury I felt against my mum from that time!

I'm going to take bluebell and dc's to see toy story 3 I think, and tea in one of those chains.

"draw from the well of grief" Yes, beautifully put.

I am frigtened of grief any more, but it's hard work and takes time.

Ds is 14, just.

Sorry for the accululation of posts.

My cousin has put on facebook a photo of me, older sister and all the cousins on my dad's side.

I am so much thinner than my sister, I look like a boy and I look desperately sad. She is round faced, long haired and laughing.

This favouritism has damaged me SO much. I cannot physically bear the thought of someone who loves me preferring someone else, in anything. It's makes my stomach churn with anxiety, and I get the fight/flight thing. I looked at that photo and I can see why I feel like that.

I am so sorry to go on.

I am NOT frightened.

accumulation

sorry.

silentcatastrophe, I meant to respond to what you said about superstition. I was superstitious to the verge of OCD as a child. That tapered down after I left home, but I still held a load of magical beliefs. I don't want to get into religion here (started another thread for that ) but it was a GREAT day for my recovery, personally, when I discovered I can live fine without ANY supernatural beliefs at all!

At the big family party last month, several people tried 'helping' me with suggestions from their own versions of positive thinking. I just said "thank you, but I don't do magic these days" and left it. Wow! That really shows how far I've moved away from the family mindset!

I should add, my saintly christian aunt offered to pray for me and I'm genuinely pleased she wants to think positively on my behalf - without wanting to tell me how to think, iyswim.

thisis, please don't apologise. Everything you write is perceptive and valuable. x

Thank you grace. :)

re: Magical thinking. My mum decided when I was 11 or so that I was able to tell the future. It sent me down a strange path of ouija boards and the like, although I don't think that that is especially uncommon in a teenage girl.

I landed on astrology, and have all our charts done. I can't get over Michael Lutin...he's spooky. I KNOW it's daft.

H comes from strict scouse catholic....full works, nuns, confession, mega guilt and hell etc....says he's lapsed, but it never goes away. I promised myself in my twenties that I would never get serious with a catholic again, as they have always hurt me more than anyone else, but I decided that was daft too.

Hi, I hope everyone is coping ok. That is what I say to dh now, when he asks me how I am doing: I'm coping.

The 4Fs have me in a bit of confusion, fog, guilt. I am the youngest of 3 girls and, having the same parents, we all had a crappy time of it (eventhough not equal-I am past that myth anyway). Oldest sister was physically and emotionally abused, middle sister was the golden child, and I was invisible/emotionally neglected.

My thought now is that I have been a very crappy person indeed for going nearly no contact with middle sister. I have effectively abandoned her. However, I know it is not mentally healthy for me to be around her (counselor said so) . Yet, I have abandoned her. I am having a hard time getting past that thought.

grace Thankyou. I know its the right thing for me to do now and for my children.
Thing is finding the right therapist!
I cant believe that I actually thought leaving my job was the answer. It was the right decision but it hasnt changed anything on the inside, not really.
Here is the link to the icberg model I mentioned. Its geared toward addiction really but I still found it useful just wrt to the layering thing. Just thought it might be of use but its probably covering stuff you have done before here.

thisis I second what grace said...do not apologise please. Your posts are an incredible help to me.

PM Meant to say hello to you too before sorry.

Sorry for not doing personals for everyone but Im on low resources at the moment.
I hope everyone realises though that every post is read and is of huge value.

Me again.....I am sorry really, I seem to be swamping this place at the moment.

Thank you for saying it helps you too. That is lovely to think that may be the case :)

I looked again at the photo of me, my sister and cousins. It has struck me in an overwheling way, that we all look alike...stunningly so.....except my sister. She looks NOTHING like any of the rest of us. Isn't that weird, as I always felt like the left out one. I can't stop looking at it!!!! I wonder sometimes if we share the same father.....my mother was pregnant when they married, maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that's why she hates me so much? My little sister, born 8 years after me, looks like everyone in the picture too. Just a thought.

