"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.

It's very much a case of 'suck it and see' with antidepressants in my experience.
I know what you mean about making yourself vulnerable. I suppose it's about taking risks.
I've deleted several things here because I struggle to form arguments lately but you make perfect sense.

"suck it and see"

Thank you mummiehunnie and bookcasefullofbooks.

Am off to bed now. Partly because internet is wobbling here.

As Ms O'Hara said, tomorrow is another day.

I have been feeling very very tired the past few days and sleeping more than usual during the day as well as at night with distrubance. I used to have certain vitamin deficencies, I just had a look up and see that both of them can make you depressed if you are low in them, so I will go and see my gp on Monday and ask for a blook test to see if I am low in them again! I think this time if I am I will ask them why I am continually low in those vitamins, as one of them I have been low a few times now, and it was not me that asked for them tests before!

Night Mintyaero, I love Scarlet!

Sorry if that worried you mintyaero. I just meant that you need to find one that works for you. That may well be the first one you try.
I hope you sleep well x

Hi all. I haven't posted on here for a very long time but I just wondered if you could have a look at this for me please and tell me what you think.

I'm so upset, it has stirred up a whole load of emotions in me, some of which I was not ready to face just now.

Thank you x

mampam .... your mum is a bit bonkers .... Why would she do that ? why would your sd add him as a friend ?
Im assuming they have never met in RL . Your rd probably wont even know who your sd is married too . Its creepy stalking type behaviour .Your mum has never really " let him go has she" ?
I dont know if im more shocked about that , or the fact she has your sd in on the act too.

Its up to you what you do , who you speak too, who you maintain relationships with.

Your choice.

Dont be pushed into talking to someone you dont want to (iykwim?).

No wonder your upset .

Hi mampam. It does seem a very odd thing to do but, not knowing anything about your background, I'm not sure I can comment any further.

Right, well, I've been trying to fix the mess that my family made of me but am really finding it hard.

I'm trying to establish friendships by meeting up with new people and trying to find people to relate to on here.

I'm consumed, throughout all this, by thoughts of 'why on earth did you say that?', 'they don't really want to talk to you', 'you're not worth knowing' and other negative things.

I'm finding it so hard to keep it up because I'm just feeling more and more down. The more effort I make, the louder and stronger these feelings become.

I'm really desperate to find people to be friends with, without coming across that way.

Bookcases, it's just a feeling, it's not the truth. It's the way your family has made you feel. And those feelings stop you from seeing and being the real you.
You're not alone in feeling like that. I always feel I have nothing to say, people will find me boring if I try to talk to them, and that even if I did manage to get to know them, they would discover what a lame person I really am. I totally understand the desperation, too.
Whose voice is it who says those things to you? I remember someone on here saying it was useful to identify it. It wasn't the voice of the truth, it's one of the unkind people who taught you those things when you were little, and you trusted them.

That would be my stepdad quiddity. It's difficult to believe that I ever trusted him but I suppose I must have done at one point.

I find most people want to be light-hearted about life and I struggle with that because I am in such emotional pain most of the time. Noone wants to hear that at the local coffee group.

I'm worried that I've worn out my welcome on here. I'm not interesting enough.
God the self-pity is nauseating. I want to just shake myself sometimes and say 'bloody well pull yourself together woman'!

I think it may not be yourself you want to shake, Bookcase. Why would you want to swear and be abusive at yourself? That's someone else's script, isn't it?

If you know whose it is - even roughly - perhaps you can answer them back. Some people shout back at their 'abuser in their head', I answer mine firmly & rationally (I can't 'abuse' mine back, because it's too bound up with my own self). I also apologise to myself for swearing at me!

I'm sorry you feel like you're faltering. But please DON'T tell me what I find interesting! It's up to me to decide whether you're interesting "enough" for me, thank you very much

Hello, mintyaero :)

Thank you Grace. I used to really shout back at my step dad when I went through a stage of rebellion.

I've internalised so much of the negativity that it's second nature now.

That is a good way of doing things Grace!

I would so love to be able to be light-hearted about life as you put it, bookcase.
Apart from the stress of not feeling that way, once you start pretending you are, in the hope that you won't frighten people off, it's so hard to let down your guard when you really need to. And it adds to the feeling that they wouldn't like you if they knew the real you. And the feeling that you're just not like other people because you have to pretend all the time to be something you're not....

I have chanced it and posted on another thread, the come dine with me one!

