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.

I think there's some usefulness to the crossover if it's allowed.

for instance, the GNers who AREN'T regulars on the estranged thread make some good/interesting points on the thread about this thread on GN, it's interesting hearing what people who aren't on either side think after reading both sides without having personal.. prejudice??

and if we're being petty they did it first (earlier on their current estranged thread)

That thread is really sad. I'm glad to see the vast majority of gn commenters agreeing that it's not representative of the majority. It's a handful of like minded people who have found comfort in others just like them. It's awful. They talk at great length about not very much. So much emphasis on "furbabies" (that word alone speaks volumes!) and such deep bitterness. I feel sorry for them. It doesn't matter which side of this you come from there is hurt on both. I haven't seen or spoken to my own mother for almost ten years. There was just nowhere left to go. I ended it after my mother orchestrated a massively upsetting situation around my children to "punish" me. I had no choice. It was her or my children and there was no choice. I have the "benefit" of being the scapegoat and I often wonder if I have it easier than my golden child sister. So much pressure on her to feed my mother's need to be praised. She expects nothing of me and I provide it in abundance. I have been completely ostracised but I'd have that any day over the pressure my sister has. My mother is a high functioning bpd, our relationship will never be repaired.

Yes, my mum has a dog she idolises and calls her baby etc etc. I think they do best with infants who need them but can't see through them.

ventured onto Gransnet to see what kind of thing you're talking about.

In my darker moments I've read some of these thread for more than the first couple of pages. They're completely unhinged, and the people posting (a) lack any insight whatsoever into their own behaviour which caused the schism and (b) lack even less insight, if that's possible, into why their continued behaviour absolutely guarantees there can be no reconciliation, even in theory such as thing had been possible. So they gather on such forums telling each other how terrible their lives are, and how cruel their children are, and how much they love their children (when "love" means "want to control and ideally own") and how much their love their grandchildren (when "love" means "want to to control, own and repeat their mistakes with").

Actually - why haven't MN commented on their main thread about this one (accusing people here of stalking them etc when this one wasn't even about them)? How fucking rude was that as a TAAT post?

Baconyum Not my remit, I'm afraid, but we will obviously let GransnetHQ know. It's certainly not a case of one rule for MN and one for GN though. What hasn't happened on that thread, notably, is the dragging across of posts from another forum and personal comments, and that's all we're asking folk to refrain from here. We think GNHQ would feel exactly the same way about that.

We don't want to shut this discussion down by any means, we just think that it's a bit unfair to be taking posts from one forum to pick them apart on another. We'd feel the same way about any other forum.

It actually looks like a couple of Mumsnetters have joined in the GN discussion about this thread over there and are having a very reasonable and enlightening chat about it, which can only be the best outcome. We just feel copying and pasting posts to say 'Oh Lord, isn't THAT awful?' isn't going to benefit anyone. We are here, after all, primarily to offer support to other parents, and Gransnetters are parents, too, no matter how big their kids get, so we think they deserve the same treatment we would afford to any parent on Mumsnet.

"Yes, my mum has a dog she idolises and calls her baby etc etc. I think they do best with infants who need them but can't see through them"

I agree. I think the only time my mother was an okay mother was when I was a dependant infant. I think she was genuinely happy then (and hasn't been happy with me since)

She was fantastic when DD was a baby and I gave her a second chance because of it. However as DD grew she infantasised her to an uncomfortable (and sometimes downright inappropriate) degree, and when DD2 came along…. well.. it turnes out there can be only one golden child, and DD1 was it!

DD2, IMO, had the better end of the deal as the NOT golden child, my mother seems to see DD1 as hers and almost wants to fully own her to fill some need.. it's beyond fucked up.

The intense love she has for just DD1 isn't actually about DD at all, the way she describes DD and her "talents" actually aren't even true. DD1 is amazing and talented, but not at the things my mother fabricates about her.. and then of course DD1 is expected to take up the hobbies that my mother imagines she is talented at (even though she has NO interest in them, and choses her own hobbies) and if she's not doing that hem I'm holding her back/depriving her of persuing her (imagined by my mother) destiny

IonaMN MN has been unfavourably quoted on that particular long running thread on GN, just not in the time frame of this thread, before this, and the posts about MN stand on GN

Music

It took me a while to realize that it is normal to have a relationship with your mother AND your father. How ridiculous is that. I have had insight into the situation for so long, but that little nugget slipped under the radar it seems. I used to be fascinated at how DH could phone his parents and just chat to whichever one answered.

One of the most painful moments in counselling was coming to the realization that at some point in my life, probably when I was very young, my father relinquished his relationship with me to my mother. I know I had a relationship with him as a toddler, there are photos and stories and memories of me and him. Just me and him. But after that, nothing. Everything went through her.

My counsellor would say to me "where is your Dad in this?" or she would suggest I called him. The answer was always a shrug. It is unheard of for me to call him, or see him, or chat to him without my mum being in the middle of it.

He is her enabler. She has cut him off from his family too. His mum and siblings. They have been NC for 18 years. They are abusive too...which is why I think he is so able to live with her crazy, it is what he grew up with, it is all he knows.

I actually felt, from a very young age, that I didn't like my mum. I regularly used to ask myself if I even loved her. Even as young as 6.

I am waffling again.

Hi there Screenshotting. Have these posts been reported, do you know?

"IonaMN MN has been unfavourably quoted on that particular long running thread on GN, just not in the time frame of this thread, before this, and the posts about MN stand on GN"

Exactly! Plus I've seen other forums posts quoted and "pulled apart" (critiqued IMO) often on mn. I have NC several times but been on here since 2001!

