"But we took you to Statley Homes" Dysfunctional Families Thread

[Snowdropfairy]

Forerunning threads:
December 2007
March 2008
August 2008
February 2009
May 2009
January 2010
April 2010
August 2010
November 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.

my mother buys me baggy outsize tops with leggings, or big bulky cardigans that go to the floor. A knitted burka. Every single fucking year. Frumpy, fussy and shapeless.

I bought a real piece of slinky hotness in August in an orangey red, lovely heavy jersey silk type of a thing and she came for a viewing. Very nice, will look good when you lose a bit of weight says she. Cue intense desire to reach for a knife.

I am about a size 14 and perhaps a tad on the wobbly side. WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT? WHY? Fitting of my wedding dress? Only input was "that needs taking up", which broke a long session of black silence from her. That was the only comment she made on my dress from then. Nothing on the wedding day. Not a word.

This is a common theme with these witches.

I spent the first twnty six years of my life in pass me down trackybums and giant jumpers to hide my disgusting (size 8 actually very perky and rather gorgeous body that I wish I still had!!!!)

I remember going to a family party and wearing a quite boring black dress, her utter disdain as she said...."you're not going dressed like THAT are you?" along with the inevitable eye rolling. Needless to say I felt slightly more like shit that evening than I usually did. Fucking bitch.

On hearing of my first pregnancy she said "oh well I suppose you're healthy enough"

On seeing my new engagement ring she said "I'd have had one like thst if i'd ever had one at all"

Looking back I can't believe how I ever thought there was something wrong with ME!!!!!!!

Hmmm, yes. Mom's reaction to my wedding photos:

"There aren't enough pictures of me. Why didn't you instruct your photographer to take more photos of me?"

Oh my word thisis, I thought it was just my mother...when I told her I was pregnant-stony silence for 10 seconds then she put the phone down on me. Quite hideous. My sister had a go at me too. In her one conversation with me throughout my pregnancy, she said "what are you having a baby for? It won't get you anywhere." said in a spiteful tone. I was gobsmacked.

(My dear dear friend said to me when I told her I was pregnant(in addition to congratulating me wildly) that it would be so wonderful for me and my sister and that she would be able to share all her experiences with me, just as my friend had done when her little sis got pregnant......! Needless to say, they have a lovely Mum!!)

"what are you having a baby for...it won't get you anywhere"

Blimey, that is actually completely incomprehensible! I wonder what kind ot freaky view of the world leads someone to utter those words in that order!? Weird. Really weird. Get you anywhere? Eh? Where did she think you were planning it to "get you"?

My mother invited people to my first wedding, whom I had neither met before, nor since. She "loaned" me a small amout of money to go towards the reception, then, OF COURSE, forgot it was a loan and demanded it back.

I look back now and find it all a bit unbelievable that I was ever scared of these lunatics. I look at them now, as lunatics....just that...loonies.

One of the last times I saw them, I was weraing a floral printed dress. My older sister asked what size it was...I told her that it was a ten, which it was, and strangley enough, still is.

She said...."don't be ridiculous, it's AT LEAST a fourteen".

I went to show her the label. (That's the power they have...they make you want to defend yourself all the time). I shouldn't have done that. She shouldn't have been in my garden or in my life. I'll bet you can all guess what size her clothes are. That's not a judgement, it's a fact.

heavy sigh. how do these things happen though? Did I get picked out of a list and put into the damaged pile of parents? My dad died when we were young, my mother couldn't cope. Those were circumstances no one could control, but everyone saw what was happening and no one did anything.

I must say lola that this is where i am up to.

It has dawned on me that I have had no days in my life that have not been affected by someone elses abusive behaviour. I have never been loved. I have never been suppported by anyone in real life until quite recently...and that's by agencies..not individuals.

Shit innit?

YES, that sense of mourning. And like thisishowifeel, it is only in recent years, when my mental health has become ever more fragile, that something is happening and I had to do it for myself. But, I feel I have played into their hands, all their worst suspicions confirmed. Yes, a mentalist, we knew she wasn't all there.

My sister is at that shit about size etc. but I truly believe it is my mum who is the architect of it.

