But we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

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."

I've also had the, "mum misses you" comment from my dad in the past. I ignored his remark for what it meant; nothing.

She in particular has let me down too many times over the years and I've ended up playing second fiddle in particular to my brother who is seen by them, particularly my mother as being "less capable" (lives alone). So they've enabled him; he says jump and they say how high?. She still cleans his house, iron his shirts and is collected from various airports. It took me some while to guess that I was trusted i.e. left to basically get on with it. And I have.

innerturmoil you've just thrown all their expectations out of kilter. You've stood up for yourself. You've stepped outside what they expect. Your father was probably stunned and had no idea how to react.

Be warned, your mother will not take this well. Really. Plan how to deal with her rage and what she's likely to do. Saying that you won't be the scapegoat any more is likely to release all the Hounds of Hell. Plan what she's likely to do and how to deal with it ... Also, plan how to protect your children.

What's your relationship with your sister like? does she see them for what they are? If she does that will make things easier. If she doesn't, its going to make it harder.

Thanks guys it's good to share and read other people's other shit worlds. Not that that's a good thing of course but to hear the same lines and behaviours.

My sister does know but has been able to cut off emotionally a long time ago - she's the eldest. Her husband has been very strong and together they just don't engagge whereas I have been held hostage by the sheer INJUSTICES of it all. How dare they be so mean and make us feel so bad about ourselves? I only ever tried to get it right but somehow always got it very badly wrong.

I think you're right about my birthday. I only said that because it's better in larger numbers and then I feel like I'm making an effort, Visiting on my own is where the big guns come out. Will be interesting to see how they observe my birthday. Last year I got a card that said 'To innerturmoil. From Mum and Dad.' Can you imagine ever sending your child a card like that on their birthday however old they were? To punish me I suppose for some long-forgotten crime.

staffie I'm sorry Being shamed about menstruation is so hurtful. We were never allowed to refer to periods in any way in our house in front of my dad. I had horrifically painful and heavy periods but I was never allowed to talk about them, just got told off for ruining my underwear. There was other stuff around my periods when my dad molested me but won't go into that as its very upsetting and I still feel shame (even though I know I shouldn't.) I am now on Depo Provera so don't have periods at all and it's a blessed relief. I've been on it 5 years and I'm hoping to stay on it until I'm through menopause!

My mum also shamed me for masturbating from a very young age and that affected me for a very long time. However I have now rediscovered my inner wanker!

lastlines I meant to comment earlier about your post yesterday regarding self-care after dealing with something upsetting. You are absolutely right and I have struggled for a long time with this concept. Instead of feeling my feelings and being kind to myself, I had this attitude that I should just brush it off and carry on. My sister used to talk about "being kind to herself" and I used to think "god you useless hippy, just ovary up!" Of course I now realise this was childhood conditioning from my mum, who's constant refrain was "don't be silly, you're not sad/angry/scared/in pain." Just total denial of any negative feelings, and scorn towards anyone who "indulged themselves" by doing something as extravagant as having a bubble bath to relax after a stressful day.

It's been a really manic and stressful day for me today so I'm going to go home, give DS a call, have a glass of wine, then cook myself a posh Waitrose pizza and watch some old X-Files episodes :)

staffiegirl the privacy thing sounds so bad. I remember my mum lifting up my arm at the dinner table to show my siblings that I had started growing armpit hair.

We have to remember they have no empathy and have not considered our feelings.

Thank you for your kind words Staffie .

Am horrified to read of your account of suffering at your mother's hands.

PocketSaviour - I too had very painful periods and my mum had no idea why. My mum had no idea what was wrong with me and never followed it up with the GP. She did not want to put me on the pill; she had some mad idea that I would have sex or become pregnant. I was more concerned with my schoolwork at the time!.

I now know why I had such painful periods many years later; endometriosis was the cause. I am wondering if endo was the cause in your case as well, its very common (infact its the second most common gynae problem seen in women after fibroids) and much under diagnosed.

Enjoy watching the X files; the tv studio is planning to reboot the series at some point.

staffiegirl I am so sorry about the privacy/periods abusive stuff. It must have been awful.

Thanks everyone for your kind comments

Staffiegirl my mom was same I think my first bra was a hand me down from my cousin, when I got my period I didn't tell her for a long time I used to wash my own clothes and rob her sanitary towels till she caught me and acted all hurt that I hadn't told her ( why would I? ) I was then only given a packet of sanitary towels and told to make them last!! Used my babysitting money to buy some and new bras! Oh and the times I dared defy her or stand up for myself she used to shout at me that it must be that time of the month as I was so moody, this was shouted at me in front of all my siblings and father, just another way for her to embarrass me!!

