"But we took you to Stately Homes!" - Dysfunctional parents?

[ItsGraceAgain]

It's October 2010, and the Stately Home is still open to visitors.

Forerunning threads:
December 2007
March 2008
August 2008
February 2009
May 2009
January 2010
April 2010
August 2010

Please check later posts in this thread for links & quotes. The main thing is: "they did do it to you" - and you can recover.

How innocent and vulnerable she is. The thought of someone hurting her. I wish it would pass. The sadness and fear have been with me for so long.

Perhaps vulnerability or innocence - in your life, Bookcase - meant opportunity to abuse. This will not be the same for DD: she has you to protect her, keep her safe and build her confidence :)

I just don't know if I can keep it up. I feel so separate from everything. I try hard everyday to keep going and by the end of the day I'm exhausted and in tears. I really feel that there's no point to anything.

Even if you can't feel that you're the point, or DP's the point - DD is the point then, isn't she? She smells of baby

She trusts you. And she can, you'll always love and respect her. That's worth everything, isn't it?!

She is the point, of course. I'm just so tired of forcing myself to keep going and not feeling any better for it. Sorry to keep going on.

No, don't apologise. I was just thinking of asking you for advice actually. So I will - I realise you've got a lot on your plate but at least that means you'll probably understand.

I was startled by a flashback yesterday - nothing terrible or dramatic, but it was very instructive. I realised I got stuck in a moment ... twelve and a half years ago (April 1998 to be precise). It's the moment when I chose to ignore myself in favour of Jon (my ex - we were engaged back then). I stopped listening to my own needs & wants, and gave in to his (supposed) concept that I am difficult and he is right. Now: I know that isn't true. I'm grateful for the insight that I haven't moved along in any tangible sense. But I'm still paralysed The apparently trivial matter of housework is now a huge symbol of my stuckness. I keep going to look at the vacuum cleaner, then walking away again!!

What's going on?? Any advice?

Here's the trigger. I was looking around this room - it's piled up with boxes round 3 walls, waiting until I get my act together enough to finish decorating the fourth wall - haven't done the other 3 yet, btw. All of a sudden I was back in the front room of our first flat together. it was exactly the same. It got on my nerves: I wanted us to be making a home together - 'difficult' of me, natch - but he never moved a single box. In the April he went to his mum's for a week at Easter, without telling me or inviting me. Istayed at home and sorted out the front room. That week I let myself down - and appear to be reliving it, like a sort of Dog Day Front Room!

Argh.

I'm so sorry Grace. I wish I could help but my head feels like it's full of cotton wool. I can't make sense of anything. I'm utterly useless.

Thanks for replying!! Really, just having someone to tell about it has helped. Still don't know how to get past it, but I feel a tad less stumped iyswim.

Pardon me if this is an annoying suggestion, Bookcase, but how about ringing Samaritans? I find they're very good with cotton wool.

Sorry, perhaps I should.

If I'm allowed to ask one more thing of you ... stop saying sorry! I wouldn't bother replying to you if I didn't want to.

Yes, give them a try :)

I'm not ignoring you for the next half hour - I'm going to the shop to avoid tidying up.

www.samaritans.org/ xxx

De-lurks for an instance. Sorry to suddenly butt in. I read this thread a lot and take great comfort from your words.

Grace if you don't mind a comment from a complete stranger re your last post, I just wanted to say, I went through a similar thing and was actually just thinking about it this evening. For me, I think because I never had a real home in the emotional sense (and not much of one in the physical sense either, to be honest), I've always wanted to create the "perfect" space for me - my "home". I had a beautiful flat, I was so proud that I'd worked hard to buy it, it was just mine. Then my abusive ex moved in. We lived there for 8 years and I never stamped my mark on it and turned it into my home. In part, I think it's because I knew in my heart "home" would never be with this man. But I've since moved on (literally and metaphorically!) and I still have real difficuly stamping a mark on my house and making it a "home". I think it's because I am not "home" in my head - I don't know who I am. So cleaning, buying furnishings etc just feels like tinkering at the edges of trying to make "me" out of the mess that I am.

Feel free to ignore, I'm delurking again

oh god yes toad - I remember well the 'well who the hell am I then?' feeling.

It'll come together in time.

Grace Do you think sometimes that we are all "playing" at being grown ups, you know, it feels a bit unreal doing all the responsible things we all do. That sometimes it doesn't feel like we really have grown up? So doing responsible things like making a home a real home doesn't seem do-able? Am I making any sense at all??

