"But we took you to Stately Homes" - survivors of dysfunctional and toxic families

[pocketsaviour]

It's February 2016, and the Stately Home is still open to visitors.

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
Oct 14 – Dec 14
Dec 14 – March 15
March 2015 - Nov 2015
Nov 2015 - Feb 2016

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.

The title refers to an original poster's family who claimed they could not have been abusive as they had taken her to plenty of Stately Homes during her childhood!

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
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:

Toxic Parents by Susan Forward
Homecoming by John Bradshaw
Will I ever be good enough? by Karyl McBride
If you had controlling parents by Dan Neuharth
When you and your mother can't be friends by Victoria Segunda
Children of the self-absorbed by Nina Brown - check reviews on this, I didn't find it useful myself.
Recovery of your inner child by Lucia Capacchione

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."

its a sad fact that arguments very very rarely change peoples minds

You are right unfortunately. It is hard to accept that every close adult relationship I have had has been dysfunctional and yet I think I am a decent and fair person.

I have been considering moving for some time but one factor that stopped me was the fact that my parents are elderly. I will now remove that from the equation and do what is best for me and DC.

665 - only now with the hindsight that comes with being deep into middle age, can I bring some sort of order to much of the stuff that happened in my child and young adulthood.
I think it is a mix of lots of things. Some more obvious than others, but essentially,in no particular order, I'm the eldest, the most professionally accomplished, I left home to go to uni, I refused to take sides when parents got divorced.
I developed a sense of who I am and what I'm worth through the Women's Movement in the late 70s/early 80s and was/am politically diametrically opposite to my parents/siblings.
I think my mother, although she never expressed this out loud, resented me. She was pregnant with me when they got married.And their marriage was a violent one. As I got older, I think there was an element of jealousy because I got and took opportunities that she felt she should have had. She was unable to give compliments and was a serial man chaser.
My father was an emotionally stunted bully, frightened by the world and anything other than that which existed in his narrow little world. I spoke up for myself and he couldn't handle someone challenging him. He was a serial philanderer.
Neither of them gave much support but were quite happy to bask in any reflected glory that came through my achievements.
I made many mistakes in trying to understand my family. One of which was to try and be reasonable with everyone.
In trying to understand why I was cut out of his will, I asked my uncle (his brother). He recalled a time when I was 18 and had verbally challenged my father and called him out on something. He thinks that my father had stored that away for nearly 40 years, waiting for the right time to 'punish' me. His favourite phrase was 'it'll keep". Uncle thought this was a potential reason, alongside the fact I had been nc with him for several years before his death.
Who knows?
He was a deeply damaged man.
Overall, I think some of their reactions were because I couldn't be totally controlled. Make no mistake, I was controlled by my father until I went nc and by my mother until her death. But not totally.
So maybe simply by being me, I threatened them both, in different ways, on some strange, subconscious level.
I don't know.
What I do know is that it is so liberating to have jettisoned people who have behaved appalling in so many ways, either through their death or by going nc.

Thank- you for sharing that White , it is interesting and useful to have a pattern I recognise written out like that.
Resentment, envy, failure to accept differences / individuation, deeply controlling towards others yet lacking impulse control themselves, and underneath it all - fear.

Can I just vent about something that came to mind as a result of a conversation with a friend? Ta.

When I was 10, I had a serious playground accident at school that left me with a serious cut near my eye, that I fainted afterwards. School Secretary drove me home to find my mum (bet that wouldnt be happening now!)

Secretary explained what had happened, how I'd fainted etc and mum thanks her and shes on her way.

Mum tells me she's had a long day at work and is very tired and do I mind if she takes a nap? She'll only be an hour. Here's a chocolate bar. My brother got home from work and insisted we go to the doctors but I didn't want to because mum would be upset (FFS. Would you be surprised to know I often didn't want mum to be upset?)

Thats shitty, isn't it? I haven't completely lost sight of normality? Even for them days, surely a head wound to a child would be more important than getting a sleep?

With apologies for butting into this thread with an abrupt question:

How does one get to the point where one stops trying to fix it? I feel as if I have been caryrying a lot for decades, and now that I have changed how I relate to my family, it feels as if my family is fracturing. I feel patholegized. I had a lot of mental health problems when I lived with my parents - I literally was the pathology in the family. I recently experienced another episode of related mental illness as an adult and this triggered my reevaluating my family and in particular how my parents and I relate to each other. My new way of relating to my parents is being confounded with my most recent quote-unquote episode, as if I will go back to being quite-unquote well again and the family will stop fracturing.

I still, despite it all, keep trying to fix it. How do I stop? For example, I feel as if I do not want my future DC to grow up without my side of the family, but at the moment it looks as if that will be what happens. I do not have DC at the moment and things with my DH are fragile, but I continue to have designs on having DC in the future - not right now though - I do not feel stable in myself and my DH is not sure how much more he can take.

