Support thread for those who want to stop being hurt by their parents spiteful words in 2012

[myhandslooksoold]

Following on from this thread this is a support thread for those who are sick of being hurt by nasty and spiteful things that are said to them by their parents or parents-in-law.

If we can all vent on here and then work out some tactics to either stop these comments or at least stop the effect on ourselves then that would be great.

I've been hurt for years by my mother who puts me down, rewrites my happy childhood memories, creates divisions between me and my siblings and generally damages my self esteem. This Boxing Day was a turn around point for me as she made me cry after just a 5 minute phone conversation. She hadn't done anything new or particularly vicious but I was so upset. I then realised I had to change my reaction to what she says and have to find a way to stop it from affecting me so much.

I turned to mumsnet to start a post about it and then found myself engrossed in all the similar stories out there.

So please, join in and resolve to make 2012 a year to change! (Cringe that sounds a bit like a politician doesn't it?)

I will gladly sign in here, my auntie, who helped bring me up, is miserable and takes it out on me, saying the most horrible things about my appearance and also blaming me for my DD"s SN

Thank you for this thread.
I am on a similar page as LaRavenanteSecrete.
My mother was a bipolar acoholic who should have never had children.

I enjoy forced no contact.
She died in 1980 when I was 18 and yes the effects are still in my life. My father was an enabler in denial and was a workaholic. He was deaf from WWII so not much conversation/guidance from him-wasn't really expected in that time era. He passed in '98.

The perfection-high achiever was my path also...but perhaps to avoid her rather than to please her, iyswim. Just kept busy. No true friends. I didn't (and still don't) know how to interact with people. I can relate to men better than women because I was closer to father than mother, plus years of martial arts classes (I was the only girl for ages).

Years on though, the perfection transforms into the shutting down for fear of failure: me too. As a design professional it was manifested as a professional paranoia of litigation...mixed with AdultChildOfAlcoholic brain scattering for conversation in the moment. Not to mention the complete shutting down in the face of office politics: I was toast. A complete failure- tis moi. It didn't matter that I could draw and design circles around most others; the emotional damage crippled me.

I was lucky to marry and become a sahm. Right now I have pieced 1,974 pieces to a mariner's compass quilt that I started in 2004-but I can not finish it because I know it will look stupid because I inked calligraphy on it that dh wanted.

My oldest sister got the physical and emotional abuse (she was adopted). She is my enlightened witness and supports me.

Middle sister was the golden child-if there were best years to have been had from mother, she got them. (But even mother's best was damaging.) She is suffering from her own wide spectrum of issues but won't admit the problem lies within her-it is everybody else.

I was the invisible one. Rediculed and shamed for anything-especially for being a athlete before it was ok for girls to be an athlete.

Middle sister picked up the flag where mother left off and considers herself matriarch over me and my dc (doesn't quite have the guts to tell dh what to do ). First subtly then overtly...I am presently very low contact (birthday/chirstimas) with her and diminishing.

LaRavenateSecrete's last paragraph is important. Letting go of the family of orgin...such a burden was lifted when I set the boundaries for middle sister.

Thank you for listening. I will go back to lurking and Quilting!!

It's lovely to read such kind and welcoming words, thank you. It's good to find a little space to share experiences with those who have been through similar.

But also very sad as ever to realise how many of us there are who have been treated so badly by those who should have loved us above all others.

I don't like to bang the NC drum too much, as it were - I hate it when people post on other threads about abusive family members and some people (usually those who have no real experience of this) just respond with "well don't have anything to do with them, then", as if it were really as simple as that. Cutting off contact with my family was and is very hard; an extreme measure. LineRunner, you put it beautifully: "while this can be desperately sad it can also be necessary and even liberating." I'd say that's true for me: some days I'm more aware of the sadness and other days more aware of the liberation - but pretty much always aware it's necessary!

I really do believe I had to do it, but I don't believe that means it's the answer in every situation. I think the kind of support people need varies between individuals, and depending on what stage of the process people are at. (Possibly stating the bloody obvious...!)

Sorry to hear how appallingly your mother treated you this Xmas, SuperBabysMum. The rooms stuff rings some bells for me, long story for another time! And the punching your DP?! WTF?!

