My mother has cut me out of her life - long sorry

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I posted on here a while back asking the question "Would you cut your mother out of your life" because of a really hurtful thing she did to me which she refuses to apologise for. I think my position has always been that it would be the last resort - I think my question should really have read "would you risk your mother cutting you out of HER life?". Well I risked it and she has...

Sorry to go over old ground but she told me over a year ago that my SIL found it hard to be around my son who has special needs. I didn't confront my brother and SIL until recently because they are really unapproachable and part of me felt that I had to just live with it. It came out a few months ago in a bit of heated discussion with my brother about something else. I immediately apologised to my mum for the way I had delivered it to my brother but said I felt it did need to be addressed (I have to protect my son, he will pick up on people's feelings about him). My mum denied having said anything of the sort and she, my SIL and brother all called me a liar (SIL said some really nasty things) and said I had invented the whole conversation, and my mum got the rest of the family to gang up on me.

My mum has said very little to my face but has badmouthed me and manipulated behind the scenes including trying to get the one (older)brother who has stood by me against me against me, accusing me of splitting up the family, etc.

Me and my older brother sent her an email telling her that we don't like the way the family operates, the scapegoating, backstabbing, and manipulating that goes on. We also told her that we wanted her to acknolwedge how bad our childhood was (my stepdad was physically and emotionally abusive to us both for several years, my mum left us home alone when we were really small, etc). We told my mum that this has really affected our lives (Neither me or b have much inner confidence and I still have nightmares about the past. I am having counselling now).

My mum said nothing to me and b but showed my younger brother and sister the letter (even though we asked her not to and to talk to us about it instead)and my sister had a go at me, said my mum was really upset and had told her what had "really happened" and that we had made it all up, it wasn't that bad. I sent an email asking to be treated with more respect or be left alone. I heard nothing from any of them till now.

My mum recently started texting and contacting my older b, we are both certain she was doing her usual "divide and rule" bit, trying to get him on side so I am the one left out. He emailed her back a few days ago and said she must apologise to me for calling me a liar and take on board our concerns if she wants a relationship with either of us. I have to say, I never wanted to issue ultimatums, but could not live with the alternatives which would be to just not be myself or true to myself.

My mum has emailed him back and said it is too late, we have both hurt her to much and it is beyond redemption and that we need to sort our own lives out and leave her to get on with hers. She called me false because I had a close relationship with her and never said anything like this before. I accept that I did used to just say "the past is the past" and because I have always been too petrified of losing her to ever cross her, so have accepted blame, guilt, comments behind my back about me and DH, and have carried on being loving and compliant towards her till now. We did have a "close" relationship but on the basis that I agreed with everything she said.

I feel okay, actually. I suppose I have been slowly accepting this may be the outcome for months. But I can't quite believe that rather than discuss things, debate things, get things out into the open and (what is hardest for her - apologise)so we can move on to a new and better level in our dealings with her she is willing instead to lose two of her children. Just feel sad about that really...

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Hi, Ally90 and Danae. It feels amazing to be talking to real people (albeit via MN) about all this. So far the only people in RL i have talked to are DH (who tries his best poor thing but is a terrible listener and I'm sure has no real idea how i feel as he has an absolutely lovely family and the kind of parents I wish I had); I talk to my counsellor (of course) and one of my very close friends who has a similar family to mine but she is still in a kind of semi denial as she says she has no ill feeling towards her dad who has been an absolute bstar to her.

Danae, I totally know what you mean about still feeling 14, I look around me at women my age and they seem so grown up and I still feel and in some ways act like a child. Although since I have embarked on this journey I think I am starting to feel more and more 'grown up'.

