"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.

I'm still working it all out but i think i have suprised myself how far i have come today

I have had 6 months of counciling, AD's for over a year, 4 months of nc and 7 years of my DH telling me i have value and worth helps

I think the very fact that it upsets you so much shows how much healthier your boundaries are.

You really do sound like you are dealing with it all brilliantly. There's not much I can add because you've said it all yourself!

Hi,
I've just found this thread and hoping I can offload a bit. I'm currently pregnant for the first time and I feel like its all surfacing again. Anyway...

My mother had me on her own when she was 19 (I've never met my biological father and know almost nothing about him) and for the first six years I lived with her, her parents and siblings in a rather over-crowded but basically happy home, with my grandparents doing most of the actual parenting. My mother was always unstable (self-absorbed, manipulative, detached from reality etc) and already had an alcohol problem, but being with the rest of the family shielded me from it. When I was six she married my stepdad and took me to live in another country, where everything went tits up. My stepdad was emotionally and physically abusive towards her and had loads of issues of his own. Her alcoholism and instability (unsurprisingly) got worse. I was sent back in live with my grandparents in Ireland at age 9, much to my relief, but still shipped back to the parents for holidays. By then my mother's alcoholism had got completely out of control. She was also horribly manipulative, at one point telling me that she would stop drinking if I came back to live with them (I said no). All this dragged on until I was 18, when my stepdad committed suicide. The case was very murky and mother dearest was actually being treated as a suspect at one point. After that I cut off all contact with her to save my sanity. We were still out of contact when she died in a random, alcohol related accident several years later. I'm now married to a very kind, lovely DH and am expecting our first DS. After a very messed up teens and early twenties I'm reasonably sorted emotionally (some anxiety and insecurity and really crap self-esteem, but pretty functional otherwise.....my expectations aren't high ). I just feel like pregnancy is forcing me to sort through everything again. I'm thinking about my mother a lot and all my old festering anger against her has come back. Likewise my biological father is on my mind for the first time ever, and I'm irrationally anxious about what kind of father my DH will be. Of course I'm also thinking about what I'll tell the DS in later life, what kind of mother I'll be, blah blah. I guess I'm afraid of perpetuating all the shit I grew up with. Anyone else been through the same thing?

PS Just realised how lllloooonnnngggg this is

I guess I'm afraid of perpetuating all the shit I grew up with. Anyone else been through the same thing?

Everyone on this thread, I think!

That's a lot of horrible crap you had to deal with from a young age, and it's not at all surprising that it's resurfacing now you're pregnant. Have you had any counselling?

I'm not the right person to answer you, somewhere, but - congratulations on your pregnancy, and welcome :)

I've been mulling over my views about my sibs, who have perpetuated damage through a further generation ... but not the exact same damage we suffered. I conclude that they decided to avoid replicating certain of the parental misbehaviours, but failed to acknowledge the full picture. For example, there's one mother who will not tolerate abuse from her husband but has tolerated his abuse of their DC :(

I think she internalised the message that Dad abusing Mum was bad, but is in denial that he also abused us ... As a result, she failed to grasp the importance of protecting the children. Don't know if that makes any sense to you? (Well, as warped as 'sense' can be in a dysfunctional family.)

With that in mind, my advice - if any - would be to itemise the ways in which your parents were bad parents, and the ways in which your GP were good parents (plus any aunties, etc, who set you good models.) It is easier to do this kind of stuff with a counsellor - it hurts - but perhaps you'd be able to work it through with support from DH and this forum.

Loads of Stately Homers have said they instinctively felt the 'right' way to parent and I can't comment on this, not having my own children. I think you should trust yourself ... and also try to face your remaining issues head-on, so as to avoid becomin trapped by them later.

I hope you'll get more feedback from actual mothers!

I'm not a Mum, but having looked at my brothers and sisters do an unbelievably amazing job with their broods, I'd have to say that having an abusive past does not mean that you will necessarily perpetuate the issues. I think if you are prepared to work hard and analysing what kind of parent you want to be (and you sound like that is you), and you have a good DH (and it sounds like you do) then I think you might even be more aware of what good parenting should be like, because you put more effort and awareness into it.

Also, I think having an abusive past can sometimes make you more empathic.

Congratulations on your pregnancy!

Hello all, third attempt at getting some of my childhood and teen history out here, hope that's ok.

I've discovered the daughters of narcissistic mothers website tonight as it was mentioned on another thread and am just blown away.

Since I left my last at 18 I've struggled badly with feelings of both gratitude and utter fury at my third mother and tonight I finally know why and that my feelings are real and valid. I could weep, really I could.

