This is really chilling, I think

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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.

It really does suck Merd.

I don't really know what else to say. It is heartbreaking to read about your miscarriages, I am so sorry. There really is no sense in the world at times.

DH amd I were talking about this last night. A couple we know had a baby last week. They had been trying for about 8 years. And they are so lovely and will make great parents. But there's this other couple we know who are now pregnant with num 4. The kids are dragged up. There is DV. Its a sorry mess. And it just isn't fair.

Merd sorry you're feeling so down. It is unfair, I lost 3 before dd and couldn't have any more after her (too risky for all sorts of reasons). Have you had tests etc?

We do all deserve just plain nice mum's, sadly we don't have them.

Merd me too.

Have you thought about adoption? I haven't had miscarriages. I think you have amazing strength to keep trying. Have they been investigated? Sorry that you have had them.

Merd

So sorry for your losses, have they been investigated? Please don't give up your dream.

Same as you, feel cheated out of a nice mum. I used to think it was me, I now know better. It has taken me years to learn the abuse wasn't my fault.

Merd, so sorry

Merd just wanted to say I've been where you are now and it's horrible. I went through 5 years of miscarriages before I had my DS and now I'm pregnant with my second. All I can say is don't give up. As hard as it is keep going if you can. Keep investigations going keep trying new things. You've almost got to be really business like about it. I wouldn't allow myself to even talk about it until the 20 week scan. As an aside have you tried taking 75mg Aspirin as soon as you're pregnant? It worked for me even though no clotting issues had been flagged up. Feel free to PM me if you want to chat or share further.

Sorry for going off on a bit of a tangent there ladies

Sympathies, Merd. I've been there too. Investigations are important, but often you never do know what caused a MC. I think it's just very common. Not that that makes it any better, just to say that it doesn't necessarily mean you won't be successful eventually. I have 3 healthy DCs now, but had 8 MCs before/in between. It's not just that it's unfair and upsetting, but I think when you have a MC your whole body feels sad, which can be overwhelming for a while.

Re: feeling all over again the unfairness and pain of not having had normal, loving parenting, I think this thread may be doing that to a few of us. I am generally at peace with my past - and certainly am enjoying the peace of the present now I'm NC. But this thread has reminded me of some things, and made me look freshly at others, and it's unsettling to be sure. I feel like a victim all over again, and angry that no one ever saw what was happening to us and intervened - surely it must have been obvious to adult eyes.

But I think these feelings can be positive too. We work so hard at maintaining an upward spiral, but often it's built on shaky ground cobbled together out of stubbornness and determination and feeling-the-fear-and-doing-it-anyway, interrupted along the way by tears and fuck-ups and bouts of depression. Stalling briefly while you think through some of the issues a thread like this raises can make it feel as though you've taken a step backwards, but I think when the upward spiral restarts, although it may be at a slightly lower point, it will be on firmer foundations than before. It's been a great thread - painfully honest - and I really thank everyone who's contributed.

Well said MrsLupo. I have been feeling the same. Largely at peace with it, over the worst of the anger and the sadness. Then this thread set me back slightly, but I think in the end it does me good to keep looking at those feelings, not just ignoring them and almost storing it up until it is unmanageable.

It has definitely been useful to have the doubt vocalized and then disproved. And by so many others too. Not just me in my own head telling myself I am right and then hoping I am not deluded like my mum.

Merd - I know what you mean. In my therapy, with a lovely lady who was the sort of mum I would have loved to have, I used to sob about it. I suspect that my Mum didn't have much love from or for her own mum, but if that's the case, then I know why - because my grandparents' wedding was a "shotgun" war wedding, and her family weren't allowed to come because she was in disgrace. :(
Mum was an only child.
In later years, it was very apparent that my grandad loved my Nan, but I couldn't be quite so sure in the other direction, and oh the shit my Nan had to put up with, as she had to move in to my grandad's family home with his super twisted mother and sister. I don't know whether Gran was abusive, but my great aunt sure was! And her DD after her. :(

So I think my nan blamed my Mum for the way her life turned out, which is, of course, totally unfair. But she was never ever unkind to us, or abusive to us in any way - she was a fabulous nan. More of a mum to me in many ways than Mum was, which is tragic all round. :(

Re. the MCs - not wanting to stick my oar in unnecessarily, but have you had your vit D levels tested? or do you take vit D? Low vit D is associated with both infertility and MC, and I had 3 before I had mine tested and found it was really low. After being superdosed with it, my next pg stuck and I got DS2. I'm not saying it's THE answer, but it might be one to look at if you haven't already.

Thank you very much for your post @ 11:29, MrsL. The threads have kicked off another trip around the spiral for me. It's simultaneously horrible (have I got to deal with my dead dad again??!) and empowering (yes, and each time I do it, something improves) - but always very tiring. It really helps to know some other people get it

to Merd.

to everyone who has had ea parents too. It is hard enough to deal with some of Dp's family as a secure, stable adult, I can't imagine how hard it must be as a child. I have great admiration for those of you who have turned their lives around and decided not to perpetuate the cycle of dysfunction and abuse. You should be proud of yourselves, it must be so hard.

It is also, sadly, quite common. We have just had a friend around whose mother has died and we were talking about how hard it was when everyone is saying positive things at the funeral etc. and my friends experience of her mother was certainly not like that, there was both physical as well as emotional abuse .

