This is really chilling, I think

[404NotFound]

Namechanged for this, as potentially too identifiable to FOO stalkers.

I am NC with FOO, for a variety of reasons, none of which I particularly want to rehash here. Occasionally I lurk on a FB forum for parents of estranged adult children, because I find it morbidly fascinating and actually quite validating to observe just HOW bonkers the mindset is.

Today I found this post on there, which sent shivers down my back because it is SO similar to the kind of thing my NMother has sent to me:

The last time I wrote my daughter...a few years ago, I stated the following: "When a person is charged with a crime, the accused is presented with a list of grievances. As your mother, I feel I am entitled to no less a list of grievances in support of your claims of hatred towards me." I've never received a reply, because she has none. We as parents shouldn't accept responsibility for our adult children's short-sightedness and bad behavior.

As ever, it's much easier to see the crazy when it's not your own personal situation being hashed out, but OMG at the demand that the adult child justifies her emotions with a bullet-pointed list of grievances before there can be any question of her being permitted to feel her own feelings. And these people wonder why they are estranged. You'd think round about the time you wrote about your entitlement to a list of grievances to support your child's claims of hatred towards you, you might get a glimmer of realisation about why your adult dc didn't want to be around you. But apparently not.

Just read first post and feel quite reasonable to want reason why a child has cut you out surely 🤔

Sorry you don't have time to RTFT Steve. Not sure why that means we have to summarise for you though?

Any attempt to not meet her total control or to draw any boundaries or point out unacceptable behaviour, is met with the victim complex and I am apparently a bully. She never, ever has any role or responsibility in anything.

^^ with bells on.

steverules you need to read the thread really.

Reading all the threads has just made me more determined to continue Nc. If those who have been cut off put as much effort into actually listening instead of fighting, things may have turned out differently.

I have a different situation, which has involved nc, for about 5 years now. However painful it has been, it is the best thing I have done for my own self in my entire life. It has taken me years and years to unravel all the threads, and to finally understand that I am not a bad person.
Thanks to everyone who has posted, your words are immeasurably helpful. Thank you.

MyPockets interestingly, my df was also a sg and broke away from the pattern (what does that say about me? As well as dp I have had a lot of friends who have broken away dysfunctional/difficult childhoods). Looking back I can see that my dgm very much repeated the cycle. My cousin was gc's son and was very favoured, I was the only girl, so was very favoured, my db pretty much ignored... my parents did protect us from it at the time, we really weren't aware.

I am acutely aware of the damage favouritism does to families and Dp's family have it in spades. "But xxx is upset..." it doesn't matter that we are upset etc. They really don't know how to 1) apologise 2) take responsibility for any bad behaviour. Down the female side there is generations of repeated damage and they all blame their emotionally absent mothers, but ignore the fact it made them an emotionally absent mother in turn...

KissAssAngel mil is emotionally 3, it does make it easier to understand and deal with her. Bad behaviour results in withdrawal by us, which is a bit like the naughty step . There are 2 family members whose behaviour was so beyond the pale that we are nc with them, there was just nowhere to go. I'm sure there was a pretty nasty smear campaign by them too, however, the best revenge is to get on with our happy lives and leave them to their obviously messed up ones.

Is there such a thing as Supernanny for grannies?

You know, there is consistent ageist, vitriolic bile being posted about mumsnetters by certain GN'ers which would never be accepted the other way around.

Also for a bunch of abuse victims we're not being very sympathetic to them are we now? We're cruel and dangerous.

And GOD FUCKING WELL FORBID that we swear. If you're reading this, fucking enjoy

I almost want to post every rude word I've ever known - because isn't it amazing that some think that's the offensive thing here, not abuse?

Merd, I totally agree. Fuck Fuck fuckity Fuck. Piss. Bums. Willies.

And poor notanan is doing a sterling job but these people are not used to reasonable discussion. They are used to being always obeyed so they don't know how to form a constructive response.

I presume notanan is one of the posters here, so I feel OK about paap.

They've made a stunning summary of the GN zeitgeist, or perhaps Weltanschauung.