My potted history - original family were highly abusive (starved to skeletal proportions, severly beaten and threatened daily, looked away in my room mostly) both parents took an active part in my abuse.

Ran away at age eight as felt I wouldn't be alive if stayed any longer, from there to childrens home, then first foster family who treated me like a child house elf and decided I wasn't useful enough after about a year. Back to childrens home and on to foster family number three.

Original family were punished via the courts for my abuse so have been lucky to have had that closure, not too fussed about the 'house-elf' family as clearly were nuts and fortunately I wasnt' there long enough to do much more damage on top of what was already done.

Last family gave me some stability (no more physical abuse for one) so am grateful for them for that.

BUT! As I said at the start, have struggled with the things my last foster mother put me through and would just like to write down the history there.

Am going to break this post into chunks here as don't want to be logged out and lose this as often happens to me on here.

So, number three then.

From the start she seemed utterly affronted that I refused to morph into an exact clone of her two biological daughters (adults and left home by the time I arrived)

By that I mean I always felt I was required to be tall, slim, effortlessly elegant, easily tanned in summer, able to make friends at the drop of a hat and academically clever.

Whereas my natural set up was and is short, pasty white which refuses to tan, leanings towards the ginger in hair colour, bit shy until I get to know someone, not thick but no genius either.

My weight was an issue almost from day one of my arrival - constant comments and 'conferences' with her other daughters as to what could be done about my 'fatness' - family members instructed to keep calorific foods out of my reach at the dinner table, literally bags of carrots being left out for me as an 'acceptable' food.

When I look at photo's of myself from back then there really is NOTHING wrong with me - ok, I always had odd hair and a slightly chubby looking face but I was alright - not over nor underweight and always active (farm life and it's chores made sure of that coupled with almost daily sports activities)

Both foster parents were very high up in the local sports club and any spare time was and is spent either taking part in or organising sporting events.

I tried so so hard to fit in, to be a success at the things that were important to that family but was never able to make the grade. Any sport achievements were shot down with 'oh yes, but so and so child does it so much better than you and twice as fast' - every single time

She would go into my room often and take out items of particular sentimental value/pleasure to me and hide them.

The rest of the family would then be informed of my latest carelessness and I'd be shouted at for losing these things and not respecting what was given to me.

Eventually I turned detective since I knew I hadn't 'lost' these items and sure enough, she'd stashed them on the top shelf of her wardrobe. Couldn't say anything of course as that would have created another row about my daring to snoop.

She'd lie to her daughters and make up things I'd supposedly said about them - cue them being furious with me for weeks on end.

She convinced me that my beloved gran was trying to cause trouble and 'lur' me back to my birth family when she wrote to me after being out of touch for a few years. I knew that the only person to have ever shown me genuine love and care and in fact took me away from the abuse for a while was unlikely to want to do that to me but still being relatively young I didn't fight hard enough to be allowed to stay in touch with her.

Same with my real brother - refused to pass on his address which I stupidly left behind when I came to england at 18 as again 'he was only looking to cause trouble for me'

There's loads more lurking in my closet of skeletons but my eyes are about to shut themselves (as no doubt are those who have been reading this :))

Just cannot understand why someone would voluntarily give a home to a child with a background of abuse like mine and then do their damn best to make it worse in many ways (mentally anyway)

Thanks for letting me get this all out, goodnight for now and like the Terminator I fear I will be back :)

Bibi that's so awful x
How could someone like that be allowed to foster children..what a witch :(

Oh Bibi darling, you poor child! Having to escape such awful torture at such a young age, then basically being used by the adults who were supposed to provide the loving & nurturing security you'd sadly missed out on. I am so ANGRY with your foster mother, for taking her insecurities out on you. It's horrible that she hid your treasured things and cut you off from your grandmother and brother. She's bonkers, you do realise that?

I bet she was either the Scapegoat or the Golden Child of her birth family. Does she have a sister who looked a bit like you? (Or did she resemble you as a child?)

You did nothing to deserve any of it. You were a child; you deserved only loving care, encouragement, wise guidance and support. I'm so sorry you didn't get it. It sounds as if you were an amazing little girl, lively and spirited despite everything you'd suffered.

You can fix this. It takes quite a while and some hard work. You don't have to do it if you don't want to. I'm just glad you are taking care of yourself now, being kind to yourself and respecting your own needs.

Predictably I can't sleep now, having posted what I did. I've never told anyone about the foster mother as I feel so disloyal and like it can't have really happened.

No one else would have taken me on at the age I was when I arrived in that family (10, nearly 11) so it was very good of them to give me a home but still :(

Thank you for your kind words babyhammock and garlic - interesting point about a similar looking sister, may be worth a thought.

