"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.

Phew! Is it just me, or is this not really "caring" about me, as it is controlling me? Eldest sister has always been like this. I always said she is more like my mum than my mum, but not in a loving caring way, in a controlling, do as I say way. It was so good just to read it again as I translated it and posted it here as it made it seem much less scary than when I first read it.

Particularly the last bit about the student loan, we found so petty (read it to dp who was shocked as eldest sister has only ever been sooo nicey nicey to him but of course I haven't said what I really thought before now so haven't provoked a reaction.)
There is a very good reason for it and my dad (not hers) said no problem, I'll sort this out. I never asked but I accepted it as I thought, you know what, they never did anything for me so they actually owe me more than normal parents would! I think I will ask eldest sister something like, if her dh was made redundant, there was another credit crunch and they couldn't pay their mortgage, would she say no to her dad helping her out?

What a stupid cow she is.

As for dragging my brother into it, she is telling me not to tell him which means I have nobody on my side! I found this bit so cruel. As it is, he is the only one I really get on with, and I have already informed him about me cancelling on my parents so that he'd hear it from me in case someone chose to gossip/twist things. He asked if he should send a message to the family with his views (he is the only one who thinks the same about my mum as I do and has stopped seeing her as a victim), and I first said it's not necessary, but now I might tell him the time has come. He has never got involved, moved across the world 5 years ago and never been back since. Says a lot doesn't it?

I like how she measures who was beaten most (probably my brother but what does she know, she moved when I was 7 and he 4!), like it measures the level of suffering now.
And portrays him as a fragile person which he is not. He has distanced himself so much and is by far the smartest out of all of us. I am so pleased for him, he has a fantastic career, a lovely family, lives in a fab location and is a member of mensa :)
Not relation to anything but I am just so proud of who my little brother has become. He used to be so shy he didnt speak a word.
It gives me hope. It just makes me realize I can do something to, I just need to take the opportunity. But I think distance from this family is a first step.

So good to vent on here, thank you. You don't have to read of course! ;)

The irony is that after telling my parents not to come I felt so bad, so guilty, I wanted to say they can come after all, and the I could use the time to tell them things, at least make my mum see I'm serious about cutting her out if she doesnt listen.
I cut my dad out for so many years he has only recently been let back in my life.
But my sisters email makes me want to never speak to any of them ever again.
She is doing my mums dirty work for her. This is what my mum does. Just so sad I have to deal with all these things now and am not able to enjoy dd 100% :(

trs thank you so much! I have been reading "pages" first thread and I think I've read some of your first post! As Smithfield? I am so happy for you that you have found the real you :) So much on that first thread has resonated with me, it really is like therapy. Which is why I finally got around to posting here. I can't keep things inside any longer, I am feeling so angry a lot of the time and I really need to deal with that. I think in one of your early posts you asked if the anger is the first thing to surface and I can so relate to that. I am so angry at my mum, at myself for not being able to face the truth sooner. But I think I needed my dp in my life first, to feel strong (previous relationships not good) and then becoming a mother which has made it impossible to ignore any longer.
Sorry for hogging the thread!!

Hugs to all of you xx

Q, I can relate to your post and the email from your sister. Especially the bit where she tells you that your mother was a/the victim too. But even though things might have been bad for your mum as well, she was an adult at the time. You were a young child. Your mother, however hard it might have been, did have the choice whether to stay in a bad situation or not. As a child, you had no choice. My siblings seem to have the same attitude to me and my mother. My siblings feel sorry for my mother and see her as the victim. My mother was abused and bullied by my dad and my siblings have seen this and feel sorry for her. But they seem to have no sympathy for me at all and I was a child when I was abused by my dad, my mother was an adult.

I haven't spoken to my siblings for quite a while. I felt ok about that for a while. It felt like the best thing to do in order to heal. But I feel so sad and lonely without any family to call my own (apart from DH and DC's). I have been thinking recently about perhaps getting in touch with my siblings again. But I'm scared of being hurt again by them. I don't know what to do.