It's so conflicting though I do have some good memories but then when I think back at all my friends dad's teaching them to drive, or them being able to ring their dad when they are having car trouble or going shopping with their moms and going for lunch etc I do feel sad but then I remember that I bought my first car paid for driving lessons and passed my test first time and times I used to bring my mom out shopping and for lunch she had no money and I had to pay for her me being a single mom at the time but sure that didn't matter!! they used to try make as much money out of me as they could.

Feel so much better now thanks to all its going to be a long road but I have to keep reminding myself im better off without them

Good God, how does the world keep turning with the sheer number of dreadful parents there are out there?! I really do wonder that sometimes.

So sorry to read all these stories of boundary crossing, sexually shaming fucking crap parents. Loads of bells ringing for me too. I really do feel for you all, and for my teenage self.

staffiegirl I always think that a lot of these people just shouldn't have had children, they were so unfit to be parents... But then again, if they hadn't, we wouldn't be here! kind of a tricky one to get my head around, I find...

Pocket knowing you are off to treat yourself to a lovely evening makes me very happy

God, I find this so eerie. I can't believe the similarities. I wasn't bought a bra or sanitary pads either. My sister had them, but I didn't. I remember being told off by my PE teacher for not wearing one, and being mocked by girls at school. Even then, age 12 I remember thinking the PE teacher was a stupid cow for not working out that I had no control over what clothes I was allowed to wear. I remember being teased for having huge feet. Actually my feet were size five but I could only find size 8 boots at the charity shop so that's what I wore.

I get panicked when the DC lack interest in clothes. They laugh at me for going out and buying clothes for them if they can't be bothered to come too, but I hate seeing them in clothes that they've even slightly outgrown. And they are never allowed to wear dirty clothes or clothes with stains on them. One of the best compliments I've ever had was from a stranger who said she often saw me about and my DC always looked so clean and well cared for. Nothing meant more to me, while I was struggling with PND, than knowing I'd made that effort for them to look cared for, and that someone had noticed. I still get really fidgety when I see kids with grubby clothes and crusty noses. I know they probably have perfectly loving parents but I'm just never sure.

I also remember my dad asking me why I wore his old jumpers with holes in them. He seemed very puzzled when I told him it was because it was winter and I didn't have any jumpers or coats of my own. As I say, he wasn't actively malign, just furious with the world, self obsessed and neglectful.

theymakeme and staffiegirl I think the important thing for us to remember is that we were kids - we were a product of our extremely unhealthy environments and we can't and shouldn't feel ashamed of anything we did.

It's the hypocrisy that gets to me more than anything else I think - my DPs are the most liberal people in the world as far as they and a lot of the outside world are concerned - they have always been excellent at keeping up appearances.

I knew all about the facts of life from a young age -probably inappropriately young - I never asked where babies came from, I was told long before I ever wondered or would have asked. So they were happy for me to know about it, but innocent teenage experimentation was so shameful I might as well have conducted an orgy in the front garden and invited all of the neighbours. It made me reluctant to bring any boyfriends home or even admit I had a boyfriend as I was so ashamed and embarrassed that they would know we kissed and OMG - MAYBE EVEN DTD!!!

Their treatment made me ashamed of my body my whole life and I am still not over it, even though I can look back on it and see it for what it was now.

If I wasn't quite sure how disgusting I was before, being made to stand in my nightie in front of a room full of their friends while DM was drunk and telling everyone to "look and see how fat she is! I bought her that nightdress 6 months ago and now it is straining at the seams! isn't he huge?" made sure I was certain.

Oh staffie and for you - of course I know exactly what you mean, I've had many times over the years when things have been nigh on unbearable and I've not wanted to be here, and I've had a few times when I've really put some thought into not being here any more.

And death has always been around me as an option or a possibility - one of my uncles killed himself when I was 19; one of my cousins died in a freak accident when she was 15, and other premature, tragic deaths litter the family too - my hold on life has felt very, very tenuous for a great deal of the time.

But the fact remains that if my parents hadn't had me at the precise time they did, I - the individual I am - would never have existed, and it's a pretty huge thing for me now to be able to say I am glad I'm here.

It would have been wonderful if some benign force could have taken me away from my parents at birth and given me to a couple who really wanted a baby girl, and would have loved me and cared for me properly. But parents like mine don't have their children taken away from them, they're so good at presenting a normal facade to the world. And no bugger ever cared enough to look beneath the surface, even though the signs were there to anyone with the eyes to see.

Anyway - what I'm trying to say is that you deserve to celebrate the amazing, strong, loving woman that you are, and how you've survived their abuse and are still here to tell the tale. Not everyone makes it. I very nearly didn't make it and am only here now because of years of therapy.

But I'm sure the world is a better place for having you in it, and I'd like to think the same of myself. It is those of us who have been through this wretched stuff and work on it and do our best not to pass it on who will hopefully be a part of bringing about a change in attitudes, who will help create a world where children are much, much safer than we were.