I saw you Mh. Well done!
That's exactly how I feel quiddity. My cpn says that if I pretend I'm okay for long enough, I'll eventually feel okay but I think that's a very simplistic way of seeing things and it certainly hasn't worked yet.

what is a cpn Bookcase?

community psychiatric nurse

I thought that may be what it was, thanks for that!

Where do you think you may go from here?

I truly feel that there is no hope for me. I get no enjoyment from life.
I can't kill myself because that will leave dd with terrible pain and I won't see her grow up.
There's no alternative but to live with the misery until I die naturally.
I worry that my unhappiness will affect her more than if I died though.

Sorry, maybe that was a bit too frank.

Hope I haven't intruded, but have PMed.

Bookcase There are many names for that abusive and critical voice that's consuming you right now. It was described to me once as a mad monkey or a super ego attack.

That voice's only purpose is to sabatage you. It's not worth getting into a debate or a conversation with it because it's of no use to you. It's purpose is to get in the way of the real work that you're doing. It's like the junk text that can spew out of a computer sometimes.

When I'm feeling under attack from mine, I like the monkey analogy as I get such a strong image of a monkey on my shoulder. There it sits chattering utter nonsense at me but I've learnt to swat it away more easily because if I get caught up in taking it seriously it means I can't really look at what's going on.

Your mad monkey is no different and you've as much right to be alive as me or anyone. Your loyalty to the voice that tells you otherwise is misplaced.

Neither do I find you too frank. You're saying how it is for you and many people here want to hear you Bookcase, and they take what you're feeling seriously.

People are listening to you.

Hi, I'm new on this thread.

Bookcase - I know what you mean. Especially about establishing new friendships. I can't talk to people because I worry that I will say the wrong thing and come across as a bit mad. I always analyse conversations I have had afterwards and go over what I've said to make sure it sounded OK . I also have thought my kids would be better off without me fucking them up as I was fucked up but accept that it just another of my negative thoughts.

I am one of 8 children, 4 my mother had with her first husband (he died), she then married my father as she needed a provider. They then had my brother and me. My parents divorced when I was 6 - father was a drinker and violent or so I was brought up to believe. When I met him last year after 30 years, he said it was not as it seemed but would not 'open that can of worms'. My mother would never speak about him or what happened, she just said it was between him and her, conveniently forgetting that there kids in the middle of it! So I am still totally confused. I do know that he took on her first 4 kids at the age of 20 so IMO can't have been all bad. I witnessed a lot of terrible things, some that it took hypnotheraphy to uncover.

My mum remarried immediately (again as she needed a provider for us 6 kids - she has admitted that she did not love my stepfather)but only my older sister (golden child) attended the wedding which I have only now just realised was a bit strange. She was pregnant with my half brother before the wedding and went on to have my half sister quickly afterwards. All her attention and energy has always been lavished on them and I was unsurprisingly very jealous of them as a child, as I had been the youngest and had all her attention before that, which of course added to her hatred of me because she could not understand why. Of course, we all had the same opportunities but they could only afford to send them to university and they keep wondering why I 'as the most intelligent one' never achieved anything in my life.

All my life she has told me that I was evil, nasty, a bit touched and just like my paternal grandmother who was an 'evil, fat stinking bitch'. I was regularly beaten by both of them. I have been totally alienated from my 7 siblings who believed what she said about me and still bring up now that I was a 'right bitch' when growing up. I now realise I was the scapegoat and it has taken a year of CBT and hypnotheraphy to accept that I was abused and in fact had a terrible childhood even though they took us for walks in the countryside on Sundays and the occasional visit to a stately home!!

Since I left home, I have had a good relationship with them and visited regularly but always had this anger and resentment bubbling away. I decided I had to get it all out now as she has started on my DS1, calling him 'ugly and stupid' and his twin brother 'handsome'. This is her 8 yr old grandson fgs! We were supposed to be spending Christmas with them but I was dreading it tbh because I knew I would have to say something if she showed favouritism between my DSs again.

Yesterday I sent a 'confrontation' email to them detailing my perception of my childhood and the problems I have been left with (OCD, panic attacks, intrusive thoughts, extreme anxiety etc) and copied it to my siblings. My full blood brother immediately replied saying that I was a 'nutter' and I should not blame my life choices on my mum, my stepdad brought us up etc. I replied that he is an asshole (which he is), we have never been close and he has never acknowledged my DCs, in fact on the rare occasion they have seen him, they don't know who he is!

My parents have also sent me a reply email which I am too scared to open! DH will read it first in a minute. Since I emailed them yesterday, I have had this fear they will turn up at the door even though they live 200 miles away and this has made me realise that even though I am 39, I'm still terrified of them.