Something somebody said a while back (it was last year, I've got to Dec 06 in my reading of the thread) got me thinking. She mentioned that most of you seemed to have awful mothers whereas in my case it was my dad who was awful. Or so I thought.....that comment got my mind racing again and eventually i had another 'realisation' ie that my mother was equally guilty in her mistreatment of me but it was in a much more subtle way than my dad's obvious physical and verbal abuse. She mistreated me by ignoring me, never talked to me about how i was or spent any time with me. And weird as it may sound, I feel now that she almost created a 'functional' family unit within the larger dysfunctional family. The functional unit consisted of my mum and 2 younger sisters and I think they functioned as a normal family should ie they talked openly, my mum nurtured and loved my 2 sisters and they all have a close bond, although my dad was abusive to all of us.

I however was on the outside and was always excluded from the smaller unit and that is what caused me so much pain and hurt as a child, like i've said already i always felt like an outsider or the odd one out and that's exactly what i was. I never showed it though, i always acted tough and as though nothing could hurt me or get to me but inside i was crying.

I don't know whether my mum excluded me deliberately or unknowingly and i guess I'll never know. I am constantly thinking and trying to remember my youngest years, I suppose trying to work out why my mum didn't like me and why she was always closer to my 2 sisters. It's very painful to think about especially as my sisters see me as the 'bad guy' when I feel I was the worst off out of all 3 of us.

I have been trying to work out exactly how I felt as a child and I've realised that I felt abandoned. I was abandoned but not in the usual sense of being left on the roadside but in the sense that I was not treated as part of the family or the family unit created by my mum and 2 younger sisters, I felt as if no-one cared or was interested in me or anything I did and I was simply 'on my own' and I dealt with all my problems by myself (meaning problems at school/work/friends etc;).

The word describes exactly how i felt and makes me feel so sad.

Hello oneplusone, and thanks for joining us! I could relate to a lot of what you said, but I think your position in the family was more akin to the position of my older brother and I think he would strongly identify with you and your "outsider" position. Although I felt like an outsider at times, ie when perceived as "bad" or "horrid" (little girl with little curl) I was forever trying to be "very very good" and my mother and I were close at these times.

But like you, growing up in a family where what was really going on was never spoken about had its price to pay, whether I was in or out of favour. I strongly relate to the feeling of abandonment and feeling I had no sanctuary, nowhere to turn with my pain (until I discovered sex, drugs and alcohol of course).

Danae, I love the way you talk to your LO, I too am trying not to laugh at DS2, and to take his concerns seriously, even when they are hilarious.

Hi Purpleone - want to tell us more?

Amethyearwax, she seems to have melted right away - have heard nothing for a while now. She's not bothering me anymore.

Love the new thread title!! Let's do it!!

PS Sakura, seriously, do the Japanese not celebrate Christmas? I didn't realise that.

PPS Actually, it's something I can honestly say I never thought about - Christmas in Japan. I guess they wouldn't if not Christians. Feel a bit now. (Oh, the shame, the shame - here it comes again...)

Oh and btw, oneplusone, I found it interesting that your two dc were almost identical ages to my two when this all started with my family. I do think having our own dc seems to have triggered something for many or even most of us.

Hi Pages, so nice to talk to you! Yes, whilst reading through your posts I definately felt like i was the equivalent of your older brother and at least you have each others support. Like you said in one of your posts, when it was your brother on his own he could be called the mad one but now there's two of you it validates both your feelings and experiences and makes it much harder for your mother to deny things.

I do think my dad thinks i'm mad, when we had our final falling out just before i cut off all contact he told me i was mad and that i needed to see a pyshchiatrist! That from a man who is a psyhopath! And of course i am seeing a counsellor but not because i'm mad, far from it, i am far saner than my dad will ever be,

psychiatrist and psychopath

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Danae, as I was reading about the way you were treated as a child, two things came into my mind. Then as I finished reading your post, you mentioned one of them yourself. The first one was that corny thing that absolutely works: hugging the small you. I discovered this by myself long before I heard that it was a common thing in psychotherapy. Around the time of my wedding when the memories of abuse were coming back, I went back in time to the little girl who was crying on the bed and stroked her face and hair and told her it was going to be allright. It really worked for some reason.

