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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:
Original poster
NemoTheRedNosedFish · 27/12/2010 23:39

I am terrified that underneath I am Like Mum and I will scream at her and hit her and the muttering 'for fucks sake dd' under my breath is just the start.

Of course logically I know that's just not true, I am not that person, I am not my mother.

OP posts:
Oblomov · 27/12/2010 23:56

No, no, thats not necessarily the case. People say thta don't they ? 'oh if thats what they do, I wonder what goes on behind closed doors', as if it automatically HAS to be worse.
But I am not. I have shouted. Said some things I shouldn't have. Smacked him a few times, when he was about 4 (he's now nearly 7). But I didn't, since, suddenly turn into a banshee beating the shit out of him.

You carry on being yourself, and trying not to turn into your mother.
I will carry on trying to change myself, and trying to be MORE like my mum Smile

Atleast we're both trying Smile

Merry Christmas to You Nemo.

PenguinArmy · 27/12/2010 23:58

hobgloblin it's not too late

My mum was with a not so nice person and acted in ways that wasn't great (though not bad, not compared to him anyway).

When it finished and she got herself together, she did just fine. Not one of got hit again. It's taken her a few years but she is now emotionally open to me and more importantly she has been for my younger brother and sister. I don't blame her nor am I angry with her. She was horrifically abused as a child and I've always known she was doing what she thought was best.

We went through nothing compared to her and I see it how the cycle being broken over a couple of generations. I hope anyway, DD is only 9 months and hope DH will help me overide any automatic responses and I'm reading a lot and not assuming parenting is an instinctive thing.

PenguinArmy · 27/12/2010 23:59

My mum also freely admits she wasn't great in the past. I think that's the key, knowing you would have liked to have done things differently in a perfect world

TheSecondComing · 28/12/2010 00:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

PenguinArmy · 28/12/2010 00:19

I do wonder if my step dad has got to the point where we believes the lies he says. If he's manipulated the truth so much, he can't keep track anymore.

Sandringham · 28/12/2010 00:24

Certainly in my experience it's a question of absolutely believing the lies/fantasies they create - that's why it's essential to scapegoat any family member who steps out of line and says the truth. It really is absolute madness.

Does anyone else really struggle to give up the hopeless quest to try to make sense of the senseless? I am sitting here sleepless after trying, yet again, to make it all make sense. It doesn't.

Original poster
NemoTheRedNosedFish · 28/12/2010 00:24

I have always wondered that too.

My stepdad was ver ver drunk during his episodes of aggression, nastiness, and erm innapropriate behaviour with me. He denies it all. Is that because he really can't remember? But surely if that wasn't the case, any normal person would think, hang on I was as pissed as anything for several years there, maybe I was an arsehole and I don't remember?

My mum told me his nickname for me was 'the little bitch' I was 11 ffs

Surely they can both remember that. It's not right that he said that or that she told me.

I fukcing hate both oft them.

OP posts:
hobbgoblin · 28/12/2010 00:29

Nemo, they choose to not ackowledge their actions as much as they chose to abuse you. If you could make sense of the denial then you could make sense of the abuse and that's not going to happen. Denial is as much part of the cycle of abuse as anything. You have to deny a child's feelings and needs to be abusive, it isn't hard to let that denial cloud everything, but it doesn't mean they can believe their own trickery.

PenguinArmy · 28/12/2010 00:30

I don't think I struggle to make sense of it and I struggle to hate. Sometimes I try but I end up feeling sorry for people and just sad.

What I struggle with more is (and especially clicking on random threads) is remembering stuff unexpectedly, i.e. without guard and getting upset and feeling to urge to randomly spill information, even when it's not related to a thread/conversation.

but I've never confronted anyone. I had a brief spell where I got in contact with my 'real' Dad. Again I feel sad for him that he's stuck where he is (emotionally) but I do feel like I cycle the same emotional issues. Like I never quite process it all and move it. It feels very cyclical.

OP the two of them will surely collude in their fake memories and tell/reassure each other that they were right. Sorry :(

electra · 28/12/2010 00:37

My parents deny it. Well, actually my father says he's glad he didn't take care of me when I was tiny and my mum was out working. I hate him so much I can't even put it into words.