Q I can also relate to your anger and needing your dp in your life first to feel strong and safe (?) in order to deal with this stuff. And becoming a mother meaning you are somehow confronted with your own childhood again. Me too.

trs, hello and thank you. I think there have been many small triggers that I have been ignoring and not 'processing' and I think that is how I have ended up, actually down, in this black hole again. I just wanted to feel I was normal, ok, could just live a normal life like everybody else. I was so tired of always dealing with my issues. I wanted to just put them aside and get on with my life. But it doesn't work. I can't pretend I'm ok, that I'm 'fixed' because I'm not. There is so much still do deal with.

I can relate to the spiral thing. I feel I am revisiting issues I have already covered, but now from a slightly different perspective.

solonely, I know this too. My sister doesn't seem to want to think this way. But she is the golden child, always has been and I'm sure doesn't want to loose this place. I don't think my mum will ever take full responsibility for her actions as she needs to play the victim, otherwise her life would fall apart. And she cares more about herself than about anyone else, I'm starting to realize this now. I just wasn't ready to admit it before, probably because I wasn't strong enough. Or safe, you're right.

I did the same pretending I'm ok after having dd but it all came crashing down... so have been feeling very very bad but am getting better now. Very up and down, but we'll get there. I think trs it was you who said something earlier about exploding? About your mum when you had second child? Sorry if I'm getting it wrong, but I remember reading that and thinking that's exactly it.

solonely, I would advice you not to contact your siblings when you're feeling like this.
Keep posting on here, and do everything else you can to get better, but put that contact off...

You're not hogging, Quaqquao, it's very understandable that you need to get this out into fresher air. I'm very impressed that you DID cancel the parental visit - and with such clarity, too! You deserve a certificate :) It's great that DP gets it and can validate your right to be independent from them.

Reading your sister's email, it looks very clear to me that she's still locked into the (futile) hope that your mother will grow up, accept her responsibilites and try to make amends. This isn't going to happen. So, sister protects her hope by protecting her mother's self-interest ... give her time, give her more love & sympathy, then maybe she'll realise how much she owes us. It's all wrong but we've all been there. You never know, your honesty toward your parents may yet turn out to be a trigger for her own recovery. Meanwhile, you have absolutely no responsibility for her emotional choices: maybe it's time for you to start accepting that she, too, is still a 'wounded and angry child'? Sad as that is, there's bugger all you can do about it, unless/until she decides to do it herself and seeks your input.

At a small family lunch last week, I told a joke (after offering a 'rude word' warning) that has the word cunt in the punchline. My brother spluttered with laughter, while the others sat waiting for clues about how to react . THEN, Bro said "That was Dad's favourite word, wasn't it, he used it all the time!" I said "yes, indeed" - the others all looked like they'd been turned to stone! FFS, I've no time for this any more: the man was an insane, foul-mouthed bully and I'm not about to try & silence my brother who, bless him, seems to be on the verge of acknowledging the fact!

Not sure why I needed to tell you that? Maybe as a small illustration of how siblings can start to see the real picture, even after you'd written them off. I suspect this one's wife bullies him, actually, so there may be an interesting story waiting to unfold ...

yeah having a child certainly reminds you of things and shows them in a different light. you see the little obvious basic things you do for them or the things you would never do to them and realise you didn't have those basics offered to you or they did do those things to you that you'd never do. i could cry sometimes with a sense of wow imagine if i'd had this, imagine what it would have been like to be told you were loved, kissed, cuddled, allowed to have emotions etc etc.

at least we're breaking the cycle.

Grace Thank you! Oh, this is doing wonders for my confidence ladies!
I am actually very impressed with self to for doing it in the end, and not creeping back saying so sorry poor mummy don't cry of course you can come! I have never done anything like this before, so direct, I have said things to her, asked why didn't she protect us, but in drips and then always been fobbed off.

You're right about my sister, she is still so caught up in it and for her too, admitting the truth would be too much. I'm not holding my breath for it too happen but if she does I'm there for her. My brother as I said has realized, middle sister too but stays in touch with mum, but because my mum has always treated eldest sister different to all of us, doing things for her, acting like a gm to her kids, she doesn't have the same experience. She is also so stubborn and small minded, what she does is right, if we do it different it is weird. She has actually said to me herself that she too controlling with her dh, but she will rather be like this than like my mum. I'm wondering if I should buy her Toxic Parents for xmas (not in a nasty way).

