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 dont know that there is any point in pulling someone up over them...what are you hoping to achieve? That they will suddenly have insight and change...I dont think thats going to happen. So as tempting as it is to defend/explain ourselves, it actually draws more attacks.
Instead I have worked on detaching as much as possible....I dont react (I think that gives food to the abuse).
I confide as little as possible, I have removed my family to arms length as much as I can. Its a slow process and I had to do it in steps. Other people might have had to go no contact in one go.
Even at that, I found myself confiding in my mother over Christmas....but I know now that the information will be used against me another time. And by expecting it, it takes the sting out of it later. And it re-inforces that I shouldn't expect a confiding relationship with her.

Hi, I got a mother like this too. List of things she says is just way too long. Eg. when I had a heart attack a couple years ago (i'm fine now) my DH rang her to give her the hospital number and she did'nt want to ring me. Oh well.

So I reason this way: Am I unlovable because my mum does'nt love me. Answer No. Why, because I have been married to the same lovely man for 20 years, I have a 15 dd who is lovely to me, I have two brothers who I get on well with and some good friends.

So is my mother a loving person: Answer probably not. Why, because she's divorced twice, lives on her own, has no friends and has fallen out with both my brothers and currently doesn't speak to one of them.

This is what I tell myself after every conversation I have with her. I currently don't go and see her and my reason is the same as her reason. Its too far. This is how I get by.

love and kisses to you all

Wannabe: I think you are right. I suppose I just don't want to accept that she either says things with the intention of hurting me, or is so thoughtless that she doesn't realise what she says is hurtful.

I think also I feel the loss of being so close to her when I was growing up. But really it wasn't a healthy closeness, she treated me as a confidante for her marital problems, when I was too young to be carrying those problems. So now I'm no use in that way I feel a bit discarded and sad about the loss of closeness.

I do need to confide as little as possible and try to detach myself. It is hard though, especially as she seems to enjoy kicking me when I'm down. So if she phones on a bad day, I get caught out, tell her more than I should and she just makes me feel worse.

get your gigs on going to be a long one !
my mother is not what I feel a mother should be or should have been .She had three kids and I was supposedly the favourite.
I dont really remember pre school but I ado remember being upset on my first day and not speaking for the first month ! I also started wetting the bed again ,....a fact I was reminded of regularly and punished for.The school contacted mum and dad about this and also about the content of some stories I had written about them getting drunk :-)
If it hadnt have been for school uniform I do not know what I would have worn as I had on pair of pants a skirt and a jumper apart from this . My mother and father both had good jobs. Her wardrobe was bursting and she had her hair done every week so it wasnt because of lack of money.She worked full time and her money was hers and house keeping was for the house and that was that.
I got a little job to buy clothes and stuff but until then we all (there were three of us) wore such scruffy often too small stuff.
I left home at 18 when I began work as a nurse.I could not bear it at home any longer.My mother never cooked and when we were small were given a packet of crisps and a slice of bread for tea or a chip butty. Dad always cooked when he was on early shifts so one week out of three we ate properly.He worked 7 days a week but had one weekend off a month so we ate ok then too .
I washed my own clothes from age 11 as we had no washing machine and did most of the family ironing. I loved to iron then .....not now !
I think we had about 4 family holidays at Pontins when we were quite young but mum and dad used to disappear after lunch without a word.You just turned round and they were gone.We were taken to a couples chalet one day as it was pouring down and they alerted the red coats who had a go at mum and dad.
My mother had a couple of affairs the first when I was about 7 that all my friends knew about and asked me about . Dad had suspicions and asked me about it .I asked mum and all she said was " can you blame me "
I know she had several more and she used to tell me about those as I got older.She was forever kissing other men or flirting at family parties and I actually caught her snogging someone at my wedding .
I have been quite ill these last 12 months with back problems a breast lump, an ovarian cyst , a uterine polyp ,prolapse and an under active thyroid.Although she knows about this she has never once asked me how I am .
She is the most self centred person I know but she is my mum and I keep in touch and support her as much as I can . She left dad 2 years ago and I found her a lovely 2 bedroomed sheltered flat and helped furnish it . I lent her some clothes and jewellery as she left everything at dads until I got a van to collect it .She sold that jewellery and told me she threw the clothes away as they were rags .I ve never had a thank you or acknowledgement.
She has never said she is proud of me even when I qualified as a nurse she just invited herself to my celebration with my son and then expected me to pay for her !
I am guilty of disliking her sometimes and it makes me feel bad .
Her son has nothing to do with her and she blames dad but she no longer lives with dad now and my brother knows it.
My dad was a horrible man with him and first hit my brother when he was 6 weeks old while my mother stood by and did nothing.thats why he does not want to know as mum tells all and sundry of how bad he was and still rants about it now .My dad last hit me at 19 and because I threatened him with the police he did not do it again.
There is much more to the story of my parents but I still support them . They are old now and I am the only family that bothers with them .The funny thing is that in dads home and in mums sheltered they all they they are lovely people. I dont put them straight but I know better .