Bookcase. I don't know your story, I've only done the stately home thing for about a week I think. Is there anything at all you can do to help yourself, to comfort yourself, to be kind to yourself. You may remember that I was saying the other day that I wrap myself up in my favourite tatty cardigan. I am wearing it today on top of a jumper! It helps me feel comforted and safe. Is there anything you can think of to help feel safe. Putting perfume on and smelling the lovely scent is helping shift your senses from feeling horrid, to a more physical feeling. If you know what I mean! If I think of anything else, I will let you know.

I have boxes full of pretty things for my lovely home, but when I get them out, I feel ashamed and stupid and worry what people will think of them. I put them away or give them to charity. I hate people coming into my house, I feel like they are judging my taste and me. I do it with clothes too. I have closets full of pretty outfits for the real me to wear as and when she emerges. I occasionally wear some sparkly earrings or the like, but I feel self conscious. My outfits never seem to feel right so I end up in the same old stuff.

Hello Nemo, thank you, I hope you are right, I sometimes feel I can't wait much longer.

OMG, toad! Thank you so much!! I've never heard anyone describe the same thing before - not even in 'group', where nearly everyone was madder than me!

YY. Home thing, trying too hard, abandoning all hope, the whole bit.

Self-abandonment stops here. Or, well, maybe tomorrow. Well, maybe two or three minutes today ...

... before my head explodes

Thanks again. x

This really belongs on the NPD thread but - That Easter, he vanished for one night. His mum was expecting him the day after, said she didn't know where he was and I never found out I really picked a winner there, didn't I, for my home-making partner.

midnight, I like the sound of your comfy cardigan :) I've just clocked that mine is an old one of Mum's ... and that it's probably a bad idea. I used to have a big ole cashmere one, grey, but have lost it. I'll appoint a replacement tomorrow - my mother should not be the provider of my comfort cardie!

nemo, we should have a Stately Homes Old Girls gathering one day - when we all know who we are and can introduce ourselves honestly

My ex-twat once brought a couple of women home and spent the night snorting coke with them on my dining room table while I cried upstairs. They wouldn't leave when I asked them to and ex got mad at me for asking. In the morning, I allowed myself to be persuaded that I was over-reacting. I'm with you there, Grace, mine definitely was not a home maker, either, no wonder I had the same three paint sample splodges on the wall for the entire 8 years.

Oh dear, knew this would happen if I de-lurked, can't stop yakking now. I am definitely off now. Good wishes to you all, you really help me x

Related to last few posts, nothing to add of consequence unfortunately.
This is a huge source of contention between me and...well myself. I have lived here for nearly 4 yers now and the level of clutter and things left that need doing is driving me slightly insane.
I seem completely unable to 'inhabit' my own life in this sense. Is it a form of self deprivation? Or is it a sense of not being grown up enough to take control of things myself? Im just not sure.
Today I rang Hss and hired a wallpaper stripper because I CAN NOT take the blue and yellow gawdy play room decor (inherited!) ANYMORE. Dh is too busy working all hours to do anything about decorating etc...so that leaves me.
I hung up the phone after organising it and thought...wow...I can do these things myself. I dont have to just put up with things. I can choose.
How did I still not know that .

Should have said feeling grown up enough.

bookcase Did you ring the samaritans? I think MH was saying sometimes you get someone who is good and sometimes not so good when it comes to samaritans.
Are these thoughts your having ones you think seriously of following through? Or would you describe them more as transient, intrusive thinking.
I can really relate to those feelings as I felt a lot like you are describing when I had ds. I did go on Ad's to get me through it and although they didnt cut through the anxiety completely they did help quite a bit. When is your gp appointment now?
I also found this website [http://www.pni.org.uk/ here] helpful after I had dd. I got a phonecall form my mum about six months after dd and it sent me spiralling down. Keeping a journal on that site and the ladies on there really helped me a lot, even if I only see that now in retrospect.

Please, please, keep posting xx

sorry here

I'm hoping to hear from you, too, Bookcase.
I remember one time, not so long ago, when the only way to keep going was to promise myself I could die after I'd done XYZ! People kept saying how much happier I seemed ... I was banking on the black mood passing in a couple of weeks, which it did.

This thread hit a real nerve with me yesterday. Thank you. The Harry Potter film was just on the telly, with the mirror that shows you what you crave. I just thought "It shows me surrounded by happy, loving people" and then felt terribly sorry for myself. Ohhh, it can be done, I'm sure - step at a time. If I'd known you wanted a wallpaper stripper, trs, I could have lent you mine! It's been in its box for 13 months: meanwhile, the cat's stripping the walls for me

Yes, we CAN do grownup things. I'm still waiting for stuff to sink in, but have got myself some targets (voluntary, not 'forced') which I daren't share just yet - this happened after our convo about house and home, so it's a real development :)

Hope everybody's warm and safe tonight.

I did a great long response and it disappeared, so am testing before I post again!