So many very profound things happening right now

thisis perhaps you have stumbled accross something. Could your mother have been involved with someone else when she met your father do you think? What was your mothers relationship like with your younger sister?
I read a while back that it is exactly where the feeling of jealousy between siblings comes from(not talking about healthy sibling rivalry here). Its about growing up in an environment where there is seemingly only enough love or power for one person in the family.
Apparently this is also where aggressive anger-the controlling type of anger not the ealthy kind. Again the belief that only one person can have power at any given time.
Conversley we give away power to another in order to be accepted or liked/loved...fascinating stuff.

toomany Sorry you are struggling with the guilt. I understand what you are saying, but you have to stay strong. You dont have to see it as a 'forever' thing-would that help?
To say to yourself you need time?
Plus it is ok to 'feel' guilt but not act on it if that makes sense.

That is potentially profound, thisis. It sounds like your wonderful mind is doing some amazing work just now! Let it take its own time, please, and be gentle with yourself while you follow its course :)

That sounded a bit woo. Hope it makes sense to you, lovely.

Powerful reading on that link, smithfield, thank you.

I'm taking a small break before reading on, as I've just come to the part describing conflicted feelings about parents. My mum's just left after a surprise visit and I often feel discombobulated after seeing her - a combination of dislike, loyalty, guilt, fear and affection. It's getting better - and she's getting less intrusive - albeit gradually.

I hope, one day, to feel nothing but loving (cautious) compassion for her. Sometimes I make it, but am aware I'm running ahead of myself. Need to give myself as long as it takes to feel my authentic feelings about her: if I don't get to "ideal" before she dies, then so be it.

... and breathe

Pah -healthy, not ealthy. My old man said folla the van...chuckle.

Will bugger off now as am very aware I must limit computer time, I am verging on ocd with internet surfing.Really. Have gone through stages of having to check certain sites and things at least (the very least) 2-3x per day.
Realise now there was other stuff also on the 'magical thinking front'.
I also went ouji mad which went from teens and went off the ricter when my nan passed away. I was convinced I could contact her this way. Im not sure Im not past this one yet either although it has diminished hugely.
The other thing was clairvoyancy and cards. I visited and wasted so much money on it and like you thisis my mother belived I could read her cards

swallowed thank for that post. You have just described my relationship with middle DB.

'but it is so engrained in her to put me down and feel at liberty to abuse me. we never seem able to hit on a relationship of equals, it's just beyond her as if it would diminish her, which is of course understandable given that she was raised to see me as the dog it was good to kick and her self esteem was built upon seeing herself as better than me iyswim. it makes for a very difficult dynamic'

This is exactly what it is like with my brother and I too feel guilt because of the children. My nephew and ds are same age and have a great relationship now, but they are both just 5.
What will happen in the future though?
What will ds think if I continue contact with someone who acts consistently as though I am beneath him? He has trained his wife to respond in exactly the same way.
And more importantly they go out of there way to show how my nephew is more intelligent 'better than' ds.
Whenever we visit ds sits and listens to dnephew read or tell the time. This is something my mother used to join in with too when I was still in contact with her.
It will become more and more obvious to ds as he gets older how 'he', 'we' are being treated and so I realise (painfully) that I can not subject him to it any more.
They never visit us anyway so it saves me a 5 hour journey, well dogs are only meant to heel arent they.

tmsb Sorry to hijack

My older sister was the golden child and definitely has come off worst. He husband and daughter are utterly dysfuntional too. Her daughter started receiving therapy at 10 years old.

My sister had to listen to the intimate deatils of mothers many, many affairs. She ended up in a squat in London, stealing gas and leccy and begging at Kings cross station. She caught all manner of std's too, which makes me wonder if "begging" at the station was the limit of hr money making.

She is also the one with criminal convictions.

As hard as it is, being the scapegoat gives you a route out doesn't it? There's no incentive to stay! But you are NOT responsible for any of them....only yourself and kids.