Tapir - thanks for the hug, and right back atcha! Yours is also a terribly sad story. What a horrific way to treat a child. I wasn't directly told I was to blame, as such - well, they couldn't really have told me I was actually to blame for the death of a child before I was even born, for example, not without destroying their oh so normal and rational facade! - it was just somehow drummed into me by the way they treated me - the non verbal messages and the constant criticising and bullying; the way nothing I did ever seemed to be enough. While of course I know intellectually it was all a big lie, that everything was "my fault", it is much harder to process that emotionally - an ongoing job. I think that's probably a common experience with that kind of deep guilt? I think when you've been really, profoundly scapegoated, that scapegoat energy becomes part of your psyche, part of your identity, and it's a hell of a job to chip it away.

I need to get to bed earlier than I'm doing at the moment, and time is always tight, so might not be posting consistently - but will be listening and lurking along with tmsb!

Good luck to all.

I have come to the conclusion that I am probably never going to speak to my mum again after her lack of support and me me me attitude with her. She'll never take her rose tinted glasses off.

DC says I'm not to confront her in case it gets used against me if we go to court against my so called brothers abuse.

Its sad because I thought once my dad died she would change but she's had nearly 6 years now and still talks about my dad like he was a fucking saint and still worships her PFB despite knowing how young I was when he started abusing me she's also known about the abuse for 25 years.

Larevenate I'm sitting nodding at your post; it's so familiar to me.

I was prepared to keep a form of contact with her, even if it was just a very occasional phone call, but her behaviour at xmas a couple of years ago caused chaos in my family and made me fully realise that I must protect my dcs from her.

It's one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, and a small part of me regrets it every day.

TMSB I know what you mean about trust issues - I have major problems w/regards to interacting with women IRL; in all but one workplace I have always worked around men...far easier for me.

The one positive thing I have got from the people that 'raised' me is a blueprint of how not to do it, and that is a Good Thing.

I wonder have any of you come across this phrase- a therapist I went to said to me that 'children cleave to the more dysfunctional parent'...
It was said to me about 2 years ago and I am still struggling with it. Firstly was the struggle to recognise that how I was treated was not right (I did not deserve it) secondly the struggle to see that my respectable family was dysfunctional.
And now I struggle to see what effect my father had. Like many have said here, I feel very angry with my mother- but what if I am directing my ire at the wrong/lesser target?
I can almost see that my father was/is a very controlling man....clothing, language, accent, friends, choice of tv programmes, school- all decided by him against a background of believing that the 1950's hadn't ended. And never a cross word left unsaid.
Does this ring any bells with any others?

I don't think what that therapist was very helpful, really, WannaBe. It is a huge generalisation, for starters. Also, dysfunctional is not the same as toxic.

If my mad mother ever heard that phrase she'd jump up and down, and tell me with delight that it proved that the only reason I have time for my father is because he is so utterly dysfunctional; and that therefore, I am wrong and bad and my father is wrong and bad. Ching ching - she wins!

Actually I have two dysfunctional parents, but one is toxic.

what that therapist said

Gosh I don't know what to say in response to these latest posts. I have read your stories with a really sad and heavy heart. Nothing that I have experienced as been as dramatic and horrendous as some of the things others have been through.
What I've experienced has been very subtle and very often I wonder 'is it me?'.
I really don't know what to say.

All I can add at this point is the experience of one of my friends- she has been having psychotherapy for a couple of years and has spent ages going through the psychodynamic relationship theory- child/parent/adult. It's proving really postitive for her and she seems so happy and at peace with herself. Her mum is not speaking to her at the moment- upset with her because she's changed her approach to her mum as a result of therapy. And do you know? She's not too distressed- saddended yes, but she's OK with it and knows its not her problem/fault. I would love to be at peace with myself like that- oh for the money/childcare so I could go to therapy.

TapirBackRider, your posts carry alot of wisdom.
I will ponder "trust". From having no guidance, nurturing from mother, I was woefully naive and just socially ignorant. Which, indeed, made me an easy (and easily identifiable) target for the emotional predators. Yet, I have met nice people in my life, too...
To not trust anyone-and I have been there-is one of those sweeping generalizations that is proven some of the time, but not all of the time. The generalization may fall into the category of "distorted thinking".

