Sister or partner. Who is behind her unpleasant behaviour to me. + red flag query

[unchangedname]

Hi guys.

Sorry I started writing this about red flags but it has become about my relationship with my sister, and whether she is instigating her attitude towards me (and my parents) or whether it is indeed her partner.

Here are my old threads:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/2169105-Is-generally-not-believing-always-double-checking-a-red-flag

A bit more background:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/2153440-Dont-get-on-with-future-BIL-Will-it-get-better

(Please don't reply to the latter thread though as I'm hoping it will stay buried due to some identifying details! I think traffic is higher in chat and am paranoid )

What might be a red flag sometimes only occurs to me days or even weeks later.

The latest that I would like some advice on is that they have moved into new rental accommodation for 6 months while their house purchase is going through. They moved about a month ago.

My sister is refusing to give us the landline number. This is very out of character for the old sister I used to know.

Basically, whenever he answered the phone to us in the old house it was a 'oh, you again' tone. From my sister, if we called during dinner (which was not at a fixed time so we weren't to know) we would get summarily and crossly chastised and rung off. If we accidentally called during their favourite TV show she would either answer angrily or they would simply not answer the phone.
[Old sister pre-relationship if rung during her dinner would happily have a quick chat, or very civilly we'd arrange to chat later, or just natter while she ate. Also I would always ring her landline and she would ring mine and there were no problems].

We have all been trained off the landline now and only call her mobile as a result.

She texted the new address. I replied asking for the landline and received no reply. I've never not received a text reply from her, ever. A few days later I texted to ask again and nothing. When we next spoke I asked for the landline and she said 'we've decided not to give it to anyone'. When pressed for a reason, she said 'it came free with the broadband and we didn't really want it'. I said I thought it would be good if we had it for safety reasons - we would only call it if we couldn't reach them by mobile for an alarming amount of time. She came up with a number of reasons which one by one she admitted weren't valid, and eventually got in a huff with me so I dropped it.

After an incident where she called as I was serving a dinner that I'd been cooking for my parents for 2.5h, about a pretty trivial organisational matter, and called back four times in immediate succession, which called each of us away from the table in turn for 5-10 minutes at a time, then chastised me in an email for being mean in not wanting to sort it out there and then, I was minded of what happens when we call her when they are eating dinner.

I am now confused as to whether, actually, her dislike and disrespect of me is authored by him or her. As I say in my long thread, her sense of humour became very cruel and dismissive when they got together romantically, and she lets him act however he wants around us, and has got to taking on his criticisms of us as her own, starting to corner me about things I do wrong or unlikeable traits I have, or my bad taste in TV, or how shallow and materialistic I am, or whatever. I am trying to untangle whether she has always basically looked down on us (me and my parents) a bit and his presence just sharpens it, or whether he is the author. I don't know anymore.

Our whole lives, she has pretty much made out she is the saviour sister that has put up with me, and that I have consistently been a needy, selfish, emotionally bloodsucking, errant person. I have consistently been told for the past 15 years (probably implied further back than that, as well) that I do nothing for her, am incredibly selfish and self centred, am a let-down and a worry, untrustworthy, irresponsible, self-centred etc.
She treats me more like a pet that can be wheeled out for amusement, as I suppose I am quite eccentric, a bit young-at-heart, used to have an interesting/unusual career and lead a slightly odd life. This makes me a good auntie as I can be very silly with her baby and possibly a good topic of conversation with her friends? ...I have no idea what she gets out of having me around when I reflect on how she treats me.

In a personal review of my life over the past week, I have realised she is the only one who has really had this message towards/about me and I never thought to question it.

Her partner treats me like this but his style is different - eye-rolling and passive aggressive. She is direct and rude, or analyses me under the guise of psychology, telling me my faults: 'it's actually really sad, because you're so selfish you can't see that...' 'i'm really sad, because I feel like I can't trust you to be there for me... ' etc. This latter is because six years ago she had(?) to go to the pub for drinks with a group of people, one of which was the best friend of a man she had been dating for a few months, and wanted me to go with her for emotional support. I was in a pretty bad place, hadn't left my house for months, but even so would have gone had I realised what a big deal it was to her and that it'd be brought up every few months for the next several years ('see, I know I can't rely on you, and that makes me sad...')