Mum wanted to talk about one of my nephews. I think she was trying to draw me on my own troubles - I gave her something, though it's nothing new. In each of my siblings' families, the eldest child's story replicates my own (the eldest.) This is so pronounced that even an eldest step-daughter, in her late teens when they married, was instantly cast into my role. The poor kid :(

This nephew has one younger brother. The youngest is golden; the elder is 'the problem'. I am outraged by the younger's rudeness to his brother - putting down the older boy has been a family pastime since his little brother started to talk. His mother confided all her marital & financial woes in him, from babyhood until he stopped sleeping with her (at 16!) Nonetheless she called him "the little shit" routinely, told him he was stupid, etc, etc. His father beat him up, hard, often. The younger boy was visibly upset by the violence he witnessed, but that didn't stop him attacking his brother - who would then be screamed at for hitting Golden Child

Mum's just told me my father started to hit the older boy, too, as soon as the younger one could walk. (He started punching me after my brother was born.)

This older boy is a wonderful young man now. But his impotent anger and self-doubt are as visible as scars on the face. He can't keep a girlfriend because he veers from intimacy to intimidation, helplessly.

It seems beyond belief that intelligent, apparently self-aware adults can replay the parental script so exactly and so blindly.

Good god grace that is truly awful.
Makes me feel very very reading that.
Same pattern with our family on mums side, oldest as scapegoat.

I'm not sure if this thread is the place for this.Wondering if I should resurrect the NPD thread?

The thing is,I am really struggling with deep sadness these past few weeks.It is more intense this week.I am experiencing this as missing and longing for my xp.
It makes no logical sense to yearn for what I understand to be a false representation/reflection served up with lots of emotional and verbal abuse and bullying.

I know no one is all bad,however.He did have lots of lovely traits and we really laughed together.
I have just written out a load of other stuff and deleted it.No point affirming it

Is this abandonment stuff with me?
If I posted this elsewhere,lots of sensible ,rational voices would say "forget him,he's an abusive twunt".That would be right.They would then say "if you had better self-esteem,you would not want someone like that in your life" Right again.Except,my self esteem isn't so bad....or is that my false self?

Some people would run for the hills the first sign of abuse.I would now - I think/hope - with someone new (HA HA).So what is wrong with me that I long for a man who has so little decency that he shouted at me - all night- whilst I was feeding our 4 day old dd?

How am I fantasizing actual rationalizations for his behaviour?
After all,he can't get in touch,the solicitors letter threatened police action against him were he to try.I took control,he must be furious,hate me.

Why do I read the Iceberg stuff and think of him - devastatingly abused by his mother - a sad little boy.And still want to cuddle him?
He is too damaged.I know.
I deserve better.
I know.
What is wrong with me?
Sorry,if I am on the wrong thread,please tell me.

Not wrong thread. I understand what you're feeling. You and thisis seem to be suffering a similar grief right now.

I nedd to shut down my computer for repairs - eek!! Hope you find the right listening here, PM, and am sending you hugs. xx

No we seem to be in similar places PM.

It is like an addiction....which comes up often in the pages linked. It's a way of coping with the pain of abandonement. I'm not completely clear yet...I like to really "get" something, and it's so complex, the way we deal with our parents disdain, that I need to read and reread.

Like me, it is maybe also the lack of an intimate "adult". Someone to share the burden of responsibility...though I know neither of us need that, we manage well alone. But it is that...alone.

I know rationally that the answer is to put the energy spent on them.....into ourselves, but that is so alien.

PM....hugs to you.

Thanks for your responses Thisishowifeel, Smithfield, and SwallowedaFly.

What you wrote SwallowedaFly is exactly it.

I feel silly for having empathy for her, like it is a synthesis of more bait-but it came from within me. Is this a sort of resurection of childhood training/brainwashing?

I will consider it a point of healing though. The urge for codependency functioning still rides high on the wave as trained, but I can now recognize it before I enmesh myself in an action. Those actions, I now can see, are trained reflexes performed without present brain function-numb zombie.