"But we took you to stately homes!!!" - Survivors of Dysfunctional Families

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

(New thread as previous one is full).

It's October 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
April 2014

Welcome to the Stately Homes Thread.

This is a long running thread which was originally started up by 'pages' see original thread here (December 2007)

So this thread originates from that thread and has become a safe haven for Adult children of abusive families.

One thing you will never hear on this thread is that your abuse or experience was not that bad. You will never have your feelings minimised the way they were when you were a child, or now that you are an adult. To coin the phrase of a much respected past poster Ally90;

'Nobody can judge how sad your childhood made you, even if you wrote a novel on it, only you know that. I can well imagine any of us saying some of the seemingly trivial things our parents/ siblings did to us to many of our real life acquaintances and them not understanding why we were upset/ angry/ hurt etc. And that is why this thread is here. It's a safe place to vent our true feelings, validate our childhood/ lifetime experiences of being hurt/ angry etc by our parents behaviour and to get support for dealing with family in the here and now.'

Most new posters generally start off their posts by saying; but it wasn't that bad for me or my experience wasn't as awful as x,y or z's.

Some on here have been emotionally abused and/ or physically abused. Some are not sure what category (there doesn't have to be any) they fall into.

NONE of that matters. What matters is how 'YOU' felt growing up, how 'YOU' feel now and a chance to talk about how and why those childhood experiences and/ or current parental contact, has left you feeling damaged, falling apart from the inside out and stumbling around trying to find your sense of self-worth.

You might also find the following links and information useful, if you have come this far and are still not sure whether you belong here or not.

'Toxic Parents' by Susan Forward.

I started with this book and found it really useful.

Here are some excerpts:

"Once you get going, most toxic parents will counterattack. After all, if they had the capacity to listen, to hear, to be reasonable, to respect your feelings, and to promote your independence, they wouldn't be toxic parents. They will probably perceive your words as treacherous personal assaults. They will tend to fall back on the same tactics and defences that they have always used, only more so.

Remember, the important thing is not their reaction but your response. If you can stand fast in the face of your parents' fury, accusations, threats and guilt-peddling, you will experience your finest hour.

Here are some typical parental reactions to confrontation:

"It never happened". Parents who have used denial to avoid their own feelings of inadequacy or anxiety, will undoubtedly use it during confrontation, to promote their version of reality. They'll insist that your allegations never happened, or that you're exaggerating. They won't remember, or they will accuse you of lying.

YOUR RESPONSE: Just because you don't remember, doesn't mean it didn't happen".

"It was your fault." Toxic parents are almost never willing to accept responsibility for their destructive behaviour. Instead, they will blame you. They will say that you were bad, or that you were difficult. They will claim that they did the best that they could but that you always created problems for them. They will say that you drove them crazy. They will offer as proof, the fact that everybody in the family knew what a problem you were. They will offer up a laundry list of your alleged offences against them.

YOUR RESPONSE: "You can keep trying to make this my fault, but I'm not going to accept the responsibility for what you did to me, when I was a child".

"I said I was sorry what more do you want?" Some parents may acknowledge a few of the things that you say but be unwilling to do anything about it.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate your apology, but that is just a beginning. If you're truly sorry, you'll work through this with me, to make a better relationship."

"We did the best we could." Some parents will remind you of how tough they had it while you were growing up and how hard they struggled. They will say such things as "You'll never understand what I was going through," or "I did the best I could". This particular style of response will often stir up a lot of sympathy and compassion for your parents. This is understandable, but it makes it difficult for you to remain focused on what you need to say in your confrontation. The temptation is for you once again to put their needs ahead of your own. It is important that you be able to acknowledge their difficulties, without invalidating your own.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I understand that you had a hard time, and I'm sure that you didn't hurt me on purpose, but I need you to understand that the way you dealt with your problems really did hurt me"

"Look what we did for you." Many parents will attempt to counter your assertions by recalling the wonderful times you had as a child and the loving moments you and they shared. By focusing on the good things, they can avoid looking at the darker side of their behaviour. Parents will typically remind you of gifts they gave you, places they took you, sacrifices they made for you, and thoughtful things they did. They will say things like, "this is the thanks we get" or "nothing was ever enough for you."

YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate those things very much, but they didn't make up for ...."

"How can you do this to me?" Some parents act like martyrs. They'll collapse into tears, wring their hands, and express shock and disbelief at your "cruelty". They will act as if your confrontation has victimized them. They will accuse you of hurting them, or disappointing them. They will complain that they don't need this, they have enough problems. They will tell you that they are not strong enough or healthy enough to take this, that the heartache will kill them. Some of their sadness will, of course, be genuine. It is sad for parents to face their own shortcomings, to realise that they have caused their children significant pain. But their sadness can also be manipulative and controlling. It is their way of using guilt to try to make you back down from the confrontation.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I'm sorry you're upset. I'm sorry you're hurt. But I'm not willing to give up on this. I've been hurting for a long time, too."

Helpful Websites

Alice Miller

Personality Disorders definition

More helpful links:

Daughters of narcissistic mothers
Out of the FOG
You carry the cure in your own heart
Help for adult children of child abuse
Pete Walker

Some books:

Homecoming
Will I ever be good enough?
If you had controlling parents
When you and your mother can't be friends
Children of the self-absorbed
Recovery of your inner child

This final quote is from smithfield posting as therealsmithfield:

"I'm sure the other posters will be along shortly to add anything they feel I have left out. I personally don't claim to be sorted but I will say my head has become a helluva lot straighter since I started posting here. You will receive a lot of wisdom but above all else the insights and advice given will 'always' be delivered with warmth and support."

Happy Posting

TooExtraImmatureCheddar

I think what you have written about in your post with regards to your mother (and stepfather, is he very much like her really?) is that you like GoodtoBetter have a narcissist for a mother. What you describe also of your mother is typical as to how narcissists like her behave.

I note without surprise that her own mother is narcissistic with her own H doing one of the many usual roles that such men do i.e. one of bystander. Such weak men act out of self preservation and want of a quiet life. They also act as her hatchet man and completely fail to protect the children from their wife's mad excesses of behaviour. Such women too always but always need a willing enabler to help them, this is what their man does too.

Narcissistic women really cannot do relationships at all so any man in their lives is either gone or are also narcissistic themselves.

I would keep your mother well away from your most precious of resources; your children. She was not a good parent to you so will not be a good example of a parent to your grandchildren. If you're finding it difficult if nigh on impossible to deal with her, its the self same deal for your children too whom she could very well go onto manipulate right in front of your eyes. This type of dysfunction as well goes down the generations.

You're not like your mother because you have two qualities that she is completely lacking in; empathy and insight.

Your DH needs to realise that such people like your mother do not apologise, want to mend fences (she has to be right) let alone take any responsibility for their actions.

If she cannot behave she gets to see none of you. You would not have tolerated any of this from a friend, family are no different.

You are really protecting yourselves from such malign influences if there is no contact; she can moan all she likes. She could very well now enlist the help of well meaning but useless relatives to pour guilt on you all; these are known as winged monkeys. A previously unknown health scare could also occur. All are control methods attempted to bring the offspring back into line.

Some grandparents really should not have any access to their grandchildren. Your children need emotionally healthy role models, not one who will either over value (there's already signs of that seeing that she wants to be best grandma) or undervalue the relationship with their grandchildren. I cannot emphasise enough how deplorably poor narcissists are as grandparents. Its actually painful to watch a narcissist interact with their grandchild precisely because there is no interaction. It is like watching a repeat of a tv show you've always hated.

I would suggest you read "Toxic Parents" by Susan Forward and "Will I ever be good enough?" by Karyl McBride.

Your mother will not change and these are not the types of situations that can be at all resolved.

Infact I doubt very much that your mother was at all "normal" and "nice" even before you became a parent yourself. Narcissistic mothers do an awful lot of damage to families and the golden child role assigned is a role too not without price. Your mother engineered the situation totally at home.

Good, I've read the first three posts on your thread and my blood ran cold. Mum is exactly like that with DH! Oh my God. She has a huge thing about DH playing on his laptop/phone - will invite us for the weekend saying that she wants to pamper us and for us to relax while she looks after DD (this was before DS was born), and then when DH takes her at her word and has a lie-in or sits with his laptop playing a game she gets huffy.

