<Deep breath> I need to talk about my mother.

[MuddledUpMama]

I've posted snippets about her before, once I even went into detail but had it deleted because it was my 'usual' posting name, but I need to talk about somethings so have name changed. This could be long.

My childhood, from the outside was a happy one. We lived in a council house with dad, my 3 siblings too, I'm the eldest. We were always 'comftable'. Foreign holidays, the lastest trendy clothes, everything we wanted at Christmas, i mean Everything. The living room would be fit to burst with presents.

My mum was the 'cool' mum of the primary, she always let us have sleepovers, rented films from blockbuster and got toffee popcorn and pringles (a big deal when your 10 and its the 90s! lol) but it just didn't 'feel' how it all looked.

My mum had a tamper. A temper no one but us ever saw. I think my auntie knew how she was, but I don't think she realised she was like that with us.

Our punishments for being naughty was the 'slipper' she had those slippers with rubber soles and she used to call us over and hold out our hands and really hit us hard on the palms. She also pulled down our lower clothing and slapped uson the thighs/ bum leaving blistering slipper marks.

She also slapped with her hands, I vaugely remember being hit with a hanger once too.

But thats not the worst of it really,

Can I just say here that we were NOT bad kids, we were just little kids who used to argue and fight, we weren't aloowed to roam the streets or get in any trouble we just played and fought with each other at home,

so even now I fail to understand just what we must have done to get these punishments awarded to us, we wre never 'bad'.

Anyways when she used to start hitting me and I would cry if i started screaming she would cover my mouth and ose with her hand, so i couldn't breathe.

She used to do it long enough for me to be clawing at her face to let me get air.

On the morning I started high school I couldn't find my new pencil case. I had been taking out all the new things from it in the garden and mansged to leave it there.

She went ballistic, telling me how much trouble I was going to be in with the teachers, slapping me, pulling my gair and well, suffocating me I suppose.

I was already terrified of starting school, by the time she dropped me off and walked me in, acting like all the other doting mums, i was a wreck.

Things were like this for a long time, I can't remember where dad was in all of this, i don't think he 'knew' how far she went TBH.

Anyways time passed and as we got older it stopped.

I didn't think about it for a long time till I had kids of my own and I've said kittle things to her but she gets so upset that I decidd never to again,

maybe she was ill? i dunno.

Now shes still the same really, to everyone else shes kind helpful, lovely, great at her job etc .... but even though she spoils us still, buying us stuff, spoiling my kids ... theres this side to her that I can see, DH can see it to. this selfish side.

Everything is always brought back to her.

Me : i feel really sick today (am pg)

mum : ooh i felt sick yesterday - ... followed by 15 minute talk about her feeling sick.

Its always like that.

I sit there like i want to cry.

Shes not a bad person.

Its hard to explain its like shes 80% this mum that i love and 20% this other thing but that 20%seems to keep growing as I'm getting older, wiser maybe??

I don't know.

I just felt I had to share this with someone.

Don't even know why I am.

God I remember her slapping me in the face and I think she may have bit me once, thats not right is it? :(

Its so hard to think of these things but once I do all these other bits come seeping in, I can't even decipher if they are real anymore,.

well it's good that you recognise that that side of her is not right. I know that sounds odd but often with parents that are manipulative like that, it takes a bloody long time to realise that something isn't right because that 80% good side keeps convincing you that nothing is wrong.

Is it a temper thing with her - so completely losing it and lashing out? She sounds v manipulative

I think you have to decide what you want out of this. Do you want to confront her? You need to think through what this might mean for you and for her. Are you happy just leaving things as they are? What do you want to happen next?

Oh yes and now if I even shout at my kids she tells me not too! i shout at them to get them to listen and behave - how can she put me down for that when her response was the stuff above?

That really annoys me!

I don't want to confront her fox, she knows I remember.

Maybe in the future I'll ask her why and confront the fact she has rose tinted glasses on with our childhood.

But Its just something I needed to write down for tonight and have other people read - almost to tell me that it was NOT normal.

not normal punishment sna parents don't usually do those things.

no it's not normal

what is very normal is parents like that rewriting history. It's half the reason sane people like yourself start doubting what actually happened. It's also very hard to square in your head this outgoing loving woman with someone who was beating you up :(. It does sound like she was/is unwell. Not that this is any excuse.

It must be so hard for you, that everybody else sees her as a great person.

What about your siblings.

Do you ever get together with them and talk about it?

I've tried with my siblings, and either they are in denial, or I really was the child from hell.

Yes my sister remembers, we sort of laugh about it really , is that twisted in itself?

