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.

Indeed oh dear.

Well this thread has gone to shit.

Can't even bring myself to read through it all.

I am really really struggling. I was in tears earlier. I am in a foul mood. I have been pushing through, but today I just cracked. I don't know.

It is a lot of things. TTC num 3 and it isn't happening. I think I have stopped ovulating. So I have to go to the GP and that is anxiety inducing for me. I am grateful for the beautiful kids I have, and if we can't have another then I am sure I will be able to move on and see the positives to only having two. But I really had always felt I would have more than two. Right now it all feels scary and impossible. I am catastrophising. Trying not to, but there we are. Money stresses. Worried about a situation with MIL.

Right about now I could use a parent. I could use a mum. You know? I could do with calling her and having her listen. The reality is that she was never much use when it came to advice, or even listening sometimes. But I am still missing something.

Sorry. Brain dump. I had come on to catch up with everyone, and then saw what was happening on here and just decided to get that out.

I come from a different generation. We weren't entitled to our emotions. You come from a generation who are. I wonder which generation is happier sometimes.

Sigh. You're not reading or taking on board anything said here are you? You made that point hours ago, it was responded to, you blanked it. Rather like trying repeatedly to explain to you about not being angry just raises exhortations to 'drop the anger'. It rather proves the point also made hours ago that there is no point trying to engage reasonably and communicate with someone with this mindset.

Need to stop trying and go name change now, I've shared some pretty vulnerable and identifying information in the name of trying to genuinely communicate with you. You've been thudding around this thread with your foot in your mouth and no sensitivity whatsoever since your first post, it's not much of a demonstration from someone apparently so well versed in psychology.

Liz. TTC is a brain-fuck at the best of times for the best of people. Big big hug from me here.

Just don't waste your time bearing a grievance. It sucks the life out of you. Have a dream and a goal and chase after that. x

Well thank you for ending the evening with a good laugh at least. Oh dear....

But she's still YOUR child Nina (I also think you're being disingenuous).

Liz bad days happen, the thing is to remember it is just one day. We'll listen. If you don't mind me asking why do you think you've stopped ovulating?

You're not engaging in any way to disagree, discuss or do anything. It's fine, I'm done engaging too, it's a waste of your time and mine.

Liz and Misc, I'm sorry you've been having an awful day. Misc, I think you can win this one. But don't win at cost to your mental health! Liz, I hope you're all snuggled up with lots of comforts. xxx to both.

Not just rumbling me too

"Rumbling, you mean I'm not agreeing with you or validating you? Do you really need my approval?"

What an odd, non-contingent response in the context. I am hoping people will stop engaging with you Nina as these posts are either goady or very unhealthy.

See my mum would also say I had a happy childhood. She looked amazed once when I said I didn't think she'd been a very good mother. She's totally blocked out the emotional abuse, the physical beatings, the constant belittling, the smashing up of mine and my brothers belongings. She genuinely thinks she was a good mum.

But I'm not angry. I'm not holding a grudge with her over that.

I put it behind me and carried on having a relationship with her. I realised she had issues with relations with people. Falling out with every single friend she ever made over 20 years, falling out with her bosses, her neighbours. Always their fault of course, never hers.

I put up with her nasty episodes and forgave her. Never argued, just kept going back for more.

The thing which pushed me over the edge wasn't the time she told me to have an abortion because I wasn't married and then she ignored me for my pregnancy apart from the seven page letter telling me dd would be disabled as punishment. It wasn't the time she ignored me for six months as she didn't like the car I bought. It wasn't one of the many times she was generally horrible, making snide comments. It wasn't the time she told me I was so fat it must hurt to walk (size 16, so not huge), it wasn't the fact that every time I visited all she did was moan and whinge and be negative and bring me down.

What pushed me over the edge was when she made a nasty comment to dd about me behind my back. Something I know for sure she said as dd wouldn't have had that vocalbary and it is so something she would say. When my brother confronted her she said dd had lied and had mental health issues. I realised then I needed to protect dd. But due to fear and guilt I put off any thought of NC even though I knew I should.

And then a short while later she rang my brother calling me all names under the sun because she thought I had purposefully withheld a receipt from her. I didn't know I had it, she had given ma cy brother a copy of her will months before. He didn't want it and gave it to me which she knew and said to look after. Then she started saying she wanted a recipt for some rug. I said I knew nothing about it. Then I found it with the will. So told her to come over for it. She spoke to my brother saying Id done it in purpose as im a nasty bitch. She then knocked on my door and refused to come in, wouldn't look at me, wouldn't speak. She let my dogs run last her into the road and they were nearly killed and she made no effort to help catch them. I gave her the paper and she turned round and walked away and ive never seen her since. Never spoken to her.

She did write me a lengthy letter saying Id got what I wanted and that me going NC with her was simply because I wanted an excuse to get out of visiting her. Even now she thinks she's done nothing wrong! And I think that is a genuine belief. That she's distorted reality in her head to such an extent she has no grasp of reality in the matter.

I'm not angry. I don't care. Even now if she made contact and said sorry I would be open to contact. But she won't.

And I have plenty of great dreams btw. Some of which ive achieved and others im sure I will have a good go at. None of them need a toxic mother in my life.