The result is I can never do enough for her. Nothing I do is good enough, no amount of gestures can convince her that I am not terminally selfish, I am scared to talk to her in case I 'slip up' and 'reveal my selfishness' - accused of turning the conversation back to me, not asking about her enough. (As per my long thread, I looked after the baby day and night for four days and got accused of being 'the most selfish person in the world', and told I was only looking after him because I wanted to). I have just realised it and I am really tired of it.

I will say I have massively moved on from my old thread - I can't believe how unsure of myself I was at the start. Rereading it is what made me start to question the dynamic with my sister.

The advice I received was like water in a desert of confusion, so as I cannot discuss this with anyone in real life, nor seem to get any perspective no matter how hard I try and think it though, I would appreciate any other points of view, even if I have to be told off or visit my own culpability in this situation.

Hi Hun

I could writ a Book to you but il try to keep it short.

There had been talk of enablers on here and I wanted to add to that.

Your parents, I know you love them very much and you see them as being abused by tyrant sister which is true BUT their role to you is parents include protecter.

It's difficult to describe but let me try to find the words.

Someone who has been abused for years has a changed was that they live to try to minimise the repeated damage they live with day to day (like you) but if that person chooses to have children (like your parents) they have a responsibility to protect that child and if they can not or choose not to (even if it's because they feel weak from the abuse they suffer themselves) they have become enablers to the abuse their children suffer. (Even if it's another child/sibling perpetrating the abuse)

To use an example if a woman is abused by their husband and then has a child with him but does not protect the child from the abuse, she should take some of the guilt of that child being exposed to abuse too, no?

I'm not saying that in reality you want to do anything dramatic with the relationship with your parents as that's personal to you BUT at the very least you need to not let them guilt you or force you to endure any more from your sister just because it makes things easy for them! That is enabling your ongoing abuse!

As for the ready of what you've written well I won't comment as more than F@CK her/them for what they/her have done to you!

You deserve love and happiness but I think your well on the road now my darling good luck on your journey.

Xxx

Hi guys

I found this as part of a review of a book on a well known internet book-shopping website (!) that I am looking at. I have quite a few books on EA and narcissism in my basket, have spent a good few hours researching them. Not sure whether to buy a bunch and take on holiday or just try and forget all about it for a little bit. Also not sure whether there is any point, not sure what I am looking for exactly. Maybe further validation that it's not me for when I'm feeling wobbly. Strategies, options, not sure.

Agatha that was a poignant question. 'What are your plans for today?' they were very little. Tomorrow the same. Day after the same. I have busied myself with making sure everything is being packed and have made multiple lists. I feel though like I am peeling off layers of a new person. Just writing this really helps me. I was feeling quite lost today. Baby was ill yesterday, and my feet went to jelly when I heard. My heart goes to jelly just thinking about it. But if I am finding out who I am again I will give myself time over the holiday to just do that, nothing else. Then I may find that I am not a plan-evasive person, as I have been, don't need to be crippled by fear of being less than perfect and therefore self-edit out of existence basically my whole life. Or maybe I will find nothing of the sort. I don't know. It is quite nice, like a pioneer arriving on a new desert island, peeling off layers of fear and rehearsed reactions. I wonder who I will be. It is quite exciting.

sherlocksteacup
That post did rip viscerally through me. I reread it and reread it and reread it and felt the same each time. Because i know you are right.
Yes my dad is Mr Bennet. Which explains why have traditionally loved Mr Bennet and didn't see him as responsible for anything! I don't know whether this is an erroneous route to take, esp. re what you said regarding trying to work out the why and wherefore of how the situation in my family has arisen, but I can gently start to see what role we are all playing, not really but the misty outlines of it, hence why I suddenly got a spurt onto acquiring books. But then I think - what more do I really need to know, the evidence is right in front of me.
The thing I most emotionally reacted to in your post was re. my baby nephew. I know you are right. Because I paused and thought of my two cousins when I went to stay with them, both adorable babies when they were very small, and with no reason to practice such cruelty as teenagers/adults except from having absorbed the (unseen by me) attitude to me of their mother (perhaps father too) over the years.
The place my brain won't go just yet is how to reconcile this. Basically, no baby nephew or a potentially EA one. I don't fully know which is worse.
Part of me wonders whether emotional abusers can be retrained? But the thing I cut and paste below from that review suggests that they can be kept in hand with a lot of hard work, but their sense of superiority and entitlement, far from self-aggrandising a fragile or neurotic ego which can be massaged with reassurance and acceptance back to health, actually just means they will forever think themselves better than you.
Thank you for pointing that out re my mum. Something to think about. I wondered what would have happened had the aunt, uncle and cousins done that to my sister, how my mum would have reacted. Maybe the same, I don't know. Who knows.

