"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.

How would I contact mumsnet hq? I was advised to find the 'But we took you to stately homes' thread, is there another one?

NHAN- I'm not sure i'll have a look I'm sure someone will know on here- you said it was abuse was it parental or something else? I don't want to pry but it might help us point you in the right direction, if nothing else we are hear to listen as everyones experiences are different on here and no one belittles each others experiences in life xx

NHAN- try this email xx
[email protected]

Thanks fortoday. I'll email them. I posted a long post last week explaining the outline of my childhood. This thread then went really quiet so I was worried I shouldn't have posted on here. I was abused by my father and a ring for many years, my parents also tried to kill me twice and told me throughout my childhood that none of them could be happy until I was dead. Also as an adult come to think of it. I've dealt with most of it now and am ok, but sometimes I have a couple of bad days when memories come through or link to other ones. I just want to know if this is the best place to post if I need to or somewhere else. I don't want to be posting things that are really suitable for here. I've split from the partner of my children recently too so i'm feeling a bit alone in the world, having no family at all.
If it was the wrong place i'll see if they can remove my post

NHAN don't take it personally if a thread goes quiet, it's just the natural ebb and flow of a message board. people can't always answer quickly, or sometimes they miss certain messages without any ill will implied.

i lurk on this thread (ie i read, but don't post) and i don't think your story is in the wrong place.

I saw that you had several supportive replies to your posts too -- did you see those?

i'm sorry to hear that you split with your partner. do you have anyone to talk to in real life? sometimes when you are v v low it's better to have someone you can contact if you suddenly start feeling awful and need immediate help.

much love to you x

Thank you :) Yes I did see those replies which were lovely. I guess I was just worried I had said too much and was feeling a bit wobbley about posting it all.
Thanks, i'm ok about the split, I just feel a bit alone now and it has hit home that I don't have anyone. Well obviously I have my children but it would be nice to have a relative to turn to. My inlaws have not bothered with me at all, which has hurt a little, especially as my ex spent 6 years telling me they liked me when its now obvious they didn't.
I do have people to talk to but things only tend to get to me late at night when there is nobody about. I'm the happiest i've ever been with myself so I think its time to get the past into some sort of order, while I feel strong enough. If I could get off these sites I would start writing lol
Reading some of these posts about mothers reminds me a lot of my mil. My own mother is just pure evil but my mil is harder to see through. hmmm, oh well not my problem anymore

I don't think you said too much! It is so so natural to feel wobbly after sharing stuff from the past though. don't let the wobbles stop you :) write whatever you need to, it helps to tell your story. even if nobody replies, it's still be helpful imo.

Oi - your mum sounds so like mine I felt a bit funny reading your posts. My mum is generally quite an ordinary, nice person, she can be quite caring, I actually quite like her at times. But when I was growing up anything negative was not allowed It was like she just didn't know how to respond to anything that was outside of the normal, run of the mill day to day routine. I remember being in tears about something and her looking at me blankly, almost with fear in her eyes as if she just couldn't figure out what to do. When I told her about abuse I suffered she told me I should just get over it, I was making her feel guilty. When I was depressed she started out being quite supportive but then I had my family telling me I was hurting her, she wasn't sleeping, it was too much for her to cope with and it all came down to her feelings. I was unimportant. I remember her telling me that she went out with her friends and how they were all talking about their depressed friends/family members and how they were all crying and it really came across like she was relishing the fact that she was a poor victim who could moan with her friends. Since then she has never asked me how I am or mentioned the abuse, it's like she doesn't care about it at all.

Reading your posts really rang a bell with me.

fortoday just wanted to tell you that I made the decision to cut off my 'relationship' with my mum just over 2 weeks ago after realising enough was enough. Its not easy but I have told my kids that we wont be seeing her anymore (they are 10 and 12) and they were fine about it (they didnt see her more than twice a year normally despite her living a few streets away and she doesnt remember birthdays and christmas etc). DD actually said mum do you remember she told us 2 xmas's ago she would take us to the cinema for our xmas present that year? She never did, did she ...... I do feel orphaned in a way (my dad died last year) but I am really grieving the mum I wanted rather than the one I had. I do feel relieved, emotionally detached from her and kind of at peace but other people find it a bit odd. A couple of friends have asked if shes been in touch and said never mind Im sure shell come round - but I dont want her to, I am truly done with her. Mothers day is a tricky one for me as I know that will be more fuel for her dramas when she doesnt get a card from me for the first time ever but I guess I will just have to ignore her. I know Ive a long road ahead as she is still on ok ish terms with my two brothers and no doubt her next step will be to try and cause problems between us but hopefully we can ride it out. Hmm that was supposed to be positive and Im not sure it is - sorry x

todays installment of madness- my mother has contacted a solicitor regarding access to my children- can she do this or is this just a threat. Also I have blocked her on facebook although she is friends with someone who is my friend (and old babysitter) we took them on holiday and there is a picture of our family on her page, my mother commented saying ' the family when my kids were nice'- what a cow and then went onto comment on how she is having a tough time with her family- sick of her, at least it was a lovely family of my dad that i didn't know exist, i only have a handful of pictures as my mom burned them after the divorce- such a lovely woman! x

arfur- thank you for your comment, sorry things are diffuclt but hey you did it! well done you and i hope you can tell me in a few months time when i have the bollucks to be in your shoes that you are out the other side xxxx

fortoday Not sure about the legal side of things but if you have a good enough reason for not wanting your kids to have contact with her I doubt a court would overrule it. I also imagine it would be lengthy and costly to pursue something like that. Have you had contact from her solicitor or is it just her telling you/someone else shes done this? Sounds like attention seeking/drama queen stuff to me and strangely familiar .......

fortoday she can, but needs to prove that she has a longstanding relationship with your DC, and that a continued relationship between them is in the DC's interest.