Its like we joke about it rather than sit down and make it serious because then I think I'd sob IYKWIM?

I'm not making excuses for your mu at all, but could she possibly be depressed?

It might be a good idea to sob with your sister over a bottle of wine.

DH and his sister laugh heartily about the time their dad belted them really hard because they didn't like the breakfast he'd made them.

She is depressed now, she lost her father recently.

I think she had a tough upbrining too, he wasn't there directly but popped up every so often drunk and abusive to my gran.

My father was brought up in care, in a childrens 'home' for bad kids (he was not - his father was just a very sick man) so he had very little idea of what a family was really.

pretty messed up lot it think :(

thats why sometime si feel like im destined to fail. But I don't, i try to be a good mum. I AM a good mum because I'd never hurt my children.

I had a similar experience unfortunately in my childhood. My mum was controlling and manipulative with a violent streak.

My Dad has been an alcoholic for nearly as long as I can remember so now - with hindsight - I try and give her the benefit of the doubt, that she couldn't control my dad so she controlled us. When I was in my late teens, she did start on ADs and HRT and she did seem to improve.

I therefore wonder whether Lynette could be right and she is depressed in some way?

As for your siblings, me and my brothers do sometimes talk about it with a mix of humour and anger.

What happened was NOT right though.

Hmm, come to think about it I'm not sure if she 'got it' as bad as me.

I just can't fathom it, I think of my DS now, starting high school and I think of how nervous he would be and how much I would want to protect him and make his first day as easy as possible - how could a mum ever do that to her child.

And its my mum, the mum who is a total pushover with my kids now, who would let them paint her walls black if they wanted!! but me? no, i just don't understand.

I think you have to tell yourself she was unwell

my mother had bipolar disorder very severely. So she was either the most popular person on the planet and someone everyone wanted to be around or attempting suicide.

The best way to square it with yourself is to think of her being unwell - even if she doesn't have a diagnosable condition, the fact that she was like that makes it sound like she was mentally unwell in some way.

Well, the good thing is that even you parents and your and your siblings didn't have great childhoods, you can realise that and break the cycle and give your DC a great childhood.

MuddledUpMama - it was not normal and it was abusive - please don't ever question that again :(

I think (as you are a lovely person) you should leave it a little while, until she is over the worst of the grief of her Dad dying. But then I think you need to talk her. You need to talk about how it made you feel and how you haven't forgotten - it's hard luck really if it makes her feel bad. She was the adult, you were the child - she knew what she was doing was wrong - she chose to continue doing it and didn't get help.

If she corrected/commented negatively on anything I did or said, with or to, my children, I would simply say 'I'd thank you for not interfering - you are the last person I would take any parenting advice from' and shoot her a knowing look.

I honestly don't see how you can be 80% OK with her, either you are still locked in 'child mode' needing her approval or you are a much more forgiving person than me.

:(

Have you ever had counseling? I think from what you describe you may find it very helpful.

Do you go on the stately homes thread? You may find that thread a huge support to you as well.

My Dad used to beat me a lot as a child. It is so difficult, they definitely do rewrite history and my brothers and I also talk about it sometimes and almost joke about it but it's not funny and it still bothers me now when I have flash backs and sometimes when I get cross with my children I am frightened I will be like him or become like him iyswim? It wasn't normal your childhood, I do perhaps think she's become a push over with your children as perhaps she feels guilty for how she treated you as a child? Possibly? I think counseling would be really helpful to you to talk about your memories and work through them.

Is it ever possible to escape "child mode" though?

Sounds like you had a very tough time OP. You might not want to actually do anything about it or confront your mother, but it's clear that you definitely need to talk about it and that could be a big help in itself. Have you considered counselling?

My mother wasn't abusive in the way that yours was but she was very cold and unloving and I think it affected me in ways that I didn't realise until I met my DH. I also suffered sexual abuse (not at the hands of my mother) which had a profound and negative effect on me. When I told my mother about it she basically fobbed me off, which I have to say was more traumatic than the the abuse itself (strange as that sounds).

My point is, talking about all this, with DH, friends and a counsellor made me really aware of how it had affected me and helped me to put a lot of it to rest. I'm not entirely over it and I'm not sure I'll ever be, but I don't feel as affected by it. I suppose I feel more in control of it. Do you think you might feel the same way?

Yes, it's possible to escape 'child mode'.