The other thing, is that I think we definitely feel a sense of catharsis in the way we treat our own daughters (or sons). So everytime we offer love to them, in a sense we're offering it to ourself IYSWIM. Because we can feel the huge leap between how we were treated and how we should have been.

I am so shocked at some of the things you describe. The tying of your hands in the chair is diabolical. I think thats one of the worst things I've read on here. That poor little girl who used to be you !!
Theres no getting back at your parents either- the only thing we can hope for is a period of relative peace with our own families. This is what I'm aiming for. They'LL NEVER change, and NEVER admit what they did. We will always be exaggerating, or they will keep thinking that their behaviour was appropriate. They're very ill people.

I don't want to retrieve these kinds of memories, but I'm sure I have them too. I'm too ashamed to think about them, because we feel that our parents are part of us, so if they are bad and ill, then maybe I must be too.　Its easier for me to concentrate on the beatings because they were done out of temper but deep inside, I know there was a lot of spiteful stuff full of hatred towards me, similar to your hands tied to your sides.
I know I also had to wait 4 hours between each feed for example. I was born in the 80s so again, I can't blame the era!! ]
The "prop for her glory"struck a chord too. I was forced to play the piano in front of guests etc. I was expected to excel in every subject or hobby, and yet was never ever given the emotional sustenance to do so. I did swimming, ballet, gymnastics, horseriding, harp, violin, piano, latin, ballroom dancing, first aid, life-saving and more. I was always told that she had to work to pay for my hobbies . I just remembered now a phase that I went through when I thought it was "bad" if my weight got heavier than 4 stone. I checked the schales each day and if it was over I'd excercise more. God knows how old I was if I was 4 stone, but thats a kind of anorexia, isn't it.

oneplusone, welcome to the thread. It sounds as though you've worked out a lot about your past. Thisthread is really good for helping us to put all the jigsaw pieces together, I find. I've got to go now, DD is ill today, but I hope it helps you here.

Arrrggh I had forgotten all about the dreaded piano lessons (and being forced to play in front of guests) that me and my sisters were forced to go to every week for over 10 years because my parents thought it was a good thing to be able to "put on your cv".

They chose what hobbies we should have.

I too feel like a child, and seem unable to treat myself to adult female things like a haircut, spa treatment, leg wax or shopping for clothes for me day. I can arrange it for my best friend, but then again I see her as an adult but not myself.

My parents have always said that makeup, shaving your legs/armpits, are a waste of time and money.

Thank you for reminding me to give myself a little (or even a big) hug! I need reminding that I do have a little light to shine in dark places and it's all mine! I had some fantastic therapy till the summer, although sometimes I forget what I learned. Old habits die hard and need killing again!

For me, it is my father who is the violent abusive bully. I can see from a distance that his behaviour was appalling, unloving (although possibly not deliberate) and his children would have stood a better chance if he had left us in the dustbin. Now my brother carries his mantle and is the same, but without a job, and my brother is thick.

god this is setting off some strange stuff for me, reading this thread.

It's like spikes are rising up from my spine.

People are always telling me it is wrong to hold grudges and I am trying to get on with life with my parents who are now being decent grandparents to my sons. But I feel that in order to do that I have to deny a lot of emotional abuse which they of course continue to deny.

It's strange but my sister and I rarely speak although when we do all the stories and memories come out. But I think we avoid eachother now for this reason.

I feel so full of anger sometimes I could destroy myself, frankly, and don't know where it can go- especially now I'm a mother myself. I get frustrated with my eldest son who is very opposite to the way I was. Like many of you on this thread I was a very 'perfect', uncannily detached little girl, probably because there was no other option. I have a son with a massive sense of entitlement and boundless energy & I find him hard to understand.

I realise now that I have been missing a huge piece of my jigsaw and it is only by reading this thread that I was even alerted to the fact.

I totally blamed my miserable, unhappy and painful childhood on my dad who was extremely vicious, bullying, and nasty towards me from the age of around 11. However the strange thing is that before the abuse started I seem to remember feeling quite close to my dad and that he was actually a fairly nice, kind and even loving and caring dad.