Liz, just to add (and then I won't derail the thread on it anymore) that I thought I'd stopped ovulating at one point last year and then had another MC so obviously was. I was using those little sticks and they never showed a change, and I didn't have any usual symptoms (increased hunger etc).

Our bodies do weird weird things when TTC; just when you think you've got that routine down and know when it all happens and how it feels at different points, it can throw a wobble - it's almost like it knows you want something to happen so it doesn't.

(Obviously you might be having real physical issues which will cause problems and I don't mean to dismiss that, but sometimes it's "just" part of the sheer stress behind long-term trying. So fingers crossed for you)

Thanks. Sorry I didn't read the last day or so's posts so have splatted out my stuff in the middle of a heated debate

I think I'm finding it so awful because as a child I was trapped in a situation where my mothers cruelty, paranoia and warped reality was imposed on me and I couldn't get away, we were completely isolated, so I used to try and fight back, try to change it. Trying to engage again and again and again and getting hurt each time. I'd try and explain myself, protect myself and generally answer back. The saddest thing looking back was my defense of my dad, a child fighting to protect my father against the cruelty and viciousness of my mother (when, he should have been protecting me and my darling sister). That was my life and it was a living hell. Then as a young adult I learnt to disengage. The most powerful protection and care for me, the first way I found to get away enough to start the long road to recovery (which I'm still plodding along on!).

Getting away was safety, it was kindness and it was a massive gamble that maybe I was worth looking after like other people seem to believe they were. It was a life saving change in behavior for me.

Oh and no, my mother would say she has no idea why contact is as low as I can get it of course! I'm 'hard' and hurtful and uncaring etc. But for me, it was about survival, not destruction. Funny that my first act of love for myself was seen as an act of hatred.

I don't mean just getting away from the house, and the village and everything and everyone I ever knew ... it was the harder bit of disengaging from her reality, her power, her everything. Withdrawing from the badness, like you pull your hand away from a fire, and I had to learn that reflex. Taken me years and years to learn it.

And learning how to break all those little hidden skeins of sticky web that mean my life still circles/d hers - either defining myself by her or against her iyswim.

So it's not only awful to engage with, well, a bully would be the politest way of putting it; I'm forcing myself to go against such a strong instinct to protect myself by withdrawing, disengaging, don't play the game, don't engage in battle, letting them win as I smile warmly whilst I back out of the door.

I've learnt how to leave things unfinished, leave things unsaid, leave your image tarnished or let falsehoods stand because if you engage, you get hurt, and I need to not let myself get hurting.

I feel like I just deliberately put myself in harms way, I let someone abuse me. Sat there and let her get in my head and crawl all over me. Engaging when I KNOW you don't win against that type of person. You never win. But I have to stand up for myself, I can't let her do what she's doing. Not good. Not good at all.

But at least I recognize what she was doing, and what she is, thanks to this thread and the rest.

YY, Misc.

Not the same at all, but have it anyway ... the Mad Boss who finished me off (I 'won' but he's the one who walked away unharmed and paid to go) tapped directly into all the unresolved battles with my dad. You know how this unconscious recognition goes. I stayed far too long, not understanding until near the end that I was still trying to make my dad "see sense" by proxy.

Anyway. The thing that got rid of him was a corporate restructure, which broke apart the management crony system. He was no longer immune, I used the procedures correctly and he was quite bewildered to find that they applied to him.

Some of my male colleagues told me that they'd stopped his earlier campaigns against them by literally pinning him against the wall by the throat and roaring in his face. I believe them - his kind of bully is terrified by real & immediate (perceived) danger.

I said I think you can win because you mentioned that she's breaking the law. This gives you both the above weapons. I hope you'll give yourself a fair chance at knocking her over, as long as you're still in a sound enough frame of mind to get a different job should you need to :)

Or... there are a lot of abusive people in the world, just as there are a lot of non-abusive people, and patterns of random chance will mean all of us will likely encounter a fair number of both. No psychobabble need apply.

Nina59 is a good example of how some people use their toxic behaviours to distract from the important issues eg giving vague reasons as to why both her DM and DD have gone NC, insulting people who hit on sensitive topics, being defensive, etc etc.

In some ways I find it useful as a means for dealing with people like this who talk in circles and go off on tangents. Usually I find myself just reacting emotionally to the inflammatory words and phrases they use. It's an exercise in self control, not being reactionary and attempting to keep to the topic at hand.

To have both DM and DD go NC is quite striking and unusual. Anyway I'll leave it there as might not be helping to rehash.

I skipped a period entirely last summer. Since then my periods have gone from regular as clockwork 32 day cycle to irregular. Some months 39 days, some months 28 days. Thought it was settling down, had fairly consistent 34 days for the last 3 months, and then this month 40 days.

I had no difficulties conceiving my two DCs. So this is a bit out of the blue. I am only turning 29 this year too.

I also have been trying to lose weight and its just not happening, and I think I might have a hormone imbalance/thyroid problem. Possibly PCOS even.

Hate doctors, hate blood tests (terrible veins, some awful experiences of them trying to find a vein.) Hate the thought of explaining all of this to a GP.

Sorry for derail!