Can I join? I could really do with the support.

My mother is lovely in her own way, but she is a matyr which gets very trying, and more frustratingly she does not listen to me. At all. Classic example being Boxing Day: there were four of us at her house (her, my uncle, a very deaf old man and me) and my uncle had found Harry Potter on TV. Now I do like HP but I've read the books and seen the films countless times, so knowing it was not his cup of tea, not likely to be DOM's I told him to turn it over and see what else was on. But at that moment my mother came in:

Ma: "Leave HP on, Elephants will want to watch it."
Me: "I'm not bothered. I've seen it before. Let's see what's on the other side."
Ma to Uncle: "No, leave it on. Elephants wants it on."
Me: "No, really, I have seen it before. I want to see what else is on."
Ma: "No, don't turn it over. Elephants wants it on."

And so on and so forth.

Now I know that in the grand scheme of things this is nowt, but it happens all the time. She told me she'd bought advent calanders to give to friends' children from me. I said I didn't want to, and if she gave them they would be from her. 5 mins later she tells me they'll be for me. She's even contradicted me on what I believe (how can she know that better than I?!?!?!?!?).

What makes it all the more upsetting is that she's not like this with my sister, as she is scared of my sister and will not dare contradict her. Which leads me onto another point. We must never let poor little sister be upset (she's actually older than me, but still), so we have to look out for her feelings all the bloody time, and if that is at the expense of my feelings then so be it. Actually, I don't have any feelings. The last time I spent any time with the two of them (3 years ago, for 2 days) I was so fed up by this all at the end I was in tears, only to be told by my mother afterwards on the phone that I hadn't really been upset. WTAF!!!!! This had been at the end of two days of my sister constantly being horrible to me and my mother saying and doing nowt, yet my mother had a go at me for mentioning a holiday the two of us had been on without my sister (who had been invited but hadn't wanted to go). My sister was out of earshot at the time, but still, "We don't want to upset her, do we?".

Sorry, this probably sounds really petty but it gets to me. I have as little to do with my sister as possible (tho' apparently, according to my mother, I would be upset if anything happened to her. This I was told last night. The fact that if I never see her again it'll be too soon is neither here nor there).

Boy, was that cathartic!

Can I join? I can't believe that other people are going through similar things to me with their mums.

My mum treats me so badly. She thinks being honest is a virtue and it's her duty to tell people 'how it is'. Really she is just rude and cruel and hurtful.
She is and has always been obsessed with my weight. She is diet thin and smokes to maintain her weight. she brags about smoking 60 a day during her 3 pregnancies so she didn't put on weight - we were all low-birth weight babies. I have tried to have healthy pregnancies but just get slagged off for letting myself go.

When I look back on my life my mum has told me the worst things a person can tell another person. When I had my DS I was 23 and a LP (father had done a runner). I was seriously depressed and confided in her in desperation that I wasn't bonding with my baby and felt like he would be better off with out me. She agreed. She said she always suspected I was not maternal and had a cold heart and this confirmed it. She stood up in disgust and said I SHOULD give the baby up for adoption and walked out. The following day I attempted suicide. Fortunately I was helped by other kind people.

I was single for many years and never thought I would meet anyone. My mum would often tell me I had nothing to offer a man - I was so overweight (size 14/16) my house was a mess and I wasn't an interesting person. How gutting to hear that from your own mother.

