please indulge me with this self-centred ramble

[allhailqueenmab]

• or on the other hand, come and say in chorus "It's not all about you!" because really, it is SO not all about me.

I am 42. I have a brother about 6 years younger (and an older sister). We were brought up in a religiously conservative Catholic family. It was apparent to us all pretty early on that my artistic, flamboyant, creative, effeminate little brother was a bit different and a bit special. No one dared mention it. He was bullied at school - this was de rigeur at a Christian Brothers school, there wasn't much protection for him. I agonised about him endlessly. I can remember worrying all night about him at times - about him being gay, whatever that meant (poofter insults were big at school, there was much controversy about Boy George etc, no one ever suggested for a minute that being gay might be remotely ok) and the horrible, lonely, shameful life he would have. I had no one to talk to about any of this, least of all my mum who definitely couldn't face a conversation about that.

Years went by, my brother grew up and moved out and there is this weird conspiracy of silence around his obvious gayness (with my parents, not with me and my sister). He has even brought a male partner to a couple of family events, yet no one will actually acknowledge any of this is happening.

today my brother had lunch with me and told me that over the weekend our mother had phoned up, said "there is something I have to say to you" and had cried (this freaks me out as much as anything as she never cries) while she apologised that "we never gave you any support growing up gay".

I cried my eyes out. I was sitting outside a cafe just over the road from my work with all my colleagues walking past and I could not stop myself from bawling. Apparently my brother said "oh well what could you do, I've been over it for years" or something. He is a very relaxed and loving person and in a weird way, despite all this, they have always been close. He completely accepted all this and said there was nothing to apologise for. Bless him.

BUT OH MY GOD I feel so ANGRY with her! I feel so angry with her and with my dad for inflicting and reinforcing the societal shame of the time upon us all, making my love for my darling brother so painful while it was mixed up in this deep fear and dread of gayness that I could talk to no one about.

I know it was worse for her, she must have loved him even more and been even more mixed up. but I don't care, we were children and she was the adult and she let us down. She let us down because the stupid church didn't equip her, or actively de-quipped her (not a word I know) to manage the obvious reality of what was going on and how we all owed DB love and support and openness and honesty. She is always talking the talk about standing up for what is right even against society and "what will people think" and has totally failed to walk the walk where it matters. She has inflicted so many incidents of pointless embarrassment on her children about non-issues and about this - THIS which does - she could not stand up for her child or support her other children.

Now, this is SO not about me. But right now it feels like it is. Because DB says he is fine and I believe him. But I am not, and I will never be, and have so much resentment against my mother for letting me down in other different but similar ways (not wanting to admit to herself what was going on with me, but in my case it was mental illness).

I will never be close to her I will never feel I have her support because she let me down when it mattered. She let DB down but he is lovely and kind and decided years ago it didn't matter and now has graciously accepted her apology. I am never going to get one because she doesn't love me as much? - because she still doesn't recognise she let me down? - because she doesn't think I am as forgiving as him (I am not) and doesn't want to go near issues like this with me? I don't know.

I don't know why this thing that should be such a relief has made me so angry.

The issue for me is that now she has said it and DB has accepted it I am the dickhead if I think any of this is still an issue! I have to get the hell over it and I am such a stupid entrenched resentful arsehole I am really struggling to do this and ARGH

Please tell me to get over myself, or better still, how.

Sorry about the essay.

I'm not going to tell you to get over yourself. I'm from a family where things aren't discussed - to the point where an entire past has been fabricated and only I, it seems, can remember what actually happened. If you have something that makes you different - be it gayness, or mental illness, or something else, often the way people cope is by pretending it isn't there.

So I can see why you'd be angry now, if only because your brother has been, if you like, validated, and accepted for what and who he is. Whereas you haven't.

Also, yes, I can see why you are angry for all the unnecessary attitude that you are supposed to be "over" now.

I am happy really, in a way it's a dream come true. but I am slow to accept good things. I always have this "what's the catch?" attitude. i have seen myself do this at work - go into meetings really bothered by the argument that we have to have, having massively rehearsed in advance why my way is better, then when I explain this to the other person sometimes they instantly go "oh yes, you're right, let's do it your way" and I feel stuck, confused by the fact that I got the outcome I wanted.
when I got my MA I got a distinction. I phoned up the office several times trying to get them to admit that yes, the letter was a mistake.
I struggle with good news! I am a nutter.

