"I didn't know how to speak to you when you were a teenager"- Am I to blame??

[MilkandWine]

Okay this is probably daft but It's playing on my mind and I just need to get it out I think.

Yesterday I was at my parents house (myself and DP are splitting up, although I'm not really sure if that's even what I really want, another thread though sorry). I was speaking to my mother about how if I ever have children I'm going to push them to achieve something in life as I frankly feel like I haven't achieved the things I should have. She then asked "Did we not push you enough as a teenager?", I said on reflection that they probably hadn't if I was being honest. My mothers response was " Well you were impossible to approach when you were a teenager, I literally didn't know how to handle you"

It's made me feel really bad tbh. I wasen't a wild, drug taking teen but I did have problems. I started self harming when I was 15. I thought I had hidden this from my parents but my mother revealed in an argument last year that she had known about it. I also had eating disorders and a completely unhealthy obsession with a rock star who disappeared when I was 16. Something that totally shattered my already fragile state of mind and insane as it sounds I don't think I've ever 100% recovered. My mother will often say "You changed when you were 16, I have no idea what happened". To this day I can't tell her as it sounds such an insane thing for a 32 year old to come out with.

I don't even know where I'm really going with this post actually, I just feel really sad I suppose for my f**ked up teenage years. I've spent years minimising it all but I'm starting to realise just how bad they were. Nobody eve really tried to help me. I have scars all over both forearms that I will carry for ever and feel that my parents really let me down by not helping me.

I know I'm an adult now and need to get over it but it's just made me feel really sad.

quiddity it sounds like you mother did a poor job indeed of being a mother to you. Did she know how to be a better mother than she was do you think?

Hmm the statement you made to yr mother is quite passive aggressive IMHO. Basically critizing her parenting. It is not too late for you to push yourself now to achieve what you want in life. Instead of talking about children you may or not have in the future, you can take responsibility for your life now. What do you want to achieve?

The self-harm is a definite sign that you were an unhappy child - quite possibly due to emotional neglect or other problems in your home life. That your mum saw this a problem for her, rather than a signal to review your psychological wellbeing, tells you everything you need to know about her as a parent.

Now you're more aware of some truths about yourself and your family, it's a good time to look for another counsellor. I can recommend this book, too - it gets quite hard as you work through it, so it's best done with professional support. You can 'look inside' on Amazon.
Homecoming by John Bradshaw.

Wrt to what others have said about having your own kids - if you successfully work this through before you have your own, you will be a far, far better mother. That's how to break the cycle :)

Thankyou for your posts everyone, I've been away for a day so unable to reply until now.

I am feeling a bit better today and I've really been thinking about the different angles posters have given on this. I think I was probably so hard to approach as a teen that my parents didn't know where to start. But at the same time I can't get my head around how my parents never even mentioned the fact they knew I was self harming to me. I mean we aren't just talking a few scratches here but real wounds that have left dreadful scars. Were they not worried I would end up accidently/deliberately hurting myself? It's not as if they has no experience of self harm, my brother took an overdose when he was 16 ffs!

I would dearly love to talk to me mother properly about it but I just feel really ashamed and humiliated whenever anything around the topic attempts to rear it's head.

Quiddity I am very sorry to hear what happened to you, I hope you are managing to find some peace now.

garlicnutter That book looks very interesting, thankyou, I will definately be buying it. With regards to children though I'm not sure if I will ever have any. I honestly can never see myself marrying or having children even though I would love to do both. I think I see it as something that happens to other people but will never happen for me. It's a frame of mind I would dearly like to get out of.

Thankyou again for all your posts, It is very much appreciated.

Thanks, MilkandWine. You're very generous about your parents, perhaps that will prove the key to finding a way to resolve the situation. I really hope you do get out of the feeling that marriage and children are not for you?I know it all too well and I suspect it's a sign of something being very, very wrong with one's self-esteem.

EssentialFattyAcid, my teenage years also included extensive, active emotional abuse as well as neglect. My brother (who was treated much better) would ask her to stop it, so she knew at least one other person felt it was wrong. I think it was all about her, being a good mother wasn't an issue.

milkandwine when my teen was minorly self harming (cutting), I was frantic and took lost of advice from children's mental health charities. One key piece of advice was NOT to draw attention to the cuts because the philosophy was that if you did so, the child would start cutting elsewhere where it did not show (eg on the soles of feet) and you would not know whether anything was improving or not. i don't know if it was the correct advice but it was very firm and possibly your parents were not mentioning your self harm for the exact same reason. Obviously, we put ALL our efforts into solving all underlying emotional issues, but we tried NEVER to mention the cutting. She is now fine.