"Distorted thinking" is a coping mechanism but it leads to our own dysfunctions...without necessairly recognizing it as that. This is a source of sadness/shame for me because it undoubtedly affects/ed dc.

Sorry, I digress. But that is one reason why I think reduced contact with these awful mothers/siblings is the best strategy: they will heve an effect on thinking processess. I believe it is an unconscious and subtle thing and is very hard to identify/stop/recover/retrain. I would shift myself into "Special Middle Sister Gear" to get along with her...what it really was: self-induced dormancy, also known as depression. Then it was difficult to shift back...

This morning I was thinking about this thread and thought,
"Why on earth, if someone is causing you pain, would you want to remain in their presence?" Just because someone is blood related, does that give them license to do that to you? No, of course not.

Back in 2007 or 2008 a poster named Pages from the original "Stately Homes" thread said to me: "Why on earth do I put up with it?" And that one post really helped me to live for me again. Yes, I am another one very thankful for MN.

Luuurrrrkkking?

(pssstt) MyHandsLookSoOld,

imaginethat your link (on page 3 of this thread) is amazing. I was reading it mentally ticking the list! I'll be printing that off and going through it with a highlighter pen later.
What the article has to say about controlling relationships between siblings is extremely interesting. I'd love to have the courage to send this link to one of my siblings who is also the 'bad child' as we are very infuriated with the 'golden child'. The problem is there is such a lack of trust/good relationship as it has been destroyed by mum so I would be really really scared to be more open with my sibling. We can barely talk about mum now as we don't trust each other well enough.

Thanks toomanystuffedbears after reading the link imaginethat posted I feel a bit less embarrassed (IYSWIM) about my being on this thread. Good stuff- feeling very constructive.

Well that's me and my mother finished my sil told her about her PFB being arrested for what he did to us and she more or less told her we where liars. She never protected us from him or my father he was a nasty piece of work as well always putting us down.

I have spent half my life trying to please her and get her approval well no more she has made her choice when hopefully he is jailed she will have no-one as my other brother wants nothing to do with her and neither do my sisters.

Myhands - Seriously no need to think that you shouldn't be here, subtly toxic behaviour is still toxic. The mere fact that she has you thinking "Is it me" is a big red flag. I've come across the 'checklist' for narc behaviours before, and it has really helped me to get my head around a lot of the experiences I had as a child/teen.

TMSB Trust is a thorny thing for me. I've been burned before by a couple of people I thought I could trust; my circle of female (non relative) friends is very small. I am trying to work on this, but it is a big job.

I know what you mean about being socially ignorant. I was forbidden from socialising with children my age, and spent most of my free time with either adults or other 'approved' children. I had very little idea how to get on with others, and believed that everyones homelife was the same as mine.

I'd like to ask here - did anyone else's dysfunctional parent threaten suicide or physically harm themselves? It's something I'm struggling to understand.

Marking my place. Why are so many parents like this?? I feel like the biggest disappointment to my mum - will never measure up to my (younger) sisters.

Some of these accounts definitely ring true with me. My mum is depressed, and has been to some extent for as long as I can remember. We can go for months in a 'normal' relationship, but eventually something happens and there will be conflict. She has low self-esteem, so usually it is because she is jealous of something - often my in-laws. She gets hysterical, tells me she is all alone and no one cares about her, bad mouths everyone in the family etc. I tell her I love her, and we all do, and cite examples of good things that we do for her. She tells me that we only do those things because we feel sorry for her. I tell her that I don't want to hear her bad mouth other people in the family because it is a conflict of interest. This makes her angry. Then she berates me further, tells me I have abandoned her etc. Eventually I snap and defend myself.

I suppose that, yes, I do want to live elsewhere where I can have the career and lifestyle I want, more than I want to live near her and settle for a routine job. But it doesn't mean I don't love her.

Tapir - she has hinted at suicide.

She needs professional help.

