"But we took you to Statley Homes" Dysfunctional families thread

[MummieHunnie]

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.

mh Thank goodness you didn't let them in . That was very responible of you. If the man showed that kind of behaviour and lack of respect for your needs..before he came in the house...well .
I am still going to have to learn to go with this some more as it feels like such a new concept right now, but well done you!
For me, I feel like a weight has been lifted.

x posted ftp glad your both ok and happy you realised today something we knew all along

It did.

When i compeltly lost the plot in may i nearly hit my husband and thats what scared me the most. That i was just like them and i could hert someone i loved.

I was horrify ad regressed to the child me. All my family are aggresive and they think its ok to hit other people but iknow thisis wrong, they dont.

I have tried for yearsto be a calm nice person and to not be aggresive or nasty like them but i always thout it was an act. That deep down i wasjust like them, this is what they tell me.

But its not true i'm not like them and i am a nice kind caring person capable of forgivens and compasion (all forgine concerpts to my family).

I feel bad that my in laws car was damaged and my MIL is beatting herself up cos Air was in the car with us so i hope she can getover it. I have tols her it was an accident and Air is ok and not to worry but its kind of nice to know she cares

I felt the same TRS, yesterday, when the psychologist said to me that she had noticed that I was taking responsibility for other people abusing the vounerabily/softness in me, when it was their stuff. I went so very hard after having been a soft person to protect myself, which I don't have to do a revelation!

WOW go MH i think you did great good on you

I wouldn't have let them in my house eighter and i think you handeled it great.

I'm in awe of you as i dont think i have evr stood up for myself in my wholelife. I think i'm too scared of it exalating into a fight

I could never voice my opioin in my family for fear of being hit so i just didn't and then when an adult i already have the habit of being a doormat

I was not sure how to do it really, I did not handle it as well as I would next time if there is one, I kind of half closed the door and then opened it again, I was almost scared of standing up for myself, I did though, I feel bad for the woman as she looked nervious when I opened the door and she told me about the man, she must be a scared person or have had a bad experience, all she had to do was tell me she was bringing someone and giving me the option to bring someone myself, I didn't like the way she handled it, oh well she will learn for next time to warn her clients.

mh ftp- This was what happened also last night: I had to think of things I like about myslef and I couldnt. So then I had to say what other people like about me. Dh says I am very caring and loving. I told the therapist this and then got very upset.
I think I did exactly what you both did too. Buried the real me who is caring and loving because I had to proetect myself and anyway caring and loving wasnt something valued by my parents.
They also took advantage of it and used me to meet their needs.
They are narcisstic and so it was more important to try and be other things to please them as I saw caring (other than meeting their needs) didnt hold much currency. I had to be Pretty, clever, financially successful.
Now I actually like the label caring and loving. Im going to try and cherish it from now on.

I was always that soft person until Cafcass and exh and ex friends and ex husband took advantage and hurt me and the children and my barriers went up, I said to the psychologist it is hard to be soft and have good boundaries, and I said part of me does not trust me that I will tell people too much and they will use it and hurt me with the information and that is where she said that if they abuse the information then that is them not me, and not for me to blame myself if they do that to me!

I have always been told what i was or wasn't by my family that i started to believe it myself. They never give me the chance to find out who i am so now i'm learning who i am its kind of confusing. I always dout myself and i have no selfestem or confidence in myself.

If i showed too strong views or disagreed with my family i would be hit so i just learned to keep my mouth shut and go along with people. Thedn as a teenage i rebelled and things at home got worse.

Now i have my son i need to sort myself ot and be a good role modle and i always douted myslef that i couldn't be that for him as i had no idea where to start

Wow i do that too. I tell my family everything then they use this to hurt me. When i sorted things out with my husband we both agreed to ot tell our families about our relationship or our finances.

I find it so hard as i'm a natrualy open person and tell everyone everything. So to not tell my family things is so hard bt it works. They cant hurt me if they dont know anything.

I also tried this on my best friend and i think i found out so much about her as i didn't give her anything to disagree with.

I still think i'm working on holding back information.

A work in progress

FTP I used to be like that, I blooming learned not to be like that anymore, it is very hard as it is going against the natural personality I have had most of my life, as you say a work in progress to hold some information back. Can I just say hold a bit back from your dh also x

Aarrrrr why do i even bother!

After debating i thout i should tell my mum about the car.

It turns out that its my fault! That i shouldn't have asked them for a lift in the first place. She didn't ask if Air or i was ok.

Then she said she had a headache and she things she has high blood pressure. I got angry and told her people can die from that you shoud go see the doctor, in an uncareing voice then she said she had cooking in the oven and had to go look at it and she would call me back later.

I told her to not bother and fuck off and hung up

Gerr why do i keep banging my head agenst the same fucking brick wall?

I'm so angry witth myself just another exsample of the uncaring bitch that i have for a biolocial mother.

I just never learn

I do think though that it is ok to be vulnerable.
Although there is a learning curve wrt listening to instincts and holding back until you know you can trust someone.
I do trust my dh 100%, but I think he has earnt that trust.
If he were to abuse it though It wouldnt be my fault for letting him in. It would be his for abusing that trust.

