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

[DontstepontheMomeRaths]

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It's almost May 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
February 2014

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

I wondered if anyone has any advice about dealing with friends who don't understand.

Have a friend who I supported through PND and she said she considered me a close friend for life. Told her about going NC with my family last year. She made sympathetic noises. And then she just didn't contact me. At first she replied if I got in touch but now she's just plain ignoring me. I guess she can't handle the idea having just had another DC herself.

I may run into her through mutual friends and I honestly don't know what to do or say.

therés four options. hard to know which it is, unless your gut instinct chimes with one of them.

1. she is unable to cope. A lot of people from nicer families really can't understand families that cause ongoing pain to their non-cooperative children. It sounds weird to them and they just can't cope becuase they have absolutely no frame of reference. If that's the case, she might have withdrawn becuase she doesnt know how to cope

2. she could be a taker in the friendship and now you need support, she's unable to be a giver.

3. her life might simply have got busy specially if she's just had a baby (i'm in the same situation!) . Perhaps I'm cynical but some friends profess undying friendship but time shows it was more words than reality (other friends are there no matter what, bless them).

4. could she have PND again?

If you see her I'd take her silence as a guide to be calm, polite and a bit distant. If she's friendly, you can be civil but there's no need to be particularly warm or expect anything more of her than superficial chat. There's certainly no obligation on you to provide her with more support. Friendships are supposed to be give and take, one person's turn first then the others.

I don't go into any details as it is hard for friends raised by normal people to understand parents who want to cause harm to their dc and grandchildren. My friends know I am nc. Only one understands as she is going through it too. This is why this thread is such a life line as other people just don't understand. I even got judged by a doctor as she implied I was misunderstanding my mothers intentions! Yes my mum calling me a stupid bitch when I was 11 was obviously a misunderstanding! Hissy, I hope your DS feels better soon. Sounds like he is setting a brave example to his grandfather.

hissy sending huge hugs to your son and so, sounds awfully stressful and having rubbish people about really sounds like the last thing you need....

It's been a busy week here and I've been very tired (not loving this pregnancy malarkey second time around!!) and I only just got round to speaking to my parents today. DF was fine, and then DM seemed ok (just about - I could defect weariness in her voice and ignored a couple of very very subtle digs) but I'm never too sure these days.

It is ok to be too busy to ring your parents isn't it? Or should I be making more for them? All three sets (mine are divorced) help out with childcare and we see them few and far between other than that (DH and I find it exhausting trying to fit them all on an equal basis in the very little spare time we have) so am feeling the OG of FOG at the mo. I dunno, just don't want to seem like we're taking the piss and using them for cheap childcare... I think this is also stemming from the fact that once I'm on maternity leave I won't need them to look after DD for 2 whole days a week and I sense they are sad about this. DD also starts preschool for 2 sessions a week in September so having busted a gut working 4 days a week for the past 18 months and having missed her dreadfully I don't want to ship her off out on a regular basis if I don't have to. I'm hoping that I'll be able to see them all more but on a bit of ad-hoc basis and I'm sure I'll need help from time to time. That's ok isn't it? I'm justified in wanting that aren't i? Or am I being possessive/controlling wanting it all on my terms?? None are making me feel guilty per se, I think it's just my inability to do anything guilt-free.

Relatively minor in comparison to some of the utter shite you guys are going through.... Wishing you all a sunny yet peaceful weekend surrounded by people who make you feel good about yourselves

I think it all sounds perfectly reasonable nearly although I sympathise with the sentiment.I find it hard to know if I'm being reasonable about contact but don't know what's normal either, having spent my entire life with my mother trying to live through me.....

No time to write a longer message but thanks v v much for your responses, some really helpful stuff thank you

Flaming M rang today telling me she'd be coming up to help me for a couple of days.

I told her that I wasn't sure when we'd be out, but still she's bulldozing on saying she'll liaise with dsis.

... but isn't it only help when someone needs/wants it?

In a few hours time. We'll have been in here a whole week. By the time we leave it'll be a good 10 days.

All we need is a couple of days when we're not having troupes of Drs talking about ds, without being disturbed by others pressing the call button in the wee hours, or for the regular check ups. Some days it's been like Piccadilly Circus.

As hell as this has been physically for DS, it's been mentally exhausting for the pair of us. Watching your son in agony is the worst thing ever. Knowing you flicked the kettle switch? Beyond shit.

When we get home, we need time to just be. To settle back into home.

Add to this, DM has not acknowledged in any way where we were before christmas. No apologies, no comment, nothing.

So I texted dm and sis to say that before they organise what's happening in my life, in my home, that I need to input and agree to it. That I wasn't comfortable allowing someone who had to be told to leave by the police before they actually did the decent thing and stopped terrorising my child and left.

I mentioned how sis has actually spoken with me, apologised and that bridges are under construction, but that M is not making any effort to take any responsibility for the issues I have raised, and is just pushing me to just go back to how things were. I stated that this won't happen as it's all on her terms.

Bugger that for a game of soldiers.

I made sure to state that I texted them both with the same message so that M wouldn't pretend it wasn't sent.

