Do lots of emotionally abusive parents do this?

[ArabellaBoo]

I am NC with my parents now but I was talking about this with DH yesterday an just wondered if anyone else had the same experience.

My younger sister was/is always the golden child and I wasn't liked at all by my parents.

From an early age they always told me I was naughty, difficult, nasty, evil, hard to get along with, weird. When actually looking back I was nothing of the sort. Even as a small child I would say something totally normal and innocent and would be told 'Oooh you're a nasty piece of work'. They would always refer to what a difficult baby and toddler I was, when it sounds like I was just a normal baby and toddler.

As a teenager, they made out that I was badly behaved, rude, nasty, calculating, etc, when I wasn't a bad teen at all.

I was always told that if anyone was horrible to me I deserved it, even when I was bullied at secondary school.

I grew up thinkng that I must be an awful person as clearly even my own family didn't like me.

They also always painted me as a naughty, nasty child to other family members and to family friends.

Did anyone else have a similar experience?

Sheba and others who were abused by their fathers - didn't your mothers ever consider leaving? :(

So sorry that you've all been through such horrible childhoods.

My mother clearly favoured our brother as being The Boychild, but she was never outright abusive, I don't think. Mind you, I was 13 before I remember her calling me "darling" (I'd hurt myself falling off my bike and came in crying) and in my 20s before I found out she thought I was at all pretty - she certainly affected my self-esteem but then hers was rock-bottom too, and my sister's self-esteem also copped it massively too. I've since had therapy of various types, which has helped hugely - but my sister still struggles. My brother has his own issues, most of which centre around despising the rest of us.

Thumb

My mother was EA. My dad was PA. My dad apologised about 15 years ago. Ultimately, my mother was EA to him to and the frustration/powerlessnes/etc he felt manifested as physical aggression towards me. A real case of the bullied becoming the bully. My mother didn't see it like that. She always saw herself as the victim of everything and everyone.

Anyway, growing up, I only registered my dad because he was the one who physically hurt me.

The last time I spoke to her, I asked her why she'd not cared. She said she had cared and had I not noticed how she always left the room so she didn't have to see it.

The bottom line is that, for her, there was no greater shame than being a single woman as it means you can't get/keep a man. She would have avoided that at all costs.

She kicked him out when he had an affair though. She just didn't care about me.

Ah Folkgirl - that's awful :( - she'd sooner protect her own feelings than her own DD - fucking horrible attitude.

Another one here and I do identify with those feelings of being worthless and unloveable - I felt that for a very long time. There is still some residual low self esteem there for me and identify with the feeling of "I'd rather leave a group if someone doesn't like me".

I think the problem with this kind of abuse is that it is subtle and difficult to quantify so it leaves us unsure of our own perceptions.

What do I want from my mother now? We are in the early stages of NC and I should have done it a long time ago. For a long time all I wanted was her approval and love. But I detached from her emotionally a few years ago and stopped looking for it, accepted that she is going to think and say these awful things about me whatever I do, and that's outside my control. It took me a long time to realise that she is subtly undermining my relationship with my dc and that the contact I was facilitating even though it was damaging to me wasn't in their interests either. She isn't damaging to my children directly but her view of me and the undermining of my parenting, driving a subtle wedge between me and the children, is likely to be very damaging for them long term. What they need is their parents, and a stable family, everyone else is peripheral.

Would I be interested if she apologised? I'd be very sceptical tbh. My mum has a history of being very manipulative, saying what people want to hear and then carrying on as before. There is still a small part of me that would want to work on the relationship if possible but I would suspect that she was playing games with me and just wanted access to my kids. I would be interested if she acknowledged the abuse that took place throughout my childhood - physical, sexual and emotional and was prepared to set everyone straight - the people she has told I am lying about the whole thing. She would have a lot of proving herself to do and we would have to be very low contact for a long time, I think.

I think she is arrogant enough not to take my expressed wish for no contact seriously. But I am serious when I say no contact. Birthday cards etc would be very unwelcome. I don't want to have special occasions blighted by hearing from any member of my family. I don't want the weeks before an "occasion" to be clouded by thinking she might try to contact me.

The truth is that even though I felt very sad when we finally went NC, I also felt a lot of relief and a sense of being liberated, that I could finally live my life without the complications of my family and this force in the background that wants to paint me as the source of all problems in the family. I wonder what will happen now that I'm not there, whether they will be forced to see their dysfunctional relationships but I suspect they will continue to blame me in some way.

Peppa - have you ever read the story of Dave Pelzer? "A child called It" and the sequels? I think you would identify with Dave if you did - he was picked on by his mother and abused by her, emotionally, psychologically, physically - and she encouraged all his siblings to do the same.
They joined in to start with, because if they didn't, or if they stood up for him, then they would have been subjected to the same treatment as he got - and then it became second nature for them to join in. :(

That helps me to decide what to do bunty. My grandchildren's birthdays are coming up and I didn't know what to do as I already have presents.
My daughter is the one I have upset-therefore she is the most important. I am therefore going to leave the birthday gifts unless she actually says I can drop them off.

I am genuinely willing to apologise, listen to her and to try to put things right but I know, like you, she may be sceptical about that. I have been gradually seeing the pattern of what has gone wrong and this thread has made me see it even more.
I think I will write to her just once and hope she doesn't chuck it in the bin unopened or delete it if I decide to e-mail.