The problem I have is that to everyone outside the immediate family my parents are [where] fabulous, come from a good home etc yes right.

pannettone I can see your mother from how you describe- and I agree about the low self-esteem (ask me how I know that ). Its like a vacuum that sucks the good out of relationships because every interaction is seen throught a prism of why is the other person is doing this (they must feel sorry for me, they must think I am an awful fool, they dont love me enough).
She probably does need professional help. You cant do it.
And that means you have to make a distance between the mother you want and the mother you have. Hard.
My own mother ( I have only recently come to realise) is very similiar. She has never been able to relate to me as an adult- she cannot let go of the parenting role- so she wants to tell me what to do. If I dont want to hear it/ignore her advice/ react be an adult, then her only other option is passivity.

I dont know if I will ever go to No Contact but I have reduced contact as much as possible.
dotty yes I too come from a marvellous home, pillars of the community, leaders in sporting, church, school, govt and business arenas. Anything to get power except taking responsibility for not hurting their nearest and dearest. And protecting them. So when it came down to a conflict between a bullying teacher and me- well I had to suck it up.
As for anything that might hint of my emergent sexuality, including men/boys taking advantage of it and abusing me; well that again must have been my fault.

oh god [threadkiller]

what did I say?

Am chuffed I found this thread! :)

My mum has many issues, and the game to her is to put everyone else down so she can feel better about herself.

I won't list all of it because you guys will all die of boredom but:

Spent my childhod telling me I was fat and stupid.

She never hugged me. Not during my entire childhood. Apparantly she has RSI (more on that later) so I wasn't allowed to touch her. Hurts even more now knowing that I'd walk through fire to hug my own little boy. She did hug me once about a year ago. It was soooo wierd. I'd have been less uncomfortable if a stranger had hugged me.

Constant put downs. Constant. All untrue as well. All wore me down over the years but if I ever complained my dad would tell me off and say I was too sensitive.

After I gave birth she RIDICULED the extra weight I put on. Every time I saw her I'd leave in tears with her jeering at me finding the whole situation hilarious.

When I left my (emotionally abusive) husband my dad rang me up and told me that I couldn't possibly leave. Apparantly my mum was crying and she was really upset about it. Nothing about me, nothing. I had to leave a very abusive man with a one year old in tow on my own. Was fucking hard. My ex eventually showed his hand and my parents realised how bad he actually was. But I never recieved an apology.

I'm settled now. Have a nice house, a lovely partner, job I enjoy, lost the extra weight, etc.

I started picking her up on her nasty comments. If she ever said something negative about my appearance I'd tell her it was unnecessary for her to be rude the second she saw me and walk away.

It had been a while since she'd said anything until this weekend just gone. We were having lunch in my local Whetherspoons and she made a huge deal of walking up the disabled slope to get to the restaurant (more on the disabled thing in a minute).

We were eating dinner and a girl/woman carried her pram up the (four) steps to get to the restaurant. My mum starts starts saying, "Well that's stupid, why doesn't she use the slope?"

Don't know mother, maybe she didn't know it was there (slope is very well concealled - is by the disabled toilet so unless you use that it's unlikely you'd see it). Why does it matter, anyway?

Few minutes later another girl does it. This time my mum (even louder) says, "Well, she's stupid struggling with a pram when there's a slope. Of course she is blonde, I wonder if there's any brain cells in there a all?"

Am pretty sure this girl was Polish and I hope she didn't understand what was said. Everyone around us was agast though.

I'm not sure if it was a well disguised dig at me (I'm blonde, and so is my beautiful little boy) or whether she thinks it's now okay to just randomly shout abuse at people in restaurants.

I left. I was shaking. Not sure if it was the shock of what she'd said or the shock of it not being aimed at me. Although I suppose in a way it was.

My little boy is now upset because he now knows that his granny thinks blonde people are 'stupid' and I've been depressed about this incident since Monday and really can't move on from it.

Because of her weight comments when I was young I always promised myself that if I had daughters then she wouldn't be allowed near them. Might sound harsh but I didn't want them spending their childhoods thinking they were fat, ugly, not good enough.

Luckily I had a little boy. And he's absolutely perfect. Yet she's now found a way to put him down too.

I don't want to see her again. We all know how these little drip feeds of unpleasantness work, don't we? Is far more damaging than one big unpleasant outburst.