I looked on rightmove today for what is available. Search >Price>Low-High. It seems insurmountable that I could come up with that kind of money per week. Even then my confidence is so shot I don't know how I would deal with neighbours or any conflicts that may arise. I will start with tiny things. Just being around my family as a slightly different person, with these new goggles you all have given me for seeing the currents of what is going on, may be the start of that.

I can see how the current dynamics are such that I am often cowering (not in a terrible way, but On Alert) or wittering/gibbering/approval seeking (for whatever reason) so actually the status quo is quite exhausting.

springy, eff them indeed!!!! idiots can't see it is their total loss [double heart back]

Thank you ScrambledEgg, I have been looking up sibling abuse as someone suggested and I see that parental refusal to take sides is exceedingly commonplace. In my situation, inevitably if my mum (dad won't get involved as predicted by sherlock!!) asks her to apologise to me for something, she is accused of taking my side, having double standards, etc etc. When my mum said about being upset and that she might as well not go on holiday (if we didn't 'make up') I mean my heart dropped into my feet, I then felt there was no point to me going on holiday and in fact it became tough to see past the knot of the conflict. As in, it still potentially feels like I would have 'nothing' if I didn't 'make up' with my sister, as I wouldn't have my sister, then by implication my mum, and then my dad'd be on the periphery not taking sides. And without 'other stuff' in one's life, that is probably why it hurt a lot when she said that as i could see through to the inevitable end.
I realised we do show our love, or think we show our love, or whatever, in this family by breaching boundaries perhaps, being overinvolved. So overinterference with the underlying 'I just want the best for you'. Today I nipped out for 5 minutes and my mum asked me about six times where I was going, culminating in the genuinely pained lament as I stepped out the door 'this is ridiculous, I have to know where you're going!' I kept firm and didn't tell her, it was nowhere special but I realised that wasn't necessarily healthy. Of course it got me gibbery inside about all the terrible things that could happen to me and whether as I lay in a ditch, bag and phone strewn out of arms' reach, I would lament not having told her!! And I was glad to be safely back home!!!

You know, I wondered whether in fact my sister's disposition was in reaction to that - I thought well perhaps she's gone quite far the other way and decided to make a show of both not needing anyone's approval and not approving of anybody! Sort of the anti- uncle b. But then, she lectures us intrusively, so clearly that didn't work!

Thank you balding. A lot of wisdom there, thank you. Re. counselling I will eventually talk about what I think about it and why I might have problems coming to it.

Thank you saltnpepa, yes when I typed that up it sounded insane, and I recognise some of my patterns of thought have been drifting away from what would be within acceptable (to me) parameters. I am sure it is all based on this currently diminished sense of self.

Thank you for your lovely wishes MargaretRiver.

There are various classic tactics that covert aggressive people use that are particularly effective in relation to more passive and neurotic personality types. These are so effective that it is important to identify them quickly when they happen to you, and to respond to them in ways that address the aggression rather than hook our neuroses. These tactics are:

• Minimising: making a molehill out of a mountain, questioning whether what they did was so bad, it was just' this or only' that.
• Lying: or at least not telling the whole truth or distorting the truth in their favour, always giving a slanted view of reality, without any compunction.
• Denial: not the classic unconscious denial of neurotic people, but a conscious decision to question any accusation. Who me? How can you be so sure?
• Selective attention: keeping the attention on the issues and arguments that support their preferred outcome, stone-walling you when you try to press other issues.
• Rationalisation: seizing on any argument that supports their behaviour, without any attempt at balance.
• Diversion: raising issues that will divert attention away from the central point or from their behaviour, switching topic.
• Evasion: going into long rambling discussions and arguments, often very vague. Wording themselves carefully so that the key point is always avoided.
• Covert intimidation: countering accusations with such passion and intensity that it puts you on the back foot, sometimes including veiled threats or implied consequences.
• Guilt-tripping: suggesting that perhaps you don't really care about them, or are being selfish in your opposition of them, or are hurting them in ways you don't realise.
• Shaming: implying that you are not such a good person, trading on your fears and self-doubt, presenting their behaviour as standing for something really important, and therefore you as someone who is below them and should defer to them.
• Playing the victim: indicating that they are themselves suffering in all this, and really you should be trying to relieve their distress rather than adding to it.
• Vilifying you: saying that really you are the aggressor and they are the victim, and all they are doing is defending themselves against your attacks.
• Playing the servant role: they cloak their self-serving behaviour in the guise of service to a great and noble cause, especially God, while really seeking dominance over others.
• Seduction: usually expressed in flattery or being very supportive of us in order to get us to put our defences down, particularly effective with people with low self-confidence.
• Projecting blame: finding ways to shift blame onto others, finding scapegoats, anyone and anything, including you.
• Feigning innocence: what was done was really not intentional, perhaps not really done at all, how could you think this of them? Trying to get you to question your judgement.
• Feigning ignorance/confusion: playing dumb, looking puzzled or quizzical, it's all getting so confusing, you're making it all so complicated...
• Brandishing anger: not a tactic of first choice, but when you really get in the way of them getting what they want, they will raise the emotional temperature, just enough to get us to back off and start being passive again.

