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."

staffiegirl I don't really have good or close relationships with any of my siblings. I left home when I was 16 years and 1 month (I married the father of the baby I was forced to terminate - which led to a whole lot more misery in several ways) so I don't feel I really grew up with my siblings who are all younger than me. They were all treated differently in lots of ways. When I was first married and feeling "grown up" I did try and raise a few things about this with my mother - they got the chance to go on school trips abroad, always had the right equipment for school (crayons, felt tips, etc) that type of thing. My mother's answer was a question to me;- "surely gbuk you don't begrudge them the chance to do things just because there wasn't enough money for you to do them?" I must point out here that my parents had the same jobs then as when I was at school and we were only talking of a time lapse of a couple of years so I couldn't see then and I can't see now how the financial aspect was the decider.

One of my siblings in particular (not the one who was encouraged to keep her baby) is pure poison and when I feel a bit more in control I'll likely be offloading about her on here.

TalkingintheDark Thank you so much for your reply. I identified with so much of what you said: hoping at the back of your mind that they would see sense, the initial need to be free giving way to deeper loss.

It stops them actively hurting you any more, and I would never minimise how important that is, but it doesn't stop the hurt of not being cared about, not being loved by your own parents - in some ways that's all the more vivid and obvious when it's not hidden behind a smokescreen of a fake, barely functional relationship.

Yes, exactly - thank you for putting this into words for me. I wasn't quite managing to get a handle on it and you've voiced what I am feeling. It's harder now I've stopped kidding myself, even though I also have more peace.

I like your idea of a separate thread, very much. Kind of like a stately homes garden annexe...

Not replying individually in case I miss anyone but I've read everyones posts and am sending to you all.

I want to get to the point where I'm glad I exist but am nowhere near yet.

Just popping in to say hello. Feeling really sad about NC at the moment. Possibly a bit premenstrual but also it's DM's birthday next week. I can't wish her happy birthday because it doesn't work us being in contact and she won't bend at all, just blame blame blame, lie, lie, lie in any communications she makes to me - just obviously doesn't won't get it. But it's making me feel sad. Have to keep reminding myself it's not my fault, that I've done my best. Even my therapist agreed that it was better to be NC, at least while she refuses to acknowledge any of it.
Quite tempted to pay for another session just to talk it through with him, but it's a lot of money and I know I'll be OK really.
Hello and love to all. xx

for you good.

My mum's bday is in August and I am fully expecting a wave of guilt to come rushing at me then, similar to how I felt on mother's day (but worse I expect.)

When did you have your last therapy session? Might be worth investing in a "top up" from time to time I'd have thought, as he seemed very switched on?

Thanks pocket. Mother's Day didn't really bother me as she wasn't fussed either way and once I came to live aborad it was a different day here to the UK and I never got it in my head what date it was so just let it drop.
The birthday bothers me I suppose because in my co-dependent role as a DONM I used to run around trying to make her bday perfect, so it feels weird to just do nothing. A relief but weird. Also I suppose it's a big reminder of what's happened. Mine is after hers, would have liked it to be the other way around so then I could feel less guilty if she had ignored mine first iyswim? But then again, if mine were first and she'd sent a card then I'd feel guilty not sending her one, so there's no point thinking about that. I just have to remember that NC is better for my mental health (and it is, I feel so much better in general now we don't have contact) and that's how it will stay, at least until she makes some conciliatory moves, of which so far there have been precisely NONE.

And yes, I could have a session as he said to keep in touch and come back whenever I needed it. it's just at €85 a pop it's quite a bit of money if I can just keep calm and ride the wave myself iyswim. Once her bday and DD's bday (2 days after Dm's) have passed things will settle for a bit anyway I think. Maybe see how things go and have a session or two in the summer in the run-up to the year anniversary of NC.

goodto it might be worth going for taht session. You will be alright even if you don't but very good support like his is really, really worth while. Think of it as a topup.

thinking of you, these anniversaries are hard ...

I've opened, and closed this thread so many times, and I'm now just making myself write something.

Firstly, we never went to stately homes, and I'm fully aware my family were/are not normal

I grew up in poverty, and violence. My father passed on what he knew so he was violent, controlling, spent all his wages on himself. There are also vague memories of possible sexual abuse but the violence damaged my memory so I can never be sure.

Mum was ill, and died when I was 17. My younger sister, and I had been doing all the shopping, cleaning etc for years. Mum had been denied the opportunity to go to university because she was female (her parents could only afford to send one child so sent her brother). So she constantly drip fed us with the need to get to university, and along with all the housework I just did school work because I was determined to get there.