In summary, the argument runs that the estranged parents claim to have never been told why they were cut off by their adult children, but simultaneously claim to have been lied about, berated and assassinated. As notanan points out, that's the estranged parents being told. They may not like it, or agree with it, or believe it, but you don't get to decide other people's realities. Those lies, those occasions you felt you were being berated, those comments you felt were assassinations? Those are the reasons, the list of issues, you asked for. You can't simultaneously claim to have been given no reason, and that you're being lied about.

And that's the most stunning insight into their distorted reality. They don't want explanations; they want explanations they agree with. And as they don't believe they've done anything wrong, that moment will never come.

That's it Ricardian!

some absolutely brilliant twisting/inverting going on over there! it's actually priceless

Their post is the one with identifiable details, but we're the irresposible ones because OUR CHILDREN COULD READ THIS WHEN THEY'RE EIGHT !

Its such a beautiful demonstration of why some people can't be commuicated with and why they'll think any reasons given are just "attacks" and lies LOL

NotaNan is doing an amazing job there.

It's interesting how it's falling on deaf ears and they are invalidating her abuse and invalidating her NC decision.

Gaslighting by proxy from total strangers.

I wonder do a few things ring too true and these self-dishonest 'grans' are operating from their own denial and bias.

There seems to be a generational failing in them in terms of personal accountability, empathy, honest self-examination and accepting other people's right to make their own choices in life.

I've been accused by my EP of 'imagining' or 'dreaming' blatant acts of abuse. Even by the EP who wasn't there when it happened (they must be mind reader's).

The gender thing is interesting as one of the issues in my family was that my sister DARED to be born a girl (was also given a 'boys' name).

This thread (and I'm in my 40’s and have had a fuckload of therapy) has prompted me to realise my father

Never apologises except sarcastically
Never had even one friend that I can recall
How come I'm just realising this now?!

My mother had friends that were ‘approved’ by my father (nobody who would have dared to query the bruises eg)

Contrary to pps I wasn't a nightmare I was obsessively a people pleaser. This lead to me having a big white wedding (marriage) I didn't want, a career I hated, and ‘friends’ who didn't understand or enrich me.

Now I am single (happily), have lovely sarcastic, intelligent, funny and honest friends and have a great relationship with dd (she says she's never leaving me and even while at uni wants to come home every weekend for ice cream and hugs). The career is on hold at the moment (mh issues as a result of the abuse though apparently I'm unreasonable to say so according to my mother, even though my Dr, psychiatrist and therapist agree plus a disability issue I'm needing treated/symptoms treated).

“I don't trust my family. Without trust what is there?” I have particular issues trusting men tbh and worry about passing THAT on to dd. Every man who was supposed to love, support, nurture me, has let me down. I am lucky to have some male friends though that show dd that this is not true for all men. Sadly her father isn't one of them.

Yyy to not realising the crazy until someone else points it out. In my case the people pleasing. Used to say yes to every invite, accept friendships and relationships that were unhealthy, say yes to every favour request… in my case it's my lovely bff (who I didn't meet till my 30’s) who is refreshingly honest and is quite willing to say ‘why do you do that? It doesn't make you happy and you have no obligation to x y z person, so why?’

Yy to the cognitive dissonance ‘you had a much happier childhood than I did’ this is my mother equating poverty to abuse and thinking poverty is worse hmmm

My father's family is the root though. Yet all in denial. My grandparents were wonderful kind people (aside from the regular beatings of course) so then how come 2 of my father's siblings emigrated thousands of miles away and had very little contact with them, 3 are alcoholics (including my father), the first to recover from the addiction was one of the émigrés, and one a drug addict. But no, nothing wrong with my father's foo.

Its such a beautiful demonstration of why some people can't be communicated with

Really. Notanan deserves a medal going on patiently engaging with it but no communication is actually taking place. You can see why the EC gave up trying and fled. When I gave up trying to follow the thread earlier today there was still a refusal to acknowledge she would ever be right, ever, at any time to give up on the relationship with her mother and walk away.

No matter how many times her mother hurt her, no matter how many chance she gave, the 'victim' is still her mother in their eyes. Which summarises much of the argument.

'It doesn't matter how I treat you, I say I love you (I am not obliged to demonstrate this through my actions) and your job is to meet my needs'.