Sorry that last bit is the copypasted bit!! starting from 'There are various classic tactics...'

The reason for posting it is yes it was just some person on a website writing a review, but the fact is my sister does every one of them, and that made me feel a bit better, as you do go back and forth, am I imagining it, do I deserve it, etc.

The question is, and it may not be the right question to ask, is, do they know they are doing it? Like, is it planned/calculated? Or, is it just reflexive on their part, trying to maintain their superiority (or impression of superiority) at any cost, even if it means lying, double-backing on themselves, etc?

This person also wrote, after that, the below. Does that mean that one can potentially become strong enough to deal with them, even if you know that in their mind they'll always be superior (but you know in your mind that they are not). Or actually is there a scenario in which they can somehow grow to respect/see you as equal if you deal with them in an even-handed way

The primary tactic for us in dealing with such manipulative people is to be more aware of ourselves and what is happening inside us. Five things are worth working on:

• Naïveté: some of us can't bring ourselves to believe this person is as cunning, devious and ruthless as our guts tell us he/she is. It's time to grow up and grow wiser.
• Over-conscientiousness: are you too ready to see everyone else's point of view, and too willing to blame yourself? You make yourself an easy target.
• Low self-confidence: you are unsure of your right to pursue your own wants and needs, or unsure of your ability to engage well in inter-personal conflict.
• Over-intellectualisation: you try so hard to understand behaviour that you end up excusing it, and you lose sight of the fact that this person just wants to get their own way. The truth is, you need to fight them!
• Emotional dependency: you are attracted to `strong' people but you fear standing up to them in case you are abandoned by them or they reject you.

And in terms of practical tactics, there are also a number of things you can do:

• Accept no excuses: don't buy into any rationalisation of wrong or harmful behaviour. They are just trying to resist submission to the principle of civil conduct.
• Judge actions, not intentions: you won't know exactly why someone has done something, and it's irrelevant anyway. Focus on what was actually done. If it wasn't OK, it wasn't OK.
• Set personal limits: decide what level of behaviour you will put up with, based in part on your own need to take care of yourself, and at that point disengage or take counter-action.
• Make direct requests: use `I' statements and be clear about what you want in the situation. This gives less room for tactics like distortion, evasion etc.
• Accept only direct responses: insist on clear, direct answers, and if you don't get one, ask again - patiently!
• Stay in the here and now: change only takes place in the present. Avoid diversions into past issues and events, and also speculations about the future. Stay focused.
• Keep the weight of responsibility on the aggressor: if they are in the wrong, the burden of change lies with them, not with you.
• Avoid sarcasm, hostility and put-downs: otherwise you give them opportunity to become the victim, or to shift the focus and the blame onto you. Confront without maligning or denigrating.
• Avoid making threats: just take action when necessary, especially to secure your own needs. They are much better in a `threat' game than you are, so don't start one.
• Take action quickly: don't let the aggressive behaviour go on long before you confront it, otherwise it becomes an unstoppable train. Indicate early that you are up for this fight.
• Speak for yourself: don't quote other people's opinions of the person as this merely shows your insecurity; deal with the person one-to-one. And don't plead their effects on other people if really the issue is their effect on you.
• Make reasonable agreements: the person is determined to achieve a win-lose scenario, and absolutely abhors a lose-win scenario. You must not allow them the former, but equally it is counter-productive to attempt the latter. Don't aim for outcomes in which you win and they lose. Propose as many win-win scenarios as you can. The next best scenario is actually a lose-lose one.
• Be prepared for consequences: if they feel defeated, they will try anything to get the upper hand again. Take appropriate prior action to protect yourself. Think what they might do and try to be one step ahead.
• Be honest with yourself: know and `own' your own agendas, in particular your own needs for approval and affirmation, as these leave you very open to manipulation.