And by huffy I mean that she later tells me in private that he's behaving badly and is a lazy git. And then she says the same to my sister, my grandparents, tries it on with dad etc etc.

Attila, what you say about the golden child - can you expand on that a bit, please? Mum was v much the scapegoat while my uncle was and is Golden Child. On the day DS was born my grandparents were meant to be looking after Mum's dogs - oh god, this is all starting to fall horribly into place. Mum asked Gma and Gdad to look after her dogs because they are too big and badly behaved to be around a newborn and someone who has just had a CS. Mum was coming to stay with us and 'pamper' us for a week, look after DD etc (after a fight first about where PIL stood in all of this, on which I could expand massively). However, she asked GPs to go to a house she owns in a different town and look after them there, not in her own house, which was on the market at the time, in case they messed it up. This is totally outing but who cares - if anyone read any of this who knows me in RL they'd know it was me anyway. Mum lives in Aberdeen, GPs live in Lancashire, I live in Edinburgh, this other house Mum owns is in Crieff, so the distances here are not inconsiderable. GPs were expected to go to Crieff, not visiting me and the new baby or seeing DD on their way, and look after the dogs there. At the end of the week, they were to bring the dogs back to Edinburgh, at which point they would be 'allowed' (this was all arranged by Mum, not me!) to see new DS. GPs arrived at Crieff the day before DS was born. Mum dropped dogs off with them on her way to Edinburgh the morning he was born (ELCS so the date was known). Later that afternoon, Gma contacted Mum to say that she had a feeling that my uncle wasn't right, so they had packed up and were about to leave Crieff, leaving the dogs there on their own, and were going to drive all the way home to Lancashire where my uncle lives, on the basis of this feeling. My uncle hadn't asked them to do this. They refused to bring the dogs to Edinburgh because they wouldn't fit in their car. My stepdad had to go back to Crieff to fetch them. So. Mum was furious and hurt by this. I think that's where the whole explosion about DH 'shouting' at DD came from. Mum wanted to establish that she was utterly on DD's side, because no one ever seemed to be on hers, so she engineered the situation. Oh God. Why did it never occur to me that the whole dog situation was totally unreasonable in the first place?

Oh, the flying monkeys are alive and well. Mainly my sister. I kind of think that the best thing that happened to us both was Mum and Dad splitting up because it meant we had an unencumbered relationship with Dad (well, mostly) and he parented in a very different way.

Sorry for the thread hi-jack. I'm just so relieved that it's not me and it's not DH who are being arseholes here.

Cheddar, its not you but them who are at fault here. I would stay well away from your mother and maintain radio silence to such a dysfunctional person.

You did not cause them to be so damaged, their own families of origin did that to them.

All that you write of in your last post re the dogs was completely engineered by your mad as a box of cut snakes mother.

You may find the following excerpt helpful:-

"Beginning in infancy, the children are trained to meet the needs of the narcissistic parent. If the narcissist has more than one child, one of the children is selected to be the “golden child”. This is the child that the narcissist most identifies with. The other children can never achieve to the point of warranting pride or love from the narcissistic parent. Another child usually plays the role of the “scapegoat” and gets the worst of the abuse and vilification. Although in reality, even the golden child is not loved by the narcissistic parent (they are incapable of love) but they will make it appear that the golden child is loved. The golden child will be praised just as the scapegoat and/or others are insulted or mocked. Eventually, the golden child matures and either realizes their parent is not capable of providing love and acceptance or they will continue in their denial and never accept that they have been abused. If the child remains in denial he or she is likely to propagate similar abuse onto their own children.

For the child that realizes his parent is a narcissist (or at least incapable of love), there are three choices:
?Choice One is to continue to cater to the narcissist and allow the instilled feelings of guilt to push them in directions they do not wish to go.
?Choice Two is to limit the abuse by setting boundaries with the parent. If the child chooses to continue the relationship (with boundaries), the child will be tested to their limits by the parent. Rage and negativity will be taken to an entirely new level.
?Choice Three is to leave the relationship. Completely cut ties with the narcissistic parent. Cutting ties with the narcissistic parent allows them to gain their own life.