Eventually I met the man of my dreams and have gone on to have 2 beautiful DDs. I now have a great job, great house, great husband (who helps me deal with my mothers crap) and 3 gorgeous kids.

But she is still there in the background trying to hurt me. She won't let me go. She invites me out, phones a lot and lulls me in to a false sense of security. Then wham! she knocks me down.

I am so terrified of turning in to her. I WILL NOT be a hypercritical mother to my daughters. I hug them all the time and say beautiful things to them, I adore them.

Have so much more to say but will give others a chance

May I join this thread? Don't feel that Stately Homes is really the thread for me.....

Toomanystuffedbears You mentioned the fact that your Mum didn't nurture you and that you were a target for predators as you were socially naive etc.

That is me. To a tee. I have been on the Night Vision website today as it was linked in another thread. What an eye opener.... I don't think that I will have a relationship again. (Not saying that out of self-pity, but out of self-preservation).

When I was a young child, my Dad was very controlling and his word was law. My Mum was just resentful of everything and everyone. To be fair, they both had dreadful childhoods and I know this damaged them. My father was also seriously ill while I was growing up, so all attention was on him. Us three kids were lumped together as "the kids" and were not paid that much attention to. I remember crying on my 9th birthday and being so unhappy. But anyway, I digress.

I'm not sure what I think about a parent who spends £300 on a suit (and this was the early 70's) and who's family are on the breadline...... They had to fiddle his expenses in order to live. I know he had to have a good suit because of his job, but £300????? And he didn't have one, but had two......

As us kids grew older, my Dad found spiritualism and was off on a learning journey and became a changed man. He talked to us and helped us and to be fair, he and Mum bailed all of us when we got into trouble, be it a few quid or a tow home. His last words to me before he died were "If I made mistakes, it's because I didn't know any better...."

My Mum never cuddled or hugged me because according to her, when I was about 18 months old, she cuddled me and I pulled away from her - that was the last time she cuddled me. My efforts to reverse this with my kids is to become the "kissy monster" which they have both absolutely loved as littlies.

My Mum is now seriously ill. It's not terminal, but debilitating and, well, if she doesn't do what she's told, life threatening (not by me, but she'll literally fade away and die). My sister and I spent 2 hours with her on NYD trying to find food that she could cook for herself (we found loads) but she's a "glass half-empty" kind of person and a "poor-me".

She does like to gossip about us three and play one off against the other. We will now pull her up on it. We'll also pull her up on being rude and insulting us too. But it's taken a long time, I'm in my late 40's and it's taken this long.

I'm so sorry to read other posters' sad stories. We really don't deserve to be treated so badly......

Apologies for the long post.... I'm now at the stage where I need to get things out

It sounds a bad thing to say, (and it's not my thread) but 'the more, the merrier' IFSWIM.

I find it hard to imagine behaving in the above described ways to my children. No child deserves to be marginalised, unloved, treated in such poor ways and abused.

I don't have any wise words to offer, but I didn't want your posts to go unanswered.

LaRev wow thanks so much for your excellent and well thought out replies to 21yearold they are such a good summary and advice. When I saw the questions posed I sighed and wondered how on earth I was ever going to answer.
AKiss my heart went out to you when I read your post. Asking boyfriends what they saw in you is very cruel and disloyal. It's a nasty shock to find your mother isn't on your side. I'm glad your DP is loyal and supportive. My mum likes to try and gang up with my DH to have a joint moan about me and she gives him all the 'poor you putting up with my awful daughter' routine. He's now aware of her game playing and will be sticking up for me the next time she does it. What you said about her confiding in you inappropriately was also true for me. Also what you said about her catching you with your guard down- I hear you!!
DinkyDoo and IloveDaintynuts I was so saddened and shocked by your stories. I think what you say Dainty about the fear of being the same to your DCs is very relevant, and that is what reopens the wounds of what happened when we were children: 1- we are more vulnerable to praise/criticism from our parents when we become parents too- we are more raw/needy; 2- you see friends around you enjoying a renewed good relationship with their own parents- all pulling together to bring up the baby together- that seems normal so you yearn for that yourself; 3- you find yourself replaying the patterns/behaviours from your own childhood, only this time you're the parent. I certainly found this- I was angry, violent and frustrated and took it out on the children in the early years. It took a really nasty argument with my mum where I was really really scared of her to see how scared my children were of me when I screamed at them.
Thank you once again to everyone who has posted.