The fact that other gners have noted that this particular issue is being monopolised and an discussion tightly controlled by a particular group of gners (any disagreement is quickly stamped on) is also disturbing.

*any discussion

I don't know Iona, but the posts identifying grandchildren apparently were but in the end the poster was allowed to continue, there doesn't seem to be a lot of moderation on GN

My mother was exactly the same. I call that part of my life "when she was a proper mother". We got older, she was unhappy, ventured in to education and feminism and we pretty much got left behind. My maternal grandmother was the same, she loved us as small children but not when we got past the cute and pliable stage.

She was fantastic when DD was a baby and I gave her a second chance because of it. However as DD grew she infantasised her to an uncomfortable (and sometimes downright inappropriate) degree, and when DD2 came along…. well.. it turnes out there can be only one golden child, and DD1 was it!

DD2, IMO, had the better end of the deal as the NOT golden child, my mother seems to see DD1 as hers and almost wants to fully own her to fill some need.. it's beyond fucked up.

Wow. This is totally what my mum did. It really was the final thing that pushed me into NC. The favouritism she was displaying...well I wouldn't allow the same thing to happen to them as she had done to me.

with my mother I always felt (from a very young age) that my mother's idea of the direction of travel of love/care between a child and a parent was a bit off balance. She wasn't "the adult" in the relationship, I was expected to feed her needs for love and care, and of course I disappointed because I was a child.

And I continue to disappoint because there's no way to satisfy her need. I disappoint her when I put everything into trying to please her as an adult, so nothing is lost by NC. I disappoint her either way.

She gets furious that I'm not grovellingly grateful for really very basic things she did for me in my childhood. Things all parents are supposed to do, really basic things not above&beyond things. She throws that kinda stuff back in my face as if she did me a massive favour that I'm not replaying just because she kept me alive through childhood!

With the DDs, it's lovely that they love us

Screen our mothers sound so so similar.

Hi again Screenshotting. Gransnet operates a reports policy in the same way MN does, in that we don't actively 'moderate' as we tend to think that MNers are grown-ups and don't need 'policing', if you like, but we do respond to reports made by other users on specific posts. So if there are particular posts that you think break guidelines or aren't in the spirit of the Gransnet site, it's definitely worth reporting them to them. We're sure they'll feel the same way about posts similar to the ones we've deleted here. It's probably just that they haven't been reported because GN doesn't have quite the same volume of traffic as MN.

I actually felt, from a very young age, that I didn't like my mum. I regularly used to ask myself if I even loved her. Even as young as 6.

I loved my mother as a child, and her running hot cold DESPERATELY distressed me. I remember sobbing her and begging her to hug me.

At the same time I often used to ask if I was adopted, if I was real, I didn't feel that I belonged in my own home and as a small kid I asked questions that she would mock me for (like tearfully asking "am I an alien, I was really upset, she really humiliated me over tha one and still laughs about it) to try and make sense of why my home life didn't fit with what I saw in other homes and why my relationship with my mother was so unsteady/unstable.

I wouldn't report the post discussing MN threads because I don't personally see a cross over as a problem in general even if its against policy.

The poster repeatedly identifying her GCs and AC to publically shame her AC have apparently been reported, but she continues to post real names etc

That is really horrible Screen. How could she watch you in such distress and continue it! Its just pure cruelty. :(

Mine never hugged me, but I don't ever remember being remotely bothered by that. I am still funny about physical contact now. I do remember being really angry and annoyed by the long guilt trips over everything. No situation was punished and then moved on from. Every punishment became a long guilt trip where she would drag up every indiscretion that had ever happened.

I also remember a person in school saying they couldn't wait to get home to get a hug from their mum and a cup of tea, and in my head my brain was exploding at the notion.

" It's certainly not a case of one rule for MN and one for GN though. "

Actions speak louder than words.

See, my parents weren't 'that bad'. As in, I have always been certain that they love me. It's just that they're super critical, and I'm the family scapegoat to a certain extent. I'm also meant to know my place and play second fiddle to my sister. So I don't want to go NC, but I do keep them at arm's length (and live 4,000 miles away).

But I remember even as a young child that I used to do big melodramatic attempts at running away/cutting myself, begging to be told that I was adopted etc. I also remember being about 8, and walking behind them from the car to somewhere we were going. My mum, dad and sister were all walking together ahead of me. I looked at them and thought 'I don't want to be with these people' and I can still very clearly hear that voice in my head to this day.

I do think that if a child as young as 6 is attempting to run away or begging to be told that they're adopted,* then there has to be some questioning of why that is happening. To my parents, I was always the awkward one, the difficult one, but I suspect that I was difficult just because I felt like the odd one out all the time. I suspect that my mum would have only had my DSis, but my parents follow rules stringently, and, of course, it's a rule that everyone should have 2 children. I felt very strongly that I didn't really belong, that this couldn't be my family.

• I don't mean the usual pretend play, tell me I was a fairy princess kind of wanting to have been adopted.

LizKeen

My situation is identical! My Dad never contacts me. If I ring him, he makes excuses to get straight off the phone (if he answers) and says, like a trained monkey, I'll pass you to your mother!! Then she demands to know why I rang him!

Have only come to realise recently this isn't normal and he's totally disengaged in my life and not a proper father.

And he totally enables all her bad behaviour. She falls out with me, so does he, automatically and defends her even when he doesn't know what was said or what it's about.

I'm starting to go beyond dislike.