A few months after mum died dad moved his girlfriend in, and she hated us. Eventually I snapped and I left when I had just turned 19 along with my younger sister, and we never went back. I put myself through university (fortunately before loans), and then a PhD, now I'm senior in a university.

I've been nc with him for 26 years now, and think that was absolutely the right decision. I could see that he'd been damaged by his childhood and I thought it was like a poison dripping down through the generations, cutting him out was the only solution. It 'helped' that mum was gone because I felt no obligation to pretend he was normal and going nc was ok. I still hid it from other people though as I didn't want to talk about it.

I thought when I didn't see him anymore I'd be fine, but I wasn't. I had abusive relationships, an abusive first marriage. I didn't think I deserved any better. I look back now and I was so broken it's like I'm looking at a film of someonelse's life.

Now, I'm happily married to DH who thinks I'm brilliant. I've had little bits of counselling on and off when I could afford it. DH and I are pretty comfortable so I've been having counselling for a couple of months.

The counsellors tell me I'm great, I've achieved loads, DH tells me I'm amazing - and none of it matters because I don't believe it.

I worry I'll damage the DCs because I just feel I never belong. Everyone else has parents, and a family home, normal things which I don't have.

My counsellor thinks academic achievement was so important because it was the thing that gave me a new life and now I'm desperate for the DCs to shine at school so I feel I belong. I have to work every day on not making them feel pressure from me.

I think I'm rambling now, I'll stop.

Chrys you aren't rambling whatsoever. I'm so sorry to hear about how shit things have been. When I read your post, it reminded me of how shit I feel when people go on about what I've achieved and how far I've come. Because that's all great and everything, but you need to honour the pain that you are in, and the times when things were bad for you, and the pain that you are carrying as a result.

Having a good job and a good husband doesn't make the past not have happened. And while it's seemingly good to hear that you're doing well, it can also be terribly isolating because it leaves you alone with the feelings of not being good enough. They're not true, but you do have them and they can't just be reasoned away.

Personally I get sick of hearing how well I've turned out. Because it means the part of me that is afraid I'm not good enough, that believes I'm not good enough, stays in there, silenced but unchallenged.

However. One thing I hope you will find as your counselling continues is that change in counselling/therapy occurs on a deeper level than thought and reasoning. The experiences you have there should help you start to feel differently about yourself - it takes time but it can happen.

I asked my counsellor to stop focusing on positives and encouragement. I said look, I don't want you to fix my car or tell me how fast it can go. I want you to sit in it with me and understand how hard it has been to drive it.

Sometimes counsellors can focus on the positive because they have to be careful not to ignore or undervalue how you have coped until now - to not make you feel like you are hopeless. But that can be unhelpful if it means the way you really feel is unsaid.

It sounds like you need to acknowledge how fucking awful you feel and have felt - what you are feeling about yourself isn't the truth, but it is a truth that you bring with you.

I hope your counsellor can help you start to experience a different truth. You truly deserve to feel better.

Peppermint - thank you so much, I'm in tears reading your post. It makes so much sense. People tell me I'm good, but I don't feel it - and I feel bad because I can't make myself feel it.

On a basic level I want the counsellor to say do this and it will be sorted. I don't want to be facing a long road because I want to be "fixed" now for my DCs. But I think you're right and it needs to be a deeper process.

Thank you for articulating how I feel

I'm really glad if what I said helped. It is possible to feel differently, but you don't feel differently yet.

I'm so sorry you feel bad about feeling bad. It sounds like your grief is being turned inwards, which happens to me too - so you feel robbed and that turns into feeling bad about yourself as you don't have anywhere else to put it yet. When you live with a parent who treats you badly, the feelings can end up going inwards because where else can they go? So feeling bad for yourself (which you are allowed to do!!) becomes feeling bad about yourself, because it has nowhere else to go.

The fact you don't have parents and a family doesn't mean you are not acceptable as a person, it doesn't mean you can never feel better. But it is a real loss. I'm so sorry. I don't know about you but sometimes I just feel so alone and adrift in the world, even though my DH is lovely.

There's a grieving process involved. For yourself, for the parts of yourself that you lost. But it can get better, and I say that because I could have written most of your post not so long ago.

Chrysanthemum5

I am sorry you had to go through it all

It is good to focus on your positives and achievements but not just those. The counsellor should be focussing on the rest just as much if not more.

MsMacadamia

Its not an unknown tactic in the narcissist's arsenal to go to court for contact of their grandchild. In the UK grandparents have no automatic rights of access to their grandchildren so I would not worry unduly about this course of action. She is unlikely to be successful in terms of obtaining a contact order and this is just another way of her trying to control you.