I was always frightened of being a crap parent to my children, they are now 20,17 and 16 apart from my DS who has SN's their great kids so is he in his own way. Apparently I have always put myself down and apologise constantly signs of abuse. My sister who practicallyy brought me up until she left home when I was 9 or 10 has asked me to stop and think before I say sorry or put myself down because according to her I deserve more respect for myself

Dotty - I agree with your sister....after all you survived your childhood, have gone on to have children yourself, and done your best.

That deserves respect.

So I survived a weekend at my parents where my mother was nice to me the whole time. But it just looks like an act, you know? I wonder if it is, or if I'm just suspicious of her.

As soon as I have any self confidence and she knows that I'll challenge her, she goes like this. She starts acting really nice to me and treating me like I'm normal.

She even managed to hold her tongue when I said I couldn't find my school certificates or my university certificates. Amazing.

We'll see how long it lasts...

Well done yellow...I learned something about that but dont know if I understand it well enough to repeat it.
It goes like this: that a person will seek to get power in 3 unhealthy ways- by being a victim (poor me, feel sorry for me) by being domineering (you will fear and respect me) or by rescuing (be grateful).
So I can now see that if I don't fall into 'victim' mode with my mother, she has nowhere to go- she cant dominate me nor rescue me.

It sounds like your mother is similar, no? And if you can hold your nerve and keep your confidence in yourself (seeking healthy power in yourself) then she has to become better than she was. The hard part, I think, is when we revert to seeking comfort or support from mothers like this- they see it as an invitation to return to their dominating/rescuing persona.
In fact writing it out now has clarified it for me.

Exactly as you said Wannabe, you have explained it perfectly.

It's horrible that we can't seek comfort from our mothers. I want more than anything to be able to cry down the phone to her and not have her say "I told you so" or "this wouldn't happen if you took your medication" or "just come home, you don't need a job". All said in a bitter tone.

I have a few problems with my mental health. I have Borderline Personality Disorder (which she denies I have - she works in the mental health dept of a hospital and thinks she knows it all) and for a while, I suffered with dissociation (which is a feeling like you are not real, and is utterly horrible). When I told her I felt like I didn't exist, like I was behind a wall, she said "well don't tell the doctors, that sounds like schizophrenia, they'll put you away". At the time I was only 21, just split up with my first boyfriend and was utterly terrified. I've now learned that dissociation is a form of anxiety, nothing to do with schizophrenia.

She's so full of shit it's unreal and as soon as I start trying to have a relationship with her, she's just more full of shit.

Oh no....can I do the usual 'unmumsnetty blah blah' hugs to you?
How could you not have anxiety or Personality issues if you grow up listening to that? You are actually marvellously strong to be so insightful and resilient.

I pray, pray, pray that I am a better listener/supporter than my mother.

Thanks, Wannabe, for the unmumsnetty hugs.

I'm sure you are a better listener. I think just being aware of yourself proves that, don't you? That's what strikes me over and over with my mother. She just has NO clue what she's like. She never pauses to think how her behaviour affects me or my brother or my dad, she justifies it constantly (I'm stressed, I'm tired, I'm sick of your dad).

I do feel sorry for her. Imagine if she started analysing her behaviour now. I used to treat my partner horribly over about 2 years. I feel really guilty about it but am trying to move on. She has 40 years of treating my dad, then my brother, then me like shit. I doubt she'd get over the guilt, so she just needs to keep justifying it.

Can I join in please. I feel that my mother is nowhere near as bad as what most people have endured, however, the other week I just actually thought I had had enough of her and my sister.

My sister is exactly like my mum - work obsessed, driven and extremely competitive. My mum does everything for her and my sister is completely rude to her about everything. I feel my mum takes all her pent up aggression about my sister on to me because she knows I don't like confrontation - she is always being rude and will interrupt me or ignore me quite readily if someone else is saying something more interesting. She has told me that I need to get a grip when I have gone through periods of struggling with my children - even during labour I was told I needed to get a grip (I don't know why I ever expect sympathy).

