"But We Took You To Stately Homes!" - Survivors of Dysfunctional Families.

[singingprincess]

There is a word document with all the relevant links which I will try and find, but in the meantime...Post away.

Thank you SOOOOOOoooooooo much for the link to Daughters of narcissistic mothers - I have just found lots of answers.

sashh, that website is excellent isn't it? Although I have had nothing to do with my mother for about 18 months now I still look at this website from time to time just to reiterate to myself why I am doing this and to stay strong.

mampam

Yes it is, I am in contact with my mother, but I live 200 miles away. My mother is snow terminally ill so although I have considered the no contact, it's going to happen soon anyway.

Hi everyone

I have tried to chat on these threads before but stuggle as the posts are so long and I can't recall everyone. I also find it hard to ask for help as I always get flamed when I pose elsewhere on MN. I don't understand that. I keep asking for help because I am trying so why do I get kicked when I am already down?

I feel betrayed by my MIL and am just don't waiting for her to do it again so I can ignore her but then the kids love seeing her and I don't want to be bitter.

My mother is about 60 and I long for her to pass away so I know my children are then safe from her threats but as I have no contact with her or anyone I wouldn't know anyway.

My eldest child is being so vile to me at the moment. Shouts at me, raised his fist to me the other day, answers me back and is constantly awful to his sister. I have tried firm words, shouting, calm words, ignoring, nothing stops it.

I just don't know what to do and feel scared I will be flamed again and that hurts as I have nowhere else to go for help.

Oh JustFab so sorry you've had bad experiences when starting threads. We'll never flame you or judge you on this thread and we'll always respect your thoughts and feelings.

You first mention your MIL in your post. Why do you feel betrayed by her?

Hi mampam, thank you for replying to me.

She talked to my mother, told her I had had a baby and had more than one conversation with her. I have no idea what else she may have done or said as she hasn't even admitted the above until I had proof. We had to get a solicitor involved and even when we told MIL not to talk to her or tell her anything she didn't tell us she already had. We had to find out in a solicitors letter. She hasn't apologised. It hurt so much that she put her, my mother's, wishes before mine, the mother of her only grand children. TBH it doesn't affect me every day. I am just paranoid about watching the children go right into school so I know they are safe and I panic if I can't see them in the line coming out . Actually, it does get to me quite a bit. Especially as they are at a new school which is on the internet a lot with photos.

Firstly, a school cannot use photos of your DC without your permission. I had to sign a form to say that DSs school could use his photo if needs be. I think you should go in and have a chat with them at school about this just to check.

With regards to your MIL I'm so for you that she disclosed information to your mother about you against your wishes. I know that everyone makes mistakes and it's how you make up for them afterwards that counts but she has never apologised? I would be mortified if my MIL did this to me.
Do you have a supportive DP? What does he think with regards to his mother?

I'm going to skip over your mother for a minute and talk about your DS. Do you think it's just his age? My eldest DD is nearly 13 and she can be so vile at times, she kind of goes through phases.

There's no excuse for violence though. So sorry you're having to deal with this on top of everything else. Can your DP help to discipline? Don't let this escalate as it will only get worse, have seen it happen with my younger brother but then it was because of a combination of a load of shit he had to put up with from my mother and my mother and step father mollycoddled him.

DH signed to say the photos could be used. He doesn't think she would find them and he didn't want to have to tell them why they couldn't be on like their friends.

DH is also furious with his mother and agrees if she ever does anything like that again she loses us all. I lost a twin. For the surviving twin's birthday she gave him twin trains from Thomas the Tank Engine.

DS1 is 11 and so rude at the moment and mean to his sister all the time. He apologised for being rude and then within minutes raised his voice to me. Prior to this I told him to go away because of his behaviour and he said noone can tell me to go away. I have no control and can not get them to behave. I don't know what is fair in treatment and how strict I can be and they just walk all over me. When I am confident and therefore firm it normally gets results. It just rarely happens.

I have decided I am no longer going to collude in my dms fantasy of having been the perfect mother. She telephoned me the other day, just to tell me how bloody awful her life is, it isn't actually, but it's not on her agenda to be happy and cheerful and ask after others. She, as usual called me a clumsy cow, and when I pointed out to her that dyspraxic was the word she was looking for, refused to back down and promptly went on to tell me how bad her mother was if something got broken. This is crap, if I broke something at Nanna's house I'd get a cuddle and told not to worry. If I broke something at home, I'd get hit and screamed at. I shall tell her next time that she's talking shite.