My mum thinks she's a perfect parent and any attempt to discuss issues is met with angry, defensive vitriol. But on some level I know she does love me - she is just very messed up. She has treated me appallingly at times and I do not think that she is a good influence in my life. I also think she's jealous of me which is sad. But at least she sometimes apologises.

With my own children I try very hard not to attack their character, ever because my parents have always been critical of my character and it has made me a very confused adult with quite low self-esteem. If I lose my temper with them I always say 'Sorry, I was wrong and this was not your fault, ok?'

I hope that if they have issues with me that they ever want to raise that I will be receptive to those things.

electra · 28/12/2010 00:41

The stories on this thread are so sad Sad

I often feel intensely envious of people who seem to have normal, loving families.

Original poster
NemoTheRedNosedFish · 28/12/2010 00:42

Absolutely, that is what they do. They sit at their breakfast bar and pretend that it never ever happened. Or if it did, well I was asking for it / deserved it / am mad.

I think what has been killing me is the thought 'what if they're right?' but now I can reject that conciously. Have been thinking aboiut this a lot, and it has helped.

I do feel sorry for them though, my mother can't bear to have anyone share the limelight with her so she is my step dads only friend, he in turn is so jealous that he won't let her out of his sight unless it's to go to work. They are retired now so I can imagine how fulfilling their lives are... they are thinking of going to spain to live with all the other right-wing expat wankers (no offence to anyone living in spain - this is just what my parents are like) and I have no doubt they will enjoy turning their noses up at the natives and generally being posionous.

I will be thrilled when they finally go.

OP posts:
Sandringham · 28/12/2010 00:43

PenguinArmy, I also feel sorry for people not hatred, and I feel a compulsion to fix everything and make it all OK, which is impossible.

Sandringham · 28/12/2010 00:45

Electra, I agree that these stories are so sad. There are a lot of people on this one thread with very similar experiences.

sakura · 28/12/2010 04:04

I think that a parent NOT admitting they abused their child is worse than the abuse itself. Far far worse.
I think the cruellest thing a parent can do is not listen to their child's truth

If the parents could admit the truth, perhaps even say sorry, I doubt there'd be an adult abused child on earth who wouldn't be overcome with love towards their parents and all would be forgiven. BUt when the truth is denied it's like your very core is being silenced and it's enough to drive you mad.

sakura · 28/12/2010 04:06

TheSecondComing it took me a long time to admit that some of my siblings hadn't been abused. That was a shocker in itself- when you realise you were the chosen one Hmm

Oblomov · 28/12/2010 07:46

I had not realised before that not all children , in one family were abused. I just assumed that they would all be. Secondcomings post on that , shocked me.
Like sakura says, surely that makes it worse.
Frightening.

mankymummymoo · 28/12/2010 08:25

Ten years after the event, I confronted my mother with the 14th birthday card she sent me. It said "happy birthday darling, by the time you read this I will be dead. And its all your fault".

In her handwriting.

And she STILL denied she had been anything other than a perfect mother. She said I had written it myself.

I didnt even bother to confront her about all the other (worse) stuff.

I got up, said goodbye ~her firstname~ and have never looked back.

mankymummymoo · 28/12/2010 08:26

... actually thats not true, I do still look back. But not with any guilt on my part anymore.

IAmReallyFabNow · 28/12/2010 09:21

I am having a panic at the moment that I will end up being like my mother as I am struggling with dd. She is 7, very bright and stroppy. I hope it is just because I am worrying that I feel like that as I have struggled with ds1 at times but as he is a boy I think about it differently. My mother didn't want a boy, my MIL favours the boys, I worry.

TheSecondComing · 28/12/2010 12:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

twoteachers · 28/12/2010 12:05

My Dad was in denial right up to the moment he was found guily and send to prison. That was this year!

One of his harmless games (harmless according to my Mum) was to tuck his hand down the back of my pyjamas while inflicting a lips to lips goodnight kiss on me. She thought it was so funny.

electra · 28/12/2010 12:09

twoteachers - that's awful Sad

TheFeministParent · 28/12/2010 12:15

OP, from reading your posts I would say their denial is further abuse. You should seek counselling and cut ties.

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