I do have MH support, and I am safe. I feel overwhelmingly sad and angry.

I keep drifting back into this thread because time and again my family let me down. I think it's going to be ok and then BANG they do it again. It happens every Christmas and birthday. I'm supposed to be visiting next week with my 5yr old DD I had planned to stay at my sisters and then a day trip to parents after 2 days. This was arranged a month ago. Now they're changing plans, my sister who I can usually rely on has asked me to stay out of the house for a day as she has arranged for an estate agent to take pics and she wants the house to be tidy. My other sister was going to spend a day with us, but has now changed her mind because her 15 yr old daughter isn't interested. It's a 5 hour drive for me my DD was really excited, but it's just going to end in disaster again. How do you tell them that enough is enough and that I'm cancelling my trip as clearly they can't be bothered?

longdays that's awful for you and your daughter, especially as you said you can usually rely on your sister :(
Sooner or later you may need to go LC or NC, but if you can't face the backlash for now, for this specific situation you could say "it's such a long way to come that we want to be able to see all of you, so as you're busy we'll give it a miss this time and try to rearrange in future"
If it was only ever a daytrip to your parents, they can't expect you to travel 5 hrs for that (and if they kick off, hopefully the sisters will be sympathetic to you- not the be all and end all obviously, but always less lonely to have people on side!)

Thank you for replying thatsnot it means a lot. I'm so stressed out about it and it happens every single time we are supposed to meet up. I just don't want to upset my DD.

Hi all. Can I ask a question on here? It is actually for my db as he has become a father today (and I an auntie for the first time). His ds was born in another country with more 'southern' cultural norms.

I am worried however that his MIL is emotionally abusive towards his DW. She insisted on being at the hospital for the birth and got into a fight with my db over it. He says that his DW gets even more stressed because of the fighting so she tends to give in to avoid the agro. So she was at the hospital and he has hardly seen his newborn ds. She has got all the doctors talking to her instead of to my db and his dw. She has even signed papers on his behalf. She just posted on facebook before they have had a chance too and she is trying to convince her dd not to breastfeed.

So my question is: could she be toxic?

I am at a loss as to how I can support them. What can you recommend? Can my DB protect her if she keeps caving in? Can I send her to this thread? I am not sure she sees her mother as abusive...

I am v lc with my F who I suspect has npd. This is a situation that's been going on LT - almost 5 years. But he's visiting us at end of the month. Staying a week. I'm dreading it and starting to shut down. Previous visit we lived in flat and I farmed him out into a b and b for several nights. Now we live in a house there is space for him to stay out of the way and a 2nd TV which will help. I just need to write somewhere that him coming makes me horribly agitated.

lasttimeround

I would cancel his visit citing illness; you're not going to get anything good out of it and if he is narcissistic it is not possible to have a relationship with such a person.

Did he invite himself btw?.

Of course he invited himself. I would never invite him.

He's doing his biannual European tour - seeing friends across various countries - He lives elsewhere. I refused to travel to his 80th earlier this year. If I cancel him he will actively spread poison everywhere including with my in laws which I'm trying to avoid. I dont talk about him to anyone apart from my own friends and dont want to get drawn into migitating his poison with in laws or others basically because I spend as little time as I can thinking about him. I do want to avoid an anti-lasttimeround campaign tho. After these a lot of people think im unbalanced at best if not totally nuts. Hes clever so they are subtle and lasting as they will contain grains of truth. I am a bit different but that's what you get from a childhood of ea. I don't think anyone escapes that without lingering crapola.

I have no expectations of him or of an improved relationship. On his end i think he wants to have seen me so he can tell others he did. I don't care that he's that calculated about me, it's just how he is. But if i block the visit he will make trouble so it cant reflect badly on him. After dodging his party I think dodging this will unleash the beast. I'm hoping to get through it by not being available much and then I have at least 2 years free of him again. I just want to survive it all with minimum damage.

But you are right attila. If I saw my own posts I would say cancel. Bah

My 'D'M's new partner verbally abused me, calling me an 'evil bitch' whilst we all gathered to scattered my grandparents ashes. Completely unprovoked attack, told me how awfully I'd treated my dear (narc) mum. My DM and db just stood there. I was more upset and hurt at my brothers lack of intervention as wouldn't expect any less from my mothers who's probably given him many stories about me to again make herself the poor innocent victim and me the evil bitch. Who would stand there and allow their sister to be verbally abused and not stand up for them?

kind of late to the party here......following on from a thread where a mum was concerned about dad barging into to daughters thread.
When i was growing up i had no safe place and it occured to me this morning we didn't have locks on the any doors ie the toilet or the bathroom. unbelievable really.