I don't want to leave it thinking she may feel that I think she is "evil" or "weird" when I actually think she is funny, kind and clever. I think we have got into a pattern of skewed communication and she would have reason to feel scapegoated. I have blamed her for things at times but that is because I haven't understood where some things were coming from. I knew we had done things wrong as parents but I later felt as if I was trying my best but she was always having a go at me. Its becoming clearer to me why.

I have been quite close to her kids and hope to god she doesn't think I have been attempting to undermine her relationship with them-she is a better parent than me in many ways. I hope to support her-not undermine her.

The thing is red, she may not want your support. She may just want to get on with her life as a separate adult. That's how I feel anyway. I don't hate my mum but I don't feel any attachment to her either. She will never respect me. Our relationship wasn't positive for her either and I expect she was relieved too.

If she was relieved she isn't like me-I'm not relieved at all-she is very important to me.
If she will speak to me at all I may have to hear that she feels the same as you-I'm open to that.
I am really going to stop posting now. This thread is for people who have been emotionally abused-not the fools that did it and I'm beginning to hi-jack it.

No, I don't hate my mother either. I am angry about things she did, I'm saddened by the long term impact it's had on me. I foolishly thought thatby going nc it would make me better, but it just makes me realise that those things are now part of me and not just a circumstantial reaction to her latest behaviour.

But mostly I pity her. She has missed out on so much. But she made her choice. (There's ither stuff that I haven't gone into here, too).

There is a lot more to it with my mother too. I think this is one symptom of relationships that are dysfunctional in all kinds of ways. It probably didn't start with my parents, I imagine it started with theirs and theirs before them - shades of Philip Larkin. The sad thing is that I don't think my mum meant for any of this to happen and I believe she genuinely loved us when we were born. Having said that, I don't think it's possible for us to have a good relationship after all that's happened. As I said, there is no trust on either side. When I went NC, she was telling family friends that at last she had some peace. I know that being cut off from my kids caused her distress but I'm sure she thinks I did that vindictively and will never agree that I had cause to.

I do feel quite strong as a person now and although the legacy of my parents will never completely leave me, I like the person I am and am not ashamed of the past - I can see that I behaved in certain ways in order to survive.

I think I am the scapegoat because I wouldn't, or couldn't shut up and put up. Also because I developed problems that couldn't be ignored. My siblings' could be more easily glossed over and they have colluded with the denial, whereas I haven't.

I can get angry that my parents have spread lies about me yet everyone thinks I am the liar. I can choose not to let that affect my life and maintain my own integrity.

Another one here. My mother was narcissistic and i guess DD was her enabler. When they divorced i was 21 and ended up on a pychiatic ward believing it was all my fault (mum got pregnant with me to trap 12 years younger DD) and that i was nothing, did not deserve any kindness or consideration. I was emotionally blunted from a young age, never showing any emotion, was unable to grieve when my mother died. I do believe i have attachment issues as i had many partners before my DH who was able to see through my tough facade. The thing is that i always blaned ut all on my mother, but since my dad has remarried this newaddition to the family is almost a replica in her blaming, shaming and punative steps she takes against those who have stepped out if line. I gave recently gone nc and today was my 9 year olds birthday. They sent a present abd card saying how much tgey loved and missed her. However later that day she asked me to return the present as she had been discussed by her grandparents with other gradchildren and they had said she had no manners.
For me things have got worse since having my daughter as i cant understand how anyone could do that to a child. By 7 years old they had already scapegoated her.I am so angry with them but the only solution for ne is nc.

Sorry for typo's

Completely identify with all of this! I was painted as a selfish, agressive, stupid ungrateful child by my parents.
As I grew up I tried more and more to be quiet and agreable to try and 'change' from the dispicable person that I believed I was. I remember feeling tense, anxious, depressed and self hatred for the majority of my time living with them. Wanted to end it all on many an occasion .
The thing is, I now believe I am too 'nice' now and often let people walk over me. Trying to get better at that though. Hate confrontation and can't get close to people.
My parents however (particularly my father) still think even now that I am an agressive bully, hysterical and difficult.
Funny that, he is one of the biggest bullies I know. Mother is a narcisist.

The thing that seemed to make it harder though was that this behaviour was often sprinkled with praise, generousity, and way over-the-top declarations of love and adoration. In fact they would say that the reason that they became so passionate in their treatment of me (ie. screaming/shouting/name calling/hair pulling/headworking etc) was because they 'cared so much'.
It then made it harder to blame them because they would pull the 'look what we have done for you' card out of the hat, and label me as ungrateful/making their life hell etc. So much guilt tripping, esp. by my mother.

Wondered if anyone identified with that aspect of it at all?

Yes, I can identify with that a little.

My mother considered herself to be a good mother. This meant that we ate together every night, went on holidays they thought we'd enjoy, paid for me to learn three instruments and all the associated ferrying around. My clothes were always ironed and put away, my bedlinen was changed weekly.

The reason she hated me was because I was difficult, unmanageable, naughty and unloveable, not because she was lacking as a mother. In her eyes at least.

Just to qualify, the last time she told me I was being naughty, I was about 24/25 and shared a different political standpoint.

She even took me breastfeeding negatively. "Are you still doing that? I think you've made your point now, don't you?" I hadn't realised I was making a point!