I need to talk about my Mother.

[CarrotsForRebeccaRabbit]

When I was ittle she was abusive,

I never realised it at the time but she was very abusive.

I opened up about it on mumsnet some years ago and it helped me see how awful it really was and of course having children of my own has cemented that.

To sum it up, to the outside world she was an amazing mum, she let us have friends over constantly, sleep overs, when we were yound we had money (not rich but comftable) and she would allow us to bring friends on days out places, we would have all the latest toys and gadgets... christmas day would be manic!! Piles and piles of presents for us all!

However behind closed doors it was a very different story.

She was agressive, very aggressive. And had a very short temper. She says now its because my dad never helped out, he was always working ect ...

I don't know if my Dad knew how she was with us, I doubt it.

Anyways she used to snap so easily, we were good kids, always being praised at school but simple things like bickering set her off,

was the eldest so i got it the most, but i know the next down got it too (by the time the 3rd and 4th grew up shed mostly grown out of it)

But she:

Slapped me
Screamed in my face whilst spitting out her words (i remember her smelly breath in my face)
Smacked me with a rubber soled slipper
throttled me
suffocated me (put her hands over my mouth and nose allowing me no air at all .... this occured when i was screaming because she was beating me and she wnted me to stop making the noise)

I'm 99% sure she bit me too.

So fast forwards to now,

she appears to everyone else to be the doting mum and nana.

Thing is she ISN'T violent or agressive much anymore.

she never laid a finger on my youngest sibling but it still gets to me.

Everything i SAY TO HER (THATS POSITIVE) she puts it down.

For instance if i say im doing 'xyz' and excited about it ... she'll say well i did 'xyzz' and it was awful/reallyhurt/wasn't worth it.

Just anything negativebut then says 'but it may be ok for you'

she has awful racist views

and we had a big argument yesterday about poor little April Jones as she said it was all her mums fault!

I said how about blaming the sick person who took her??

and she said that she was flashed at when young and it was her own fault for being there!?!

She does play a big part in our lives still and is helpful,

but she boasts to everyone how much she helps us out,

for example she will take me shopping but make me feel bad by looking at her watch the whole time saying she has to be elsewhere.

All she talks about is herself and her job... going on about all her collegues lives who I don't know and don't care about.

I don't know why I'm writing this down TBH, I suppose shes just been upsetting me lately and I needed to talk about it and the history we have.

Thanks for reading.

[PerfectStranger74]

I just want to thank internationalvulva for her lovely supportive posts.
It's so helpful for me to read that we are all only human, and make mistakes or bad decisions, and I hope it helps carrots too. I could still be angry with my mum for my upbringing, but the truth is, my issues with her pale COMPLETELY into insignificance to what my big sister went through, DSIS could have wrote your op and a whole lot more. She now has a fabulous dh and he helped her come to terms with some things that happened to her.
I hope you manage to reconcile things with your mum, and applaud you for breaking the cycle.
Thanks again, vulva, it's people like you that make mumsnet the wonderful place it is.

[internationalvulva]

For today that's horrendous. You poor woman, i cant begin to imagine the betrayal of trust that doing something like that in front of your kids entails for you. I do think that if my dc's ever saw the side of my DM I was exposed to as a child I would be advocating walking away.

Carrots, I think I would have pressed charges too. That's awful. It must make you worry about her getting like that with you. X

Perfect, thank you, how very kind, I think MN is invaluable for being able to share and do so honestly and anonymously. I'd certainly have been lost without it over the years!!

[fortoday]

international- A LOT of counselling later I have come to decision to cut her out, my children were 3 and 2 at the time, it terrified them We had to be locked away until the taxi came as she really was intent on violence, i remember golding both my children while she threw herself continually at the door we were behind, brought back a lot of bad memories- made me think 'hang on a second, this was child abuse' problem is when you are abused by a narcissitc parent , they are who you trust, you spend you childhood trying to please them so they won't 'turn', completely brainwashed by them. My mom always used to say she only hurt the ones she loved and I will always remember when i was poorly as a child that it was my 'badness' coming out... needless to say my children are my priority and i will never leave her with them, ever. if and when we do meet it has been in a public place but her behaviour last time made me feel like we were back on the 'cycle' and this usually means an explosion is building...
Carrots, you don't deserve to have this stress in your life x

[CarrotsForRebeccaRabbit]

Wow fortoday, thats so so sad :(

[tiredofwaitingforitalltochange]

She definatly was fighting her own demons, I know that.
I have demons of my own but once I had children I took hold of them and a descision not to do to them, what was done to me.
She could have done the same surely?

I get this. My mum is totally toxic. Her mum was too. I've got girls myself and have tried really hard to break the cycle. If you have managed to break the cycle out of love for your children the only conclusion you can draw from your mum's failure to do that is that she didn't really love you (or love you enough).

It's really painful. I am still struggling with all this. I know the answer is probably to lower expectations and accept it all because if you don't, if you continue to compare the way your mum is with the way she should be, you just continue to get hurt. Cutting off contact is one solution, but it brings its own problems - of guilt, and giving the toxic mother just another reason to resent you/say it's all your fault.

I have nothing helpful to add, I'm afraid, because I'm not managing to overcome all this, I just wanted to say I am sorry and know exactly how you feel. :(

[CarrotsForRebeccaRabbit]

Tired, I'm glad I'm not the only one who has these feelings, although thats quite selfish in itself, sorry! :(

the only conclusion you can draw from your mum's failure to do that is that she didn't really love you (or love you enough).

I was thinking about this only last night. I said to DH even though my mum hurt me I leave my DC with her occasionally because I honestly, honestly KNOW she would never lay a finger on them.

And then I thought "Well, If I brought the subject up with her and asked said to her 'shoud I leae my kids with you? After what you did to me'

She would reply 'of course you should, you know I'd neer lay a finger on them'

I'd ask (the awful question of( 'why woudn't you?'

And the answer would be 'because i loe them and i'd never hurt them'

So she didn't love me?

She loves my kids but not me??

Obiously the above is hypothetical, but I can't see any other response.

With all this stuff in the news (Poor little April) all we hear from my mum is 'how could anyone hurt a chid??'

Yes mum, how indeed?? :(