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!

Lovely Stately Homers, my mind & soul are a bit fried with all the 'me work' I've been doing. I don't know where I'm at, soc an't post coherently at the moment - though I want to! MH, it was a joy to read your posts from last night. Gosh, you're so wise! You're an inspiration, my dear :)

There is so much I want to write in reply to everything - but it'll have to wait (by which time, life will have moved on, this thread's moving so fast!)

Hugs, all, and thanks for being. xxx

Hi all, some great posts.

grace you were spot on with what you said about being confronted by myself now Ive given up work. Yet also in some ways I have less time for myself. I dont have any help with the children and my dh works long hours six days a week with his own business.
It is so hard to find any space to process anything really.
I do hope you get some rest Grace, perhaps switch off from this all for a bit. Just let yourself be.

m44 please CAT me too if you want to.

PM you are a very brave and strong woman. I think if I was in your shoes I would have crumbled by now. Dont underestimate the pressure you are under-the children, a break-up and most significantly the way your family are treating you.

Sorry am not much use with posts at the moment. Am feeling a lot of anxiety and feeling very drained.
My father rang yesterday, he never says much but I always feel very low after I speak to him.
I think the calls mainly consist of me trying to win approval and feeling floored by the first mention of middle db. My dad will always fill me in on what he is doing and I cant ever compete.
Rewind back to age 10/11 when my dad told me 'you will never be as clever as your brother'. He is also my mothers golden child.
Since good things have happened in my life recently by brother has had no contact with me at all.
I am constantly rejected by my family for sidestepping their projections aren't I?

thisis Yoiu sound a lot brighter, wish you could tell us more but just happy Pete wlaker site has helped. I wrote to Pete Walker to thank him for his work and was thrilled to get a reply.
Just a short one but still it was lovely.

To the person who posted about their sis driving past her house to deliver dcs present to her mother's house....I totally get it. Its all about control.
When I lived abroad Id save up to come home for a visit and it wasnt cheap and took all my holidays. Id get home and my mum and sis would say they were going away on holiday the next day. Only people on this thread would get that one too.

grace I hope you are ok.

Too everyone:

I know it's hard, but NC is the best decision I ever made. Reading all your posts and recognising so much stuff just confirms to me that I do no, ever want to enmeshed in all that weird, chaotic horror, ever again, and I most certainly do not want my children anywhere near such horror. It took many years to get here, and lots of therapy, but I wouldn't go back to that, never, not for nuffin. Brenda and I called it "weird world" in the end. There can be no peace of mind for me in weird world.

I have printed of the managing flasjbacks stuff from Pete Walker. I think that we will find that most helpful.

Love to all in the Stately Home. xxx

Please forgive the typos!!!!

Hi there

Just wanted to send love to everyone in this thread. Its moved so fast, and I havnet much time at the moment.

Things changing in "life" and things are a little stressful ( home job stuff) and I have realised that my method of handling anxiety is not good and learned behaviour from mother,a woman petrified of getting things wrong. Not liking to make decisions due to responsibility of getting them wrong potentially. Im working on it.

Just wanted to send love to everyone, ill try and check in a bit later, there is some excellent insights here and i am learning a ot from all of you

Love from 1foot x

Hi 1foot am having huge issues with anxiety myself at the moment so lots of empathy here. Hope you are able to post some more soon.

Can anyone join this thread?

I'm having a hard time and just wanted to vent a bit really because today I am either really angry or quite proud of where I have reached. It alternates by the minute and I just wanted someone to hear me.

Sorry in advance if this turns out to be a long post.

So after weeks of counselling and lots of reading and web research I think I have been in an emotionally abusive relationship with my mother for years (forever?) and in the last week I have taken the decision that for my own sake and that of my DH and DCs it has to stop.

I don't know if my story is enough to qualify entry on to this thread but I think I have been damaged enough by the abuse to at least tell my story.

I had a chaotic childhood - parents divorced, two step-fathers, one of whom my mother was in a violent and abusive relationship with. The second was resentlful of my existence and would support my mother in labelling me and 'removing' me from their home.