So everyone else around you is suddenly being all forgiving and morally perfect, and you feel you're expected to flip a switch and turn off your feelings after years and years of suppressed resentment and without any apologies or discussion? That would make me angry too.

You can't forgive your mother if she won't admit there's anything you need to forgive her for. I'd imagine you're jealous because your brother has the opportunity to forgive her and you don't.

She was the adult, you say. When we're children we think adults know it all, but as we grow up we realise that they are just winging it with varying levels of success, same as us. This has transported you back to childhood and you're reacting as a child - which you are, you're her child. Maybe if you manage to see yourself as her equal, another adult, you can pity her instead of feeling so hurt? That won't cure it all, as long as she won't play, but it might help work through it a bit.

I completely get why you would feel so angry. It doesn't feel like it was a very 'safe' environment for any of you to grow up in, if you could only be accepted if you fitted in and anything different would be stonily unacknowledged.

I wonder if you feel you have been forced to collude with her silence, and prevented from supporting your brother?

NMFP - I think that is sort of the problem - I didn't not support him but I did internalise a kind of terror of homosexuality as something too hard to deal with, a kind of "oh god no, take this cup away" kind of thing. When he came out to me (as if he needed to bother) we both lived away and there was no issue at all. But I never addressed it myself before he brought it to me, when he was at college. I never walked into his bedroom and started a conversation about it, offering acknowledgement or support.

Of course now I think about it, I haven't seen my brother for ages and maybe he actively arranged this lunch because he knew this was a big deal for me, and was a huge issue for me all the time we were growing up, and he is acknowledging my stake in this and my "right" to know about that conversation? Now I think about it I think that is the case and he did this not as piece of idle chit chat, but he sought me out and actively came to my part of town to tell me in person. Ok there is a formality to that, that makes me feel acknowledged.

I am being really bratty about this, aren't I?

From what I've read, perhaps you need to separate how you feel about homosexuality in general and how you feel about your family. To be able to do this, you need help in my opinion.

There are lots of issues in my family, lots of opinions held which I find distasteful and morally unacceptable. I find the actions of family members morally unacceptable regardless of the opinions of others and couldn't give a shit if that puts me at odds with them. I have however felt very angry and confused because parents are supposed to protect their children and help them to understand the world. They are not in my opinion there to weigh them down with dogma, to hem them in and scare them.

I have learnt to accept that my family share my surname and are therefore related to me and I have to accept that they hold certain opinions that I don't agree with. They were bloody useless as parents and I have to accept that too and I have to deal with these feelings of anger and move on. I cannot allow their bigoted beliefs to control me. Perhaps your brother thinks the same.

The primary individual in my life is my controlling father and I get the impression that in your life, that person is your mother. Your feelings for her have to be explored in a theraputic environment and then put in a box so that you can move forward.

Phalenopsis, I am not homophobic. when I am talking about all the fear and worry about homosexuality, I am talking about when I was 13 or 14 when, in a very unreconstructed environment, I didn't know any better and thought the whole thing was very worrying and difficult. this is a long time ago now. I didn't actually know what homosexuality really meant, I had a very vague grasp of it as sexual orientation, I thought of it as a portfolio of mannerisms which meant you would be humiliated and bullied and beaten up your whole life.

I think you are right though in that I think had my mother or father shown me a different way, I would have been able to cope better with it all. I never doubted that they loved him but they needed his sexuality to be invisible and unmentioned and I had no one to tell me it was ok. (I am sure back then they certainly did not think it was ok at all, as the pope had told them not to)

I am sorry you had a difficult childhood and a difficult family.

I have no idea how to go about the therepeutic environment business. there is a part of me that has instinctively known that this is what I need for a long time. I am getting better but I struggle with trust hugely, and with guilt, and with conflict. I have a lot of anxiety at work because even minor differences can bring up the most awful resonances from feeling that so many situations were an opportunity to heap guilt on me and even when I feel that is unfair I still expect it and consider it inescapable that I will be the scapegoat. that is what I meant above by struggling to move on.

Maybe I am just really envious of my mother because it feels (I know this is simplistic and not how it is at all, but) - she got to choose. When she couldn't deal with things, they were put away and unmentionable and we all suffered the emotional consequences. Years go by, the gay stigma lifts, she grows up and stops feeling so judged all the time (I know a lot of our problems came from the incredible tension she felt as an inadequate housewife - she had a job but felt very judged in the home, which was always clean and tidy but she had a job and thought her housekeeping very inadequate by the standards of the day - and was also very paranoid about what people thought of us in general and how we reflected on her - and always always denied this - was determined that we didn't speak with a local accent or seem working class but we lived in a working class area and went to a working class school so she was swimming upstream - AND at the same time was determined that she was not thought of, or was forced to think of herself as, a snob, so there was double think there that added to the tension as she had to constantly correct everything about us at the same time as deny it or say it was for other reasons than a desire to be middle class enough) - so yes, years go by and NOW she thinks it woudl be nice to say sorry and we can all tell the truth. now she has different friends and society has moved on and she doesn't work in a convent school where she can be judged by her family. NOW she gets to apologise, and everything is clean and lovely and different, but I didn't get to choose when we are undercover and when we are out and who says what and what feelings I have and can admit to when.

You misunderstand me. I wasn't assuming that you were homophobic. I meant that the issues concerning your mother could be about anything - your brother having a black partner for example. The issue isn't about him being gay but your parents' upbringing of you and him and their attitude to society's opinions. That is what I meant about separating the two issues. Your mother could have behaved in this way about any moral issue and you'd be angry because the issue here is your mother not your brother's sexuality.

ok, got it, thanks

What do you mean by "therepeutic"? Is there a particular sort of therapist who is best for this sort of thing?

I advise you not to get over it, but to get stuck right into it and good on you, I'll be patting your back on the way!!!!

There is a space for your feelings. All of them. You don't need permission, least of all from someone who let you down this badly and who thinks they have a right to lead. They do not. Take your place. It doesn't matter if she knows you are angry and it doesn't matter of your brother doesn't think it is needed. It is, because it is there, so be it.

It will pass and something will have been made right on its way through. X

I was badly abused as a kid and my sister or brother did not stand up for me. You sound like a fantastic sister and person.

Thank you something2say. I am sorry to hear you were abused and no one stood up for you

This is fascinating. Painful for you because you had to go through it. But don't you think the fact that your mother, with her upbringing and background could even say that to your brother says something about the massive social change that has occurred in the UK?

In my own family I have watched social attitudes change over the last 30 years with a sense of disbelief. I still feel angry with my own mother for not protecting me from some antediluvian attitudes but if I make an effort to be objective, I'm still pleased shes moved on.

I am reading between the lines of your post OP and I think there are 3 issues here:

1. The conversation with your DB has brought up unresolved issues from your own past, and you are experiencing anger, resentment and confusion as a result.

1. You feel guilty about the fact that you have those emotions, because what your brother went through could be seen as more traumatic, and he is 'over it'- so why can't you be? Here the thing: it doesn't work like that. Hurt from the past can well up in all kinds of ways, at all kinds of times. It is not a linear thing. Also, there is no parity in pain - people have different tolerance levels and something that really hurts one person will be water off another's back.

1. I wonder if at some deep level you feel guilty for going along with familial attitudes towards your brother - for not speaking out because it wasn't the 'done thing' at the time. And thus, some of the hurt and anger you feel towards your mother is actually self-criticism and self-loathing at the part that you have played. You have no need to feel those emotions, OP, because you were a child and not responsible for what went on in the family - and too powerless to confront it by yourself. It is important to be explicit about those feelings and to forgive yourself.

1. I wonder if at some deep level you feel guilty for going along with familial attitudes towards your brother - for not speaking out because it wasn't the 'done thing' at the time. And thus, some of the hurt and anger you feel towards your mother is actually self-criticism and self-loathing at the part that you have played. You have no need to feel those emotions, OP, because you were a child and not responsible for what went on in the family - and too powerless to confront it by yourself. It is important to be explicit about those feelings and to forgive yourself.

^ What do you think of this op does it strike a chord?

I am glad for your brother and your mother that they got to have that conversation. It would have been terrible if she didnt have the courage to say it to him. At least she has acknowledged how things were and her shortcomings. Its funny that you are more annoyed with her now than you have been all along when she has actively done something to try and admit her failings. Give it time.

Thankyou all, for all this.

Mysweet - I am not more annoyed with my mother now! I am always annoyed with her and this goes in waves. She is very nice to me now I am an adult but I feel she let me down when I was in her care (not remotely appallingly, nothing like the mediium-bad cases you read on here, let alone the terrible ones). Sometimes I forget I am annoyed with her and sometimes, things like this, or who knows what, just cause it all to well up and I am furious.

Struggling100, I think all those things are right. BUT the middle thing - about feeling I should just get over it - actually I think there are lots of things I should just get over. I struggle to get over things in general. I feel like not being able to get over things is not a problem with LYFE but a problem with me. That is really what I want to learn and what I want to change. So feeling guilty about not getting over it - yes; the but the sense that I should, is honestly, I think, not misplaced.

I got a really shitty email today at work from someone blaming me for something that is not my fault. I sent a robust email back explaining, agreeing that the thing she is pissed off about is a problem, and copying senior people who arguably could change it (I know they won't) and suggesting that she raise it with them, as I would like it to change too. On paper I think that looks really clear, a robust response without being overly defensive, not emotional, factual. OK, now it should be "my work here is done". Nothing else has happened on this since. But I feel tied up in knots about it. I feel absolutely horrible about the fact that angry emails are being fired off at me. I feel like the person who thought it was my fault, must still be carrying that view, and is probably looking for an opportunity to make it my responsibility somehow. I feel like .... it's not over, and can't be over, because any guilt or any blame that is flying around will attach itself to me, and however unfair that is, or whatever I do to clarify that, it will never go away.
This is the sort of thing that gets locked away inside me and eats away at me and stops me sleeping.
I can't deal with baggage.

I have learnt how to seem to deal with things at work. I would have been incapable of that email 10 years ago. I used to run away from all conflict and at home as a child, any attempt to defend myself always ended badly and I sort of internalised a view that it was better to go with it than get into a horrible battle that woudl leave me even more rejected and told off afterwards. It was not good for my career to be so conflict-phobic and it is one of the things I have worked on.

BUT BUT BUT it still makes me so so so so so so anxious to defend myself and I can't jsut do it and get over it.

Maybe this is all about that. Maybe this is about: how does my mum get to be the "good" one no matter what she does? She ruled the house and the family with her cruel, backward hangups. But no one was allowed to mention them so she was officially good and loving and kind. Then she regretted it, long after the damage was done, and when it suits her, and it apologises. So now she is doubly good - she was supposedly good then and now she has seen the light she is good now. I am NEVER good, SOMETHING is always my fault

Sounds a bit like me: any criticism means that people are saying I am a bad person. One "bad" thing means a person is bad. I didn't even realise I was doing this, but now I examine it more closely it doesn't make much sense. This is a habit that is probably worth losing, I think.

I see the phrase "convent school" in there; they have a lot to account for.

I do know how you feel. Transactional analysis therapy sessions I had decades ago really helped me start to identify those destructivr lies I tell myself (they used to be in my mother's voice) and root them out and cast them off. It really helped then and now I am going through a lot of difficult problems and they are helping now too.

I have read your posts Queen Mab and couldn't not respond to them. I have been on mumsnet for a year or so but your anger and hurt has resonated with me more than anything I have seen here.
I COMPLETELY get where you're coming from. I have a very strong mother and growing up I remember many occasions when I knew she was wrong or she hurt me verbally and later she would blithely change her views or agree she had been vicious for no reason and I just had to "get over it" .

Like you, I still feel the rage and pain. That she gets away with the hypocracy.
That I don't get points for being right.
I have just deleted lots more self indulgent shit and am sorry I cannot offer you (or me !) any advice. For what it's worth you sound really nice and I hope you have a partner/ children /friends who appreciate the person you made yourself.

For people struggling here, I think that a period of time seeing less of these people would be a good thing. Step right back for a year or more and assert yourself on your own away from prying eyes and criticisms. Get professional support if poss. You likely have a lot to say, so take the time at long last to say it all. You speak about getting over things. Well that isn't something you choose, it is something that happens as a result of getting the story off your chest enough times that it goes away on its own. Take yourselves away and stand up for yourself away from their voices of dissent. Remember the lost prophets guy say what he was doing had been harmless. Abusers always deny, twist and blame. Stand back and see it for what it is.

And how to manage them knowing that you call less or avoid them? I say so what? It is ok for your feelings to be on the table. They won't agree with you. Don't seek that. It is ok for them to know you are angry. You don't have to have massive conversations with them about it as they will only try to shut you up again. So avoid all of it.

I believe you have the right to be angry. We all do. It is better out in the open.

QueenMab - I understand completely how you feel about the conflict at work, and about being tied up in knots with it. When you've suffered a terribly overbearing parent, who always has to be perfect, you are BOUND to internalise that pattern of thinking. You spent your childhood desperately seeking for approval that never came, surviving on crumbs of praise, and always feeling like you were the one in the wrong. This is how dysfunctional and narcissistic parents control others, and get their way. Essentially, a parent has complete power over their children: they set the boundaries of normalcy, and the boundaries of reality, which is why it's not possible to escape that viewpoint when you are small.

However, you are an adult now, and the first thing to recognise is this: it doesn't have to be this way. You don't have to go through the whole of your life feeling like you're never good enough. You can set different standards, you can change those unhealthy ways of thinking. You don't have to live your life projecting others' expectations onto yourself, and then feeling guilty and inadequate that you don't match up. You can set your own standards, be your own person, shrug off the aggression of others as their problem and not yours. I'm not saying it's easy to achieve this - in fact, it's very hard work to 'undo' the patterns of thinking - but it can be done, with help and support. I'd definitely suggest cognitive behavioural therapy as something that could be transformative for you. It helped me no end.

Thank you everyone.

I really don't think my family are that bad. I don't think they are exactly toxic. My sister and my mother in particular are completely lovely to my dds. i don't mean fake lovely, look-how-great-I-am-lovely, I mean really genuinely affectionate and kind.

It's only I who have a problem. My sister and my brother I think see my mother as someone else, from the person I see her as. Somehow, over the years, my critical interior monologue is in her voice. but actually she never says critical things to me any more. Not for years. This is what I mean by needing to get over things.

I think something happened when I was very little that set our relationship in a not-good way. I think it was to do with my mum having a toddler and a baby and no support (certainly not from my dad) and a lot of perceived inadequacy and housewifely angst. I think it was too much for her (for her very high personal standards) and I think she didn't have enough left for me. I think she had run out of resources for me.

I think I need a proper therapist. I don't know where I am going to get the money from. I just want to get on with the second half of my life now and have it happier than the first. I want to talk about

family stuff (in my first family and my family now)
addiction and eating disorders
self harm
self esteem

I want to get better and I want to be the happy person I can be.

On friday I had some hard stuff to do at work. I got something thrown at me to do in public which is the sort of thing I have never been entrusted with. (There is a long semi-paranoid rant about why this might be that I won't go into - but it has bothered me for a while, for years, that it is just assumed that I am not on the list of people who will be asked to get up and do this.)

My boss is new-ish. He just casually gave me this thing like it was no biggie. (In many ways it is kind of obvious that I should do it and that is why it always bothered me that I was never asked to)

I was glad to get the chance but also very very nervous, and feeling like a massive fake, like I had cheated my way into this - "he hasn't got the memo that I don't get to do things like this, I have blagged my way into it". I did it REALLY WELL. I FUCKING KILLED IT. It was a chance I had been waiting for (and dreading - in the 2 hours before I had to get up and do it I was practically hallucinating with nervousness - I was dry and floaty and desperate with nerves).
Afterwards my boss was really pleased with me and for me.
Lots of people said well done.
I was fucking high as a kite.

So - I decided to - get utterly shitfaced to make sure I didn't enjoy it too much

I am such a fucking idiot. I cannot manage the transition from bad to good. I don't understand it, and it panics me

Hi all

I have bumped this to ask if anyone can advise me on picking a therapist.
I had a first session with someone last night and not sure if she is right for me or how to decide.
This is money I will never have again that I have put aside for this.I want to get this right.
Any experts? I would be very grateful.
thanks