"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.

I have normal comprehension if i read to myself. i have to read slowly as words jump about. I can read out loud normally, if u asked me to comprehend what i read out i am clueless! Spelling v poor, i do my best and enjoy reading! I think garbled is when i am upset, my processing is affected! Thanks for feedback, am on mobile right now so not sure if that a prob! X

I apologise. Words jumping about is dyslexia, isn't it? Thank you for not telling me off! x

MH i would say you are dyslexic . .
What you decribe is very similar to what i have.Mostly spelling .... gets worse as i get tierd ...as does the understanding .

Am also guessing your toxic used it as an excuse to call you names too

Stupid , thicko , thick as shit, bumb as a plank were a few of my ex family`s favorites.

Droves, actually no, he did not name call when we were together, he saved up all the years of innerabuse and hurled it at me after he left! He told me prior to my diagnosis (half way through the marriage) that he was dyslexic mildly, so it was never an issue in the marriage. Strangley now he has this thing where he kept picking on me re spelling and grammar since, and he has on f/b joined a group that is disgusted at such errors etc, I have a feeling it is something ow has an issue with that he has taken on and they use to denegrate me with, hey ho, she probably is into taking the mick out of heather mills one leg, I am not that keen on the woman myself, it does not make sense to me why she is one of the few disabled people that has so many nasty jokes said about her, in this day and age and disability discrimination act and all, it is the same as racisim really, taking the mick of someone's disability even if it is just dyslexia!

I am sorry your ex used to call you those names, it obviously still hurts, you can list them, I hope that one day that the list will not be there for you anymore x

Sorry to hijack, but help!!
My mother is planning to come for Christmas. She was neglectful of me and DB as children, then emotionally abused me. Now people think she's a dear sweet old lady and don't understand why I have such a hard time tolerating her. (If anything it's got worse recently as I've become aware that it was actual abuse, it's not that I was such a horrible unlovable person. I wish I were just a little bit braver and could go completely NC.)
Both DB and I fled 1000s of miles to where our father came from (they divorced when we were small, she took us back to UK, never a word of explanation in the decades since). She has come to visit for Christmas most years.
Now she has severe mobility problems and a heart condition among other things though is in deep denial about all that. She mentioned to my DB a few days ago that she wanted to come.
He wrote back very tactfully talking about her age and health, pointing out that we'd tried to discuss this situation with her years ago and she refused to talk about it. Suggestedas he did months agoshe get a letter from her doctor saying she was ok to fly, medical insurance, tell the airline about her condition (she might need an oxygen supply, if she's allowed to fly at all). Healthcare costs a fortune here and if she flies without oxygen she might have a heart attack, stroke etc.
She writes back ignoring every word and saying have booked flight, here are the dates!
I have been feeling sick ever since. It was such a huge relief to think I wouldn't have to endure another Christmas blighted by her. Now I have to worry about that and whether she will have to be carried off the plane on a stretcher and taken straight to hospital.
How can she just override his wishes--and not even ask me what I think about it? How can she completely ignore the medical risk and how selfish she's being in not taking precautions? How do I get through the next two months?

sorry , mummyhunnie ...need to explaine ...a whole back i went NC with my mother , father and siblings ..i now refer to them as my "ex-family" .
It was my mother and siblings that called me names. Not my ex-h `s family ( theyre not perfect , but wouldnt call them toxic).

It is hard to keep up with everyone, Droves, thanks for explaining x

Quiddy, I don't want to leave your post unanswered or you to feel ignored, I simply don't know what to say to you other than I am so very sorry that this is happening to you and in answer to how to you get through the next two months, put yourself, your family, friends and hobbies/activities/xmas activities etc first and if you have time and feel guilty see and deal with your mother then, if she wants to come and be a maryter there is nothing you can do about it, it is her choice!

Quiddity ....id write again and tell her that youve booked a holiday for the two months shes here .... a cruise mabey ? or that you have arranged to stay with friends so you wont see her whilst shes here.