Have you already sought legal advice of your own?.

I would certainly seek your own legal advice here and as soon as possible.

His mother cannot make an actual application for a contact order.

Whilst grandparents rights are limited they can, however, apply for permission (leave) to apply for a Contact Order and the courts will consider the following:

• The applicant’s connection with the child.
• The nature of the application for contact.
• Whether the application might be potentially harmful to the child’s well-being in any way

I think she will have to persuade the court that she has a meaningful and ongoing relationship with the child that benefits his/her life.

Presumably your soon to be ex H does not want his mother to see his child either. He can certainly use the written correspondence she has sent saying that she wanted no contact with her own son.

Have been wanting to reply to recent posts but haven't had the chance yet and am just shattered now, but just to say thinking of you all, lovely Stately Homers hopefully I'll get a minute over the weekend!

MsMacadamia can't advise except seek legal advice.

But I do hope it goes your way though

msMacadamia no advice but wishing you luck.

This is my first post in this thread.

I have just had a visit from my mum and I feel exhausted, completely drained. We live a plane journey apart, and we spent less than 24 hours together, but it's left me feeling awful today.

She's not bullying or critical. She is completely self obsessed and a martyr. I spent yesterday listening to about 3 hours of very intimate gossip about her friends which I found so distasteful and tedious, then spent 2 hours having to go through her outfits and which shoes should go back to the shop, which top went with which trousers, how she felt like she had finally found her style (she's 60). Then she told me how fat and unattractive she is and spent the next hour talking at me about that, in front of my kids. I actually had to talk over her to try and organise the boys. It didn't matter what I was doing, it was just an interuption in her diatribe.
It reminded me of being about 8 or 9 and spending the day shopping with her. This happened maybe once or twice a year when we went to a big city. Basically she would go to about a dozen shops, try on dozens of outfits and ask my opinion. I spent entire days outside dressing rooms waiting for her fashion show, then her getting upset because nothing looked good, then her being fat, then her going back to the first shop and buying the first outfit she tried on. I was never bought anything. She had an enourmous wardrobe full of clothes, we all had about 3 outfits each.

I remember being about 4 or 5 and sitting telling her everything was going to be ok while she sat and sobbed and told me she wanted to die and wished she hadn't woken up. This went on for years.

Every time I'm ill, she'll ask the symptoms, then say "it's funny you should say that because I've had the same but..." then add a list of symptoms to trump mine.

When my big brothers got girlfriends in their teens, the girlfriends were put on pedestals, more perfect, clever, beautiful that me. They also became my mums new confidants and counselling subjects. No girlfriend was safe.

She has consistantly spoken to me about her relationship with my step father. She has been with him for over 30 years. In her eyes, he is entirely responsible for her unhapiness, despite the fact that he has put up with her shit for over 30 years and took us on as his kids, no questions asked. I finally got through to her about a year ago that I wouldn't listen to her bad mouthing him any more. I had been saying this to her for a few years, but she carried on regardless, only really stopping because I didn't agree with all the terrible faults she said he had.

I was thinking about my Dad too, and the time he got really drunk then got us all in the car and drove at 70 on a single track winding road and laughed and told us all to shut up as we screamed in the back of the car. When he stopped and we were all hysterical, he told us all we were being really daft. I was 7. Or the time he met us on Christmas eve to give us our christmas presents. He was pissed and crying and told us that he had gambled the money to try and get us better presents and had lost. We knew he had spent the money on booze, but we just hugged him while he cried and told him it was all ok and we didn't mind. He went back to the pub. We waited until he was out of sight then my brother and I walked down a lane, burst into tears and held each other, we cried until we got to the bottom of that lane, then composed ourselves as we joined the main street so no one would know we were upset. We were 8 and 10.

Recently, all of these memories have come bubbling to the surface, i know I have to do something about it, but I'm not sure what. I've done counselling, but I'm so put off because my Mother is a therapist and has never been able to stop being a counsellor around me. Every aspect of my lives and my childrens is analysed to the nth degree.

I feel so sad today. I don't want to stop contact with my mum, I do love her very much, and in some ways shes a great mum, but I can't deal with her self obsession any more.

Can anybody tell me it's all going to be ok?

I'm sorry this is so long, and it may sound really petty, but it's really got me down today. I feel so tired.

Sounds very familiar cleanmyhouse
I can't tell you it will all be okay I'm afraid but you're in the right place on this thread and hopefully someone will be able to give you some advice, unfortunately I'm stuck in the middle of it too so can only offer support and tell you I know how draining it is. it's not petty at all, it's very difficult.