MUM, what you're going through feels difficult because we're born hard-wired to love our parents and believe they are god-like. You will have seen this in your own DCs :) As a small child, your parents are your whole world. Your survival depends on them, you're made to adore them, and you have no knowledge of the wider world so you can't evaluate them as parents. When they're cruel to you it doesn't make sense. Children tend to make up reasons for parental cruelty, using childish logic - you're still wondering what you did to 'deserve' such treatment, aren't you? As a kid, it would have been unthinkable that your mum could hurt you that much for no reason, so you'd have frantically tried to reason you must have done something VERY bad.

Just for the record, losing your pencil case is no biggie

The eldest often gets the harshest treatment. There are various causes of this: if you're very unlucky, they all apply and the eldest has a totally different childhood from her siblings'. One constant is that nobody knows what kind of a parent they'll be until they have a child. If they make bad mistakes, they'll try to be better with the next one.

As to why she did it - quite likely playing out old scripts from own childhood and/or your grandmothers'. Far more often than most of us realise, people seperate different parts of themselves so they're not fully aware of what they do when they're acting out some old crap from their past. This would be why your mum doesn't seem very conscious of what she used to do to you - and is the most likely reason why she was able to be all sweetenss and light once you got to the school. For yourself and DCs, the more awareness you have, the less at risk you are of acting out your mum's issues in any way, shape or form.

Please do talk about it as much as possible - keeping a journal often helps, too. Depending on how much the memories bug you as they emerge, you may find therapy very useful in resolving your feelings about it (and any implications for the adult you are now). You'll find other posters making similar discoveries on the Stately Homes threads :)

Hi,

I've posted a comment on the thread "Anyone here who grew up with an absent mother?"

My mom was much the same except my mom had no good qualities that I can remember. My dad was an alcoholic and he didnt know what went on between my mom and and us sisters/brother. They argued all the time, he left, came back, which went on continuously. To hear her talk now you would think their marriage was fantastic.

Things always turn back to her if someone is feeling ill etc. On and off over the years we've mentioned our childhood to her and things she said/did but she just says "it was a different generation" or denies things were that bad. However my friends moms didnt behave as she did! My mom spent years on AD's, which she told us regularly was our fault. We were not badly behaved children at all.

My siblings and I have not had much contact with her in 20 years. We've tried but it's so draining.

I am much happier with her not in my life.

"She went ballistic, telling me how much trouble I was going to be in with the teachers, slapping me, pulling my gair and well, suffocating me I suppose.

Anyways when she used to start hitting me and I would cry if i started screaming she would cover my mouth and ose with her hand, so i couldn't breathe.

She used to do it long enough for me to be clawing at her face to let me get air."

OMG, this is so disturbing! You DO realise this is child abuse, obviously!(?)

She may be "playing old scripts" out, but that does NOT give her the right to repeat the pattern! She should've done therapy about her own patterns, but I guess they come from the generation that swept it under the carpet (and then take it out on their nearest and dearest)

Good idea to write it down (Americans call it journalling)- if only to untangle it all in your head - I have an (extra) excercise book from my DS for that, write it down and then tear it up, very cathartic
(or burn it in the kitchen sink WITHOUT starting a fire!)

You are doing a great job with your DC, by the way!

Oh, good lord, I didn't mean to offer that as an excuse or justification! OP, like most of us, wonders "Why?" - and that is the usual reason. Most crucially, it's nothing at all to do with the child herself. The child is a target for the behaviour :( She did not cause it.

DPs parents were like this........that's why we don't see them....neither do our children....Physically and mentally abusive....he left home aged 16 and never went back,we saw them in DCS early years but had to stop because their manipulative behaviour was starting all over again.......he swore he'd never let them do to our DCs what they had done to him.....and to be fair,i wouldn't have either.................he told me that once they made him eat his dinner off the floor because his table manners weren't good enough......no plate,no cutlery(aged 8ish).....not all Grandparents are good.

Thanks for the replies.

Its hard to explain but she didnt ruin my childhood and I don't feel so much anger towards her, i think its because se was this 'good' mum alot of the time that those outbursts just became things to deal with.

My heart bleeds for you Mama. You had an absusive mother, who hid the abuse. She's your mother, your one and only mother. So it is incredibly hard and painful for you to accept and confront what she did to you. To the point where you think you have made certain things (the worst things?) up.

I had a manipulative, selfish, inadequate, untrustworthy mother. She was very ill and spent many years in and out of pyschiatric units. The only thing I can say is that she accepts her failings and we have built bridges. I am kind to her, loving even, though I will never trust her and I keep her at arm's length.

I am not sure I would confront your mother without having a lot of counselling beforehand and working through these terribly painful feelings.

x