Back in February, somebody posted on the Sad Grans thread seeking advice about her own rather unpleasant mother, with whom she was NC. The advice given was to have one meeting with her and hear what she had to say. If not satisfied ... to resume NC.

I suppose the difference between the poster's mother and the Sad Grans is that the mother had done bad things, whereas the Grans - well, they're all sane, rational & wonderful women whose children are inexplicably ghastly.

Their posts upset me when there's a strong implication that the NC child's partner is preventing family contact, and the implied victim is still being blamed! But the posts don't tell whether it's an abusive situation, or the NC child married into a more balanced family and saw the light. Either way, it doesn't make the complainant look too good.

'It doesn't matter how I treat you, I say I love you (I am not obliged to demonstrate this through my actions) and your job is to meet my needs'.

Perfect summation.

One might add: 'your job is to meet my needs' (which I will not specify.) I liked what someone said earlier, that it's like living under a totalitarian dictatorship!

Another (random not NC thread) made me remember a funny exchange with my mother

When the DDs were small she came down for a weekend, we hadn't long moved in so our spare room was a bit sparce (boring detail but relevant, bear with me…) so we didn't have a proper wardrobe in there, just the bed and some low shelves. They were settling in and I went in and explained that due to there being no wardrobe (i.e. a high out of reach place) would she mind putting her meds in the bathroom (where there's a high cupboard), she very happily agreed, we thanked her, there was no row, it was said nicely and she responded positively saying she was keen to be safe around the toddler & baby….fine. we never had to ask her twice so we didn't mention it again.

All very nice and pleasant.. on day one.

But then she kept bring it up, again, and again, and again…
In a sort of "… and I did what you told me when you said I had to put my medication in another room.." way. I asked her "why are you bringing that up?" or "why was that a problem?" and then she'ld be mortally offended and say "OF COURSE NOT, I don't want to put the girls in danger, I have never harmed them!"

Several times! She kept bringing it up

It was so odd… she kept bringing it up, and when I asked why she brought it up or why it was wrong of me to suggest it she'ld get all offended and say something like "I have NO problem with it, why would I?". But I never brought it up once, she did, over and over

It was just strange, and I remembered it and thought I'ld share it because there's not a lot else to say about the other thread, it speaks for itself

My MIL is generally lovely, but she does the same Screen.

I think its because they, in their minds, are the parent. You are the child. And you shouldn't be telling them something that a parent should do/think/say. So they get offended and keep picking at it because they cannot accept it.

I don't even know if I am right, but that is the feeling I get when mil does it. She rewrites the whole thing too.

So we will mention that DD needs suncream even if shes only out briefly etc and the next thing she is saying "we kept her in because we know you don't want her outside."

Where on earth did a reminder about suncream turn into a total ban on outside? And she keeps bringing it up, over and over.

Just put the damn suncream on and get over it!

There's a name for this - I've been googling, but can't be using the right terms. It's 'dumb insolence' - a type of passive aggression that is (or was) a crime in the Army: of deliberately misinterpreting orders while doing what you were told. I found this post on dumb insolence in an office, which describes it pretty well!

The carrot story's brilliant. But I would've wanted to shove it up her arse

Nothing like having your thinking being done for you!

Being told how you should feel, rather than asked how you do feel!

And that special classic, having all your choices and decisions scrutinised and criticised...because they don't meet The Dictatorship's expectations!

Hello all. I've woken up feeling just awful today. You know what? I would just LOVE to have a nice mum. Not a perfect one because they don't exist, but just a nice, kind one. One I can relax with, trust, talk to and be with.

I feel a bit heartbroken all over again and so pathetic that I'm here as a (fairly) successful professional with a nice house and education in my 30s asking plaintively why didn't my mum love me. Why didn't I get that relationship?

She'd say she did of course, but she doesn't - she can't. DH has shown me what love is, and sometimes he's almost the parent I never had. We're trying so hard for a baby and have had nothing but miscarriages. We'd be such good parents I think (or rather, I hope) but it's so unlikely to happen.

All those GPs on GN ... They're utterly blind and unpleasant. They'll never ever ever understand. Ever. Why can abusive people have so many kids and we can't have any? It just ... sucks.