Messed up

[TheHoneyBadger]

I know i'm only going to manage to write a line or so here now and hope i'll come back to it later and give details but want to start something so that my need to reach out is 'out there' before i shove it away again.

I'm in a muddle at the minute of feeling like part of me is screaming out HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! at the world and part of me is loathing myself because help won't come and even if it tried to i wouldn't know how to let it.

Oh sorry, missed talking's explanation, I've not had enough coffee yet

Somerset - there are some lovely and affordable places there. Now you just need to narrow it down a bit :)

I'm glad you slept better!

Yes, it just had to be reported, didn't it Chilling

Re the wheat from the chaff thing, I agree with Chilling that it's largely trial and error. Your past negative experiences of counselling, while crap, can actually be useful in helping you determine what you do and don't want from a counsellor/therapist in the future. Interview them. You can just ask them outright where they stand on certain things right at the beginning, and if they don't give you the right answer, move swiftly on!

For example, I needed someone who wouldn't try and peddle me the whole "you have to forgive in order to heal" line, so I asked about that with my now therapist and was greatly encouraged to find that she believes very firmly in blaming abusive/neglectful parents, and that a lot of healing comes from turning the blame away from yourself and onto them.

Like you Honey I suffered harm from incompetent/un-self aware counsellors/therapists, and I went through a fair few of them over a period of years before I finally managed to find one who could actually do the job. Yes, it was hard to find her, but the results have been brilliant!

When I started working with her, I felt that she properly "got me" pretty much straightaway, in a way none of the others ever had - in a way that no one in my life up till that point ever had - which was such a relief.

It sounds like the move is your priority atm anyway (mm, Somerset, I fantasise about rural living but it'll probably never happen!) and obviously whether you give counselling another go or not is a very personal decision, but I thought I'd share that it's possible to have very bad experiences in that area and still find someone who's good, ultimately. If that's what you want.

i think to be honest i feel like actually the re healing and finishing off of it all would come from rebuilding my life and from relationships and real life moving forwards if that makes sense.

i like frome. basing this on the internet and consulting people who know it so really i should actually see with my own eyes obviously lol.

Talking I like the sound of your therapist. There's a lot of stuff spouted that I don't believe and if I ever went to a therapist/counsellor I'd definitely want to see where they stood on certain things (such as forgiveness being essential - there are some things I can't and will not forgive and about only hating in someone else what you see in yourself... errr NO). It is really great that you have found someone who 'gets' you :)

Honey if you feel like that, then that's the way forward, if once you have done those things you still don't feel totally sorted, you can try to find someone to help you tweak the other bits :)

Frome you say.... ...

Yes, Honey (so great to call someone on MN "honey" ) that makes sense. We're all different and what works for one person won't necessarily be right for another; it's your life, your decision! Moving away from your family certainly sounds like an extremely good plan, and hopefully that's what you need to bring about the other changes you'd like to see.

Thanks Chilling, yes she is pretty amazing! Don't think there are many around like her, tbh. I've come across an awful lot of denial in my time - and denial dressed up as spiritual awareness etc, which is a really crap and dangerous kind! - and not very much real emotional courage. I think there are so many really dark and twisted dynamics at large in the world that emotional courage is actually really crucial, and should be promoted a hell of a lot more.

i didn't think of it - honey badger comes from - hadn't thought of implication of being called 'honey' and people possibly thinking i'm 'hun'

Talking I actually had to force myself to type Honey I feel like a nethun

TheHoneyBadger I assumed it was some kind of animal :) I didn't think you were a 'hun', I'm just a bit lazy about typing out full 'names'. I nearly went for Badger but forced myself to honey!

HB makes me sound like a pencil but better than a 'hun'

I don't think there's any danger of anyone calling you hun after seeing that clip, Honey! The name honey badger makes it sound like such a sweet animal... Who knew...!

no more bad dreams thankfully. the emails have stopped (from sibling) albeit with demands that i should write an explanation (complete with template of HOW i must write it) to my parents of why i don't want them in my life as it is making them so ill trying to conceive why on earth i would not want to see them. (this after 30 odd years of me trying to express periodically how their behaviour towards me makes me feel including periods of miserable begging for things to change or to understand why my mother 'didn't love me' as a child - they just can't imagine what on earth they've done though).

i'm keeping on with trying not to feel like i'm doing something terrible to my son by 'taking away his family and security' and trying to keep various of their narratives out of my head that are all too familiar well worn grooves in my brain for me to go rolling over and further imprinting iyswim.

i will not be writing an explanation - there is no point. as has always been the case anything i do or say, however i do or say it, is just another thing to twist and use against me. i'm also trying to stand by the thought that i don't 'owe' them an explanation and it's down to them to figure out and come to terms with me not wanting them in our lives. it's not my fault that their denial and twisted version of reality prevents any kind of introspection or empathy that could enlighten them and i wasted enough decades of my life trying to work around or find a crack in that brick wall.

if they want to be victims and me the big bad wolf then fine - that's hardly news and the whole point is to just not be a part of it anymore - it is not my job to try and point out the elephant in the room (reality) anymore and god knows i was punished enough throughout my childhood for engaging with that elephant and being unable to pretend it wasn't there.

sorry long babble.

in fact they tried to make me feel crazy and weird and over sensitive and a liar and selfish and evil and god knows what for being able to see that elephant and pointing it out even inadvertently.

i don't want to be a part of the madness anymore and i want to heal myself of the scars left by the battle between reality and madness itms.