In dealing with highly manipulative people, fight them, but fight them fairly.

Wow OP you have been busy! I hope it's helpful.

I think you have made a huge step in going out without telling your mum - after all, you are not 5YO any more! Do it every day, even if it's just into town, off for a coffee, or a walk, or whatever. There is absolutely NO reason why your mum would need to know where you go. And don't worry about lying in a ditch that is NOT going to happen - and even if it does, deal with it then! (I do feel that you could ask your Dr about anxiety, though. ) 99.9999999999999999999% of people do not end up in a ditch when they pop out (in this country - if you were cross-country ski-ing, then I'd tell someone!)

And about the baby - it's lovely that you are so in love with him, but again, babies do get 'ill'. Ill can mean a cold, or fever, it doesn't necessarily mean a blue-light to hospital. (My MIL used to worry so,- a sniffle was a cause of phone-calls every day, squeaky-voice, suggestions for all sorts of 'treatments )
Anyway, you are doing well.

Could you try a house share? As far as disputes with neighbours go, most of us go through life without ever having those. Have you seen The Truman Show where they do those hilarious things to stop him leaving his home town? The travel agent with a poster of an aircraft struck by lightning in it? These things could happen, but aren't terribly likely...

Was the baby really ill? Because family illness is so frequently used as a weapon to hoik people back into line when they try to cut ties with abusive family dynamics...

I'd say it's important to read up about all this - and to keep on reading and researching. I find, even now n years later, I can lose track and slip into old ways of relating without realising it. We have been profoundly schooled in a particular way - to be a foil, a device, to the main event: the narc/s - and we need extensive training to counteract it. It does make us rather conscious at all times - but it's necessary imo, at least until the new tracks are forged and we are relatively steady on them.

I think, when they realise you mean business, the big guns will come out. When that happens - and it is 'when' - remember that, in order for them to feel good and OK about themselves, you have to be a nonperson that backlights them. You can't be a bona fide real person, they absolutely will not tolerate that. It is all or nothing with them.

Do they realise they're doing it? I don't know and I don't care. The cost to me has been immense, immense suffering, that's what I care about.

Josie - that's a good idea! OP - in a houseshare you will not be alone to deal with 'neighbour disputes' (I've never had one either) and you will be amongst people who can show you the real 'normal'! I.e. they won't ask you where you're going, when you'll be back, what you are doing...

I get that it's hard to think about doing all this one your own, but Strength in numbers and all that!

I have read most of your thread and your progress is amazing.

I will tackle just one small point. You say that when your sister storms out that you are terrified for her eg. that she might drive carelessly and have a crash. You are not responsible for her. If she is killed on the road due to driving in a state of rage she would be the cause of her own destruction. (Although heaven forbid that she endangers anyone else :()

If she comes to grief in this state that she has put herself into, so be it.

The second point about the ranting is that you need to use the stuck record technique. I would suggest silence, but I think that you would find that harder.

'Oh you're so selfish, rant, rant, rant'
'I can not engage with this unreasonable behaviour'.
'Calling me unreasonable? You have been unreasonable for years....rant'
'I can not engage with this unreasonable behaviour'.
'Rant, rant, rant'
'I can not engage with this unreasonable behavour'.

If she persists in behaviour such as repeatedly blocking the doorway, throwing items etc, verbally haranging you for hours, I would seriously consider calling the police.

I've lived away from home for something like 30 years. I've never had a neighbours dispute. The closest was one weird housemate (I ended up moving pretty quickly), and a weird woman who lived nearby but not next door (unfortunately it took prison for her mental issues to be dealt with), oh and the usual noisy ones - who are usually fine, just don't realise how thin floors/ceilings can be.

If you go hill walking in the mountains, cross country skiing or decide to trek across Outer Mongolia, then you do need to tell someone where you are going, but this doesn't have to be your Mum. If you did end up in a ditch, a passer by would almost certainly help you/call an ambulance etc. and much faster than your Mum could.

Well done for not telling your mum where you were going. Hard habits to break but you are on your way now . Perhaps next time, just a cheery "off out, see you later" as you actually walk out the door?

You've been busy reading up on things and that's really good. The practical advice on how to deal with them on a day to day basis is useful, however, you've been coached for decades on how to 'be' around them so you may find it easier to just mentally take a step back, not react verbally, walk away, be silent etc. Your sister can rant away but you do not need to respond or defend yourself or answer her.