She once told me that she had been unable to bond with me as a baby as she thought I was going to die (heart condition when born). When I was expecting my DS she said that I would know how easy it was for her to love a son, it had come so easily to her (meaning that she had found it difficult to love her daughter?).

I was and still am seen as the hostile and aggressive daughter in the family script who blames my mother for the things that have gone wrong in my life.

At 3 my parents had divorced, by the age of 5 my brother's father had moved in and I listened to them fight (verbally and physically) at night, dreading the silence as I was never sure if he had killed her. Until she met someone else and moved my new step-father in when I was 11. All the time I was in the way - she was emotionally distant when I was with her (rarely during this period, mostly sent out to play or left at my grandparents or dropped round at my dads. This escalated in my teans when I misbehaved or argued with her or answered back or demanded any attention she would call my dad and tell him that I was no longer allowed to live at home, he would have to house me.

As an adult I have been emotionally clingy to lovers/boyfriends. Demanding intimacy from emotionally unavailable and unsuitable men. As a mother I have had to protect my children from being dragged into the cycle where she demands to see them only on her terms.

When I react to anything I am labelled as an aggressive and frightening person - I am given the role of the persecutor to my mother's victim. She says that I am distrustful, manipulative, aggressive, hostile, selfish. She points out that my brother and sisters agree with her as does my step-father - If all of these people see me as being such an awful person then how can she be wrong except that this group of people all have their own needs to be met form the controlling love that is dished out by my mother.

Most recently, I had a terrible row with DH and I became physically violent - this was 3 months ago. We have had to do a lot of work on our marriage over the summer, and I finally made the step towards seeking therapy. I knew things had to change for me before my self destruct mechanism kicked in and I lost everything. I am lucky to have had a partner who has stood by me and supported me and loved me enough to see past my reactions and some very difficult behaviour. What has emerged is that I have a very damaged relationship with my mother - to the point where she controlled everything I did, how I saw DH, how I reacted to him and everyone else in the world. I am seeing the light at the end of this awful tunnel that has been my life of trying to gain the attention and love of someone who cannot give it to me. Pleasing my mother in some attempt to get her to tell me that I am ok has dominated my life and I am terribly angry about this.

She has decided that she needs a break from me - she asked DH if he could bring the kids round to see her and he said no - that we all come as a unit and that if she doesn't have a relationship with me then she can't have a relationship with any of us.

Given that she has decided to have a break and that we have decided not to pander to her demands any more then I guess we're in stale-mate.

And I can't back down this time - I haven't done anything to her, I am taking back control over my life.

I'm allowed to wobble though, yes?

Thanks you therealsmithfield for your lovely welcome!

I have been reading 'They f* you up' and 'Why love matters'. Both great reads - will look for 'Toxic Parents'. I'm very much looking forward to a happy long run by the way, just feeling wobbly for now!

Thanks if you managed to get through my first post - didn't realise I had quite so much to say!

Yes, you are allowed to wobble :) And you don't need to earn 'admission' to this thread!!

The time when you start to realise your parents don't care for your feelings - only want to use you as a prop in their personal, warped world - is dreadfully upsetting. We're all hard-wired to love our mothers, and to trust our parents to do what's best for us. It's a shock to realise the facts don't fit the theory. I'm sorry you're experiencing these feelings now, but very pleased for you that you've sought therapy and have a supportive partner.

It's actually quite an achievement to have formed a supportive relationship! I certainly never managed it - so congratulate yourself, and DH :) You were perceptive to realise where your aggression came from. I'm sure you will do well in therapy. Some of it's quite heavy going (all that suppressed anger & hidden hurt) so do feel free to keep posting as you work through it.

Half of the time I don't even believe that the facts the case - I almost feel like I have made them up and made them fit in this instance in order to excuse my behaviour - after all, my mother is busy telling anyone who will listen that I am stopping her from seeing her children.

The crazy thing is the fact that rationally, from therapy, my reading it all makes sense, classic attachment and abandonment issues, controlling and manipulative mother who projects blame on everyone else - given that I am the one who has always been the one to blame, to carry the guilt and the responsibility I can't say for sure that I am not the one to blame here - that I am manipulating those around me to make them believe 'my story' - half thinking that I have managed to convince the therapist as well - my mother has done nothing wrong and I am the one playing games and punishing her when she hasn't done anything wrong.