The scapegoat has only one choice if he wants to end the abusive relationship and that is to get out of the toxic relationship. He or she must cut ties with the narcissistic parent.

Source of Narcissistic Supply

Sam Vaknin, narcissist and author of Malignant Self Love, wrote “the narcissistic parent regards his or her child as a multifaceted Source of Narcissistic Supply… as an extension of the narcissist…. The child is supposed to realize the unfulfilled grandiose dreams and fantasies of the narcissistic parent.” Narcissistic parents run the gamut from being very intrusive in some ways to entirely neglectful in other ways. The narcissist’s children are “disciplined” if they do not respond adequately and immediately to the parents’ needs. “Discipline” is used to enforce compliance and may include physical abuse, verbal abuse (angry outbursts, criticism, etc), blaming, attempts to instill guilt, or emotional neglect.

Children have an important function for the narcissist – they are sources of Narcissistic Supply. The natural dependence of the young child serves to alleviate the narcissist’s strong fear of abandonment, thus, the narcissist tries to perpetuate this dependence through methods of strict control. They are often over-controlling and try to micromanage their children’s lives.

A child can be the ultimate source of Narcissistic Supply (secondary). He or she is always around, admires the narcissist, remembers the narcissist’s moments of “glory”, and because he wants to be loved he will continue to give and give despite never receiving.

However, when the child doesn’t perform his main function (which is to provide his narcissistic parent with consistent Narcissistic Supply) – the parental reaction is harsh and revealing.

It is at that point that we see the true nature of this dysfunctional relationship. The narcissist may react to a ‘breach in the unwritten contract’ with aggression, contempt, rage, psychological abuse as well as physical abuse. He tries to destroy the authentic child and replace it with the former subservient version.

Narcissist begets narcissist?

Narcissistic parents are unable to meet their children’s emotional needs as they develop, resulting in either narcissistic or codependent children. Although not always true, a narcissistic parent tends to produce a narcissistic child. However, this outcome can be alleviated by a “loving, empathic, predictable, just, and positive upbringing which encourages a sense of autonomy and responsibility”.

Some children in a narcissistic household detect how the selfish parent gets his needs met by the other family members. Those children observe how manipulation and using guilt gets the parent what they want. They emulate the narcissistic parent and develop a false self, use aggression and intimidation, and bully the other siblings and other parent in order to get their way. Those children become narcissists themselves.

The more sensitive, easily guilt-ridden children learn to meet the narcissistic parent’s needs and try to win their love by obliging every whim and wish of that parent. The child learns to repress or deny all their feelings in their vain attempts to gain the parent’s love. Their aggressive impulses, feelings of anger, or other negative feelings are not integrated in to their development. Those children also develop a false self as a defense mechanism and become co-dependent in their later relationships".

sounds like she is ridiculously jealous of your husband and disgusted at not being the absolute centre of your life. the better and more involved a father and husband he is the more she'll hate him. what attila says about the men in the lives of women like this is exactly true to my experience and no wonder your father and her split up as he sounds like he has a backbone and is an actual parent - NOT a good match for a crazy narc as he'd actually speak up for himself and for his children.

be very very glad of your father, glad that they split and glad that he fought for and got 50% custody.

it's unusual that she didn't have a scapegoat child and you were all 'golden' as you put it but it sounds like she got her full supply from kicking her husband. more usually it's the husband and one child ime. the fact that she had to share you with your dad and be in competition with him to her mind may have saved you from being on the receiving end of her nastier side. if your dad had been compliant enabler and no competition she wouldn't have had to charm you all.

it seems for her men are the ones who receive her wrath and have to be competed with for no.1 status so you're only really seeing it via your dh.

sorry bit of a random spill of thoughts, bit busy here but wanted to respond.

Mum wanted to establish that she was utterly on DD's side, because no one ever seemed to be on hers, so she engineered the situation.