WRT potentially not getting on with neighbours. It happens sometimes. During my adult life I have lived in various different houses. Mostly neighbours are fine, some I've got on well with, others just maintain a polite and friendly distance, a couple have been very difficult. We actually moved house some years ago because one set of neighbours were so difficult to live next door to. So if you should end up not liking your neighbours, just remember it's not you, probably just a general incompatibility.

I am assuming you don't work? I'm not sure if you have explicitly mentioned that. I wonder if some voluntary work, perhaps just a few hours a week, would help your self-esteem, allowing you to mix with other types of people.

Josie's idea of house sharing sounds a good one. Or maybe renting a room in a family home?

I have done a lot of voluntary work with the homeless - largely because I can relate better to people who are smashed up in one way or another, am infinitely more comfortable around them. (That's not to say I don't have to be professional around the clients iyswim - and I have my eye on not using them to feel better about myself eg patronise them. I just do feel much more 'at home' with them; plus quite a bit of 'but for the grace' etc. It is astonishing I'm not in much more trouble than I am. On the outside I present well, you wouldn't know!)

Ie you wouldn't know I've been smashed to pieces by my family - but rebuilt (reprogrammed as a pp said). However, like the bionic woman, the joins are apparent if you get close. Perhaps you fear relationships - eg a house share - because of this?

I've also done my fair share of support groups - I am a great believer in peer-to-peer support (less chance of being, or feeling, patronised). A lot of 12-step groups address this stuff: it's called 'recovery' ie the recovery community. We're out here, hoards of us, battling away with the simplest things. CODA is invaluable, have a look.

Branchingout -I seriously doubt she drives off in a rage! She's let all her rage out already! I said up thread that I think she feels GREAT when she gets in the car, she got 3 people at her feet, terrified of her rage/tears/tantrums, and she is on top of the world. I really think so.
Op, she is not going to let go of that feeling easily. But it is not healthy, for you or her.

I have read your threads with increasing horror OP and have been near to tears of rage at the way you have been treated by your family. You are doing so well.

I know it seems so difficult, but you do need to get yourself out of this utterly toxic situation.

Others have given much better advice than I could, but please know that you sound utterly lovely. I will be cheerleading you from the sidelines as you break free from this.

My sister is going through some similar revelations about the effect that our somewhat toxic father has had on her life. It is nothing in the same league as your situation, but the changes she is going through is astounding and I wish you the same rapid progress.

How are you today OP? If you feel like it let us know. Did you go for a walk? don't feel badly about the baby being sick. Babies are sick a lot . They are a resilient bunch! But I don't think you should be distracted by trying to work out if eventfully you can break the baby's possible future patterns of behavior. you should be focusing on you ifukwim? You can't help your parents to deal with their daughter (they need to work that out on their own), you can't fix your sister (unfixable???) or the baby (out of your sphere of influence until it's a grown up and able to decide for itself, but it may grow up I e like it's parents which is a possibility you can't discount and can't fix). You can only change things about your situation and your responses to others behaviour. This should be your priority. Where do you imagine yourself if not where you are? A happy place (and not a happy place where you have a lovely family but I mean a happy place all about you).

Just a thought about the long-term. If you can extract yourself from this messed-up family dynamic, potentially many years down the line, if grown-up baby nephew finds himself struggling with the same questions, you'll be there as an outsider with a clear perspective. You can reassure him he's not crazy after all.

Of course you need to do it for yourself - I'm just saying this in case you feel "selfish" in having to take a step away from him now.

Oh, and it's true about babies being resilient. I rushed to GPs/A&E with my baby dd a few times, convinced she was at death's door. We'd be sitting there waiting for the doctor when she suddenly perk up, give me a grin, and that's it, sickness over.

Biblio

Hi guys

I wanted to check in, springy I took your advice and ordered the books in my basket I was drawn to, they arrived today (joys of Prime) and I woke up feeling wobbly so dived straight in.

Got to this in first book I picked up:

'A narcissistic mother sees her daughter, more than her son, as a reflection and extension of herself rather than as a separate person with her own identity. She puts pressure on her daughter to act and react to the world and her surroundings in the exact manner that Mum would, rather than in a way that feels right for the daughter. Thus, the daughter is always scrambling to find the "right" way to respond to her mother in order to win her love and approval. The aduaghter doesn't realise that the behaviours that will please her mother are entirely arbitrary, determined only by her mother's self-seeking concern. Most damaging is that a narcissistic mother never approves of her daughter simply for being herself, which the daughter desperately needs to grow into a confident woman.