Thank you IfGraceAsks for your lovely welcome - my head is like a bag of mad frogs today - nothing seems to make sense.

This is part of the journey yes? Low self-esteem = questioning right and wrong and doubting self.

Not only part of the journey, but the entire thrust of your toxic parents' poison campaign. She needs you to be the wrong 'un, yes? Your badness is a fulcrum of her drama. When a small child's working out who & what she is, where does she first look for advice? Yep, that Mummy who tells her to shut up, stop it, get out of the way, etc. It's central to your perception of who you are.

So this is why you need to clarify facts. Keep a list of them if necessary. Run them by your therapist, DH and friends.

I just told somebody about the sweater I'm wearing. My mother gave it to me 'because it's too big for her, so might fit me' (this is the mum who put me on my first diet at 2.5.) Me, I still think "Oh, that's mum for you, haha" - my friend went "What? Oh, nice!" So I got my bit of validation, iyswim.

I have started writing things up - I find it really useful in that it gives me validation - if it's there in balck and white it almost holds water whereas toughts and discussion disappear quickly and almost have less meaning - my mother has told me over and over what a bad person I am, and now I am seeking to undo and invalidate these words. Reading and writing my story makes it more clear, more factual, more real.

And it's a reminder of the sort of mother I don't want to be.

I want to be reminded of where I was and realise where I am reaching as I strive towards a more fulfilling and positive life.

Thanks for reading. I'm sorry that you didn't have the start you needed either. I am glad that you have opted to make things better for yourself too IfGraceAsks.

Hello SPG.

When the entire system around you is telling you that you are the bad one, why wouldn't you believe them? Then you enter the world, at school, friends, work, whatever, and the conflict between what the family system says is reality versus everythig else, inevitably makes you feel at least conflicted, or more likely, going round the bend.

It is SO hard to hold onto FACTS.

That was one of the first things that I found so incredibly useful....the facts of a situation. unalterable events in history that simply cannot be changed, denied or whatever....however much they want to rewrite history, there are certain events that simply stand as fact.

When it is EVERYONE else telling you this stuff, what are you supposed to think?

You know in your heart, you are still connected to your intuition and instinct to KNOW different. The journey you are on will make that tiny little voice of instinct, intuition and sanity, get louder and louder.

This thread is the most extaordinary resource....use it as much or as little, just read, add you own stuff. It all helps, not just you, but everybody here :)

By the way.......It's NOT YOU IT'S THEM!!!!!!!!

That was a lovely post thisis

Ok very bad day today. Depression and dreadful anxiety and then I get my monthly.
So I am back to thinking that my hormones are still playing a huge part here.
Could it be that the Ad's were masking the fact I am entering into menapuase?
I still do have a lot of grief work to do and a long journey ahead and I am not negating the fact that my dads phonecall has had an impact, it clearly has.
It just seems my reactions to things vary depending on where I am in my cycle?
Or am I just finding something to pin my madness on here
Perhaps I should try minipill and see if it helps?
Sorry I know this is off topic but I wont write anywhere else on Mnet only here.

It's perfectly reasonable, to think that, Smithfield - even sane women can plunge into monthly depression
I remember Mummiehunnie had that problem ... I'm asking for an HRT review, as I've tracked a monthly 10-day slump since my prescription was changed four months ago. I don't think it's madness to try the pill. Hormones are incredibly powerful; they pretty much define us. If you can get them on your side, do so!

Hello ladies, sorry if I'm butting in. I've read a lot of this thread and your others on abusive families and they have been eye-opening and very helpful.

I have only recently started thinking more about mine and the effect they had on me, and figuring out that it was worse than I thought, since I didn't know what normal was and didn't feel entitled to or worthy of any care or attention really.

I've seen several psychiatrists and therapists and none of them really picked up on my having been emotionally abused as a child eitherat least, they've never really shown interest in the detailsand that probably contributed to my lack of awareness too.

One reason I've downplayed the awfulness of my childhood is that it's so long ago and I feel I should have dealt with it by now--I'm middle-aged, for heaven's sake. Even now I sometimes feel pathetic for wallowing in it or sulking about what my mother or my brother did to me decades ago.