My mum did this kind of thing with DS and DH, my DS became her favourite and the first major row (that caused us to move out) was because she decided that DH was being unfair to DS. She would create situations and lie about things to put DH in the wrong and make out DS needed all this attention focused on him. DD was ignored. I'm sure it comes from her own crap childhood, but it's all twisted and destructive when played out like this.

quote: Those children observe how manipulation and using guilt gets the parent what they want. They emulate the narcissistic parent and develop a false self, use aggression and intimidation, and bully the other siblings and other parent in order to get their way. Those children become narcissists themselves.

^that would be my sister.

i was also struck by the fact that the scapegoat (me obviously, don't think i wear it too subtly ;) ) only has one choice really - to leave the relationship. there really is no other way to end the abuse - you can never, never change the way the view you and feel towards you and the abuse is always just beneath the surface simmering and desperate to lash out at you at the first opportunity. sorry that's the me me me bit.

sounds like she is ridiculously jealous of your husband and disgusted at not being the absolute centre of your life. the better and more involved a father and husband he is the more she'll hate him.

yes yes, do we have the same mother?

it's almost incredible how similar they are good. it's such a relief i think when you realise that your, never met anyone like them, can't figure them, they make no sense mother turns out to be one of a template that others have experienced too and who follow the same script.

whether you call that template a personality disorder or something else it clearly IS a thing and a thing that has similar devastating effects on those around them wherever people with that thing are found.

seriously just to have people GET what these people are like and capable of as mother's has such a massive impact on me. it is so affirming and reassuring. i think being raised by someone like that is so isolating and so sets you apart from the world that finding others who are capable of relating is indescribably valuable. sorry bit gushy maybe but the damage these people create is vast and the fact some of us come out of it 'sane' in the sense of not emulating it or spending the rest of our lives submersed in it is kind of miraculous and finding other survivors is wonderfully heartening.

i do tend to think jesus, i was raised by fucking wolves! sure i have my quirks and i'll never be your mainstream normal type but hoorah for not being evil and manipulative and consumed by a need to compete for top dog power and control queen

i'm so glad i didn't get suckered in to that! i wouldn't trade my sister's 'golden child' upbringing for anything. i had a thoroughly miserable and damaging childhood that i've had to struggle against all my life BUT thank fuck for it or i could have ended up like her.

I find it hard that my mum has gone batshit relatively recently (the last 8 years or so). She wasn't beating me or slagging me off growing up, it was much more inisdious. Looking back I realise how dysfunctional it was, but for quite a few years I would have said we were close. I was the golden child though so that probably warps it. Anyway I think things were OK as long as I played my role and then once I was married and had kids it all went to shit and she showed her true colours, once she wasn't the centre of everything anymore. Does that make sense?

it does make sense. i think it's harder for the golden child in some ways. it's less explicit and it is much easier to go along with the status quo.

Good, I have been reading your thread and yes, they sound identical! Yes to being prone to depression, yes to having breakdowns and being hospitalised, yes to being the supermum who pulled everything together after a shit start in life, yes to always feeling like I had to look after her and consider her feelings first! Yes to telling me about incidents that I have totally forgotten (or which never happened, or where our recollection of events is wildly different) where DH looks like the baddie. Yes to micromanaging our lives. Case in point: she lent us money to buy a car when ours went kaput. We asked her, mind. She gave us a huge lecture and insisted on choosing the car, then said DH behaved terribly and sulked like a teenager. Which he did, but she was treating him like one! DH's parents later lent us money for a car after Mum's one broke down irreparably (which she saw as DH's fault because she thinks he thrashed it). They gave us a sum of money and left us to it. (Yes, we are shit with money and v irresponsible. Funnily enough, this fight with Mum has made us both get our act together and start focusing on our spending and we've actually saved money the last 3 months despite me being on maternity pay.)

Attilla, a lot of that post resonates as well...it is confusing that Mum seems to manage to be the child who is more emotionally aware, realises her mother is a narcissist, winds up codependent in her adult relationships, while still being narcissistic!

Honey, mostly it was my stepmother who was the scapegoat. Dad a bit too, but mostly my stepmother...although the constant piss-taking with my stepdad wasn't exactly a walk in the park for him.

