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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

So do almost ALL abusive parents deny it then?

129 replies

NemoTheRedNosedFish · 26/12/2010 19:23

Just curious!
My mother and stepdad deny everything and for years I kind of took their side against myself. Blush

I blamed myself and thought that I had been raised they way I was because I was a 'bad' child. (I wasn't).

When confronted with anything to do with anything they did wrong, they come out with pathetic excuses for very basic neglect (I never brushed my teeth or got bought a toothbrush until I was 6 years old and my teeth were all rotten - my mum says she thought the water was flurodated so I didn't need to brush my teeth - she has dentures) or just brush everything aside. I was abused by older boys and my mother literally shrugged her shoulders - same when I was 13 and anorexic. I don't get it - I would be filled with shame and remorse if I had ever done anything like this. How can she forget / deny it?

They call me mentally abnormal and mad and allude to my past drug problems meaning that I don't remember things properly - sadly that is not the case, I have an excellent long term memory and I remember things that I would rather forget!

So I am just coming round to the idea that abusive parents talk shit deny it like this, and it isn't me being 'mean' to poor mummy...

OP posts:
IAmReallyFabNow · 26/12/2010 19:25

My mother told me everything she did, was done for me. I can't think of a single thing she did, a decision she took, that was for my benefit. She will never acknowledge she fucked up my life.

IAmReallyFabNow · 26/12/2010 19:27

FWIW Whenever I have read your posts on here, Nemo, you have always sounded very level headed and very caring.

TrillianAstra · 26/12/2010 19:33

I may be being oversimplistic here, but if you thought that what you were doing was abusive, wouldn't you stop doing it?

So all abusive people must therefore either not think what they are doing is abusive, or be in serious denial.

The very fact that you would be filled with shame and remorse if you did something like this means thst you are not the sort of person who would do it.

SkyBluePearl · 26/12/2010 19:44

my dad has a selective memory and seems to have forgotton hitting us with sticks

atswimtwolengths · 26/12/2010 20:09

Nemo, I really hope you don't have anything to do with them now.

ILoveItWhenYouCallMeBoo · 26/12/2010 20:12

my mum said i pushed her temper.

carrotcake29 · 26/12/2010 20:21

Wow this thread really hits home and I am shaking reading it. I have just cut contact a few weeks ago with my parents for neglectful, abusive and selfish parenting and abuse from my step-dad. However, they always congratulated themselves on how I turned out because 'we brought you up right'. It is very interesting how now I have cut contact they say 'where has this come from - you were not brought up this way!!!'. They have no idea who I am because I could never be myself around them. I hate them for what they did to me but sadly the rest of my family are not interested and are 'on the fence; so to speak. They have all had christmas together and I have not had any messages at all. Sorry to take over the thread. You are right - abusive parents will never admit it. They are perfect don't you know.

Oblomov · 26/12/2010 20:46

"So all abusive people must therefore either not think what they are doing is abusive, or be in serious denial."
I agree with Trillian.
I read things on Mn where someone thinks something is abusive and I don't think it is.
How do you explain that ?

Original poster
NemoTheRedNosedFish · 26/12/2010 21:21

carrotcake29 worry not about taking over the thread - it is good to hear what other people thinnk and their experiences.

I have been so eaten up with wanting to explain it to my mum, like when you did such and such it made me feel so and so, just wanting to explain that I didn't like the things her husband said and did - but I am starting to realise (finally) that while she is not as clever as she thinks she is, she is not a stupid woman. She knew full well that having a drinking alcoholic move in with us when I was ten, and be left alone with me - was a bad idea. No matter how you look at it. I have no need to 'explain' anything because deep down she knows. She knows she didn't protect me and threw me to the wolves so she wasn't single.

Can't figure out if it makes me feel better or worse... Confused

Fab - fanks ver much!

OP posts:
carrotcake29 · 26/12/2010 21:25

Oh Nemo - you may well be right. She knows - but in order for her to get on with her life I suspect she has convinced herself that she was a victim just like you. She will never admit it - or she would have apologised by now. I too wanted to explain myself - but could never have done it verbally. I wrote a letter - maybe that is an option for you?

Original poster
NemoTheRedNosedFish · 26/12/2010 21:47

Letter done years ago. I was 3 months pregnant at the time, I tried to be as factual as I could, no getting angry or name calling etc, and she sent me an awful one back, took the piss out of my anorexia and was just generally vile. I keep it to remind me of what she is really like - she sends me Xmas cards with all this 'I am your loving mother' crap in it and I just don't recognise that person at all, she never, ever spoke to me like that. She hated to be cuddled or touched Sad at least by me.

Haven't seen her since then and I am relieved - I don't have to buy gifts every year for the two people who have hurt me so badly. But it still haunts me, I think because I was brainwashed so early and trained so well to believe that everything, everything is my fault and that I am bad and wrong in some way. I know it's not true but I don't know any other way to feel. I am working on my non-existant self esteem but tbh it's difficult for me to get my head around the concept.

Fuck me no wonder I'm depressed.

OP posts:
carrotcake29 · 26/12/2010 21:53

Well you tried - and I think have without doubt proved that she will never be sorry. You have to accept that. I feel so guilty at the moment because my mum is laying it on thick with my family at the moment. I have kept my silence and I completely left out of the family - but it is a better place. I understand how the conditioning from a young age takes place. It becomes innate in you - to believe you are nothing. It is like you have to try and discover what kind of person you would have been if you had had the 'right' upbringing??

