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

[DontstepontheMomeRaths]

Thread opener here: webaunty.co.uk/mumsnet/
You may need to right-click and 'unblock' it after downloading it.

It's February 2014, and the Stately Home is still open to visitors.

Forerunning threads:
December 2007
March 2008
August 2008
February 2009
May 2009
January 2010
April 2010
August 2010
March 2011
November 2011
January 2012
November 2012
January 2013
March 2013
August 2013
December 2013

Please check later posts in this thread for links & quotes. The main thing is: "they did do it to you" - and you can recover.

[Mishmashfamily]

Hmm just why would you do that?! My exp was so embarrassed.
I found a diary of her once and I read a few pages ( I know I shouldn't have) and it was pretty dark.

I moved away from her when I was nine and went back weekends. Fridays were always good- excited to see me, made my favourite dinner but by evening I always felt I was getting on her nerves. When I wasn't actually doing anything. She would make me clean my room Saturdays and made me do it for hours . She would come in and say 'no, I can still see something' but wouldn't tell me what it was. So I'd go to visit for the weekend and spend 4/5 hours in my room on the Saturday thinking "what can't I see ?!!"

She bought me fantastic Christmas , birthday presents but then let me know I was getting on her nerves

[DizzyKipper]

I think it's appropriate in this case, no need for apologies. Isn't everything appropriate in MN?
And it seems sometimes that toxic people think so long as they're spending money on you it shows what good parents they are and how they can't be doing anything wrong. Definitely not true. Emotional health, feeling value and worthwhile is far more important than getting presents!

[HesterShaw]

Mine is dead weird about sex - incredibly uptight, but at the same time has no physical boundaries in everyday life. She will come and sit right next to someone on the sofa even if there's loads of other space. However with sex, she has barely ever mentioned it. We kind of realise that DF is her only sexual partner ever, and she has kind of resented it ever since. She told me once I was unplanned - this must have meant that they at least once had sex for fun! Goodness me . However she never once spoke to me about sexual relationships. Relationships and falling in love while a teenager was disgusting. On my sixteenth birthday she said "If you get pregnant, I'm not looking after it." (kind of ironic given my present circumstances...). That was IT. And as for DF - he was so repressed he wouldn't even handle clean laundry, as there were our bras in it.

OTOH she was really embarrassingly flirty with my male friends and teachers. It made me squirm. She saw me squirming once when she was flirting with a few of my boy chums ( we were about 15 and they were on the doorstep). The sight of my embarrassment made her fly into a rage, stamp into the house and slam the door the fucking loon. Nice boys that they were, they didn't mention it.

[HesterShaw]

And it seems sometimes that toxic people think so long as they're spending money on you it shows what good parents they are and how they can't be doing anything wrong. Definitely not true. Emotional health, feeling value and worthwhile is far more important than getting presents!

This is exactly what my brother told her the other evening apparently. He would have traded all the school ski holidays, the watersports...etc for a mother who loved him, nourished him and valued him and showed it.

[MommyBird]

And it seems sometimes that toxic people think so long as they're spending money on you it shows what good parents they are and how they can't be doing anything wrong. Definitely not true. Emotional health, feeling value and worthwhile is far more important than getting presents!

This x 100000.
This is my MIL. Down to a bloody T.

[HesterShaw]

Obviously that one has struck a chord!

I was all for sending my Christmas present back the other day (JL vouchers). I didn't want her to have anything more over me. DH persuaded me not to - I think he wants to spend them on the new house .

[Meerka]

my nightmare close female relative was the same about sex shudder oh god, the things she'd say .... I can't even repeat some of the mildest stuff.

"Pleassssseeeeeee tmi!" (too much info) was not a concept she ever conceived of. or .. tact. Or conversation for the sake of communication, not just holding forth.

yuk, i'd forgotten that aspect of thigns too heh.

Mind you living in the NL, its apparently quite common for mothers to silently and without any comment leave a pack of condoms on their son's bed when he starts dating for the first time. that took a bit of getting my head round. Sensible I suppose ... and they do NOT ask any details, apparently. still startling!

[Madonnaquintessential]

Hester, my mil is a total hyprochondriac! All she drones on and on ad on about is her ill bloody health to anyone amd everyone! Like you say, she will also obsessivley talk aboit others health too- including her own dds. Me and my m were literally in the kitchen pissing ourselves with laughter on xmas day as she had cornered my mums dh and went on and in aboit his health woes. He looked demented! It was all she would speak of to him- on bloody xmas day!

[HesterShaw]

Madonna, eurgh, I just find it SO distasteful. My mother will tell all and sundry about her bum problems, whether or not it might make them feel uncomfortable. Or that she's had a mammogram that morning, or a smear test. I think in her mind she's refreshingly honest and upfront. Er...no.

[MommyBird]

Mil is also a hyrocondriact!
She has everything wrong to hear her talk. She is all. We all know it. She uses it to guilt trip us too. She doesnt give a toss if someone else is ill though!

She has told us cant come down if any of us has a cold cause with her illnesses it can kill her. yet is a smoker

[HesterShaw]

Ah mine's the opposite, at least superficially. She fancies herself as Florence Nightingale and loves it when people are really ill, because it means she can administer her nursing. However when you are just feeling grotty e.g. a cold, or just out of sorts, she is very impatient. Anything like "I'm so tired" will be met with "You're tired!" as though she has the monopoly on low level suffering.

[MommyBird]

Sorry for the bits here and there. Dd2 is teething and im starting tea!

Im here lurking though!