There have been threads on this recently, with legal eagles replying, if you want to do a search.

thanks arfur and hotdamnlifeisgood- i'll have a look but to be honest i think it is an idle threat- there is so much she has said its terrible, what made me cringe is when my dad died, we discovered he had private pensions, the solicitor dealt with these and due to debts etc his details needed to be put in a newspaper for the banks to see etc before the money was released. I didn't and still have touched the inheritance, my dh transferred it all to the mortgage every single penny, i paid for his funeral and everything that went along with his death so the full amount is there. My mom said yesterday that she was disgusted that i hadn't offered her the money (bearing in mind they had been divorced 5 years and she was remarried) and also that she wasn't informed of the newspaper so she could make a claim against his estate.
I'm disgusted with her, just pure greed, she asked me why i hadn't given her any money, if i'm honest the thought hadn't crossed my mind, my father had been found dead, i was working full time, i had all his funeral to sort and as his next of kin at 23 it was overwhelming, her financial needs (of which she has none, doesn't work, drives freelandr, 5 bedroomed detached house etc) and what she felt she deserved didn't enter my mind!

I really can't abide the pure evil of this woman. In the past she has told me me and my sister have been cut out of her will as we've had ours from dad- its sick, i've never wanted the money and that is why I did what i did with it- she said i'm a iar and if thats how i felt i should have given it to charity.

so sad today x

I have just sent my parents an e-mail in which I tell them that I am angry at them, explain why I am angry at them, and state that I want no contact.

I do not regret anything I said in it: it was all true, succint, and - I believe - measured.

I do not care that it will be misconstrued by them, and their perception of it distorted by their own narc/enable issues.

But my god do I need a stiff whisky right now! (can't, am at work)

fortoday

Grandparents have no legal automatic right re access to their grandchildren; this is just another tactic in her armoury that she is employing.

Hello,

Sorry to but in on you guys.

I was wondering if you could direct me towards some books about toxic parenting for my sister to read?

My sisters ex is in the process of traumatizing his teenage dd for life, with past and current behaviour. His entire family is behind him, and now also his new wife. They are force feeding her, telling her she is so ugly that she has no friends, and nobody will ever be her friend, they are telling her that she has no grasp on reality, and making her doubt her own thoughts and feelings. I believe both her dad and stepmum are gas-lighting her and about to ruin her confidence entirely. She has ME after glandular fever last year, dad refuses to believe this, and says she is anorectic, based on her not wanting to be force fed (she had the flu, high temperature and no appetite). She is just back from half term with them and a wreck, where she had stepmum yelling in her face and them both threatening her. She is 17, and can chose whether she has contact, but she is too scared of the consequences if she does not go to see him. She is scared she will lose her aunt and uncles and cousins whom she loves. They tell her they wont see her unless she goes to stay with her dad, and they are telling her they wont let their children (her cousins) see her unless she stays with her dad. If she stops visit, she is breaking her family ties with everybody.

Any advice?

(Some of you may remember he refused to let her go back to her mum after visitation two years ago and took her to an unknown location and did not let her use the phones, and did not let her talk to anybody, not even doctors alone. He got a psychiatrist friend (who had not seen my niece for years) write a report about her that she was mentally unstable and recommended sectioning). My sister rang social services about him, and they were called in, and niece blurted out the entire truth, so he was forced to return her)

Quint

There are some good titles at the beginning of this particular thread (see garlicfrother's post of 28.1.12).

Thanks Attilla. Will order some for my sister to read, so she can better help her daughter deal with all this.

Maybe buy her the book recommened here ? Its toxic parents or something...sorry cant remember the exact name. Other people who commented to me i will et back to you but this topic requires focus that i do not have just now. Might have to be the weekend.

Whoops. Didnt see the last 2 posts. But anyway , get the DD to read them too.

I guess it is a question of an abusive man also being an abusive dad. Not sure if he is toxic, or he is just a narcissist/psychopath. In any even my sister and niece needs to read about gaslighting and such stuff.

I have just started to read toxic parents. I started reading the book quite negatively. I have a lot of anger towards my parents but I struggle to be specific as to why. I can't remember most of my childhood so I don't know why I'm so angry about it. I can't even remember events relating to my mother that happened last year, I seem to just blank it. I know that I was neglected but I can't be specific and this gives them the opportunity to simply say I'm making it up or that its not as bad as I think.

The book has so far been an emotional experience, I did realise that my poor memory is probably a coping strategy but I didn't realise that its a very well recognised coping strategy. I don't know now if I want to remember so that I can know why I'm so angry or weather what I'm just looking for are coping strategies for now. Whatever it is I want there are several things in this book that have really hit home. I knew I had a problem, thats why I picked up Toxic Parents, now I feel like I need to work out what that problem is before I can actually deal with it.

I haven't even been able to tell DH that I'm reading the book and trying to confront this problem.

Toxic Parents is also making me look very critically at my relationship with my DS1. I try very hard to be a good mum and not behave in the same way as my parents but I still seem to get accused of behaving 'just like your mother'. This is possibly the most hurtful thing anyone could say to me but maybe its true...

I have a long way to go yet.

Hello all,

Pls excuse me barging in :)

Haven't thought about this stuff in absolutely ages but was wrestling with a lot of guilt over something today.

Anyway, tried to google my way out of the horrible feelings and came across this site:

emergingfrombroken.com/

Found the articles really helpful (and responses below them) and thought of this thread.

.....oops, didn't tick the box - let's try that again:

emergingfrombroken.com/