With the help of my counsellor I have come to the realisation that probably when I turned 11 he had some sort of mental breakdown in his life, something completely unconnected with me. I think this is what caused his rages; he was always angry and he seemed to change overnight. In fact, until he turned into a psychopath almost overnight, I think I was actually closer to him than to my mum. I remember times such as when I had fallen over and hurt myself I would go to him rather than my mum, or at least he would be the one to comfort me, not my mum. Perhaps I did go to my mum but she rejected me and so I went to my dad or my dad comforted me when he could see my mum rejecting me.

The scary thing is and this is something I have never admitted to anyone ,is that I feel history has repeated itself with me and my daughter. Although I know I love her, I haven?t bonded with her in the same way that I have bonded with my son. With my son I felt an instant love and connection with him the moment he was born. When my daughter was born I just felt numb, I felt absolutely nothing. She is now 4 and I still feel no connection with her, I look at her and know she is completely separate from me, even sometimes as if she is nothing to do with me and I am looking after her for someone else.

The worst thing of all is that when she falls over and hurts herself or is upset for some reason I feel nothing inside, whereas if my son cries for any reason I hurt inside too and I have to go to him and comfort him. With my daughter I could just walk away. I feel absolutely awful for feeling this way but I can?t seem to change it. I try and try to dredge up some sort of feeling for my daughter but I just can?t. I even posted a thread on MN a while ago because I was feeling quite down and upset about my lack of feeling for my daughter which seems particularly apparent when she?s upset and wants me to comfort her. There were a few other MN?s who could relate to how I felt but it was clear most just didn?t understand.

The point of mentioning all of the above is that I think the way I am with my daughter is because of the way my mum was with me in my early childhood. I don?t have any real clear memories of this time, but the few memories I have are of me being distressed, upset, angry and my mum just ignoring me, not being there or just looking at me. I don?t have a single memory of my mum being warm and loving and caring towards me, whether I was upset or not. Perhaps she also didn?t bond with me and therefore had no feeling towards me. And perhaps when she was a child that is how her mother treated her. I know very little about her childhood, I never knew my grandparents on her side (or on my dad?s side) but from what I do know, my mum seemed to talk very affectionately about her dad but has mentioned very little or even nothing about her mum. So this is pure guesswork on my part but I feel I am most probably correct in thinking that she had an uncaring and unloving mum, therefore she was that way towards me and therefore I am that way towards my daughter.

I guess the difference though between me and my mum is that I have knowledge, insight and most importantly awareness. I am conscious of the fact that I have no feelings towards my daughter and of course the last thing in the world I want to do is continue this cycle with her or hurt her in any way. So I pretend. If she is upset, hurt etc I pretend that I care and I do care but it?s on an intellectual level not a feeling level, but I know I don?t feel the same way inside towards my daughter, as when my son cries. But it kills me to know that I am pretending and that I don?t feel anything inside. I hope my daughter is totally unaware, but I worry that, like all children who pick up on vibes etc,, that somehow she knows as I?m sure my acting isn?t good enough to completely fool her and children can?t be fooled in such a way anyway.

Sometimes when she cries I try to comfort her but it?s just so hard when I feel nothing, even just coldness towards her inside and I know I?m not giving her what she needs and so she asks for her daddy. And I feel soooooooo terrible inside but I think I am still needy myself, I still feel like I need my mother, not the one I actually have who is no more than simply my biological mother, but a real proper mother, one who loves me, will look after me, protect me, listen to me, advise, support and guide me. My needs as a child were not met by my mother and so I cannot meet those same needs in my daughter. It?s as simple and as awful as that. I suppose it?s not my fault, but I feel absolutely terrible about it and like a completely awful mother for having no feelings towards my own daughter. But then that is exactly how my mother was towards me and I?m sure her mother towards her. It is scary to think that perhaps if I had not come across this thread I would never have even looked more deeply into my relationship with my mother, other than her ostrich like stance in the face of my dad?s abuse and a huge part of my jigsaw would have been missing without me knowing it.