Glad the bad dreams have stopped.

You're absolutely right in not trying to explain - the problem doesn't lie with your ability to communicate effectively, but with their point blank refusal to listen to you and acknowledge their role in this, and this would be true no matter how reasoned and articulate you were. And I don't doubt you have been already.

If they actually cared about you and about your relationship then they would put the leg work in and actively try to see things from your perspective. Seeing as they don't, you're right, you owe them nothing.

Pretty much all the dynamics you write of are at play in my family too, and these are all reasons I'm NC with them myself. My brother just accused me of breaking my parents' hearts after I came back from NC#1, two decades ago. So I never bothered to try and explain anything to him when I went for the definitive version several years ago.

I really think truth matters. And there can be no truth with these people. I actually think my mother, for example, is addicted to her denial, as much as any substance addict is addicted to their poison. It is the single most important thing in her life and she will do anything to protect it. And like you, I choose to opt out of that madness.

Hun
Honey
HB
Badger

TheHoneyBadger what you have written is the 'advice' I would have given you, so just a vote of 'you are doing the right thing' really. You aren't taking your son away from his 'family' you are keeping your son away from some seriously twisted & 'not right thinking' people. You are protecting your son from feeling how you do - that cannot be anything but good. Stay on this path and stay strong x

Oh and talking about voting - have you seen this poll

thank you both. it means so bloody much just to have the tiniest bit of validation you know? to have people who actually believe families like this exist and GET what it is like to be a part of one helps me believe i'm sane itms!

i am obviously really sorry that you have been forced to know and understand this stuff though.

I really think truth matters. And there can be no truth with these people. I actually think my mother, for example, is addicted to her denial, as much as any substance addict is addicted to their poison. It is the single most important thing in her life and she will do anything to protect it. And like you, I choose to opt out of that madness

i SO relate to this. i've tried to explain it before as my mother's internal world being like a very, very delicately balanced house of cards. if she was to question one thing ever, to admit she was wrong about even the most trivial thing or allow in any milimetre of self doubt the whole thing would come crashing down. so she defends it like the crown jewels if you dare to wobble it she will lash out like a demon. i think unfortunately for me for whatever reason even as a very small child i threatened her and that house of cards hence the hell of a childhood and endless need to make me bad, wrong, evil, etc.

very vivid memory just flashed of being little and really upset and her telling me i was 'such an actress and born for the stage'.

you can see it all you know? the systematic attempt to crush a child's belief in the validity of even their own feelings. i remember acutely how confusing and distressing it was as a little girl never being able to win or get it right or have anything reflected accurately about them. certainly where a lifetime of over explaining and overjustifying myself and being scared of people's misinterpretations came from amongst other issues.

We all need validation from time to time x

I totally believe families like this exist and 'get' what it's like to be part of one. However, I didn't mean to mislead you in anyway, my knowledge and understanding comes from friends (real and online) experiences, not my own. My own family is/was fairly boring with just the usual smattering of skeltons in the closet and black sheep.

Have you seen the 'Stately Homes' threads? There are a lot of MNers in the same situation :(

My heart really goes out to you, it is such an awful way to grow up :( I just want to pick that little girl up and cuddle her. You are doing extremely well to see how wrong your childhood was, how damaging it was & to prevent it being your son's life. You have broken the cycle, you just have to have the strength of your convictions to keep them out of your and your son's life.

oh i'm glad you didn't have it chilling!

I'm so sorry you did :(

Have you looked at any more properties yet? I presume you would rent for a while? Is there much around Frome?

i'd be renting full stop. yes some houses - one lovely old house over three floors that i really like. bit soon though.

Honey I know what you mean about the validation. I think when you've been undermined so consistently and so profoundly, at your very core, every little bit of someone just understanding where you're coming from and recognising there's a truth in what you say is like gold dust.

My mother too lashes out like a demon when her world of denial is threatened. And regularly called me "melodramatic" when I was a child too young to understand what melodramatic even meant. So much easier than acknowledging that your child may actually be in a lot of emotional pain, and that you and your husband and favoured son might actually be the cause of that pain.

I too periodically struggle with the fact my son has no relationship with his grandparents on my side, that they don't know him at all, that they have never known me as a mother myself. It's shit. But then I look at what they did to me, and what they would have continued to do to me if I hadn't shut them out, and I know it was the only sane option, and I think I deserve to feel good about having had the courage to do it.