It feels like she has no respect for the life choices I have made - she makes comments about how easy I have everything. She meets up with my sister all the time and makes time for her whereas with me and mine I feel like we fit into her life.

She has offered to help me when DH is away skiing and I have actually realised that I don't want her help because I am that fed up of the judgement that I can see passing through her mind.

My dad passed away this time last year and I find it really hard sometimes - although he was a difficult person, he had accepted me and I felt completely loved by him.

I have to go to bed now - will look at responses in morning. I am feeling quite emotional tonight.

Littlefish - I didn't want to read and leave without replying to your post, but it's very late and my brain has stopped working.

Just want to pass on a and some , plus a hug.

onelittlefish I find your caveat 'not as bad as some people have endured' is very familiar to me....I grew up feeling disloyal if, in the privacy of my brain, I criticised my mother. I would join in with others when they were moaning about their mothers even at the point where they said 'ah she not so bad really, she wants whats best for me, she's always there for me' HA HA HA bloody not true.

And I also recognise that seeing it as it really is, is a big step and takes a lot of strength...cos if our mothers are not conforming to the 'model' of what we need, we are left bereft. But once you get over that, it's quite freeing really. You stop looking for something thats not there.

Hope you are feeling better this morning.

Same here never thought my parents where bad but lots we couldn't do such as open our mouths without being told to shut up also being called stupid. I'm glad I've cut ties with her I only have one question to ask her once the present sorry mess is over and that is why she hates me so much. I do know I was a mistake as I overheard them saying wwhen I was a small child that they wernt going to make the same mistake as they did with my brother as he was spoilt with being the last one and it wouldn't happen with me.

I read a lot of threads like these - and one of the over-riding themes is that we all believe that others had it worse, and that there is a possibility that we really weren't that badly off.

That is not true. Abuse is abuse, whether it is physical, emotional or mental. No child does anything to warrant being treated thus, and the parents that do behave like that ARE in the wrong.

The mystery lies in why they behave in such a way. (IMO)

The reason why I can say I don't have it as bad is because my mother has not always been like this. I remember her being really lovely when I was little. She was really attentive and sweet. I don't know what has happened to her. She just seems to have become really hard. I sometimes wonder whether our relationship is redeemable and I wonder if maybe I do have something to do about it.

She offered to come and help me with the children today and I said no, I already had someone coming to help. It felt really sad because I don't think she will ever have a good relationship with her grandchildren now.

Hi, can I join too? Things have come to a head with my Mum in the last week following years of her selfishness and alcoholism and I'm feeling really guilty.

There is a big back story involving a recent bereavement and years of her being a bad mum and breathtakingly self centred but things have all gone wrong this week. I'm getting married in a week and a half and I have uninvited her to my wedding. I feel awful and don't want to get married now amid all this upset.
She initially said that she couldn't attend my wedding because she wasn't up to travelling (translated as she couldn't be bothered because she wasn't getting a lift door to door) and I was relieved but pissed off in a weird way too. She subsequently let me know that she had roped some drinking buddy into bringing her (which is a problem anyway because it is supposed to be a small wedding and we have already upset the ILS for not inviting extended family). The problem is she is an alcoholic and we had an awful Xmas with her involving her drinking in bed in the early hours of the morning, her literally begging for a drink, trying to make herself sick for effect complete with fake collapses. She endlessly sobbed, she was retching and belching around the dinner table etc... She also has given up washing and smells of wee. Anyway because it is going to be a very small wedding and she expected to stay with my ILS and because we think that Xmas would be a blueprint for how she would likely behave at the wedding, me and DP decided that she would ruin the day for everybody and be an embarrassment to us and herself and that I had to tell her she couldn't come because of her alcoholism. Obviously this went down very badly and she instantly blamed by step grandmother for causing trouble rather than face up to her drinking. She hasn't spoken to me since.

Writing this down makes me look really bad but there is a lot more to it but it would be an epic essay of a post. I have written her a letter explaining why I had to make the decision I did and asking her to get help for the drinking but I feel so sick with guilt.