On a slightly more positive note, I was wondering this morning whether there was an age limit to being adopted?! Do you think there is a lovely mother out there who perhaps doesn?t see her children very often and who maybe doesn?t have any grandchildren who would be willing to adopt me?

Sorry for such a long and rambling post and thank you to anyone who has read this far, I really needed to get my thoughts out of my head.

oneplusone- What a brave post. I too was afraid of repeating cycles with my DD. When she was born I felt numb, faked a lot of emotions in the first few months. In particular there is one photo of me holding DD with a fake smile that I cannot bear to look at because I know I was thinking "Just fake it, even though you feel like dying inside." I suppose that in a lot of ways I was hoping for a son because the emotional baggage would've been less of an issue.

It was through my DH who, bless him, adored DD the moment he caught her that I learned how to love the way a parent should love. MIL is a darling and, whilst certainly not a perfect parent, was able to give DH unconditional love. In turn he instinctively knew how to give it to his child and I learnt from him. These days, I'm very glad I had a daughter first. She has helped me more develop self-awareness and directly address a very toxic relationship, a great gift.

One of the ways I have worked to avoid repeating my parents mistakes is reading lots of parenting manuals and even taking courses. I did a short OU course called "Understanding Children" where I learnt about Alfie Kohn. He wrote a book called "Unconditional Parenting" and I highly recommend it.

I feel sure that by helping yourself deal with your past and your bad relationship with your mum your attitude to your DD will become more empathetic, well done you!

(((HUGS)))

Thank you dizietsma. I only posted what I did because i felt the people on this thread might have at least an inkling of what I was talking about if not a full understanding. I wouldn't have dared posted such a thing on any other thread, I'm sure I would have been savaged as a previous poster has mentioned.

I can relate to what you have said about your DH, my DH too loves and is able to love DD unconditionally as he is truly loved by his parents; it sounds corny but whenever his parents are around I can 'feel' the love they have for both their children, one of whom is my DH.

Thank you for the book recommendation, I will soon be off to amazon to look it up! I too have read loads of books and parenting manuals and they have helped a great deal, but the books that have helped the most are the books addressing abusive childhoods.

And thank you for the hugs, always much appreciated!

Oneplusone, you have really helped me understand why my mother was the way she was towards me. I have often wondered whether my mother's emotional coldness (she didn't even try and act like you) was down to the fact that she was emotionally detached from her own feelings, and getting in touch with and empathising with mine could only happen if she got in touch with her own feelings. I have a strong suspicion that my mother was abused sexually and I wonder if maybe yours was too? These cycles do seem to repeat themselves,. unless - as you now seem to be doing - you allow yourself to remember and go through the painful feelings.

Maybe if you can get the help and support you need to come to terms with your past and feel it all (on an emotinonal level) you will be able to experience your daughter's with her?

As for the "adopting a mother" thing, that is exactly how I was feeling a year ago, I think I said as much in my earlier posts, and my counsellor encouraged me to think about women in my life who were supportive and "motherly" to me and allow myself to be nurtured by them. Sounds funny to say, but the women who run my dc's nursery were (without their knowledge) the most amazing source of comfort to me at that difficult time when I was feeling so lost - one woman in particular will never know how much her bustly bosom and her "hello my darling, are you alright my love?" meant to me one particularly bad morning.

At least you are aware of your feelings - you are at the "midsight" stage and are not blaming your daughter for having wants and needs that you can't meet, like mine did and still is doing. I honestly think you could find the love for your daughter with help. I will also be completely honest and say that I have often wondered if I would have found it as easy if I'd had a daughter, and in many ways I am glad that I didn't so that the cycle is broken . So don't think you are alone in this. I think we could all relate in some way to what you are saying.