Please may i join? This thread was recommended to me back in March but I've been burying the problems since then, something which i am unlucky enough to be able to do.

Sorry but this will be a long post as I don't want to drip feed and I need advice on something specific at the end.

My mum was physically abusive to me from a young age until I stood up to her one day whilst she was hitting me when i was 27. I snatched the things she was hitting me with out of her hand and she thought I was going to hit her back. I don't know if I was or I wasn't, I think it depended on what she did next. She cowered from me and that was the end of it. 20 years on she has never hit me since.

However, the emotional abuse started when I was 13 and is still ongoing. She really knows how to get to me, and varies it by my circumstances at the time. "Slag" in my late teens and 20s, "bad mother" in my 30s, and now I'm greedy and grasping. I've also been a "snob" for long periods and she has often said that she regrets allowing me to receive an education.

Its ridiculous, because I know she isn't describing me at all. No one else thinks these things about me, and people even go out of their way to say how well behaved and nice my children are. My husband would never have married a slut. However, it all still hurts.

I am the oldest of four. She hit us all and it stopped for us all when we reached our 20s, except for my sister who was in her mid-teens. One of my brothers also has had the emotional abuse all his life, but the other brother and sister are revered by Mum.

I cut her out of my life when she started the bad mother thing, but I felt terrible about it and eventually we re-established contact. Now a few years on, she has started again over something so trivial that you'd really have to look through very warped glass to see anything wrong with it at all, and even then its nothing to do with her whatsoever.

Now things have kicked off again, I asked my sister (to whom my Mum is borderline sycophantic) for emotional support but I have been told, very bluntly to get lost because she did not want to be in the middle. I am hurt because I believe I am in the victim in this.

Sister wants me to commit to a big birthday party for our mother later this year. Mum speaks coyly to my sister about it, saying she'd be delighted but she doesn't want anyone to feel pressured. So, obviously my sister believes this is Mum's position on it. However, when I speak to Mum about it myself, she behaves like she's very displeased and can barely contain herself from speaking viciously to me about it.

I'd previously said I would go with DH and the DCs. Now I don't know what to do. Its not for months but I need to make a decision this week.

I wrote my sister an email this morning saying that i would go (without DH or the DC) but I feel that I can't win in this situation. Then I laid it on the line for her how i felt about being emotionally abused all these years, and her lack of support. She will probably react by telling me that I am no longer welcome if I feel like that.

Is it a mistake to send this email?

because the email is still just a draft.

Do you want to go to the party?

Many children, now adults, of such toxic parents, have FOG - fear, obligation and guilt.

You do not mention your Dad; where is he?.

You gave your mother a chance by re-establishing contact and now like all toxic parents she has unsurprisingly messed up again. Its not you, its them. Toxic people never take responsibility for their actions nor apologise ever for same.

I guess as well your mother's own childhood was pretty much abusive from the beginning (her own parents likely made her this way) but its still no excuse for how she behaves now. You should never have been made the scapegoat along with the other brother you write of for her inherent ills.

If you e-mail it, would suggest you block her address from your e-mail post sending it. This will save you reading the vitriolic response.

I would tell this sister that you are not going to any party or have any further contact because you no longer are prepared to act as the scapegoat (you also mention that your mother has emotionally abused your brother) in your birth family any longer.

Cut all contact with your mother; she has not and will never bring anything positive into yours and your childrens lives. You managed to cut contact once, you can do so again.

I believe that there is a very strong chance that i'll have a horrible time at the party so i do not want to go. If I thought that I'd enjoy myself or even that it would be neutral, then I would want to go because it would give my Mum a happy birthday.

My Dad died when i was in my 20s. His view was like my sister's view i.e. this is blighting my life, so you are both to blame.

Yes, Attila, when you say it, that's exactly how it is: i gave Mum a 2nd chance and it was ok for a while but she's reverted to type. Also, you are right that she was also severely emotionally abused herself when she was a child (and by comparison what has happened to me is nothing).

I guess there are two things that are really upsetting me: 1. Why is my mum still able to hurt me like this? 2. Why is my sister not sympathetic?

Don't go. You are a grown up and don't have to do this if you don't want too. I gave my mother so many chances but no more and I am fine 99.9% of the time without her. And it is only because I want a mum, not that I want her that it isn't 100%. As for your sister, she just isn't sympathetic and there isn't anything you can do about that.

I find it hard to accept with my sister. It would be like watching someone who is drowning and complaining that their splashing had dampened your clothes.