A daughter who doesn't receive validation from her earliest relationship with her mother learns that she has no significance in the world and her efforts have no effect. She tries her hardest to make a genuine connection with Mum, but fails, and thinks tha the problem of rarely being able to please her mother lies within herself. This teaches the daughter that she is unworthy of love. The daughter's notion of mother-daughter love is warped; she feels she must "earn" a close connection by seeing to Mum's needs and constantly doing what it takes to please her. Clearly, this isn't the same as feeling loved. Daughters of narcissistic mothers sense that their picture of love is distorted, but they don't know what the real picture would look like. This early, learned equation of love - pleasing another with no return for herself - has far-reaching, negative effected on a daughter's future romantic relationships, as we'll see in another chapter'.

Importantly for me, as it enabled me to keep reading without guilt!, the author points out that 'our mothers probably hadn't gotten it from their mothers, either, which means that a painful legacy of distorted love was passed from generation to generation' and 'this book is designed to explain the dynamics of maternal narcissism - and to provide you with strategies to overcome it - without in any way blaming our mothers. Healing comes from understanding and love, not blame'.

See the water in the desert of what I thought was an ASD diagnosis was that

• all the things my mum, and I will write without brackets, my sister (sister doesn't care about my dress sense but criticises everything else) constantly expressed disapproval over: my dress sense, personality (childlike, enthusiastic), my obsessional/'intrepid'(!) nature, any interest expressed in non-academic (outside of those extra-curricular activities I excelled at) pursuits, interest in alternative lifestyles (just mean organic, vegetarian, nothing too alternative!!); sister adds a few of her own to the mix -

it was like i had an 'excuse' to have my own choices in life and they weren't fundamentally pathological, but merely 'my own'.

See I felt immense guilt about this, as my grandmother's mother died giving birth to her. I know my grandma was very loving to her children, but the three youngest did always reverentially seek her approval, whilst the eldest dished out his disapproval!

So the dynamic is exactly replicated here. Older sister like older brother and younger kids like me. I am sure if you were to ask my mother she would say 'unchangedname pleases herself! But it doesn't feel like that from inside my heart.
I remember the day I had got into possibly one of the hardest unis to get into, she was thrilled but the first thing she said was that we have to thank God for that (not as in 'thank God for that!' but 'Well, we have to thank God [looks upwards] for that'). That's not something she normally says!!
I got one of two types of scholarship to my senior school, and my dad expressed no congratulations, but expressed disappointment that I hadn't got the other type. He did apologise for that when I was a late teenager though, to his immense credit!!

See yesterday I think I caught her withholding approval, for what felt like random things, which is something I hadn't 'seen' before. I had found a movie on the TV digital service box that she might like (I am always scurrying to tell both of them when something they might like is on!!) and I asked her if she wanted to come watch it with me and she very coldly (really) said 'No.'
At first I thought, ok she is still punishing my for not skyping the baby. Then, perhaps I said it too enthusiastically. Then I thought, no, it just seemed random! Like if a certain amount of enthusiasm and approval is doled out before the end of the day, it must be tempered with some disapprovals!

Instead of staying to make a case for the film or however I'd normally respond to a cold 'No', I just shrugged and went to put it on myself. I had just left it on the start screen, was feeling a bit miserable and rereading this thread, and lo she appeared within about half an hour and sat on the opposite side of the room where she could see a sliver-angle of TV. She said 'ok, I'll see if it's nice but if it's not nice I'll leave. [pause] Who's in it?'
I told her and it was an actor she loved and she said 'oh, ok' and slowly came to join me. She asked me to get her various refreshments and then we finally sat down to watch the movie and she quickly relaxed and we had a lot of fun!!

I have noticed that if you mimic her disapproval, she becomes very nice to you!! [Possibly sister's permanent ploy!] Oh what a tangled web etc.

So I think it is 'despite herself' - I wonder, with sister and her, are they trying to 'train' me into being the correct person via their disapproval?
In a sense it is working, and in a sense it has horribly backfired, because actually a little part of me, I wonder, is failing flat on my arse, going from being [in other's eyes a star child but from inside always feeling falling very short] to say, do you still love me?
I was talking very far upthread about being a difficult child, with 'transitions', resisting demands to 'transition' - this relates to the massive amount of homework + extracurricular activities I had throughout my whole school career; and I really did resist! There was one extra-curricular that I supposed I 'excelled' at that I would be driven to 5 days a week and I wept constantly on the way there for years. I was always in a good mood (euphoria? relief? plain adrenaline?) afterwards and my mum would always say, see, you enjoy it when you go.