It has dawned on me that I have had no days in my life that have not been affected by someone elses abusive behaviour.

YY to this, thisis

All the more reason to kick them out of our lives, and love ourselves where others failed to.

quiz
The projection thing is really interesting. All of my 'mistakes' are hers.
Dawn can't make friends and hold onto them. In fact, I've had friends since primary school, good friends, to the extent that Dd1 is named after one. My Mother has always 'fallen out' with every friend she's ever had, within two years, and it was always their fault. There are oh so many examples of her projecting her faults onto me. It's strange, I really believe that she can't actually see what she's doing.

No they can't see what they're doing.

We all project to a degree, that is human nature, but at these levels it is damaging in the extreme.

In my inner child therapy I had a piece of paper that had the title...."words I don't like because they don't belong to me" It was a VERY long list.

This knowledge turns you into mystic Meg though...you know how they see themselves! I had thought that H's weirdness could be explained by drug use....but he's never told me that I am doing drugs. He did however tell me that I drink two litres of wine every night. Which tells me that at that time HE was drinking to excess. He also said that I am addicted to conflict, and that I have no friends. Guess who? Not me. Tragic. But quite an awesome power to discover!

A propos nothing, I often think of by a singer-songwriter I like when I come on this thread. Ignore the terrible video, but I love the lyrics!

Damnit Itsme brilliant, just spent too much on itunes!

puppy I shared that on my FB and it is "liked" :)

quizzicalmarsupial Fri 23-Sep-11 14:27:52

Me too, exactly (except 4 decades instead of 3).
Thank you for putting it into well organized paragraphs. As an ACOA, it is nearly impossible for me to do such a narrative.

Hello ladies, I am new, but had to post on this thread, its unbelievable!!!!! Takes me back so much!!

To put myself in perspective a bit, I was a battered child by my mother, father was absent (they divorced). Very bad physical abuse, cold water baths, lots of blows to the head, drownings in the bath, not allowed a towel (had to stand still in the dark till I was dry) etc, also lots of 'I wish you'd never been BORNNNNN!!!', she used to hit my boobs when I was 12 or so - and so on.

After Uni, I went to counselling and have not seen her since then. Terrifying to 'come out' and say no more. I look back now and feel totally different. I should have run away and never looked back far quicker than I did!

I no longer see any of my family. I am middle of 3. Not seeing the siblings doesn't bother me. They witnessed it all and didn't help. So I don't want to sit across the family mealtable and make nice with them. My Dad was harder to turn away from. Cue about 3 years of hardcore grief.

BUT - its been about 5 years with them now, and about 15 with my mother, and altho it is hard not having a family like everyone else, and there has been a lot of fallout to wade thro (my issues they left me with), life is much better. For a start, not having the sorts of comments I am reading about from your posts makes life much better. No-on ruins your day!

But the main thing is how much I have changed and what used to scare me (standing up for myself) no longer does. I wish I had had the courage to stand up to them years before I did. To really lay it out on the table and f what they thought or said.

Anyway I'll keep an eye on this thread in case I can offer anyone any support. The years really do put it behind you. And the first person who has to respect you is you.

Hi together thanks for posting. It's good to hear from those who have recovered, to confirm that it is possible.

The abuse you endured sounds horrendous. Poor child-you!

You say twice in your post that you wish you'd stood up to them sooner. It sounds to me like you worked things out very, very quickly actually! (after uni, ie. shortly after leaving home)

Hello together.

It is coming up to two years of no contact for me. I had been no contact from 03, but the witch turned up on my doorsteb just before Christmas 08, and the next 18 months were filled with freakish devastation.

I think because I'd had five years off, and never really worked through the issues it left me with, I was vulnerable. Although at the same time I'd had five years of relative sanity.

The constant assertions of my insanity, and evilness, led me finally, to therapy.

The changes in me caused my marriage to break down, and for h to finally face up to the dysfunctional lunatic horror show that he happened to be born into. For both of us, especially h to face up to our own abusive behaviours. And on we go.

I feel better in stately homes than in the EA thread, because I'm past anger. I am also for the first time able to 'fess up to my own less than wonderful, sometimes controlling, sometimes violent behaviour.