Am I just making excuses for being lame and incompetent as a human being? Why haven't I just got over it?

Thank you for your welcome and lovely post thisis

This thread has already proven to be a source of strength and I am glad to have found it.

Smithfield I am sorry that you are having a hard time today. I find it really difficult to make sense of my feelings too and I am glad that you too have the room to express yourself on here.

'Am I just making excuses for being lame and incompetent as a human being? Why haven't I just got over it?'

I sort of am guessing here - because this is all new to me too - but I think that those who weren't emotionally abused or didn't have a hard time as a child don't have anything to pick holes in - they are not still dealing with the scars so they do not need to get over things or make excuses. Therefore, they don't naturally gravitate towards threads like these or seek the help of therapists. If you are still dealing with your scars and memories and reflection is uncomfortable then you have every right to feel the way that you do. I guess the emotional games from your past will always affect your judgement - like thisis said When it is EVERYONE else telling you this stuff, what are you supposed to think?

Part of the abuse is about invalidating your feelings - making you question what you think, who you are, right from wrong and so on.

quiddity

Hello.

I believe these things often fester for some decades before we deal with it. I think that that is quite common. I can't for the life of me remember, but I read something very recently about this. I remember a post about this from Grace...I think.

SPG put it well. We know that these things are NOT resolved.

I am, for the first time in my life, going to meet a friend for lunch at the Trafford Centre tomorrow. You see for normal people, that would be no big deal. I have met up with school run mum's for coffee before....albeit only in the last 12 months, but have never met a work colleague or mate like this before. It always made me feel a freak that no one wanted to do normal stuff like that with me......and now they do. :)

I remembered once when, as a teenager, I said to my mum, that I thought that people knew themselves best. She went on and on and on and on ( you get the picture) about how ridiculous I was, and how could I possibly know anything about the world and people. Turns out, through that instinct and intuition thing, that I was right.

It WOULD have been easier to have been physically battered instead. Indeed that is what it felt like. In fact for someone who was so "anti smacking" and right on, she did an awful lot of it.

And smithy (hope you don't mind me nicknaming?)

Bloody hormones....do what needs to be done to get them in check!!

xx

Hi to spg and quiddity

I still sort of believe inside that I am the one who did all this to my mother.

I know different and usually do ok.
But it still floats to the surface when things are difficult.And at chrs and other "family" times.

I have my own lovely little family.But will always be sad that my birth family are so toxic.

I just can't seem to go NC with my parents.I gain nothing at all from seeing them,dc avoid them unless forced.And I really have no left over hope/fantasy that they will do anything differently.

Hugs to everyone else...hope that's ok to say?

Thank you. I would love to read Grace's post if anyone knows where to find it, she is a long way ahead on this path.

In my more rational moments I realise of course this is a big deal, no wonder it takes decades--just to get your head around the idea that your parents, unlike other people's, didn't do their best but actively tried to hurt and damage you. And then denied it and blamed you, which made the reality even harder to acknowledge and deal with.

My main memory of my teenage years is of hiding in my room from my mother, because as soon as she set eyes on me she would launch into a tirade, since as she pointed out, just the sight of me made her feel sick.

When one of my aunts died, my father didn't tell me and made other people promise not to tell me too until after I'd gone back to university the following day, so that he wouldn't have to deal with my emotions--apparently I was some sort of hysterical shrieking harpy. Which I was if I ever showed any feelings at all.

thisis, how lovely for you. Did you suggest it, or did she? I struggle with doing things like that, I always assume other people will have more interesting things to do than spend time with me, or even if they said yes, that I will run out of things to say, or they will discover how feeble and boring I am, so better not risk trying and failing.

Have been thinking about Mampam.Hope all well with her.

That's the amazing thing....she did!!!!! Wow...people actually like me! Seriously, only the people here would have any conception of how amazing and fantastic that is. It's what NORMAL people do!!!!!!!!!!

These are the ways we measure the damage...this is the damage...never belittle or discount it, ever. This idea that we are wrong, unworthy and undeserving.....it's so subtle and so wrong, and without the hardest work, it's forever.

PM what do you think is stopping you?