My mum is frequently telling me 'you can do anything you put your mind to' and she will frequently say 'my beautiful daughters' - so in a way who can blame her for this daughter with so much potential falling flat on her face before her eyes daily, perhaps that is why the tactics have stepped up to 'train' me; she sacrificed a lot of her early working life to give me and my sister the best academic start she could; and perhaps she thought that her pattern of approval was for the best.

I could never figure out why I seemed to have such traits of an approval-seeking, unformed person when my parents were so loving and my childhood so stable. But perhaps it is more complex than that.

So it is like an ambush of 'this is how much we care about you' intrusive concern/'concern-bombing'(!) but withheld approval. The end is you think there must be something really wrong with you

Springy many thanks, I have looked that up now. I think I would feel more comfortable in a peer to peer forum than with one professional. One of the books I have bought is 'codependent no more' which is supposed to have roots in the 12-step programmes so I will hopefully make a first step there.

LongtallJosie and captainmummy I was thinking on your suggestions re. living in a houseshare and I think the problem, starting with walking down the street, is what seems like the exhausting, pre-emptive navigation of Other People. I exhaust myself around other people, highly watchful for 'getting it wrong', doing something that could be misinterpreted, building up errors of judgement to replay later in my mind, opening myself to the possibility of a random verbal attack that I will spend years replaying and trying to decipher (sounds idiotic now I write it!).

However when I take on that aspect I was able to realise earlier upthread, of not being responsible for others' emotional well-being, not making myself disposable, crumplable, concertina-able, just so as strangers can walk down the street without me impinging even 0.001% on their day, I can see how it wouldn't be the slightest issue and could indeed be fun! I am having moments in both states at the moment.

Even though I wrote all that above, I have to notice the line
"Daughters... sense that their picture of love is distorted, but they don't know what the real picture would look like" - I can't imagine what the real picture is supposed to look like.

Possibly what I 'get out of' being at home sitting in one room most of the time, when I do not have to interact with my parents, is the only place I do not have to work myself into fitting an ?imaginary square hole so as not to offend or disrupt others.

It has been helpful though to think of it in terms of anxiety captainmummy, so I think, ok, this is not you, this is anxiety speaking, so to take a deep breath.

I hope I can uncover more as I read more, and fill myself up with 'myself'

I was thinking with great guilt about some of you who have written 'my situation is not as bad as yours, but' - somehow I can't see it my situation as 'bad', as I have, as my parents frequently point out, had so many privileges in life yet have managed to effectively burn them in a heap.

Then as I write the other part of me thinks, it's okay, we are working out why, and when we do we can put a line under that chapter and step forward

For 3+ decades I have thought repeatedly of some insidious unnamed pathology festering within that has caused my development as a normal human being to be so abruptly arrested.
It is only with your help that I have accepted that another logical step would be to look at one's surroundings with some objectivity, and the potential interactions therein

Hi Branchingout, thank you. You know, we, mum dad and I, have tried every tactic and technique, silence = tears and 'you don't care about me' escalating to physical blocking, or increasingly nasty goads to get some (any) response, or contemptuous 'see, I knew you didn't care, typical you, doesn't give a shit about anyone else but yourself', which will lead to a speech or rant to the silent party.

I can't explain how I think I know, but I feel stuck record technique would drive her to even worse. Unless she expressly wants to and ordains it, I feel there is no way to get out of an interaction unscathed.

You are all spot on - now the fear is that if we offend, the baby will be withdrawn in punishment.
But I have really got quite a bit wiser over the past just week alone. Plus the carrot at the end, the relationship with my nephew, has taken on this unarguably new light when you predict how it will develop.

(BTW Biblio thank you, baby was indeed taken to A&E, perked up in the waiting room and was taken home!)

Mummytime, Josie and Agatha, thank you for reassurances with neighbours! Again if you'd have asked me to guess I would have said 40% of people have disputes with their neighbours!! I don't know where I get my worldview on this topic from. My sister had noisy neighbours in her first house so that might be it.

I realise there is something up with my 'hypervigilance to threat'. I liked very much the Truman show analogy!
I also keep thinking of the bit in John Malkovich where the gentleman's secretary keeps reminding him he has a speech defect, even though he doesn't!!