That's what I like to think, anyway. But I'm saying that from the perspective of having been through years of working on this, and going from having a life that nobody else much would have wanted, to having a life that's pretty OK really, and totally bloody brilliant in some ways. I appreciate it's not like that for everybody.

It's hurting a lot to read through this thread, ladies please have some I feel so sad for all of you and for myself. So many things I've read so far are really hitting home.

It's hard to accept (believe) I come from an abusive family. My family seems so normal from the outside, so many people have told me how lovely my Mum and Dad are, what good parents, how selfless they are - I could go on but it makes me want to cry knowing this is what people believe and if I stood up and said differently I would become even more an outsider than I already am.

What if I told them about how when I was about 7 years old and wanting my breakfast, I went in to my parents room to see if my mother was awake. She was lying there with her eyes wide open looking at the doorway. She didn't respond when I spoke to her, or when I shook her. Only when I started crying because I thought she was dead did she smile at me and say she was just teasing.

What if I told them about the time when I was 14 and she saw me sitting on the floor looking down at my legs and she told me I might think I had nice legs but she had perfect legs when she was the same age, much shapelier than mine (and my father agreed with her)

What if I told them about how I was told almost daily that I was selfish, unhelpful, awkward, bad tempered. Despite my DH and DC's saying I am none of those things I still see myself that way now.

What if I told them the reason I never wear a hat is because for as far back as I remember my father laughed at me when I wore one.

What if I told them that the first time I went to a doctor on my own I was 13 and I had very sore, itchy genitals and a nasty discharge. I thought I had a venereal disease (I know the current term is an STI but it wasn't then) I had never had sex and I actually had thrush (probably because I hadn't been taught about personal hygiene). The only sex education my mother gave me was to tell me I would bleed every month and if I didn't I wouldnt ever be able to have babies and that babies were made by a husband putting his willie inside his wife and moving it about. (amazingly she has said often that it was very important to her that she was open about sex education as the only thing her mother had told her was to stay away from boys when she started senior school and she wanted better than that for her children!)

What if I told them about how she forced me to have an abortion when I was 15 (my first serious boyfriend and I can see now I was looking for someone to love me and if he wanted to have sex with me he must love me right?). When my sister got pregnant she was allowed to stay at home, was loved and helped. It's really fucked up isn't it that I never thought I could point out the unfairness, the pain of this because I have never felt I was entitled to be treated like others (to clarify, I didn't actually think the words "not entitled" it just seemed normal to me that I couldn't expect the same as anyone else.

Sorry for long post.

just to clarify - I had never had intercourse when I was 13 but had been sexually abused by my grandfather from aged 11 - never told my parents, they wouldn't have believed me.

gbuk you poor thing.

I am not as good as others on the advice side or not so good at putting things into words but I have read all the threads and sympathize with you all

gbuk So sorry about your forced termination.

Your description of your mum looking through you and then saying she was "just teasing" is chillingly similar to my mum's "playing dead" (see previous page).

The whole "pillar of the community" thing is so infuriating if you let it get to you. I did realise a long time ago though that although my dad liked to project that image, most people around him knew full well he was a total arrogant cock and simply tolerated him. I don't think he could ever actually see this, he thought they all worshipped him! It's only looking back on certain comments I overheard as a teenager that I have now realised this. I also came to realise "anyone who couldn't see through him was probably as shallow and self-centered as he was so why would I give a shit what they think?"

Atilla I know!! I can't wait for the reboot! That's why I'm watching all the old episodes

Thank you theymakemefeellikeshit

pocketsaviour it was reading your description of your mum playing dead that reminded me of my mothers "teasing" - horrible isn't it? sorry you had to go through that.

Gbuk I don't know what to say all I can say is sorry you had to put up with that

I have often asked myself why my parents had children but I think if I was to ever ask my 2 brothers ( the golden children ) about our childhood they would have a completly different view of it as they could do no wrong and never got punished or called names or ridiculed, they probably would just mention how much trouble I caused and our younger brother too ( the other scapegoat)
I haven't mentioned my dad much cos it's just so hard to explain we used to have a good enough relationship but there was still times I remember being treated unfairly compared to my 2 brothers, when I was around 17 I snuck out to a party and got caught anyway from that day on he hasn't spoken to me, I'm in my 30s now, and I gave up a long time ago when I used to try at the beginning he used to ask my brothers did they hear a funny noise and they would all have a good laugh!! So I never bothered then,
It's not just me he stopped speaking to my younger brother ( the other scapegoat) too im not sure when or why as I was not living at home at the time. My mother actually encouraged this row with my father i think she enjoys it!! She used to tell me when she was worried he was having affairs!!!
I think this added to my constant seeking of approval from my parents too that maybe one day he would start talking to me again but thankfully I came to my senses and now realise that no father should treat their children the way he has and does, and I m better off without him.