Can I just mention as well in case I forgot before, my dad never touched my mum. She was never the "bumper" that mys sis described in the email. I remember my mum sitting in her armchair only halfway getting up when my dad would grab one of us for a beating, but not actually coming near. Then comforting us afterwards and saying how horrible our dad was. My dad used to say he did it because he loved us. Which made me slightly confused.
God, it's good to write this and if I feel guilty about telling them to cancel the trip I will read it back.

Can you tell us the joke Grace?

It's a Mumsnet joke

Q: What did the two tampons say to one another?

A: Nothing. They were both stuck up cunts.

Well, it tickled me & my brother!

Wallows, yes, that is exactly what happened to me after having my DC's. I can't imagine DD going through even a fraction of what I experienced. I can see the terror and bewilderment in her face if DH treated her how my dad treated me. I just can't believe it was me who went through some of that stuff. It seems like it literally happened in another lifetime not in this lifetime. But we only have one life so it must have happened to me in this life.

Q, I can relate to the urge to keep asking questions that you have mentioned. I have given up asking why my parents treated me as they did, but recently, I seem to be re-visiting things my MIL has said and done. I have had the misfortune to not only have had toxic dysfunctional parents, but also a toxic MIL. (Was it misfortune though? Did the 'vibe' that I gave off, having been abused by my parents mean that my MIL somehow 'knew' she could get away with bullying me?). I am angry with her for being so cruel to me at a time when I was very vulnerable but also angry with myself for allowing her to overstep the mark and not saying a word, not standing up for myself and letting her know I wouldn't allow her to treat me that way.

After having DS, I had put on loads of weight and looked very different to myself pre-DS. One day MIL decided, whilst we were at her house, to pick up a picture of me, pre-DS, (it was taken at BIL's wedding), show it to DS, who at the time was about 2.5, and ask him if he could recognise his mummy in the picture. I was mortified. My heart was racing whilst I waited for DS to respond. I don't know what I would have done if he hadn't been able to recognise me in the photo. After what seemed like an age, but in fact was only seconds, DS picked me out in the photo. I was so relieved. But I feel so angry now when I think about that incident. I am sure MIL was fully aware of how I felt about myself at the time, I looked awful and needed support and my self esteem being boosted. Instead MIL made me feel even worse about myself and my appearance than I did already. And what hurts the most is that her actions seemed so deliberate and intentional. She can be very tactless and insensetive at times, but this time she seemed to be deliberately setting out to hurt, upset and humiliate me. And I just don't know why?. I had always tried to be pleasant and polite to her, although I can't say we had ever really hit it off.

I would value your opinion(s) on this. Am I being oversensetive and reading things into the incident that weren't there? I just don't know. All I know is that I would never do that sort of thing to somebody else, not as a joke, not under any circumstances. To kick a woman when she feels down about her looks is just so horrible. I just don't understand it.

I am still here guys.

I am currently writing a very long 'letter' where I imagine I am ranting talking to my mother. There is lots and lots of swearing which I have never done in real life and it feels very liberating... Even writing 'I hate you' felt good as I have spent so long defending them and making crap excuses for them.

I write a bit everyday

I know that putting it all away in a little box and trying to forget it won't work

If I do that again for the next ten years, I won't last another ten years. I know it and dh knows it. Dh says he knew when we got married (7years ago) that I would have some kind of breakdown at some point if I didn't take the past out of it's box and feel and heal it.

And he still married me. Poor guy is obviously smitten and deluded

nemo, that is a brilliant way to get your feelings out in a 'safe' way. I wrote a letter too, to my parents, and it was full of hate and anger and I sent it! It was before I even really understood that I had been abused, I just had a huge well of emotion inside me that I had kept locked away for years and it was clamouring to be let out.

I totally understand how liberating it is to write such a letter and to say how you really feel, to swear and shout and let it all out. Good for you. And how lucky you are to have such a wise and caring DH.