And yes yes yes to not being beaten or slagged off growing up, would have described our relationship as very close, etc etc!

It has been an article of Dsis and my religion that Mum is always right about emotional matters/relationships/psychology etc. We defer to her judgement in every way.

Well my narcissistic mother went into a full blown rage yesterday! I've been NC with her for a few months but she turned up at my sisters to see by DN on her birthday. Whilst there she found a card from my step dad (they split over a yr ago. The one she accused of being a paedophile but wanted to get back with him! She's now living with someone else) and she went absolutely mental. Dsis said she was shaking with rage! She then went round my step dads and threatened to kill him and his new partner! This is not the first time she's made threats to him. I told him to ring the police. And she says she's moved on, is happy with new bloke!!

These actions have helped me realise more that I don't want her in mine or my dc's lives- don't know what she's capable of!

Worry, that's awful! I hope you're okay, and your sister.

Thank you tooextra. Reading your story, I can really relate to some of the things. Esp about having been 'close' to my mum previously. It's like I've suddenly woken up and realised what she was/is like. Therapy has helped with this too. Who could make threats to kill someone? She's deranged!

ours was a closed unit and i was the scapegoat which made it fairly obvious but also really isolating. i was incredibly lucky to have a very simple, straightforward, loving grandad (dads dad) who provided a contrast. he was an everyday feature in my life till he died when i was in mid teens and whilst he didn't get involved or stick up for me he had small things he'd say like 'in one ear out the other' (whispered into my ear whilst sat on his lap with my mother berating me as pre schoolerish child) or 'water off a duck's back'.

i found out later on that he was one of 10 kids and was apparently really badly beaten as a child. he was a lovely, gentle father and grandfather and a prime example of how cycles do NOT have to repeat themselves and you can be the jewel in the chain.

i've often wondered how 'fucked' i'd be if he hadn't been in the picture. he was one solid, reliable example of what simple unconditional love looked and felt like and i really believe that even one example of that can be enough to hang onto and model and decide your own values upon.

cheddar agreed with everyone that your mother has the problem here, not your husband.

It sounds like she has to be the Absolute Matriarch and Everyone Must Do Her Bidding.

I think you have to stay strong and insist on that apology; your husband is right to want one. He's apologised for his part in things, it's her turn now. You are not being cruel btw. It's simply actions-and-consequences. No doubt she's hurting, but she knows what she has to do and won't do it.

Also, from someone who's been through a lot of therapy - yeah, it's really possible to start seeing PDs and abuse all over, even when it's just normal people being normal, or maybe a bit selfish but nothign that can't be worked out.

---

worry she sounds utterly unhinged .... kind of scary. Is your sister OK?

sorry i guess i'm purging but my grandad lived at the end of the road and for most of primary school i'd walk from school to his house and then be indulged with sweet milky tea and biscuits and endless games of cards by him. he's the experiential reason i have for thinking that one person can make all the difference and be it a teacher, a relative or a friend or whatever the person who gives love to an abused child can make all the difference even if they can't rescue that child or make it all better somehow.

i was a teacher for about 4 years and much of what i did was pointless and soul destroying BUT just being an example of a different kind of grown up and aiming to be fair and consistent and interested and appreciative of suffering and difference and doing your best may have helped a couple of people. for sure there were teens passing through my classroom who were already massively weighed down and hampered by home stuff and some of them will have been the ones capable of getting out and reordering their reality and values and i hope i quietly bore witness to the potential of being able to do that.

it's really easy for most of society to be asleep to the reality some children face but those of us who've had to rebuild ourselves and our realities and beliefs and thinking patterns etc know, i think, how valuable encountering an adult who offers an invitation to be yourself and make your own mind up is.

anyway - much babbling today and i seem to be at the see the positive end of things at the minute. we who make it out and survive have a lot to give.

we also deserve to give ourselves a pat on the back. we were given permission to become narcs/sociopaths/non specific abusers/etc ourselves or to fall into a crumpled heap of victimhood that never attempted to move forward.

we haven't taken that though and have set higher standards for ourselves due to some inner resource or courage or backbone that we just happened to possess and maintain and choose to foster over the easier alternative.