MilkandWine. I am a parent, in my mid-30s, and had similar experiences to you and others on this thread as a teenager. I started to develop serious mental health problems (anxiety and depression) which were not properly diagnosed until my late 20s. I spent my teens and most of my 20s battling with them and not even realising why life was so hard. I regularly thought about killing myself and would sometimes try to take a knife to my skin, but never actually cut myself.
My parents did fuck all to help me. My mother now says I was "very difficult" and her main thing is that she "cannot forgive" me for "competing with her" for my father's attention (I have no idea what she means by this). As far as she was concerned, I was a problem for her. The idea that I might need HER help appears never to have entered her head.
She has never shown any interest in my problems/health and, when I was 30 and made a suicide attempt, she refused to even acknowledge it. I believe her take was that I was trying to grab attention for myself again - just like in my teens. She literally cannot stand it when I get any attention and even walked out of my sister's wedding reception when I stood up to give a speech as maid of honour. Everyone in the family has normalised it, which makes you feel extremely alone. Seven years later, my suicide attempt and subsequent stay in a mental hospital have still never been mentioned.
I have spent years yo-yoing between attempting a warm relationship with my parents, and going for periods of not speaking to them. But I just don't think I can ever forgive her and, for enabling her horrible attitude towards me, my father.
I have had a lot of therapy, and I do rationally recognise that my mother herself has serious mental health issues, and that really I should feel sorry for her.
After all, I have a really happy marriage and a lot of good friends. She can't maintain friendships at all and has spent 30 years putting up with my father's affairs.
But something in me just can't give her that much. I think I really hate her and I have no idea how to move on from that. In fact, becoming a parent has made me more angry with her, not less.
I really sympathise with how you feel and I hope some of this helps you to make sense of it.

notyetwise I am very glad your daughter is well now. If my parents had ignored my self harm after taking advice then that would be understandable. My problem is they never took any advice in the first place. I actually never showed my scars to them, I wore long sleeved tops ALWAYS, even in summer, from being 14 onwards. The most they would say is 'Are you not hot?'. My man only knew I was self harming because she found blood soaked towels and razor blades in my bedroom. Even now at 32 I never wear short sleeved tops in front of them, they have literally never seen my scars. I keep them hidden even now.

dollius Your story is truly shocking and I am so sorry for what you have suffered. I do not blame you in the slightest for hating your mother. I believe some behaviours are utterly unforgivable and what your mother has done to you definately falls into that catagory. I cannot comprehend how a parent could ever treat their child like that. Thankyou for sharing your story with me.

I know that my mother loves me so at least I am fortunate in that respect. But letting go of my anger is difficult. I just know deep down something was deeply amiss in mine and my brothers childhood. Me are both in out 30s, unmarried and have mental health problems. Surely it can't just be coincidence?

Maybye I need to stop dwelling on it quite so much and move on.

I think the not dwelling on it and moving on may be the best you can do. Most parents try to do a reasonable job and your mum was maybe being honest when she said she didn't know how to handle you, you admit she loves you. The fact that you feel you'd have done things differently if you were her is irrelevent, she did what she did and you can't change that.
You maybe have an unrealistic idea of how much you can push teenagers to achieve as well, particularly if your mum wasn't a high achiever herself and you were going through a stroppy phase. I doubt nagging you to do more homework would have achieved much, ambition has to come from within yourself, not from other people.
Also 16 years ago self harm wasn't publicised the way it is now so you have to judge your parents on medical knowledge 16 years ago.
You also seem to blame your mum more than your dad. Dads often seem to get an easy ride on mumsnet.
Seeing a psychologist may help if you can't stop dwelling on your teenage years.
32 is still young and you could go to college/ nightschool etc and achieve things, but you have to decide what exactly you want to achieve first.

milkandwine I expect that you won't be able to "move on" without properly acknowledging what a dreadful time you had and that your mother was not a good mother to you. I hope you do get more counselling - it sounds as though you are more ready to acknowledge now that the past wasn't as rosy as your parents might like to make out. I am sure counselling would help you to decide whether starting a family of your own is the right thing for you at the moment or not.

dollius I think being a parent does make you more aware of how mothers should treat their children so I am not suprised that you feel angry towards your mother. I think this is a stage to go through and in time you may feel more understanding of the reasons why your mother was a poor mother to you. I find it heart breaking to read your story as a mother myself. My mother was emotionally neglectful /abusive but her own childhood was appalling so I can understand why she found it hard to be a good mother herself. I know that she tried and that she loved me so I don't blame her, but I am still appalled by much of her behaviour to me and I think we will never be emotionally close. I feel let down by my mother and that she has caused me much suffering and a lot of difficulties with my life as an adult. Sadly there is no undoing the past. The trick is to see it for what it is, try to realise its effects, deal with them and move on.

Yes, dittany, it is the dismissal of your pain and your feelings which is so destructive. It's the refusal to acknowlege that your pain and feelings are in any way real. Certainly my mother has always behaved as if my feelings are utterly unimportant. And that is the thing that makes me so angry.
I was always told to stop "putting it on" and stop vying for attention all the time.

OP: You're not to blame, but my God, it's so hard parenting teenagers.

I was a pretty miserable child and teenager and didn't, ahem, "find" myself until I became a parent myself. By this, I mean that I was let down by my parents, but that they were a product of their times, as I am mine.

There are many self-help books you can read and I think that the counselling route may help you too.

At the moment, my DS is 14 and my DD is 3. I am 48 so we have a house full of puberty and peri-menopause hormones and a troublesome 3 stage.

What you can do is not beat yourself up about it, but not beat your mum up either.

dollius your mum sounds like a much scarier version of mine, but the traits are the same!

I have been emotionally detaching myself from my mum but it has taken years and years. You'll see from my post above that I'm now 48.

Its not having your emotions and experiences unvalidated which is so hurtful.