X posted ftp dont beat yourself up for your mothers shitty behaviour
Not your fault. Not your fault. Not your fault.x

I agree TRS i trust my husband because he has earned it and he is a kind person by nature and i think its important to have someone to love and trust.

But i pick the people i trust very carefully. I currently only trust my husband and my best friend. I also find it interseting that "the toxics" dont like either of them but they have proven to me how much they care for me and thats good enough for me.

Thanks TRS

I acutley said "of cource its my fault that a stranger ran into the back of us"

She gets angry when i point out the logic of her nasty comments.

Thens when she turns to convo to her as normal.

Now i wish i hadn't told her but i thout as it was he grandson she had a right to know.

Guess i was wrong

As long as you dont feel bad or sad for having told her. You did the right thing and she responded badly. Not your fault. (see I can even do sublimial hypnosis)
It sounds like she has to take the limelight at any cost. Its ALL about her isnt it

i class myself as being hypnoticed

Yep its all about her.

My sister and xsil are both pg and my mum is worried about spending money on a new sofa when she will have 3 new babies in the summer. I keep reminding her that she is not having them that she is too old

hi thanks for making me feel welcome. Like i said in my previous post my dad left when i was 16 it was a shock because my mum and dad never argued and i just thought i had the perfect family. I respected my dad so much he worked hard for us to have a good life and great family holidays.

Anyway it turned out he wasnt working that hard he had been having an affair for 6 years, which is the real reason he missed all my parents evenings and was never home to help me with homework. When my mum found out she chucked him out but because they had been happily married for 25 years it was difficult for her and he use to come back every so often and say he wanted to be with my mum and not his bit on the side. This was going on for a year and during that year i wasnt allowed to tell anyone what was going on.

Over the years ive hardly spoken to him or seen him to him i guess im still a 16 year old girl he knows nothing about me now. He sees my brother often they have a good relationship which is causing problems at the moment as my bro is getting married in june and my dad and his wife wil be there. Im trying not to show my bro that i really dont want them there but im scared at how i will react to them.

I try not to think about him too much but with the wedding i cant help but think. Im trying not to think about him its starting to affect my job some people in my job treat me like s**t and like im nothing i feel worthless enough without them treating me like that.

How did you get to feel worthless, Chuckie? Nobody's born feeling like that: it comes from people teaching you you're unimportant while you're still at an impressionable age.
Did you feel, as a child, that your dad couldn't be bothered to come & see you in the school play or sports day? What did your mum & dad teach you about yourself?

This might be a bit of a ramble. I've been thinking about what & who I want to be in the final third of my life, and what I need to learn in order to become it. My answers, oddly, are the same as the ones I had when I was 25, 35, 45. Even more oddly, my 'need to learn' items are all things I thought I had learned - by 35, at the latest.

I remember saying to a very driven boyfriend, who was anxious to reach a certain state of being, "There is no 'there', life isn't a race." I've told numerous partners "I don't want to be with someone who doesn't want me as I am." I have been loved and hated, in equal measures, for my strong ethics and my willingness to flout social expectations. I probably came across, to many people, as confident and wise. And yet - I hadn't enough wisdom to save myself from my internal bully or the outer bullies she attracted. I wasn't confident enough to set and enforce boundaries, or wise enough to hear how my own remarks betrayed the weirdness of my world view.

I feel sad to have learned so much, so well, without understanding what needed to be fixed. I'm in the middle of integrating my old computer system with the new one, so the analogy that springs to my mind is this: Through my 25-45 years, I was installing new software on an old operating system. It appeared to run but, when I worked with it, my output was corrupted. My underlying program didn't understand what my new software was trying to do. It tried its best, but had no way of knowing what the new programs were for. In life, this is what happened with my healthy thoughts & philosophies - I'd taken the new ideas on board, but my operating system (my mind) was not equipped to make them run properly.

There must be a million ways of saying the same thing. I bought some rose plants last autumn, and was amazed to learn they won't grow in soil that has previously been host to certain other plants. Everything needs the right basic conditions before it can flourish.

That's what these threads are about, isn't it? There's so much more to recovery than adopting new ways, new ideas, new concepts. Before the new stuff can work, we have to understand how our old systems were constructed. Without that knowledge, all the new ideas are just words and wind.

This ramble was triggered by a number of small things, some of them in recent posts to this forum. I've decided to post it because it might resonate for some reader, some time - and also because I'd welcome expansions by others!

Grace the operating system and software was very helpfull, along with the plant and good soil, thank you, I think you have thought that through so very well!

My sleeping pattern has not quite gone back to normal yet from having ill children over the holiday, I fell asleep on the sofa after Eastenders, so am up trying to be quiet so very early now.

Nice post Grace.

If the foundation is shaky then any building on it, original, rebuilt, etc., will not be sound.

Brilliant post grace I think I get where you are coming from. I dont think I would have though before my last therapy session.
I thought I could change how people responded to me by being/feeling more important. Dressing different, talking different. Whatever that elusive thing or quality was I had to get it and then there would be no more abuse or abusers.
This was the new system I tried to build over the old one.
The old one incorporated a very fundemental belief that I caused the abuse.
I never needed to change myself for the abuse to go away, but I did/still do need to believe in my heart I never did deserve it or cause it. Im not responsible for it the abusers are.