Then hide.

If shes risking her health then shes either not as bad as you have been led to believe. (narassists are prone to this)

Or shes playing the martyr card , hopeing you both drop everything and give her that attention seeking fix she craves.

.

You have my sympathies.

Oh, noooo, quiddity, after all your good efforts to put your mother off flying over!
She's totally, toally out of order. You don't invite yourself for Christmas when people have asked you not to come, even if they are "family".

I think we all know what the correct advice is! Question is, could you & DB stand the fear, obligation and guilt associated with refusing to meet the plane, locking the door when she turns up in a taxi and ignoring the subsequent health crisis? Thought not :(

I don't know what to suggest Think you'd be perfectly justified in telling her to saty at a hotel but even that won't lift your burden, will it?

HOW DARE SHE!!!!!

Grace thats the point .
She is counting on quidditys kind nature .
If she was unsure of reaction , or thought someone would stand up to her then she wouldnt have booked the flights.

Yeah :(

Quiddity, is there the slightest chance you, your brother and partners can tell her roundly there will be NO welcome for her - and stick to it?

She is playing the martyr card to some extent by saying she will stay in a guesthouse. When DB said decent affordable places would be hard to find, she said oh, she only needed a bed, as she will be at my place during the day! Without a word to me about it!
I mostly work from home, office will be closed over Xmas, so I can't even hide out there, and I have no friends to speak of. Anyway she would expect to be taken along too if I were going anywhere fun. Otherwise she sits around complaining about being bored.
Droves, as you say, she has an amazing way of taking advantage of my good nature--while at the same time hinting that I am inexplicably naturally bad-tempered/under too much stress at work when the pressure of having to deal with her gets too much for me.
It used to be not quite so bad as I had a DP around, my DCs were smaller & could entertain her, & my DSIL used to be on speaking terms with her so she could spend time at DB's house. Now it's mostly me against her.
Spoke to DB this afternoon, we agreed he would call and tell her we think she should not come, and then I will e-mail her to say the same. Problem of course is that she's already dealt with that by booking the ticketit didn't occur to us that she would do that without asking, replying to DB's first e-mail or doing the things he'd suggestedwhich any rational person with a life-threatening condition would do before getting on a plane.

Quiddy, I remember you posting about this before! There is triangulation with db as the go between. I would contact her yourself and let her know that you wish her a good xmas and good health, that you are not available at xmas and the stuff about the illnesss... not being funny about this Quiddy, do you really trust your db to tell you and her the full story?

He is definitely the golden child, mummiehunnie, that's why she tells him this stuff and not me. He has issues with her too, but conveniently for him, his DW doesn't speak to her. So he can graciously pick up toxic mum for lunch once or twice the whole time she's here and has an excuse for hardly seeing her and not taking her to his house. I'm the one who has to put up with her every day even though it's torture. Just being in the same room gives me emotional flashbacks to when I was a teenager and she would be screaming at me for hours about how the sight of me made her feel sick.
The illness is real, she has had surgery which left her barely able to walk. She had surgery last year for the heart problem too. I have no idea of her real state since then because she denies there's anything wrong. It's ridiculous for her to be travelling at all.

Quiddy, I remember being quite annoyed on your behalf before, and those horrible rumblings are there again, I won't post again about this as it is affecting me negatively. I really feel for you! Quiddy, my gut tells me not to trust your db on so many levels, find other things to do, invent friends, do what ever to avoid this, and don't let him be the only one to tell her not to come! I have this horrible feeling he is not telling her to not come, and that he is playing you both off against one another and is getting a sick pleasure from listening to you moan about it and having you put upon, and your mother complaining about you to him and him nodding etc and he just has the luck as his wife does not like, wonder how that was engineered it all! I may be wrong about all of this, I may be too jaded by seeing to many sicko's get off on that type of thing...