HIssy ....that sounds a ^fantastic* text

Tbh Im slightly in awe, your mother sounds so damn pushy that to be able to stand up to her at -this- time and to resist her is pretty amazing.

and

I hope your son is doing as well as he can today. Thinking of you and him.

spanky yeah ... people hate to face that some mothers / fathers / family members are just ... unpleasant. there's a thread on here about 'what would you say about your mother' and as well as some lovely ones, there's some real nightmares. Shows what a wide range it runs ..

hope you're okay, nearlyready

My mum's got this 'cloud' thing going on, appears all wishy washy, diminutive, defenseless and all that. Has all sorts thinking she's the salt of the earth.

BUT...

She has hide like a rhino unless there's milage in her creating and enlisting others to back her up. If you call her out she will deny and deny, and get menacing.

The script is that we go into the fog and she gets what she wants.

She gets others to do her dirty work while sitting there simpering and soliciting sympathy.

Thing is, they've all broken my trust, one way or another, but she thinks I have no right to my feelings/hurt. Her winged monkeys sit there banging her little cymbals for her.

I have spelled it out to her. In black and white, and nothing.

I am not compromising on the peace I gained in the last few months.

I regret texting any of them. But had no flaming choice. Argh!

Just been recommended to this thread. I've got a thread going in chat (called safe places to go in Poole) but can't link it, sorry.

Walked out on a family meeting today after df continually asked how my pussy was, and dm told me it's my responsibility to do stuff for her now as she had to care for me as a baby.

I'm still 200 miles away, waiting for a train home and trying very hard to ignore texts from them and to stop shaking and crying

Anyone been there and can tell me it can get better?

My life has only got better going nc. Read Toxic Parents How to Overcome their hurtful legacy... It is brilliant. It is like a handhold to help you through their bullshit and move on. Your parents sound charming! They would get on with mine, except they wouldn't of course because this type of people don't get on with anyone. Please tell me you have a cat. Your dad makes me cringe! Going nc is hard but for me the difference for me and my family only being surrounded by people who like us is so much better.

Yes, I do have a cat. He hasn't ever seen it, so asked if I play with it, wash it, stroke it, how hairy it is. Except he didn't use the word cat.

I worry I'd feel guilty never speaking to them. Better, but guilty.

Oh my goodness, that is not appropriate behaviour. I don't really know what to say about that. It is not normal way for a father to talk to his daughter. Why feel guilty? I know I have spent my whole life trying to please my parents, giving myself depression, migraines, anxiety disorder and OCD in the process. What changed for me was realising how differently I feel about and treat my dcs compared to how my parents treated me. That they were treating ds2 like they treated me and that was the final straw.

I feel guilty because I am my mums only child and she has always claimed how important I am to her. She also has had ms for 40 years so I imagine that some of her attitude is due to that. Maybe?

good god, caulkhead, your father was making insinuations? jesus. In your situation I'd run two hundred miles too.

Its clear from your post that you felt it was genuine insinuations and not innocent. On the basis of that, I think you are mroe than justified in ignoring texts and keeping well away!

regarding your mother - well tbh if it meant having to come into contact with your father, if he's making that kind of sly comment I'd say keep well away whatever. Nothing justifies that.

Stepping back a bit, the whole 'looking after your parents'.... it's difficult. Yes there is a sense of duty and I dont think that is wholly misplaced. But not at the expense of your whole life. You have that to -live-, not to be subordinated to only lookign after an ageing parent. But I'm afraid that if your father really was making the kind of conversation it sounds like, all you can do and should do is run.

I have the feeling there's quite a bit more behind your post caulk?

Oh love, that is beyond vile! Please throw that phone away and start again? Throw the Fucker in the sea!

Did he ever touch you?

I am an only child too.

caulk, how do YOU actually feel about your mum? You, yourself? not what you're told to feel, but what you actually feel?

Btw, carer's allowance and mobility allowance (or whatever the current fashionalbe term for them are) are for the costs of looking after a disabled person. Im sure you know that, but if your mother gets them then they are there to cover the costs associated with MS.

Behind it is the majority of my childhood being a carer for my mum ("but I'd expect any child to look after their parent") including missing school because she wasn't able to look after herself during the day sometimes.

Oh and there is five years of my dad, having retired to care for mum when i was 13 having a bit too much time on his hands, and hands which wandered a bit too much. Including to getting me drunk so I would give him a blow job.

It's been ten years since I left living with them, and so I'm aware I should be over it now.
Today is the first time I've walked out. Also first time mum has told me what a burden I am for not looking after myself and relying on her when I was a baby.

Hi caulk I'm glad you found us. Are you having any therapy? I hope you can find the strength to go no contact, your parents sound emotionally abusive and it sounds like your father was sexually abusive and that perhaps you mother ignored it?

I'm on the train and I'm crying. Please don't be nice to me incase I cry more and people stare.

Tomorrow I have to get up and lead a church and be professional and all I want to do is disappear and never see any family again. Or anyone who knows them.

sorry about delayed responses, iffy signal on train.

Don't beat yourself up for not being "over it". Your poor love, you know you don't ever have to see them ever again if you don't want? They don't deserve a moment of your time. Your dad deserves a prison sentence.

Please don't see these people again. They both deserve to be serving time.

You are worth more than them. They don't deserve you.

Meerka - I am angry at my mum for never stopping anything that was happening and for being so weak and feeble (minded, not physically) that she wouldn't stand up to my dad when he was being shit. She also never let me be a child and that is horrible too.
It's taken three years I therapy to be able to say that.