I'm a survivor of a dysfunctional family.
I grew up in a cold environment where affection was in short supply and my mother ruled the roost with strange routines and OCD. I believe she has aspergers syndrome and tourettes.
She told me off so much when I was ill that it has impacted on me badly; I suffer from health anxiety, emetophobia and anxiety and agoraphobia.
My father never stood up to her.
I have tried to get passed all this...by making a life for myself. I have a degree in psychology and one in law and I am a published writer.
Yet the emptiness and anxiety does persist.
I thought compassion and forgiveness was the answer. My parents have never admitted what they did and they never ever will so I thought that as I still love them, I would still try to have a relationship with them. I am adopted. How they got to adopt is beyond me.
But I have a brother (also adopted) and he knows the truth because he said how badly he was treated many years ago. However, he has turned into a nasty person, who has no feeling for others, like an obnoxious, overgrown teenager. When I last saw him, I tried to appeal to him, to say that we shared what we went through, but despite me telling him I love him, he walked out, said I shouldn't see our parents because of my issues with my childhood. Issues he has chosen to now overlook, even though he still said his childhood was worse than mine!
I was meant to meet up with my parents, but they refused to see me because my brother had stirred up trouble.
I can't believe they would listen to him...they were always running him down because of how obnoxious and hateful he could be. He has a temper and hit a woman. They have chosen to believe him over me.
And of course, he wants their inheritance I do believe.
I have sent them cards with special words, I have tried so hard but now they have sent me a letter saying that my brother finally revealed why he was so upset over our last meeting...he was not upset! And they want nothing more to do with me. They will die, they said, without ever seeing me. That I owe them thousands (which I do not) and harped on about the past when I was meant to have misbehaved (yet I was just a normal child in a screwed up family). I have not borrowed thousands from them and nothing they mentioned was unusual considering the awful circumstances.
It should be them asking for my forgiveness.
But the thing is, this breaks my heart...
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody
Relationships
My parents don't want to ever see me again...
wonderwoman21 · 31/12/2014 15:18
I feel such sadness, grief and anger. In time, this will get better I know, perhaps more so if I put my energy into projects that are worthwhile.
It's healthy to feel (immense) sadness, grief and anger - you have a lot to be sad, grief-stricken and very angry about!
I do think it's important to pause and allow those feelings to fully realise. I'm not suggesting a lifetime of those feelings, of course, but to connect with them and allow them to play out properly, which can take some time. It's hard to allow those feelings to surface - a therapist would 'hold' you as you do.
I would also suggest your worthwhile project is YOU. Please don't be looking for any more as you already have a giant 'worthwhile project'. You have been raised by insane people, your brother, who should have supported you, has betrayed you. He's done you a favour but it doesn't look like that at the moment. YOu have been let down and abused by everyone in your 'primary' family. That's a lot to be going on with.. 
Thank you very much for that link Hola.
Hi wonderwoman, thanks for your kind words. I knew for many years that DM was likely to die from the health condition she had, but none of us thought that she would have as many years as she did, or that the end would come when it did.
It was odd when she did go. I had spent time thinking over what could be honestly said at her funeral. I was determined that I would not reinvent her in front of that congregation, on the other hand I felt it an unfair situation to be too raw in what was said. I described a perfectionist, someone with high standards, a striver for things, and a visionary. Anyone who really knew her would have known what was being said but it seems that not many of the 200 or so people who attended really did know her. Or perhaps they did and I didn't.
I came away from that day wishing that I had known the woman that all these many people had. An acquaintance from our local area told me of how she sought out DM and cried on her shoulder over her problems and worries. DM didn't allow me to do that. Others told me how fair she was and how she appreciated others' viewpoints. I nodded and smiled and thanked them for their kindness and wondered whose funeral I was at.
In the days and weeks that followed I realised many things. One of the first was that all the decrees and expectations were just no longer there. And if they weren't important in the immediacy of her death then they had never been important. So why had they felt that way? I don't know. It made me realise that others' demands could be viewed as requests and that I could make decisions for me and my family without the fear and obligation and guilt that typifies toxic relationships.
Another great realisation was that the emptiness was in effect like one of DM's radio silences, which she instigated sometimes when I had failed in some way. Usually broken when I, not realising I was in the dog house, phoned to be greeted with 'Oh, you are still alive then'. Only this time I was, and she wasn't.
It took a long time before I stopped expecting to be found wanting. I could not work out what was wrong the following Christmas when the day felt odd. I eventually realised that the family was together and we had reached mid-afternoon without anyone having done something wrong. There was no bickering, no blame, and a vast and empty space.
Life after DM is much easier. I mourned for the relationship I had always wanted. I still do. I miss the times when she behaved well, usually when she was in a position of weakness like being in hospital, or when she had decided fun was the order of the day on holiday or the occasional shopping trip and play-acted her part.
I do not miss having to protect my DCs from unwelcome comments about behaviour, food intake, and comparisons with the fictitious child I had grown up with as an imaginary brother (DM's imaginary son was perfect in every way). I do not miss the disappointment which was always expressed with my body, my thoughts, my efforts, my choices and my actions.
I still never come up to standard, that voice in my head that she put there over so many years is strong. I am only now learning that I do not have to allow myself to be treated badly. I am only just aware that I can have desires of my own, or opinions which might be agreed or disagreed with, but that they are ok because they are mine. I am only now being the mother I choose, most of the time, rather than the one role modelled for me or the one which is the diametric opposite of that.