I know I have to be careful about trusting him, he has always seen me as part of the problem, not the scapegoat and major victim. I know once she's here I can't expect any support from him.
I did see his e-mail to her, though, when he forwarded her reply breezily saying "Have just booked my flight." He was very very tactful about telling her she might not be well enough to come--and then told her that he and I would find (and pay for!) somewhere for her to stay.
So that gave her an opportunity to ignore the other parts and just take on the bits that fitted with what she wanted.
Sorry this is upsetting for you too, mummiehunnie, and thanks to everyone for understanding. When I tell people in RL I'm upset about her coming they think I'm exaggerating or being mean. Grace, your fairytale references make me think of her as the wicked stepmother in Snow White who disguises herself as the sweet old lady handing out juicy apples.
This makes me feel so helpless again, like when I was a teenager trapped in her house for years to come and no one cared what I felt.

I've been thinking about this, quiddity. It puts me in mind of my many stand-offs with my dad, who was as mad as any Genaral/President of any tropical country you care to name! (Probably would have been one, if he'd been born there instead of in Kent ...) Anyway, by his last years, we'd arrived at a state of mutual respect & understanding - no liking iyswim, but he trusted me because I'd proved I didn't trust him

After the age of 25, I never stayed at my pernts' house when visiting (I didn't visit overnight from 18-23, but that's another story). I paid for my own hotel and, as the years went by, my P&M split my room cost with me. For his last couple of years, he actually offered to pay my full cost - incredible! I've been thinking about how this happened. I reckon it's because I became intransigent ... like him. With hindsight, I could have arrived at a workable conclusion a lot faster than I did - live and learn, hey?

Here's my suggestion.

Tell her she was not invited and you have other plans.

Tell her she bought her ticket without an invitation.

Tell her you know she's your mother, etc, but there are a hundred reasons why she shouldn't travel.

Tell her you don't care if she has a heart attack on the plane, it's irresponsible to fly in her condition (even if you feel like you're lying - it's the truth, so say it).

Tell her you accept no responsibility for the outcome of her choice to fly, uninsured and therefore illegally, without an invitation.

Tell her your Xmas is so busy, you can't possibly have her to visit.

Offer a pathetic sop, maybe lunch together on the 23rd, if she's well enough. Say that's all you can manage.

SHOUT if necessary! That's what made the diff with my dad - I set really tight boundaries, and shouted as hard as he did.

Rope in all & any friends to boost your confidence.

Email bro at the same time as you speak to M (so it's in writing). Bugger his feelings, he's relying on you to take up the miles of slack.

How do you feel about this?

shedloads of typos

it's catching Grace x

Don't feel bad about my feelings, I just wanted you to know why I was not able to answer anymore and it was not to do with you x

:) I'm just drunk & tired!

Grace, thanks for all those ideas!
Not sure I am brave enough for all of them, but I am certainly going to tell her it is madness, and why, and that's it's irresponsible and inconsiderate to make her plans at all without consulting/asking both of us, let alone ignoring DB's telling her she has to get medical insurance.
Oddly enough I tried the shouting thing with my DF a few times and it worked--I think partly because he was so surprised that anyone at all dared shout back at him, least of all a woman, and his own daughter! That just didn't compute in his world, so he'd have to shut up because he just didn't know what else to do.
I hope the e-mail equivalent of shouting might have the same effect on toxic mum, who clearly is hoping she has already outmanoeuvred any resistance. Especially if DB co-operates, and I think he was quite pissed off at being completely ignored. In her world these dayssince she gave up shouting at meone avoids any unpleasantness by pretending it doesn't exist--you don't confront it even in writing.

I don't feel that bad feeling in my tummy now reading your posts and responding Quiddy, yea you! go send that email x

hup, grace... what ya drinking?

mh - Drinking while thinking = recovery program joke! Still, may as well "do what works" for now (another recovery lesson).

Quiddity - go you! You actually sound well prepared to state your boundaries as LOUDLY as required :) Good luck! Looking forward to hearing how you manage. x