Now I've started panicking about what she might have said to him behind my back. He did once ask me if he was fat. Now I think that may have come from her.

:(

Am pleased to check back to this thread today and see people are still active on it!

A week ago, after my mum had hit my partner, I was determined to be no contact, and read LaRevenanteSecrete's post, about being no contact, and thought 'that's what I want!' however, a week on, and my little boy is pointing at my mum's photo and saying 'nanny, nanny, nanny', and I can feel my heart breaking.

I also read 'Toxic Parents' by Susan Forward, which someone kindly mentioned, and felt like I was reading a description of my own mother in the 'manipulative parents' chapter.

In this book, Susan Forward suggests confronting your parent face to face, or writing a letter. Has anyone done this? I am too scared, and can't find the right words to begin. My mum's ability to rewrite history makes me feel like I haven't got a grip on reality. My brother is on her side saying my partner was in the wrong. I haven't heard from her or my brother (who is 30 and lives with her - he moved back in after our father died a year and a half ago) since. And usually we speak every day/every other day..

I was sorry to hear how your mum puts you down, theincredibequeenofwands, I have to say, my mum has never done this to me - she is proud of my acheivements, and praises my looks and abilities. But I do feel that, similarly to toomanystuffedbears, I have a special perfect child gear... I am not really myself and I wear myself out when I'm around my mum thinking forward and pre empting any possible disasters (e.g. cups of tea not made, dinner not cooked early enough, glass of wine not brought to her)... I act like a spineless wimp, and this affects my confidence. Additionally, I have never properly stood up for my partner, who has been cold-shouldered, called for all sorts, and now physically attacked by my mum.

So, anyone who's experienced in standing up to a manipulative parent, or who wants the courage to do so, lets give each other support and encouragement!

Sorry for quietness on my part the thread disappeared from my active conversations thread for some reason so I thought noone had posted.
I did something good for myself today. I bought myself a nice necklace from my parent 'me' to my child 'me'. Its a special occasion soon and I know what I will get from my family will upset me as it will be a thoughtless/mean 'gift' so I will ignore that one and be pleased with what I bought myself!

myhands that's a lovely story about your necklace. Good for you. In a similar-ish vein, when I first started with my current therapist, I bought myself (at her suggestion) a special ring as a sign of my commitment of my "inner parent" to my "inner child". It was like a tangible sign that I would never abandon myself, that I would be on my "own" side from then on. I was really struggling financially at the time (as indeed I was for most of my life till relatively recently) so it was quite a big stretch to buy it, on top of the therapy sessions themselves; but that made it mean more in a way. And it did change the way I felt about myself, in a very positive way.

Wannabe - yeah, my family pillars of the community too! On the side of and even fighting for the weak and vulnerable and disposessed everywhere in the world.... except their own home/family, of course. It's a real head-fuck, isn't it. I think the massive discrepancy between their professed values and the way they treated me did me a huge amount of damage, it was just so confusing and messed with my sense of reality so much.

Tapir - my mother never threatened suicide or self harm, so I'm not much use there, but she did once threaten to leave - I was quite young, 8 or 9, and (after a row with my father, I think) she started ranting and doing the big martyr number, said that was it, she was off, and started throwing clothes in a suitcase while I stood there and watched, paralysed with fear. I know it's a big difference from what you're talking about, but I never forgot that absolute terror of thinking she was really going to do it, the sense of how on earth would I survive if she wasn't there. Sorry, it really is a different dynamic to repeated threats to self harm/commit suicide used as a tactic to control and manipulate, I know. But I suppose the common element is a deep vein of utter selfishness at the core.

Hello Annakin, your aunt sounds truly awful, but I'm very glad for your cousin's sake that she's got you at least, someone to bear witness to her mother's atrocities!

Your wedding day story really got me going, as it was on my wedding day that I had to finally face the fact that, whatever they said to the contrary, my family really didn't love me and couldn't put me first, no matter how important the day for me. So the day I sealed my future happiness was also the day I had my heart definitively broken as far as they were concerned. Horribly painful - but I suppose it has been healthy in the long run as without that I might have hung on in there for God knows how much longer, still trying desperately to make them love me. Sometimes it takes a really big heartbreak to make you see what you have been trying not to see.