*your lives

We have just had a friend around whose mother has died and we were talking about how hard it was when everyone is saying positive things at the funeral etc. and my friends experience of her mother was certainly not like that

I think about this. She was such a street angel - house devil who painted herself as the loving long suffering mum of a "difficult" daughter that it would be pure pure hell to sit through at the talk at her funeral, and her friends telling me how much she loved me (i.e. how much she told them she was loving)

I'm pretty sure the guests from outside our family thought we were pretty weird at Dad's funeral Mum was shocked and devastated. My sibs & I were shocked, confused, and rather cheerful. I'm not pretending it was easy (he died suddenly.) If you could imagine there was a bloody great rock in your living room and you couldn't shift it, so you got used to it and put plants on it, etc, then found one day the thing had disappeared ...

Strangely, I often use this metaphor in reverse for grief. Instead of the obstacle suddenly disappearing, it's the grief that appears and which you learn to accommodate. We had this, too, in a way - the new space was shocking and you're going round fretting about where to put your metaphorical plants & books! And it is very strange to be grieving for someone whose influence on your life was immense, but not positive overall.

I did the children's address at his funeral. That was a test of diplomatic honesty. I think it worked. Wishing your friend much constructive & enjoyable use of her new 'space'.

I think she's still shaken but will be fine. It was similar at fil's funeral, actually, all these people saying what a wonderful man he was. Well, he treated dp appallingly, nothing he could do was right and always trying to put him down. When I first met pils fil tried to recruit me into the snide remarks, that were "just jokes" but after a while I realised what he was doing. Pils were definitely divide and conquer with their children, and then mil complains about lack of family harmony... that's because you set your children up against each other!

My mother used to fantasise about just how the family rifts were to be managed at her funeral. She would say of her (then) two NC children, 'I'm not having them turning up at my funeral, wailing and gnashing their teeth. I'm not having it!' (in excited, triumphant tones). I dared mention once that I couldn't think they'd have any interest in coming having strenuously avoided having anything to do with her for 25+ years, and she didn't come back down from the stratosphere for hours. Since she now has a glorious four NC children, I wonder if there'll be anyone there but her. Although I also wonder if she isn't going to die at all, but just go on and on and on. Anger and bitterness seem to be mighty sustaining: they should write a lifestyle book about that. She also greatly enjoyed musing out loud about the dividing of her (minimal) 'estate', which needless to say has been used on multiple occasions to correct the wayward. I could write a book about that too.

MrsLupo my DGM's funeral was not that unlike what you're envisioning. It's awful when really no one is that sorry. The nursing home staff were by far the most upset people there, and the lovely manager was quite frank about loving my DGM for being a redoubtable, feisty (and at times physically aggressive) bitch, even with quite advanced dementia. It was quite a comfort that she'd had people in her life who loved her at that time for who she was when she'd hurt and upset every family member so badly.

During her husband's funeral she turned to my youngest sibling with a sweet old lady smile from her wheelchair and held out a trembling hand, and my lovely sib gently took it and crouched down beside her.... and she suddenly gripped their hand like a claw and snarled all this horrible stuff, threats, accusations about things they'd supposedly done, right into their face in an undertone. It looked like some Roald Dahl nightmare, this wizened, vicious little figure in a wheelchair clamped on like a vise. My sib shook throughout the wake and refused to ever go near her again.

Gosh, thank you everybody ... Made me cry a bit, but in a good way and so sorry for all your losses over time too.

Yes we've had all the tests and in fact the one thing they found was very low vitamin D - so we're still hoping we might one day have a happy ending, but after 2 years it's easier said than done. We might look into adoption, but we'd want to be ready for that and for it to be the right thing for the child - we're not there yet. (Sorry though - didn't mean to derail with an MC conversation)

I do sometimes wonder if I'd been an emotionally healthy person, would I have wanted children earlier and tried for them when I was younger and more fertile? But then there could have been other delays.

I used to swear I didn't, because I didn't want to be like my mum. When the urge hit us both and we felt that together we could perhaps overcome that stuff, I actually joined MN to find out how to be a normal parent, and also found things like this thread which helped me feel like there was hope. If other "survivors" can break the patterns, we can too I hope.

And OMG - YES. My mum genuinely has a funeral plan on her computer she talks about every so often - the music, who's allowed, who isn't (this list is longer - although I don't think we'll have issues fighting them off). We have to wear yellow!

(And I am in no way exaggerating)

Merd, I don't know if this would help but it has helped my husband. He has come to accept that his mother did love him as much as she was able to, it might not have been what he wanted or needed but it was all she could do. Doesn't undo what has gone before but has helped him to get to a place where it doesn't hurt so much.

Hope you are feeling OK, I know all this is very painful.

Actually thinking about it I think it might be that now she is dead she can't do it anymore and he is dealing with the past in his own way. Sorry, didn't think it through.

Actually thinking about it I think it might be that now she is dead

Is it wrong that that made me giggle somehow? Thank you anyway grannytomine, I understand what you mean!

During her husband's funeral she turned to my youngest sibling with a sweet old lady smile from her wheelchair and held out a trembling hand, and my lovely sib gently took it and crouched down beside her.... and she suddenly gripped their hand like a claw and snarled all this horrible stuff, threats, accusations about things they'd supposedly done, right into their face in an undertone. It looked like some Roald Dahl nightmare, this wizened, vicious little figure in a wheelchair clamped on like a vise. My sib shook throughout the wake and refused to ever go near her again.

That is totally shockingly exactly how I imagine my mother would behave to me if she developed memory problems/dimentia and begun to forget to be sweet to me in public/with an audience and only vile behind closed doors.

Quite shocked at that description, it's what my mother does, offer a hug then dig her nails in and whisper something vile with a twisted face.

I'm genuinely at how similar the description is

I know what you mean too, grannytomine. My mother loves me too, in her own warped way. It's comforting and desperately sad all at the same time because it's so warped that I can't live under the dictatorial state that is my mother's love for me. But I also understand why she is that way.