Hi

I've posted here before but am coming back after reading the same thread as Randomer about the dad barging into daughter's room without knocking. I was never allowed privacy when growing up. Am only just starting to process things about my upbringing (as the reason I have ended up in abusive relationships, have low boundaries, difficulty expressing my own needs etc). It's really really difficult and upsetting but am hoping to have some therapy soon to talk about it and this thread is really helpful.

This privacy thing is one of the elements that really stood out for me and struck a nerve today. It's obviously not the only thing but sort of crystallises my Dad's attitude and how he would trample my feelings and boundaries. He used to barge into my room saying things like 'I've seen it all before', completely ignoring my upset. It was a control thing. This and so many other things means that I can't have a relationship with him now.

A previous poster said about the girl in the other thread: He is teaching her, as others have said, that her consent isn't important. He doesn't give a shit that he is teaching her that a determined, bullying man gets to tell her what her boundaries should be. That is extremely dangerous and if he doesn't understand that, he's a dreadful person and a worse father. Which sums it up perfectly I think and explained the example my Dad set me, how failed I feel.

This is what my Dad did with all the rest of my emotions and feelings too, making me feel when I was a teenager that I was 'crazy', etc, all through his gaslighting and emotional abuse.

Anyway Randomer sounds like it struck a chord for you too, I'll be checking in to this thread over the next few days.

sort of good to know I'm not alone

I posted a thread before about my parents hating my OH because he couldn't drive and they thought he is ugly and looks old, he is 34. I'm 27 and due to various issues live with my parents. We are the most mismatched couple they have ever seen. I'm desperate to be with him because he owns his own house. I have no self respect etc etc.
Back in June OH asked me to live with him. We had a crazy busy June and early July so there wasn't any time. Then it all calmed down but I still couldn't tell my parents he had asked me to live with him. I was so scared. I moved out with an ex 4 years and they called the police to stop him coming on our drive, he had to park the van in the road on bend.
My D flipped out over something fairly trivial on Friday night and it culminated with him calling me an evil cow and he's washed his hands of me and to go and live with my ugly not good enough OH.
Just to add OH passed his driving test end of July so they can't use that as ammunition anymore.
I just replied ok then. I'll go this weekend. I was then talked at for nearly an hour, was not allowed to leave the lounge until they had said what they wanted to say which is just repeating the same bullshit I've heard before.
I managed to leave as I said OH was cooking my dinner. I went round his and broke down. Told him what's going on, left out some details he doesn't need to be told they think we look like beauty and the beast etc. He said he already had an inkling as he wasn't invited to my birthday meal.
They have gone away for the weekend. So we started emptying my room. I've got to remove everything and then clean it.
I kept saying to my dad if you've washed your hands of me then why do you care what I do. You can't have it both ways. I've done some reading on here and I know I'm not responsible for their emotions.
His arguments don't even make sense. There's no logic to argue against!
My sister came over yesterday, she moved out last year. They phoned her on Friday after I went to OHs, she was out on a date and they offloaded to her getting upset down the phone, I think that's totally unfair and emotionally controlling of them. She was out!
Yesterday she said we just have to accept dad for the way he is, and the way he talks to us because that's just his way. Fuck off! His way is not right or normal!
I don't know why I'm posting this.
I love my OH we are happy. Why can't they accept that I'm happy. He is kind, caring, considerate, excellent job, ambitious. Not a nasty bone in his body.
No one will ever be good enough.
I love my parents but I can't keep putting up with this ask breaking off relationships because they don't approve.
He can't say he's washed his hands of me but then still want to control me.
I should be happy about moving in with OH but it's been tainted

Sorry that's really long and disjointed

So you fell for Shrek not Prince Charming - good for you!
Good for you too not be so shallow as to crave the superficial, or to take the advice, (or actually be brow-beaten) by those who are always so certain they know what's best for you..its such a shame they never actually care enough check who the real you is.
They have an ideal daughter..in their minds eye - which you will never live up to..and she marries an ideal son in law - which no man will ever be..
and ...you make them soooo happy - which is beyond the scope of anyone except themselves.
They should be happy that you have found happiness, but they are not. They would rather you gave that up and did something else, something that would involve you not actually being you. .
Don't let moving on be tainted - celebrate it as the day you moved out of the shadow of their fantasy and into your real life.

I got a new car yesterday, it's all go here! So I sent my mum a simple message saying, I like my car I'm pleased with it. Didn't get a reply. I had to text her again this morning and asked why she didn't acknowledge my car text. She replied "I'm not exactly over the moon or in a celebratory frame of mind at the moment" oh do fuck off and stop wallowing! Acting like someone has died!

ojalele those behaviours sound pretty toxic to me. The links at the top of the thread might help, particularly the book "Toxic Parents".
It's hard as the spouse, as you really need your partner to realise the behaviour is toxic and be willing to say no to their parent. But reading around the subject and maybe recognising his MiL in the things others say about their dysfunctional parents - it might help your SIL see what is going on and resist too.