I've often wondered whether that family and foster mother in particular just took on too much with me. We hadn't met once before the day they came to collect me from the children's home and she might have thought she was getting a troubled but basically adorable cute girl.

Instead she was left with the troubled, weird looking, slightly ginger child i was.

All i know is that my self esteem was already non existent and i was terrified of being sent away again for not being good enough so tried to be mould myself into someone they would find acceptable only to be found very wanting.

Bibi your story breaks my heart. I cannot believe the horrible people who were supposed to be your guardians, nurturers and carers. How DARE anyone treat a child like you have been treated! There is absolutely NO excuse for it

Feeling disloyal is a normal reaction, but not a justified one - have you read about the FOG? Fear, Obligation and Guilt? All of the adults in your life treated you appallingly, and you owe them NOTHING.

Bibi, it was not "very good of them": they were using you to feed their own egos. This isn't a case of well-meaning people not being perfect: it's a case of self-absorbed people being very damaging to a child and not caring, because they considered that their needs (to be admired, to be looked up to, to be seen as self-sacrificing pillars of the community, to have a captive source of emotional supply) were more important.

The fact that you were a "troubled, weird looking, slightly ginger child" if you even were that! does not mean that your foster mother had any right to be disappointed in you for not being an adorable cute girl. More to the point, it does not mean that you have any cause to be disappointed that you were not an adorable cure girl.

Please cut yourself some slack! Please lay responsibility for your treatment squarely on the nasty, selfish adults in your life who did not care for the innocent little girl you were as they should.

And my god: you had the strength to run away from a home that was all you knew at the age of eight? You have steel inside you, Bibi. I am in awe.

Exactly what pumpkin said
FWIW you sound adorable to me x

There is nothing wrong in being ginger or a redhead

One slightlt twisted good thing does not out weight the fact that they were mentally aduive to you.

Thank you all so much for your words, they are genuinely good for my soul!

To this day I don?t know how I found the strength and resolve to leave my original family but the night my father threatened to shoot me in a sort of ?kangaroo court? setting in tandem with my mother I somehow knew that if I didn?t get out I might not live to see the age of 9.

Social Services were aware of the situation since I?d tried to run away a few times before (police always found me and took me back) teachers noticing my bruises at school etc but very little concrete help was forthcoming from official sides while I was still living at home.

Not helped by the front put on during visits and the abuse merrily continuing behind closed doors as soon as anyone official left again.

Yet, having got out I then seemed to have turned back into the little mouse too frightened to upset the apple cart in my other families.

The thing I?ve always struggled with was thinking that by the time three lots of families couldn?t find it in their heart to be nice/kind/loving/supportive to me there must be/have been something really wrong with me iyswim, a feeling which is still with me almost every day.

That?s also what contributed to me staying in bad relationships as an adult though I often used to wonder why I was able to leave my family yet held on for dear life to the dysfunctional, needy and downright horrible men that came into my life.

Thanks again for letting me untangle these things in written form ? very helpful. :)

It is weirdly difficult, Bibi, to understand that bad people ARE BAD, for whatever reason, and it's not actually normal to put up with 80% bad for the 20% good. I didn't begin learning this until I was 45 so you've got a start on me The amazing thing is that, when you do start learning, there's a sense of recognition - as if we've always known what relationships are supposed to be like but, since our life experience seemed to sisprove this knowledge, we 'shut ourselves up' and buckled down to the job of learning how to live with the 80% bad. It's all arse-about-face! NORMAL life is 80% good, 20% questionable.

For starters, then: it wouldn't have mattered what kind of girl you were; the so-called 'parents' in your life had a need in them to abuse a little girl. You could have been tall, short, fat, thin, healthy, sickly, brainy, thick, brunette, chinese or eskimo - they would still have done it. They would have 'blamed' whatever qualities you had for their abuse of you, because they can't admit to themselves that they are 80% bad. Do you see?

Horrid, innit.

((((Hugs))))) bibi

Somewherewest - Hello

I was going to reply this morning but had to go out and i normally take time to think about what i say here, it also has the affect to stay with me for a few days as well, so i dont often offer advice - i still think i'm not that good that people should listen to me!

I have a 2.8 yo and i'm 32 weeks pg. I had PND with my first because i wake up with a baby and i had no idea what to do or how to care for him. We tend to do what we have been show or leaned from our mums but when you have a bad mum - it feels like i was left with nothing and i didn't know what to do. I had to have counciling to help sort my head out in regards to the aduise i had from my mum and dad and to find out what type of mum i wanted to be. I was scared of making the same mistakes as her. I was scared to be a mum and i just couldn't cope.