I do not think it will get easier - it will always hurt. I feel terribly lonely even though i have a husband and 2 children. Worse this time of year when families are together. Everyone is updating on fb about their parents...and I have nothing. Even my brothers and sil's are posting about seeing family. I have nothing left of them. I don't have much encouragement do I?? So sorry . Sad

MumsMunchkin · 26/12/2010 22:18

Mine did. Although they agreed that the facts in my 'confrontation' email MAY be true Hmm.

So calling me evil, nasty, psycho, mental, weird, touched etc was not abuse.

Pulling me down the stairs by my hair to force me to go to the shop straight after school after M had been at home all day was not abuse.

Leaving me with relatives while they and all my siblings spent Xmas in Florida was not abuse.

I too have recently 'cut contact' with my parents and sibs (was the black sheep in their eyes and was fed up of being viewed as the 'weird one'). This has been my 1st Xmas with no contact with them and I too have felt very lonely even though I have a very supportive DH and 4 very noisy DCs! It has hurt a lot and I actually feel grief for the family I and my DCs should have had because I am starting to realise that I deserved better, much better Sad.

StayingFatherChristmasGirl · 26/12/2010 22:34

I don't have any personal experience of the things described on this thread, but just wanted to say what special and exceptional women you all are, to have survived what you have.

Oblomov · 26/12/2010 22:56

Goodness, how can anyone deny what you ahve been through is abuse ?
Munchkin, you post makes terrible reading. I am so sorry for you.
I was refering to, for example, someone saying they had smacked their toddler twice in anger, EVER, and people shouting abuse, abuse.

Tortington · 26/12/2010 22:57

ive done some wicked things, i admit it all

Oblomov · 26/12/2010 23:00

Never going to be voted 'parent of the year', me.
But I love and am loving, grounded, firm but fair, and have inner confidence.
I do well in circumstancesa that would test most.
I could do alot better. Bet lots of us could say that.

MumsMunchkin · 26/12/2010 23:01

Custardo - if you are only interested in taking the piss, why are you on this thread?

Tortington · 26/12/2010 23:02

i wasn't. so piss off

MumsMunchkin · 26/12/2010 23:09

I do not regard the occasional slap as abuse, nor the 'don't be stupid/silly/an idiot' said in anger. Discipline such as taking away priviledges is also not abuse of course.

What is abuse is being hateful to your child because you use them to relieve your own stress and not caring about the consequences of your actions which is what my mother and stepfather did to me.

I have slapped my children, called them stupid in anger and done other things I am not proud of. The difference is I always tell them I love them and cuddle them all the time. I also treat them equally so they will never feel like the 'odd' one out and beat myself up with guilt when they are in bed and vow to start again the next day with more patience.

LoopyLoopsOfSparklyFairyLights · 26/12/2010 23:12

Denial here I think. Total denial.

mamatomany · 26/12/2010 23:17

Yes I think if they thought it was abusive they'd stop at the time wouldn't they so in their minds they justify their own behaviour and convince themselves there was either a reason for it, bad child or else it simply didn't happen.
No doubt it helps them sleep at night.

BookcaseFullofBooks · 26/12/2010 23:25

Hi Nemo. I think abusive people/parents do talk shit. My treatment by my SF was because I was too noisy or answered back etc, not because he was a loon and my mum was too weak-willed to stand up to him.
I don't know if it's the same for you but my mum likes to maintain an idea of her being a good mum and still makes excuses to this day. Despite our reasonable relationship now, she failed to protect me and I will never forgive that.

Hugs on their way to you x

sakura · 26/12/2010 23:25

yes, they deny it.
It's because they were treated like that themselves.Acknowledging that they abused you means acknowledging they were abused. They want to believe they were loved as children, not abused, so they pretend what their parents did to them was loving; for their own good... And convince themselves that the way they treated their own children was loving; for their own good... and the abusive cycle continues..
Many many adult children never realise they were abused because they simply can't admit to themselves that their parents didn't love them in the way they were supposed to. That the very people who were supposed to protect them from the world were inflict harm... it's heavy stuff for a brain to take. Much easier to deny and pretend their adult child is mad for questioning their behaviour
It's all very sad Sad
Well done you for managing to admit you were abused, though, that's how the cycle is broken. Lots of adults prefer to live in a fantasy land of a perfect childhood. I think your drug-taking was a sign of your sanity , a sign that your brain was hanging onto the truth

Original poster
NemoTheRedNosedFish · 26/12/2010 23:29

Ah Custy I know about you. I tell dd that if she doesn't stay in her bed I will send Custardo to come and get her Wink

Yes mamatomany I think whatever she tells herself is just so she can carry on pretending to herself and everyone else. I understand why she hates me now, why she hates to have anything to do with me, unless it's to stick the knife in - it's because I am a reminder of everything she has done.

My mother went through a period of depression when I was about 4 / 5 years old. There was some neglect and a fair few slaps - she would grab me and shake me with rage. But tbh that wouldn't have mattered if she had loved me - it would have been water under the bridge.

I am not a perfect mother. I am depressed now and I have snapped at dd, talked awfully to her, muttering 'for fucks sake dd what are you doing' and all that. But I have tried to do something about it and if I feel that I can't cope now luckily I can 'hand over' to dh. I know that not everyone can do that.

But I want the best for dd, I want her to be happy and confident, I want to see her thrive and flourish in life as I never did. I love her. I think that's the difference.

OP posts: