mother's rejection again

[biscuitfreak]

Please bear with me, I don't think I can explain everything. I probably should have namechanged. I should be asleep, but I can't and I keep saying and shaking, he I write on here it might distract me anyway.

Tonight I read a chapter my mother wrote in a book that's just been published. It's abound as a baby, as a child, and why she doesn't want to speak to me.

Its everything I already knew. I don't know why it's hurting so much, I don't know what to do with the pain

We've been NC for a year, and suddenly it's all come back again

Its horrible isn't it but in a few days or so these feelings will start to go away again and as weeks go by things will be back to normal. Her version of things is just that, her version. Your truth is all that matters to you. It hurts but you cant change other people. It will get better.

I think it hurts all over again when they choose to make it so public. And a chapter in a book is about as public as it comes. You know the truth and you know why you no longer have contact with this woman. It's so easy for me to say and so hard for you to do, but you truly need to accept this for what is and move on with your life. Focus on the positives and the people around you who bring you joy. I wish you all the best.

In a round about way this says to me you are important to her despite what she says.

Why write about you if you were not important in her life?

Is it a proper published book or an e book?

Leave her to her own thoughts sticks and stones can break my bones but names can hurt me. Please remember it doesn't matter what she says about you.

Thanks for replying, awake again. It's a proper book.

I think I'm in shock that I was right all along. Somehow I knew she didn't like me as a baby. I don't remember it but those memories are there somehow.

Apparently she wants to see my children. Her only connection to them is me, why does she want to see them? It doesn't make sense. She really thinks I'll send them to someone who hates me so much?!

Why was she so horrible to you? Was it because of your father or something? She sounds like she can't see you as a person independently of what the circumstances were.

If she is saying she doesn't want to speak to you then of course you have to continue NC and not expose your DC to her shit.

So sorry OP, so unfair for you. I bet you were a lovely baby.

Oh biscuit how painful for you.

I hope you are secure in the knowledge that this is not your fault. It's not my place to speculate, so I won't, but I'd hate to think that you were somehow feeling to blame for her feeling the way she did/does.

She wouldn't be seeing my DCs if I were you. Whilst it might make her feel a whole lot better about her failings as a mother, if she can try and build a relationship with her grandchildren, the damage it could potentially do to you would just not be worth the effort, and would far outweigh any possible benefits.

Has she approached you about seeing your DCs, or is she just trying to reach out to you through this book?

That she didn't like or love you as a baby says a lot more about her than it does you op.

Do I recently saw my mother after a couple of years which was pretty enlightening. My dd reacted in the same wayi used too to her. It was clear that the things I thought about myself as a child just were not the case. For example, and described dd as a poor sleeper which is what she always said about me. My dd sleeps 11 hours a night. It's clear to me now that my mother just has terrible parenting skills.

Don't take it to heart. It really is her not you.

I was a parasite growing inside her. When I was born I looked in her eyes and say right through her.

My grandad made me promis to get in contact with her, I didn't want to. I texted her yesterday. I had heard about the book, and when she was very evasive in her reply text I decided to buy it on kindle last night to read as a way of getting some answers.

Don't do what you don't want to do. Your grandad should not force you to do something so painful so you need to prioritise what YOU need and what YOU want. You deserve to protect yourself from pain.

She sounds like she had MH issues, none of this is about you, you were just the victim. Horrible.

I know, he is very frail and he keeps crying. I wish she hadn't told him we weren't speaking! It only upsets him. It was his birthday and I felt guilt for making him unhappy.

The positive is now I know for sure I wasn't mad, all my life. I feel like I was only myself this last year, before then I was trapped, not allowed to be myself, in fact my existence was an insult to them all. Ds got into my bed last night, he's so sweet and cuddly and warm. How could I ever blame him for being unhappy? I could never see him in such pain and keep pushing him away, whatever he did.

Aah biscuit, her problems are hers, not yours. Don't let them poison your future.
You'll never understand her - it'll just make you even more unhappy trying to. You never will.

I wish my mother would write a book, then I can stop the head wrecking I inflict on myself on a regular basis. At least you really do know now.

to you for surviving and not repeating the past with your children.

Lovely post hairylegs and I second every word.

Thanks

You really don't want the book, honestly. It's everything you already knew, but not the reasons behind why. Everyone can read it, and you have no right to reply! It's driving me mad that everyone will believe and and see what a bad person I am

:(

No words to say but that is so hard and painful. Try and remember all the people ho love you in your life.

That must have been really hard.

The fact that she wrote about it in a way which confirms your experience suggests she recognises she has also has stuff to come to terms with, and at some level she knows it wasn't ok. (do you think PND? or are there any other clues about why she found it hard to bond?).