My inner child therapy has allowed me to finally grow up...and deal with my fears, insecurities and frustrations, in a completely different way.
I am a work in progress.

Hi to everyone.Not posted here for a while.

Wow - much admiration for you together. How fantastic that you got away when you did and have been so strong in staying away from them.

I am - finally - living too far away from my p's for them to be a physical presence in my life,other than on my terms.Of course,my terms are not acceptable to them ,and since they have no control at all over any contact,they have no time to arrange any - Hooray!

The emotional no contact is much easier these days.I have learnt a lot from MN.

Although I cannot say I am glad for what xp did to me and my dc,I am pretty sure that had I not met him,I would still be stuck in the Fog.
As I have said before,his behaviour was a very extreme and condensed version of exactly the way in which various individual members of my family (along with several friends and colleagues ) had always treated me.

I had to protect my dc and myself - especially my then-unborn baby - from his escalating abuse as it became more overt. Posters here and on the NPD thread made no bones in telling me what was going on ,and hearing what others were and had gone through made it impossible for me to live in denial.

Getting out of that and learning to recognise what he did ,enabled me to recognise for the first time,that my family were and are abusive.

Thisis

• "I feel better in stately homes than in the EA thread, because I'm past anger. I am also for the first time able to 'fess up to my own less than wonderful, sometimes controlling, sometimes violent behaviour."

That's me,now.That's where I am.I'm finding it really hard and feel so guilty for the way I have behaved to my dc and others.And still do.I'm hoping the therapy I have just started will help me to change. I'm 43 and it feels like I have left it very late .

Haha, not as late as me, piranha And you're getting the therapy I wanted, but will have to wait until I'm rich again ... (could be a long time!)

My journal gave me an interesting revelation yesterday morning. In 'parenting' my inner child, I've felt a persistent blockage but couldn't put my finger on it. I found myself writing that my innerchild only knows one kind of mother - the narc - but loves her Gran :) As soon as I wrote that it's better for me, then, to 'grandparent' my inner child, I felt more peaceful & optimistic.

I also noticed that I'm now the same age as Granny when I was born!!

It would probably be very different for those who have their own kids, as your maternal feelings provide a benchmark for your mothers' behaviours. It hadn't occurred to me that I was basing my 'inner parent' on theory rather than experience. Tbh, Gran wasn't the best role model but she loved me unconditionally, and that's what counts.

It's good to see you again, PiranhaMorgana! You helped me a lot when I first joined this thread 5 months ago or so.

Although I cannot say I am glad for what xp did to me and my dc,I am pretty sure that had I not met him,I would still be stuck in the Fog.

Oh, a definite "amen" to that from me! I pity my relatives still in the fog. They don't know it (won't admit it), but they are SO unhappy. Denial is a very self-harming coping mechanism. I am deeply unhappy due to the trauma of acknowledging my childhood for what it was, whereas they don't even see their own unhappiness, but I know that I at least have a chance at real happiness now that the FOG has lifted. It will be a lifelong labour for me to battle my legacy of issues, it will be hard, but it HAS to be better than the alternative of giving in to the dysfunction.

I feel better in stately homes than in the EA thread, because I'm past anger. I am also for the first time able to 'fess up to my own less than wonderful, sometimes controlling, sometimes violent behaviour.

I feel this way too, thisis. I want to work on myself, and rarely need to vent about ex anymore. I have accepted that he is who he is. I can see how my own insecurities made me controlling as well: seeking praise and approval from friends, being sulky when stbxh put me beneath his drinking outings in importance... I also remember at least one instance of me name-calling him, and one instance of me throwing a plate at a wall. I don't blame him for either of those: they were my actions. I'm glad I chose never to repeat them (I did not like who I was when I was acting out with this kind of violence).

I now try to seek no-one's praise but my own, and if I feel I am being disrespected, to use statements of needs rather than anger or passive-aggression. I have given up on thinking that anyone "should" act a certain way, and waiting for them to "do the right thing".

Having said that, it's been several weeks that I have been ignoring my parents, without stating openly why. Bit passive-aggressive, that!