Thanks SoLonely. I really do not know how it happened (getting dh). Met him on a blind date set up by a work colleague - so it was blind luck I guess. He never ceases to amaze me with the depth of his lurve and how cheesy and crap his jokes are...

It is running to 3 pages of A4 so far...

Sorry to cut in again. I can't do this!
I hate who I am. I hate every fibre of my being.
I've tried everything to get better but seem to be my own worst enemy.
I'm terrified of living. I'm convinced the world is going to end or something terrible is going to happen to DH and DD and I will be left alone.
I can't be a good mum. I'm dreading every day and now I'm trapped but I love her so much.

Nemo, he sounds gorgeous, you are very, very lucky.

Bookcase, am very sorry you're feeling so bad. Do you think you have been triggered by something in your present life, and the feelings you are experiencing now are how you sometimes felt as a child?

I suspect so SoLonely. I feel like it quite alot though and don't know how to stop it. I feel so little.
I'm such an ugly, stupid...etc.

I'm beating myself up now for interrupting the thread and butting in a conversation. Imagining you all thinking horrible things about me and hating my guts.

It's not fair that I'm so messed up. It may not have been my fault then but it is now. I haven't managed to change. I'm a failure.

Bookcase I could have written every word of your post. I know they go on about zombie plans on here but I don't think any of the other posters are as serious as I am - I am convinced the world is going to end and I am going to ahve to defend my family single handed with a samurai sword and some potted beef.

I hate me too. Ugly, stupid, weak, pathetic, pah, take your pick. Deluded, drug addled, loony etc etc. But I know now that they are all the labels my mother gave me, and that I can be anything I want. I can choose how I see myself. Today I am picking irresistable and hard headed. Grrrr.

Bookcase, nobody is thinking horrible things about you, I absolutely promise you that. Yes, it's not fair at all that you have been dumped with all this rubbish to sort out. But you can and will do it. I know you will find the courage and determination for the same reasons I found it. For the sake of your DD. I was lurking on your other thread, although I didn't post, but I can tell how much you love and how you desperately want to be the best mum you can be. Like Nemo said, you can now choose how you see yourself, you don't have to always play the role into which you were cast by your parents.

Changing is a slow process, you have to take it step by step, often two steps forward, one step back.

I'm glad that you're feeling positive today nemo.
All those feelings are from my stepfather. Maybe he was projecting his feelings onto me or maybe he was just a bastard.

When he was dying, I felt pity for him. Even after all the years of hating him, I saw him as another suffering human being. Or perhaps I was helping him understand his illness to show him that finally I had power over him. I wish I really was the hard hearted bitch I sought to portray - or maybe not.

Can you tell I'm confused about my feelings.

I got in touch with my real dad about 12 years ago and we wrote to each other for about 2 years, until he died. They were all very reserved letters, although he did say he felt he didn't deserve me being nice to him.

Now he is dead, I wish I had had the chance to be angry with him for leaving, the chance to ask him why.
Did he ever think of me while he was helping his daughter raise her daughter, who is about the same age. I want to tell him what life was like for me in that hell hole. I want him to still be here to have a relationship with and to see his grand-daughter.
I saw him in the hospital the day before he died and held his hand. I thought I saw some recognition in his eyes. At least, I hold onto the idea that I might have. He died the next day and I got there too late, so I sat there looking at him and holding his hand, thinking that he might open his eyes any minute.

I put him on a mini pedestal because it doesn't feel right to be angry with him. Again, I make excuses on his behalf to try to understand his perspective. I've traced his side of my family tree to get some connection with him, but the people I have met through that aren't really my relatives. I'm a fraud, a lost soul.

I've got no reason to think horrible thoughts about you, Bookcase, or to hate you ...
Can you write some of your good qualities here? Even if you can't think of any yourself, there must be things DD and DP love about you - and I bet you can think of at least one accomplishment.

:)

I'll start you off!
You write well.

I can't type the things DH says about me. Each time he says something lovely about me, I feel a wrenching in my gut. I can't believe what he says, it hurts too much to hear good things about me.

OK. What would it be like to hear DD say what you just posted?