[DizzyKipper]

Anything you want to talk about, they have the monopoly on it I find. When I was pregnant with DD due to the way they paid I couldn't actually take any holidays, I also worked 12 days in a row nonstop, a lot of the days 7am - 5pm, and it was all very manual work. I mentioned being tired to her once due to how much I'd worked, cue diatribe about how she'd worked X long and blah blah blah. When she found out my labour with DD was almost 35hours she had to make a point of how her's was 42, "and that was after my water's broke, which is how they time it". Didn't bother mentioning my water's burst 8 hours prior to my first contraction, which I hadn't bothered to factor in because I didn't think I'd be in some sort of childbirth pissing match.
I'm betting most of yours' have to do this upstaging thing too? I've noticed it with SIL1 too, whilst pregnant she had to make a big point of how her morning sickness was worse than anyone else's because of a medical condition she had - why is it so important to be more hard done by than anyone else?

[Meerka]

i think becuase self-pity is a good final resort. Believing you've had it harder than the rest of the world is a really good way of making yoruself really important. ( That isnt actually meant as snide as it sounds; i think its just the way it works.) Again, it comes down to self being the centre of the world. Just my view!

I admit there have been times Ive felt very sorry for myself. Seeing exactly what you're talking about, what can happen to people who allow self-pity go on too long, has been a good kick up the arse.

[DizzyKipper]

Actually feeling sorry for myself too often is something I'm quite self-conscious of, it's understandable sometimes but not especially admirable. I do worry I self-pity too much, but I try not to dwell on how bad things are for me if I can help it. I generally try not to come along with "you think that's bad, try dealing with this" if people are having a vent either - even when certain people are complaining about how the temperature of their bath water just isn't right. I also really hate when people take their life in vain - you know the phrase 'fuck my life'. SILs always say it. I grew up suicidal and depressed, I never say it because I know now that life is something to appreciate.

[Mishmashfamily]

Tbh I've had a bit of a lightbulb moment this afternoon. And it wasn't great.

I prided myself on spotting MIL had narc qualities, seen who she was straight away oh yes! But what was the shocker was reading a post up thread and it was my mother. I never really seen it. And tbh mil doesn't even come close to her.

I'd toyed with the idea but after reading the post I've been replying my whole life like on a tv reel,seeing things for the first time. And it's knocked me sick.

Petty things that would sound stupid if I put them on here. I used to blame her depression but does that make people cruel? In fact I never even fucking seen her depression!

She pitted me against my younger brother and fir a long time we didn't speak as I was jealous of him and she actually stopped us forming a bond. Which were slowly building now. He went NC too after me.

I was actually thinking of getting back n touch as was feeling sorry for her. What a muppet

[DizzyKipper]

It's harder to see it when it's your own family. And no, depression does not make people cruel - but cruel people who are depressed will continue to be cruel people.

[Mishmashfamily]

dizzy it's absolutely sent me under.

[HesterShaw]

The light bulb moment is a really good phrase. I honestly felt like dark curtains were being lifted. Like you I'd always thought my MIL was a bit unhinged, but that my own mother was somehow exempt from such a judgement. Until recently.

What prompted it?

[HesterShaw]

You answred that. Sorry.

[DizzyKipper]

I think sometimes the mind protects us from things that we aren't yet ready to see, and when we do it becomes so glaringly obvious we wondered how we never saw it before. That doesn't stop it hurting though. I hope you're ok.

[Mishmashfamily]

I'd actually been reading up about mil! Then spotted things about turning event into all about them. My mother told me on my 14th , whilst she was pissed in bed smoking in the dark, that she had been abused at the age of 14 . Then on significant birthdays if mine and db she would 'try' and hang her self - also did it on db 21st birthday.

That's when I started to suspect - a bit. Then I as just scanning through the posts and seen the comment about the sexual talk and it was a bit of a whammy.

The first thing I can remember is being about five, sat in the bath with her. I'd just spent the weekend at my lovely nans. She asked me if my dad had given me any maintenance money (of course she knew he hadn't !!) she went on to tell me he was supposed to to buy food for me to eat so I wouldn't get hungry!

We lived with my dsf who had plenty of money , so that was never an issue but why say that to a five year old. I remember sticking my fingers through the over flow pipe thinkng. ' I wish I was back at Nan's , I won't get hungry there!

Head fuck. Weird.

[Mishmashfamily]

Db girlfriends birthday *

[LookingThroughTheFog]

Oh, Mishmash, I'm sorry. That dawning realisation feels horrible.

For me, it was last year realising my Mum was an enabler. My mum, who I love, who I'm close to, actually allowed this man into our lives for so, so long, and so much damage was long.

It was really hard, that realisation that actually, neither one of my parents protected me.

That was really hard to realise.

So sympathies and hugs. Take good care of yourself this evening.

[Madonnaquintessential]

My mil def does that whole low level suffering to a T! She has various ''illnesses".
The funniest one was when she was crying (as usual) tellin my aunt that she was so ill with a recent kidney imfection she has consisered organsing her will...
My aunty has kidney infections all the time... I had to walk out the room as i couldnt contain my mortifiaction for her! My aunty was horrified too!
Is so hilarious how self pitying and deluded mil is.... My fsmily have to cringe theough her constant talk of her bowel problems- or her daughters. Yawn. Then ahe has rhe cheek to ahout at me dh that i mever consider how ill she is an if i just thought about her for a sexond i would realise how oll ahe is!? I mean everytime i see her i have to console her as she cries about yet another phantom bloody illness! She is crazy! That was a lightbulb moment for me at how crazy she os.