It's March 2015 and the Stately Home is still open to visitors. Unfortunately I have not been able to make the links work; is it possible for one of you lovely people to do that?.
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
July 2014
October 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."
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
But we took you to Stately Homes
AttilaTheMeerkat · 23/03/2015 10:59
Oh yes and I am 
at the applying for maternity leave for siblings child too!!
Thanks, everyone, for your validating comments regarding my Narc sister and the maternity leave.
It happened through another Narc tool: Redefining the Request. When I found out I was pg (at 46, 13 yr gap) I had already begun to distance myself from her. But, then, I thought I would need her help with the new baby. (No family in the area; she lives about 80 miles away, here in the States-about an hour and half drive.) I asked her (and I quote) " to save a couple of days of vacation for me". She redefined it into an extended sabbatical.
Coincidentally, About that time, I also discovered MN. 
x a billion.
In fact, for those that are interested, you can read more of my story on the first Stately Home thread, Dec 2007. I appear on the first page under the name toomanystuffedbears.
My relationship with Narc sister was a mess and I admit I am not very adept at social confrontations. I declined to call her on the day of the birth. I told/acknowledged to myself that she was horrid to me throughout my pregnancy. She really did not take it well-so yes the concept of JEALOUSY may be right. My oldest sister, my enlightened witness, said Narc sister blew a head gasket. Anyway, I determined to not push my baby in her face and decided to wait until she asked to see her.
Dear readers, I am still waiting and my darling little one just turned seven. The peace has been bliss! But I get the sadness described earlier (sorry I did not make note of the poster's name).
The reason it is rolling over me again (even after so many years 
), is calendar driven. The anniversaries of my mother's birth and death, along with Easter all fall within these three weeks. I usually try not to let the calendar do that to me!
yongnian, 
I am glad that you had good news yesterday. You are allowed to have enjoyment, just for yourself (I don't mean to sound patronizing). The people that suck the joy out of your life should be kept fenced off from your joy. I think this may address what you, roland, were talking about regarding the digs and criticism at anything you shared with your mother and sister.
The more my sister tore me down (think Death By Ten Thousand Cuts), the less I shared. It evolved into not just not expressing my feelings, but why bother having any feelings at all? Numbness was (still is in some respects) a coping mechanism. It works! But it is dangerously close to its next door neighbor of depression.
The boundaries are not because we are bitches kicking them to the curb. The boundaries are to protect ourselves (and dh, dc) from their behavior. No guilt need apply there (the guilt is all theirs).
I also came to a point where I realized how much I vented to dh. I eventually stopped talking about it with him altogether and vented to my oldest sister, counsellor, journal, and here, of course.
Evening all. This all makes a lot of sense to me - somewhat depressingly as I'm only just starting to process it all.
Draining is the word.
I'm realising how constantly anxious I feel around my family. I'm usually relaxed and fairly confident. With them I feel anxious and sick. I'm terrified I'm going to accidentally offend or cause upset because I somehow always do. I remember the hideous creeping dread as a child of knowing I was in trouble or had upset dm or dsis. I don't recall anyone ever being concerned they'd upset me.
I've not ever fallen out with friends I've had for more than half my life and lived with at various times. So how offensive can I be? 
My first namechange! Success
Hi everyone. I've lurked for motivation a couple of times but generally tried to avoid as it makes me think too much! I was convinced this time by the 'nothing is too small' (paraphrasing 
) bit in the OP.
Mum and Dad split when I was a child. Always been clear to me that things were 'bad' with Dad and I've come to be able to understand him as a couple of things. He was just outright a bad parent, neglectful and I was the parent, as the eldest. Emotionally abusive, gaslighting for one... outright denial of our feelings. Withdrawing his love regularly. Desperate need for control. I'm aware there was some physical abuse but that's as it's documented, not remembered. However I do remember him as very aggressive and took comfort in a way, as I got older, that he would smash up everything in the room but not hurt us (wrongly remembered I now know! But this is what I was told as a child despite truth)
Anyway throughout this my mum was my support. I would tell you still today that my mum is one of my best friends. Again, I was very much the second parent so obviously this friendship developed. As a child I used it to justify my mum relying on me. I still do, really.