If she had written about how lovely it all was you would have known that she was lying to herself and the world.

I think it's very unlikely that people reading the book will read the fact she hated you as a baby and sympathise with her and not you. Or in any way think it is your fault.

Assuming this isn't self-published, I would imagine the publishers checked for libel quite carefully, so whatever is in there relates to her own feelings, not you at all.

I think you accidentally captured your family dynamic in this paragraph above:

I wish she hadn't told him we weren't speaking! It only upsets him ... and I felt guilt for making him unhappy.

Why do you feel guilty about her choices? She told him on purpose to cause him pain and put pressure on you because she wants access to your children.

Do not be pressured by your grandfather. This is not his decision. Don't feel guilt. You didn't instigate this situation.

If the book has been published in paper form, I would buy a copy and burn it. As a symbolic gesture to burn her self-pitying poison out of your life.

OP I feel so sorry for you and completely understand. However, you must see now that you broke NC by reading the book, and that is exactly what she wanted.

Throw it away and promise yourself, and the damaged little girl inside you, that you will never read it again and you will never have contact of any sort with her again.

And please believe me when I tell you that no good can come of allowing her access to your DC. She will just use them to hurt you.

Oh biscuit how awful, I really feel for you. What a terrible thing for her to do, no wonder it's got to you so much.

And of course she's still making it "your fault", as if an innocent baby could possibly have been the cause of all her issues!

It sound like she was (and is) all twisted up with self hatred inside, couldn't live with the pain of that, and so projected it all onto you. Because she could. Because you were there. And defenceless and tiny, and obviously couldn't stop her.

I would actually question the role your grandad played in all this - her issues must have come from somewhere, and to me that would suggest that there was something amiss in the family dynamics when she was a child herself. Do you know what her relationship with her own mother was like? Did your grandad perhaps enable toxic behaviour there?

That might be a painful idea if you're close to him, but I'm just saying it to try to ease the burden of guilt you feel at your grandad being so upset now. If you can see him as someone who actually played a part in creating this dynamic rather than being a helpless victim, that could make it easier for you to feel ok about prioritising yourself and your own DC over him. And also what tribpot said, spot on.

You say you still don't know the reasons behind her behaviour; I suspect her own background would give you a lot of the reasons, and also, as with all abusers, they do it because they can. Whatever, the thing you most need to know is it's not you, it's her. Damn right she doesn't get to see your DC. She sounds like a nightmare.

Am sitting here thinking about my own nightmare mother. Also NC. It sucks, doesn't it. Thank god for having DC to love and cherish, sounds like you're a lovely mummy yourself, even though you had such a terrible role model!

Also, along the lines of what a pp said, anyone who's got an ounce of emotional intelligence will not be taken in by her version of events. I frequently read things in the papers and so on where people are justifying their emotional abuse and neglect of their DC and turning it around to put the blame on their DC, of course. I always judge the parents as the deficient ones forthwith, and feel nothing but compassion for the child/adult child of someone like that.

Get the book Toxic Parents overcoming their hurtful legacy. I am not kidding it is amazing. Your mum certainly went to a lot of trouble to make her point, makes my mother look half hearted in her rejection of me! My parents are trying to have a relationship with my dcs without having a relationship with me! Weird aren't they? It is hard though. Really, get this book as you will realise that she has a very twisted understanding of love. She sounds appalling.

My dad was born to a woman who is- I am absolutely sure- stark raving mad.

She openly admits that she never loved him, saw him as a parasite and a drain on her body and lifeblood and has said many times that it would have been better for her had he died at birth.

It's taken years of therapy and heartache for my dad to see that she's the one who's wrong and messed up. Not him. It's not normal to feel that about your own child.

I'm so sorry, biscuit. I can't imagine what this is like or think of anything at all useful to say really but wanted you to have another voice 'on your side'.

maybe she used writing the book as therapy, even the most deranged person couldnt believe that a baby or child could ever be responsible for anything. Possibly you are reading it wrong and its not saying the baby is at fault, but highlighting her own inadequacies as a mum

Yes some parents do blame their children for ruining their lives.

Those of you that have recommended Toxic Parents, does it contain strategies for dealing with them in the hear and now?

I, too, have an author parent - my dad who I have been NC with 15 years. I never read any of his stuff. I can only image what it says - probably along the lines of, "I'm awesome and my daughter sucks."

Toxic Parents will be my next download. Ironically, it's my mother who is really the more negative influence on me. Some of my dad's current neurosis is directly related to their marriage of 21 years (divorced about 25 years ago). Mother's craziness is quite covert and most people don't believe what my dad and I say about her. She presents perfectly normal. She makes it seem like my dad and I are the crazy people.