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?)

Your words resonate so much with me, Meg. (Have to confess I was thinking I'd never heard of a Paul Simon song called "you can call me Meg" for a while, there, before the penny dropped - tend to take things very literally sometimes )

Glad to hear things have improved for you. Negativity to oneself - yes. Way too tired to try and order my thoughts on it all tonight, but... it's something we learn very deeply as children, I think, over a very long time and on many levels; and just as it took years and years to "perfect" that warped thinking, it takes years and years to re-educate ourselves in a different habit of seeing ourselves positively. IME, anyway, I guess I'm talking about trying to get to the root of the unconscious stuff and not just the conscious awareness.

"The constant negativity I attracted as a child, the unremitting denial of my right to my own feelings, my own decisions, my own path in life" - very close indeed to my experience. Our families sound very similar in lots of ways. Champions of everyone - except us.

So sorry to hear of how things were/are with your Ex. That must be a really tough thing to live with. But as you say, it's a really good motivation to become stronger, and to change the dynamic for your DD/DCs in general. Easier said than done, I know, but we have to just commit to it and keep on going, I guess.

Never very good at knowing when to stop writing, but am just TOO tired and have to get to bed!!!

I'm still here had a roller coaster few weeks youngest was really ill and police have been to both my mother and brother.Neither one is interested in helping brother is supposedly getting a court order to keep me away from his family they'll laugh that one out, so obviously I made the right decision to stop speaking to her still upset me though as the way we where treated as children just exasperated all what happened.I've become so close to my youngest daughter since doing the right thing even though its still up and down.I feel like its my fault that she was such a handful and has borderline Adhd a mixture of her big brother having ASD/Adhd having to spend so much time with him and my MH problems due to my childhood abuse. I could of done a much better job of being a parent but she says she had a great childhood still can't see it though she has been my rock and she's only just 16 and a young one at that. Don't know what I would do without DH and her.

Bumping... just because....

I've started reading "Children of the Self-Absorbed: A Grown-Up's Guide to Getting Over Narcissistic Parents" by Nancy Brown.

Can.of.worms.......

Also: I read on another thread about Alice Miller's "Drama of the Gifted Child" and had a peek on Amazon for it.

Another.can.of.worms......

I've found what I've read in both of these books to be quite hard hitting and I'm not sure how much I can read without falling in a sobbing heap, to be honest. I think it's going to be a very slow process but I owe it to me and my children to do this.

One of the memories that came back to me last night was that my Dad had major surgery when I was 4. I know it was hard for my Mum, but my Mum never held me, hugged, kissed or comforted me. My Dad didn't either, but then he was too ill to do anything. My daughter is 4. I could never that to her.

My Dad had major surgery again when I was 7. I used to have dreadful nightmares for weeks on end. I'd stand in their bedroom sobbing to be told that it was just a bad dream and to go back to bed. No comforting, hugs, kisses or getting out of bed to take me back and calm me down. My son was 7 when he lost his Dad and was devastated. I could never do that to him.

One of the things that children who are treated like this do, is to intellectualise things - which I did. I know my Mum held the family together, but really, there's no excuse for treating your children like stuffed toys.

lemony, thats very rough...and comparing with how you treat your own child rams home somehow, the unfairness that you instinctively knew yourself.

I feel opening up cans of worms is good, as long as you can pick out the relevant teaching bits and move on. I try desperately to forgive my mother for what happened- though I find that the continuing dismissal of my current emotional needs brings it all back with a vengence.

I also look at my own relationship with my daughter and despair at times- I have had no effective model of how to be a calm, supportive mother; and I am afraid that I am unconciously neglecting some of her needs - a sort of ''needs blindness'' IYKWIM
And that brings home to me that perhaps my own mother was doing her best too in the circumstances in which she found herself....and so I am back at the starting point that whatever she tried, I still felt abandoned and unsupported.

The advice that I cling to when I start twirling that debate in my head is that 'you can only change yourself' and however healthy I am (emotionally) that is the model for my kids. So I parent my inner child as much as I can, praise her, treat her well, reward her, encourage her and stand up for her.
I can only hope it rubs off.

Go easy on yourself while you are reading- not discouraging you to do it, but while it stirs stuff up, you need to be kind to you.