Best way to describe my mum is two absolutely conflicting messages given to me at all times. This is the part that I now struggle with daily. The part that she 'lives' and acknowledges is the part that I have such a lovely, close relationship with, and the one I couldn't jepordise by letting the rest of this come to the surface... Her other 'half' contributed a huge amount to childhood trauma but the 'nice' side denies this entirely.
Eg: In terms of my Dad - I was told 50% of the time that Dad didn't treat us properly, that our safety and happiness came above everything else, that's why she made him leave, etc. The perfect script for a child being intimidated and abandoned.
However, the other 50% was spent physically sending me back, and analysing him: constant emotional analysis translates as look after daddy/he needs help/he can be fixed. He loves you, but in his own way. Fairly standard stuff and I understand it and have come to terms with it.
However the conflicting messages I now realise were not limited to this topic and were instead throughout my entire childhood. To the point where every toxic or awful memory that isn't at my Dad's hands (we are now NC) 'never happened'. There is by no means a shortage of them. Mum talks at length about her own childhood abandonment/my Dad's forcing me to be the parent and how she's so glad she managed to avoid it. Except from her recurrent hospital stays/days in bed (for sight problems) (which now 'didn't happen') leaving me to cook dinner, clean, pick up younger DSiblings from school, take to childminder etc, one diary entry (found recently as I move house this month!) records bro and sis arguing and mum getting sick of it (I was fourteen) so 'went out'. Bro proceeded to pin sister against the wall and tell her he was going to strangle her. I was the adult. My brother and sister are now lovely (non-violent! he was very much a child with a lot of anger, modelling what he'd seen) people but this is one of maybe thirty similar events. I remember mum getting sick of the arguing and shutting bro out in the front/back garden regularly. She smashed things, tore things up, and, more distressingly, became hugely distressed. I was very much her therapist and she detailed every feeling to me. There were a lot of emotions. Her emotions were huge and overwhelming. At the time there was the understanding that she was seriously overwhelmed and was doing the best that she could and it was all my Dad's fault and to argue this would be defending my Dad. I still struggle with this. I understand that she wasn't coping. I would never belittle this. But why would nobody ask social services etc for support? Not to mention that most of the stress would have been gone if we hadn't been repeatedly sent back to our abusive father every tuesday and friday. There was a serious martyr 'no I'll just keep going'. However, I was the fixer and the parent, and it meant it was me who kept going. Even now I feel like you're going to tell me I'm belittling how hard things were for her and making it all about myself but it doesn't sit right with me.
This is all very early stuff but it's the later things I can't get my head round and so struggle to explain... egs include my serious mental health diagnosis - mum reads nhs info and says she cried as it sounds like her, if only she had known and got the support she needed. She is now in therapy and talks me through every discussion about her incredibly hard life (no sarcasm, as she has had a horrible time and should probably also be on this thread! but I knew every scarring detail by the age of thirteen as her therapy/support) including how hard my suicide attempt at 20 was for her. suicide attempt never otherwise referred to, even the following day. But to my mum, we 'talk about everything'.
I'm very scared to post this. Largely as being brought up in this way has made me very protective of my mum 'as she's had such a hard life' (I think of it as almost being trained). Although I know this is wrong it's my automatic reaction. I'm also treading a thin line of wanting to put enough detail that someone tells me I'm justified but being too scared of putting some of the most awful stuff out there. Also scared I'm using the thread wrong or intruding! I'm very sensitive (working on it!) because I've been taught there's always a hidden meaning to what people are saying, and it's my job to find it and fix it.