Sakura, thanks for validating my feelings again. So often I wonder if my mother was really that bad, she didn't beat me or call me names or do any of the stuff my stepdad did. He was always easy to despise, and I don't have any real feelings about him or towards him because he had no biological or paternal connection with me. But she has always been a mass of contradictions - love one minute, withdrawn the next. It;s a confusing thing to grow up with.

Oh, and hugs too from me oneplusone

Oneplusone, Your post was amazingly honest. That is half the battle in my opinion- just to acknowledge that we are the way we are. I mean look at Pages's mother who took her to stately homes, so the coldness didn't matter. At least your daughter can come to you in 20 years time and say "Mum, you know, I felt that you were cold towards me as a child", and you can acknowledge her pain and say that you love her and say that you had a lot of emotional problems and that was why you weren't available to her. But that you will keep trying your best and hope that she can understand that you care" Because I think its Alice Miller who said that the worst thing a parent can do to a child is to not acknowledge their childhood pain and I think this is true of everyone on this thread. We were bullied and abused as a child, but if they could just admit it, say sorry then we could all move on, but they won't. I have to be aware of this in myself to. I mean I think I'm doing okay by DD, but in 15 years, she might alert me to some aspect of crap parenting that I had no idea about. I have to prepare myself for that and acknowledge her pain and say I'm sorry I couldn't do that particular thing. Not deny it and tell her I took her to stately homes!

I think acting is fine, really I do. Because it shows that you care, that you have an awareness. On another popular thread, I read that many mumsnetters prefer one of their kids over another. THe thing is, you just don't show it, or try your best not to. For example, I never understand why mothers leave a larger part of their inheritance to one child. I know people this has happened to and just thinkg why. They justified it by saying she had the right to do what she wanted with her money. Fine, yes, but surely it would be better to just act. Just be fair and deal it all out equally. Then she would have been remembered for her compassion. So I think the effort you make with your DD really does count. Maybe even more than for someone where the smiles and hugs come naturally because you're doing it because you don't want her to feel the hurt that you felt and that in itself is a compassionate reason.

Pages, yes no Christmas her because they're not Christians. Its more like Valentines day- a day for couples only. Grandparents and extended family aren't involved.

Sorry, their child's chilhood pain

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Oh, I really feel for you. I know how horrifying it is, the thought of your mother coming to your place. I became really irrational, imagining that mine could turn up on my doorstep and I got shakes and shivers and panick attacks, thinking that she would start banging on my door letting all my friendly, middle class neighbours know that I'm a freak from a psycho family. I live in Japan, by the way but I was scared to death of her finding me- she threatened to turn up and I believed her , as though she had magic powers or something. To be fair, she could have got my address from someone, but I couldn't see straight from fear. Eventually after about a month, I got a hold of myself and realised she could only find my appartment with my help, which brings up the second problem- was I brave enough to not help her find me? I realised that not speaking to her or helping her to find me was the height of "disobedience"-after all I'm still a child when it comes to my relationship with her. I felt that by not helping her find me, I would suffer dreadful consequences- horrendous ones (I'd have my child taken off me like she had threatened to take me to court for I'd be thrown in a mental hospital )- none of which have any bearing on reality. The feelings were all just throwback childhood emotions. I had been long ago brainwashed into thinking she was omnipotent and all powerful when it came to my life.

Anyway, lets get some perspective here, I thought to myself in the fourth week of being scared, and so I want to say that to you too. I think you've already made up you mind to be disobedient- you don't want her to come. Thats the hardest part over with. Now its just the logistics you have to deal with:
If she's never been to your place, do you think she can find it?
Do you know what day she's coming? Can you be out that day all day? Or even better, could you go away for a few days with DD to a B&B. It'd take you out of the situation and you wouldn't be scared to death of her turning up, or being there when you got back from somewhere. Your DH sounds lovely, so maybe he'd understand.
I'm sure there will be "consequences" to avoiding her. She might turn all stalkerish and tell you she's coming again in a few weeks time. Okay fine, then you be away again, and again. She will respect your boundaries.

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