The counciling help put this in to perspective for me - I am not my mother was a good start . I went on parenting courses to learn the right way to do it -Most of it i was doing anyway but new ideas are always good. I went on cooking courses, first aid, food hygene and other. All the things a mum should have taught me but didn't. I went and learned for myself. It took anti-depressents and 6 months of learning for me to feel better about my role as a mum and now it feels natural to me - i know what to do now.

There are things that come up that i react badly too - like other people touching my son or me having a bad day and shouiting at my son, where i cry for two days cos i think i have fucked him up and its the last thing on earth i want. But i have my DH to talk to and get my head around what is posative and what is not.

I have to work at it but being a pearent is an active word - you need to think about what you are showing, teaching, and how you are treating your child every day and its hard. Sometimes for me its harder than others as i have to deal with what happened to me and how to be "normal" for my children - not overprotective but not to lapse.

No one say being a parent is easy it does bring up what i went thru and i have to deal with it the best way i can. The fact that i know this, i know what not to do and that i'm not them is a very good start. If i get it wrong i dont beat myself up so much now as i'm still learning and i hope that when my children have children they will be one more step ahead to being a postive parent. It will take time to get over generation of aduse but it is doable just fucking hard sometimes.

Congrats on your pg and good luck with being a new mum xx

Hi all,

At the moment, I'm allowing my mother to see DD once a month for about an hour. I'm not happy with it but I feel that I have no choice what with being threatened with courts and all sorts.

But I don't know what to tell DD as she asks when she can go to grandma's, but I don't want her going there as I don't trust my mother with her. So what is the best way to deal with this?

I love what you said there, cheep, about actively parenting - and that you're not your mother!

Bear, I'm sorry, I don't know how old DD is? I have understood, from others here, that it's wiser to tell children an age-appropriate version of the truth than to dress it up. Well, I guess that makes sense to anyone who was gaslighted by their own parents. What's the best way to explain that it's safer for her to see her grandma at your house, with you on hand?

Could you baldly tell her grandma sometimes isn't very nice to children??

Garlic, DD is almost 9. I have thought about it, as DD knows about what she has said in the past, as she was telling DD bad things about me. But I don't know if she's too young still iykwim. But she does ask every so often, so I can't keep saying we're busy.

Hmm. Could you do an analogy with playground bitching? By about 9, you're likely to have bumped up against kids who try to make everyone take sides - obviously best avoided (and an early introduction to the discomforts of fence-sitting.) Your mum seems to have been trying to get her to "take sides" which is potentially unfair on DD. When she visits at your house, you're there to make sure things stay on an even keel.

I'm not putting this very well. I need an early night, sorry!

By even persuading / putting pressure on DD to change the arrangements, GM's already setting out her "side". I guess it's a question of whether your particular child has cottoned on to popularity games & manipulations - at 11, say, most children would be aware but 9 is a transitional age ...

Hi Garlic, that's not a bad idea. I know what you mean! :)

DD was getting upset by what GM has doing or saying so hopefully she'll understand. The only danger I suppose is her telling GM this and making it look like I'm the bad guy and GM using this against me in some way, but I don't know. I think I'm perhaps just getting over paranoid lately, what with everything going on if that makes sense.

Bibi, I'm so appalled by your story and amazed at your strength and perseverance.
Hello everyone else. I've posted about my emotionally abusive and neglectful mother before (can't bring myself to refer to her as "D"M).
She lives thousands of miles away but contrary to our wishes (she has health issues but is in deep denial) she is coming to where my DB and I live.
My DB and I don't get along very well: he was the golden child, I was the scapegoat. But we are united in finding our mother very very hard to handle?which is one reason we both escaped from her as soon as we could.
She announced that she's arriving next month and asked for suggestions for a hotel where she could stay. However DB is having an attack of guilt and wants us each to put her up/put up with her for a week so is pressuring me.
The family myth is that I'm the difficult one. As far as my DCs (25, 23 and 13) know she's just a doddery delusional sweet little old lady and I am unaccountably grumpy and impatient with her.
But she has damaged me for life. I've been in and out of therapy for decades and am on ADs and suffer from acute social phobia, have had a string of failed (and some abusive) relationships and am now alone (and very lonely) with no prospect of finding another relationship. And I'm very angry with her still?in fact more than ever. My DD is the same age I was when my mother started actively emotionally abusing me, and I'm finding what she did harder and harder to understand.
Not sure what I'm asking for. Perhaps some validation?my DB is trying to make me feel mean for not wanting her in my house. I will probably give in out of guilt, even though the idea is making me cringe already.
More than that, though, I want to be able to tell my children the truth, I'm fed up of being made out to be the difficult one. But I'm worried about how they'll react and whether they'll believe me. Should I try to tell them? What do I say?