I now see my mum at least weekly. I live in her 'real' world - which is lovely and kind and funny in a lot of ways - and have my own real world at home with supportive wonderful DH where I acknowledge all of this. But it's overwhelming. One of the most prevalent things I struggle with on a day to day basis is stepdad (in name only, they married last year. He was not in my life until I was 23) I dislike him in every way. I could rant for too long... but DM analyses every part of his life to justify his current behaviour (should clarify he's not abusive to her - if anything I have no respect for him as he is incredibly weak... However, I would firmly say he is close to emotionally abusive to DSibs and myself occasionally in the past). There are also constant comments on how DSibs just don't like him and how unreasonable they are - could never say I agree. When I have in the past (gently) she shuts down conversation immediately and cried as it's not the time for the conversation as she is so overwhelmed as her life is so hard.
I now can't even look him in the eye. I really struggle living like this. Don't know what I'm looking for here really! I'm a year and a half out of therapy, have my own MH problems as a result of everything... but the main way it's affected me is I don't trust myself at all. Maybe I made all of this up
Thank you so much if you've bothered with this! And sorry for the longest post in the world.
loveheart ... you are very much entitled to be here (not that there's an entrance gate!). But what you say is drawing a picture of a loving mother, but that the closeness is mostly one way ... you are still her support and she still can't accept that things aren't the way she wants them to be instead of the way they are.
She sounds very much like the 'inadequate mother' that Susan forward talks about in her book about mothers. She can't be a proper mother and instead she leans on you. Without doubt she does love you .. but she can't cope with the real you, the complex, strong, weak, hurt, caring and tender person you are.
What you write down is not small. It's not easy to put into words in a way, though you've done a good job of it. But it's a systematic and subtle pushing of you into things that you shouldn't have done .. you shouldn't have had to do. For years and years, and it's still going on.
It's not small.
hilary, welcome. I think people do worry a bit yes and I'm certain there are many people who do not post because of that fear. (I'm also certain that some unhealthy families think they recognise someone on here but it was someone from a completely different family!).
People tend to change details if they are relevant. They also sometimes post in dribs and drabs - I know that for myself most of my full backstory is posted on here, but spread across many posts and months so someone'd have to be a regular mumsnetter or spend some time generally digging. Splitting up the info just makes it harder to spot any identifying details if you see what I mean.
Also mumsnet has a lot of viewers but im not sure it's exactly everyone in the country! Could you maybe bring up on line parenting forums vaguely in a chat sometime and see if they follow / post on them?
In the end, an awful lot of dysfunctional families actually have a sadly similar pattern. (which is why im sure some people think their daughters are writing about them on here, when they actually arent). So if you write, you can deny it was you, as long as any specific identifying details are kept out of it.
Oh Loveheart0 please don't think you have done anything wrong, or have intruded, you are most welcome here and from the sounds of your post are going to be in good company.
I'm fairly new here too, so I'm probably not the best to advise you.. but one thing stood out and that was about your Step-dad.. I too have an awful relationship with a past step-dad and the current one.. The current one is not abusive to my mum but has been plain rude and ignorant towards me and my partner on a few occasions. My mum justifying his behaviour and saying "he's trying to be nicer" just infuriates me! So I can understand you on that point.
It sounds like you mum is also similar to me. She's so entrenched in her own sorrow and misery she can't / won't allow you to be upset or angry at her, it's like if she allows that then she will implode or something. All that does is make you feel like you can't talk about it all. I was similar after our first argument a few months back, I tried to open up to her to talk it through but she didn't want to listen and shut me down with a "well I can't do anything about that now can I?".. I just totally clammed up and left it.. but it's still there, bubbling.. and it's slowly coming out bit by bit.
Hilary Welcome! Yes, it's quite hard to post details in some ways.. I even posted a copy of the email my mum sent me the other day, so it can't come much closer to her knowing it's me if she reads it. I think it's unlikely someone will recognise you, but not impossible.. I think as long as you are truthful then who can really have a go at you? In some ways I'd like my mum to see this, it's all things I can articulate to her verbally and am too scared to say it and open that can of worms.
You don't have to tell you story to join in though, you can read the threads, and when ready you can share your story, or just add little bits in now and then that won't identify you and maybe you will built up to a big outburst I does feel good to write it down.
Welcome, to both of you, I hope this thread gives you a sanctuary to come to if you ever feel overwhelmed. 
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