I was a bed wetter until the age of 10. My mother would verbally humiliate me and would tell my father to come and get ‘his child’. She was so disgusted with my bed wetting that she took a large pot and filled it with hot coal and told me to pee over it. This was meant to burn my urethra so whenever I peed it would hurt.

My parents had physical fights and my younger sister would call the police. They finally separated when I was 10 but my mother did her best to make our lives hell. When I was 13, my sister 11 and my brother five. Once she had my dad come and pick us up and told us that when we returned she wasn’t going to open the door. The whole day with my dad I could barely speak when he dropped us off she wouldn’t open the door; she threw a suitcase outside and told him that we were his problem now. I am the eldest sibling and I just cried, I felt so ashamed for crying. We spent a week sleeping on a mattress on the floor of someone’s house; he didn’t take us to his house as he didn’t want my mother finding out where he lived. My mother had hidden our passports in the suitcase and after a week the police arrived. She had called them and told them that he had kidnapped us and was going to take us to Africa. We spent an evening being interview by police officers. When we were returned to her exhausted and emotionally spent she looked so smug.

Academically I am now the most capable child, (it was supposed to be my brother) and this was all my parents cared about. They never supervised homework, fed us or took care of us but we had to go to good universities. I did that, none of my other siblings did. Now it doesn’t matter to my mother, she’s moved the goalposts. She doesn’t care. On Saturday she talked about how she was leaving her house to my brother. This was completely unprompted; I think we had been watching Escape to the Country.

DH and I are struggling to conceive. There is no sympathy. She talks about the children my brother will have. She is a pastor and prays for infertile couples but won’t pray for me. When we bought our house that I hated but it was all we could afford she suddenly said that it was a shame that we had bought a house as she was going to give us one of her homes. This was the second house we had tried to buy so she knew for over a year that we were looking to buy.
Both my parents are very wealthy and own around 30 homes between them, all in London. But there was never food in the house and they would argue in front of me and my siblings about who should pay for their children. I wore shoes with holes in them for years.
I was sent to a child psychologist at seven but during the sessions my mother would just chat to her. For years this went on. I developed insomnia at 10/11, started hearing voices at 14 and have a retrospective diagnosis of Body Dysmorphic Disorder.

In the family I’m used for all the proofreading for essays and job applications. There will be no calls or texts for weeks and then someone will start a new course and everything is sent to me. My mother started a postgraduate course and called up to say that she was sending me her essay and it needed to be cut down by 2000 words. She then wanted DH to read it, I said he was away for work for the weekend and I was alone and she got angry that he dared to have a job when she had an essay to finish. I'm never asked, I'll just get an email with an essay. Two weeks ago DH and I went out for lunch and my sister called four times for me to do her job application. She asked why we were going out for lunch when we could make it at home.

Before my wedding (DH is white) she called me up and told me that I would always be a black girl and there was nothing I could do to change that. My in-laws don’t like me and refused to meet my parents before the wedding. I told her this but she was convinced I was lying and keeping them from her. The venom in her voice was shocking, she’s always made jokes about my ‘whiteness’. At the wedding she kept a few thousand in gift money.

I struggle because it wasn’t non-stop physical abuse and on paper my life looks OK. I did well in school, got married and bought a house. But I am so miserable. I can’t stop crying, I am angry all the time, my husband thinks I’m crazy; I wear earplugs all day when at home because I can’t take any kind of noise. I am very negative, jealous and bitter. I’m 24 but I feel so heavy all the time. My siblings don’t seem to be affected and sometimes join in with the jokes but I think they think it’s harmless teasing, my ability to cry at everything is the running joke in the family. I feel like a child, like I’m stuck at 14, I don’t feel in control of my life. There is nothing I can do to make it better or happier. I just want a family, I want a mum who helps me. Apologies for the rambling.

Oh Lucia I'm so sorry how awful it has been for you. Get away from these people who hurt you and get a good therapist. You cannot get these things that you need and that you should have had from your family that's very painful and will have done a lot of damage to you. Once you stop trying to get it from them you will be able to rebuild your self. There are also some very good books I found v helpful - have a look at the links at the start of the thread. You arent alone - many of us have had awful damaging upbringings. The way you feel heavy is part of the mental emotional damage you are carrying. There are ways you can put some of that aside snd into your past

My f is here as I vented about last week. I'm doing OK. I finally figured out the parable of the frog and the scorpion which I haven't understood all my life - im 41! I never got it, why was it saying people can't change? Then today it just went ting in my head my f is a scorpion. He will sting me even if it's against his own interests. Even if I explain that stinging me will make both of us drown. That ting has me pleased enough to get through a few days of his nonsense. I have my children of narcissists book by my bed and read through emergency coping strategies again this morning