It is a strange new world. My only regret is that I did not have the opportunity to learn these things earlier in my life and and avoid more of the FOG.
A diatribe I know. You asked. I am not used to having anyone care about what I think and I'm not good at turning off the tap. I'm sending you for your journey and hope that perhaps something of what I have shared might be of use to you. Feel free to PM if it helps.
Thank you springydaffs. And there goes the power of MN again. The lovely wonderwoman reached out and in doing so somehow unblocked the words in me. Thank you so much for that wonderwoman and I am so sorry for overloading your thread.
I know too that she will never forget the past and will always judge me as her wayward daughter, even though I was just a normal girl and then woman, trying to cope in an impossible and emotionally neglectful situation.
That memory for every little niggle which doesn't fit how things 'should' be in their minds is, I think, the most difficult thing. Not only are we "wayward" as you so beautifully noted (again a gentle word for a not gentle accusation) but the list of our failings just gets longer. And each one is judged with that judgement never to be changed, just added to with the ongoing moments of our lives. I feel for you. It is absolutely normal to make choices and when none can be made without measurement against an invisible standard we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
There is no way around it unless somehow we can become not human, flatten ourselves to 2d and place ourselves pristine between the pages of a photo album.
I was never right in reality, DM preferred her people to be presented on paper. The perfect photo, the certificate of achievement (unless in her eyes that was an unacceptable, but still happy marriage), the drawing sent to her by a grandchild. Not for her the mess of a real life expressed and shared, not for her the noise of a child or the food dropped by accident from a plate, not for her struggles and imperfection unless her own which could be stripped and wailed over.
My father is a weak man, he could have helped us but chose to be ruled by her.
I am so sorry you were equally let down by your DF. I am lucky that although mine was also unable to be emotionally mature in her presence I don't feel that he was anything other than a victim too. Many people on MN talk about the weak adult partner parent as an enabler. I am still thinking about this aspect of my relationship with DF.
He was denied and minimised all his life, firstly by his birth family and then by DM. I only see the real him, the person he could have been, as he is nurtured in his new relationship by a loving and open DP. I always felt close to him, a fact that DM noted and complained about. I struggle to blame him for not providing better protection. I think I still need more time to understand that relationship. He was the other adult in the house when I was a child and perhaps could have done more, but then, I was an adult for half of my life with DM still in it and I still played the game too.
Sometimes (and I feel bad for this) I dream of my mother dying
That is something I went through too, and found when the time came I was more prepared to act well through the death and the immediacy of the loss. And it is a loss. Don't judge yourself for it. Use it to create a sense of self and empowerment which might help you now. Perhaps it will help you adapt how you behave to be true to yourself rather than your DM's picture of you as imperfect.
a chance of a relationship with my father
If this is to happen in a way which works for your now then you may have to be imaginative. What are things like between you? Is he an enabler who springs to your DM's side or is he flailing around too, not sure, or able to act and under the FOG himself? Or is he actively disfunctional in his own right? How much contact do you have with your DPs? Is it ever good, even for a moment?
Thinking of you
I remember standing there with my bunch of flowers and seeing that familiar expression on my mother’s face as she approached me that I had done something wrong, I just wanted the ground to swallow me up and drown in my own tears.
Oh wonderwoman, I can just picture your disappointment. We always, despite all evidence, expect it to be different. Always being wrong is too illogical to make any sense, but that 'look', the one we know so well, the one which stills us, and crushes us, that 'look' feels like proof.
I think the NC might turn out to be a surprising silver lining to the anvil cloud that usually delivers bolts of lightening. Death and true NC isn't that much different really. They both give us an opportunity to quietly contemplate what was, and what never could be. Don't expect it to be a speedy process though. As I said up thread, it has taken me five years to get to the point where even letting this small glimpse of what is inside can be contemplated. And yes, it is helping.
HexBramble I never thought of it as a light in my soul. I can but hope it's a FOG light. Each step is easier if you put it in the right direction.
SpringyDaffs can I echo what wonderwoman said. Your words may have been as direct response to her difficult situation but they spoke to me too. I haven't the courage yet to get as far as a counsellor but one day, one day. Thank you.
That thing you said about permission wonderwoman has got me thinking. I seek permission from those around me to do even simple things and feel a sense of dread at even making a small purchase, or sending a work email without a colleague's 'sanity check'. I'm not a writer, I'm an engineer. A well qualified professional, who worries about how she will come across, whether a word or two in the wrong place will mess everything up. The odd thing is that I'm actually quite confident in groups. DH tells me he loves to watch me at parties full of people I don't know, and there's an office joke about how much work I win at after-work development courses when the beers are flowing at the end. And yet, of course, I am always not quite good enough.
My heart fell at what you shared abut your father. It sounds to me as if you believe in your mother's behaviour but there is still a desperate hope that your father is just weak. You do deserve the best and anyone who would try to make you grateful for less than a great relationship is not showing that. If he started out not in the same league as your mother, I am seriously suspecting that he chose to join her and now cannot see that there was another path. How painful to have to let go of the dream of a better relationship with him too. Their decision though, this NC. If they knew how much it would eventually bring you I doubt they would have done it.
DayLillie, thank you for your note of hope. Your DF has built a new life for himself and we can all do that whatever the fault, and the undermining, and the never being able to do anything properly. There is hope and healing and belief. Let's keep taking those steps, lit by Hex's light.
for us all.
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.