It is such a taboo though. I think that there's culturally still a huge bias towards the parents in dysfunctional families, unless the abuse is of the tabloid headline grabbing variety, and those of us who as adult children choose to walk away are often still perceived as cruel and selfish, needlessly hurting our poor, bewildered parents, who after all "did their best" and "loved" us "in their own way"... There is so much minimising that goes on.

Chilling, while it's really important to have the validation of others who've gone through similar, I find it's also really helpful in a different way to have the validation and understanding of those like you who didn't go through it themselves, but who get it anyway. It's a much needed counterbalance to the stuff I was taking about above!

Finding it hard to get much time on MN atm, that'll be the half term effect then...

Wishing you joy of the property search, Honey. Step by step. My parents are at a considerable distance, and it does make it a lot easier.

i'm glad for your understanding talking.

the logic that seems to fly over their head when they are assuming i'm selfish and doing this just for me etc is that my life is a lot easier on paper with them in it. they used to look after my son, have him overnight, have him if i needed to go to the doctors etc. in the siblings correspondence she tried to waggle that carrot. of course it is tempting. it's not easy having no childcare and no break at all but then again you'd think it might help them dawn realisation a bit - as in blimey she'd rather have her child 24/7, have no social life and have to start her own business so she doens't need childcare than deal with us.

There is no logical logic with people like this, only emotional "logic" which is actually utterly irrational and unreasonable but makes sense within their twisted dynamic. The emotional logic is that the denial must be maintained at all costs and that's the bottom line. Everything else can be twisted to fit in with that.

So they can somehow rationalise you not having contact with them as you being selfish even though it's clearly against your self interest in the ways you say. Because that keeps the story going that you're the problem one, not them, and that's what they need more than anything else.

Again, I recognise it very much from my own family. I was the person they would often come to with emotional issues or distress because they know, on one level, that I am the most caring and emotionally intelligent one of the family (not hard amongst that lot, tbh!!) but when the issues are between them and me, suddenly I'm not that person any more, I'm selfish/cruel/uncaring.

Projection, projection, projection... Can't face seeing it in themselves so they attribute it to me. Same as they've always done. And their "logic" allows them to believe it's actually true, no matter what the evidence says.

It's sad.

Talking I did reply to you, but since I got the new ipad some of my posts seem to vanish, not sure what's with that?? Sorry it looked like I was ignoring you.

I'm glad that you feel that way about comments from those of us who didn't go through it. It's only through friends, then my god awful ex inlaws then eventually MN that I realise that my idea of a 'normal' childhood wasn't 'normal' for so many people :( It was MN that showed me just how awful some people had, had it :(

I think a lot of people who had childhoods like mine and don't have ex inlaws like mine or real/online friends who have told them what their childhood was really like are unable to grasp just how much people have been through, just how awful it was (is) and thus relate your actions to their very petty disagreements with their parents and really and honestly can't see how you could go 'no contact' with your parents. They just don't get it, because they have no experience and no knowledge of where you are coming from. (hope that makes some sense).

It is very sad that your son doesn't have a close relationship with his grandparents, but that's his grandparents doing, not yours, you are simply keeping him safe. You have every right to feel good about that.

I find it very hard that my Dad, who was a brilliant Grandad died so young... it's just all wrong :(

honey ^^ that's it exactly. If people took the time to think about what they are saying, they might click that you aren't doing this for kicks. I mean, what the actual fuck do you have to gain out of it if they are decent people????? NOTHING! D'oh.

i could have written that myself talking - very much the same deal.

weirdly this was on my mind this morning and i was a having a self doubt, am i terrible person, is my son going to hate me when he grows up for this, what must my neice and nephews think etc. i shook it off.

i also remembered how horrible it was knowing that that awful opinion of me and all that bile and darkness of their version of reality of my childhood and me as the cause of every problem ever, was always there even if they were tongue biting it or things were being kept shallow enough to avoid it. the slightest scratch to the surface and it was all right there ready to come lashing out.

also processed something from a different angle that my 'mother' said last time i saw her. she said, not the first time i've heard it, that i was actually 'normal' and a pleasant enough child till i went to school. it occurred to me that i was considered really bright at primary school and did well and probably got lots of praise. school would have been where i was presented with a different mirror itms and that would have interfered with her ability to totally map the whole of me with her projections because i was getting other, very very different, reflections given back of me from others. i wasn't totally what she said i was anymore and there was evidence opposing her definition of me and that outraged her. she went to one parents evening and never went again. that was re-written when i was older to be because she was too ashamed to see my teachers given my behaviour and what an awful child i was but i was a golden girl at primary and never in trouble or seen as a problem so that's clearly bullshit. it seems more likely that she went to one parents evening and heard a version of me that she refused to take on board eg. a positive one and maybe some concern for if i was 'ok' and that was that. she refused to ever go again because she knew it would challenge that oh so precious house of cards.

sorry i'm going on and on again.