Some people are never going to understand certain things.

Hi backandforth,

That party is going to be a barrel of fun for you - NOT - so would not put yourself through it. Go out for the day with your own H and children instead.

Am sorry (but not totally surprised) to read that your Dad was a bystander in all this; he failed you as well by failing to protect you from your abusive mother. He has come out with the usual tripe such toxic parents utter as well. People from dysfunctional family units end up playing roles; in your birth family unit you have bystanders, scapegoats, and golden children. It is not your fault your mother is the way she is, her own birth family emotionally abused her.

Your late father like many weak bystanders (usually men) acted out of self preservation and want of a quiet life. He was totally unfair to blame you but blaming you deflected her barbs from him. It was not your fault your mother was and is like this, she chose to act like it.

Re your questions:-

1. Because she can - abuse is about power and control. You have to completely detach now from your abusive mother.
2. This sister had a different childhood experience to you and is likely to be seen as a golden child by your mother. The golden child role is a role not without price but your sister is too stupid to realise this.

Keep away from your birth family; you do not need them besides which these people bring nothing positive into your family's life.

Would suggest you read the links at the start of this thread; some of them would certainly be beneficial to you.

The e-mail sounds fine to me because it's honest. And don't go to the party if you don't want to because you think you will have a miserable time. If you don't want it, you don't have to do it, really.

With regards to your sister: Maybe she wants to stay out of it, because she is not ready/willing to look at her own place in this drama? It's not just that her clothes are getting damp: helping you would mean she has to jump in the water too, see your mother for who she really is, possibly (likely?) lose her favoured position and face up to all the *. She won't do that before she's ready, I don't think.

In our family it's a bit like this anyway. My brother and sister do acknowledge that our family is f'ed up, but think differently than me about how much we can hold our parents responsible for it. Or even if we can, in the case of my brother. So while I am distancing myself more and more (because I start to see more and more how deliberate the parents are in their f'ed up ways and how much they could have/can do differently), I don't discuss the how and why with my siblings anymore.

I 'use' our conversations about our family to get validation for the things that happened/happen, because I need to know that I'm not being a drama queen. But I don't try to make them see my point of view on the motivation of my parents and why I think they should be challenged, because I can't bear to lose my brother and sister if I at some point do decide to throw in the towel with my parents.

Other people can't save us anyway. Only you can save you, because only you can access the pain that your mother has caused. I don't mean to sound trite or maybe even patronising, but I don't know how to phrase it differently.

Thank you for all your advice.

The thing with my sister is that about a year ago she asked me one day what it was like (being the black sheep). She was struggling with one of her own DC at the time, Mum had recommended an especially harsh approach but my sister was, understandably, reluctant to go to war with her own child. She wanted to know my perspective on how to handle it. I can't remember her exact phrase but at one point in an email she wrote that she was beginning to wonder if I was only so much trouble because I'd been given no other role.

I was stunned, mainly because she clearly is of the opinion that I was trouble. i replied asking her to think of something I had done which merited such punishment and she replied that she couldn't. However, she seems to have forgotten that now.

It's very difficult to accept that your mother is wrong, for a child of any age. So your sister cannot see that you were punished unjustly. That you were punished is the proof that you were trouble :(. I think it's one of the benefits (was going to put 'benefits', but no, I really think it is a benefit) of being the black sheep that you can see the truth. It makes healing easier (possible).

I am still torn. Yesterday, I was furious to realise that Mum's still continuing with her latest campaign and that my sister is willing to be a bystander, whilst maneuvering me into co-operating with this party (which will cost me several times more than anyone else BTW!). But I've got something else going on in my life and I can't afford to be upset about this, so I am going to do the passive-aggressive thing and be uncontactable for a couple of weeks.

I've had depression several times now (which is apparently common in my situation?). I had a therapist once who advised me not to make radical decisions whilst I am upset, so I am going to wait and decide whether or not to go no contact again once I feel less rattled.

I find that it causes me more upset and stress worrying about something I don't want to do than making the decision not to do it and tell who ever needs telling.

Okay, not colluding means punishment. I had my brother on the 'phone at nine this morning shouting at me. Apparently I'd told her something untrue. Actually, she made it up. Sorted now, but this is how it's going to be. Manipulative bitch.

How horrible for you. You know you don't deserve punishment, and that you're not responsible for their insanity? Can you screen calls, or would they just harass you until you picked up? Is this a regular occurence or do you think they'll leave you alone for a while now?