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.

Very interesting thread. I have been NC for almost 2 years with my mother. I see a lot of her in these posts.

That is really horrible Screen. How could she watch you in such distress and continue it! Its just pure cruelty. sad
Oh she's re-written it so it's hillarious to her and her friends. I thought I was an alien, ha bloody ha! She leaves out the tears streaming down my face and my throat hurting from sobbing as I begged her to tell my where I was from and why I didn't belong while she sneered and laughed in my face (NOT reasuring me that I was in fact her child!!!)

Mine never hugged me
Mine did, but it wasn't nice cozy content/safe hugs. Hugs were one of the following:

• aggressive hugs, there is such a think you know! Sometimes if I was sobbing and begging for a hug she'ld violently grab me and hug me so that it hurt/pinched, and then say "there! I hugged you!" with a face like thunder on her
• forced hugs when I didn't want to be hugged but she wanted a hug

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
I remember a uni friend saying (about going home to her parents for the holidays) "there's nothing like a mum-hug" I was dumb struck. I feel on edge in my mother's physical company.

My mum loves me, I'm sure of that. But it's a smothering, controlling love that doesn't work once the child is older than about 7. She also created a gc (me) and a sg (my brother) and was beginning to create a favouritism dynamic with my kids. She also does triangulation and I think she believes her own lies. No physical or sexual abuse but totally damaging and dysfunctional all the same.
Life is better without her in it quite simply.

umhmm, mine "loves" me too.

It's not a healthy type of love.

The part of her that love comes from is the part of her that deep deep bitterness and anger comes from and the lines are very blurry.

You're much better off if you're NOT someone she loves!

Her "love" is not pleasant to recieve

I'm a tactile person and my dd has been raised with lots of (loving unforced) hugs. But I haven't hugged my parents for years (CSA is a factor though).

Once, when I was around 15, an incident happened at school and I arrived home in tears. I was actually a bit hysterical with anger. That day it just happened that my mum wasn't home yet, but my dad was. So he was met with this hysterical crying teen. My mum arrived home soon after and I was dismissed to my room.

The next day he drove from work in the middle of his day, to my school to sort out the situation.

That had always baffled me. They were so uninvolved in my life in terms of school (something they couldn't control so they washed their hands of it) and they had never ever stood up for me in any way.

Now, I really really believe that any issues or worries or problems that I did share with her never reached him, or they were told to him with her own slant on it and minimized. It feels like the only reason he took action then was because he saw it for himself. I do wonder if he would have been more involved if I had gone against her and went directly to him as a teen. I cried after he told me he had gone to school. I was so proud and pleased that he stood up for me.

I never used to blame him, but now I despise him as much as her. He was my father, he should have known better. As a parent I cannot reconcile it at all.

Reading this has made me remember that my mum stopped hugging me when I was about 9 - she said it hurt her back, so dad was always the cuddly one. Also never said "I love you" much to anyone.

DH and I hug a lot and say "love you" or "love" several times a day, and if we're ever lucky enough to have children we'll make it "normal" for them to hear it too I hope.

to all

I know this thread wasn’t started about threads on Gransnet, but as MN and GN are sister sites I suppose it’s natural that members of one would look at the other forum, maybe just to get a different perspective.

It’s probably bad-mannered for me to write about another GN thread – and I won’t link. But it’s painfully obvious that there’s a MiL/GM who just isn’t getting that she’s at risk of being cut out of the lives of her DS/DDiL/DGS. She’s getting a lot of robust responses, and some sympathy that she’s getting robust responses but still being robust. I do hope she gets a clue very soon, but I guess it's hard to rework decades' worth of thinking.

It seems there’s one particular thread for estranged parents and I get the impression that the rest of GN leave them to it. But from that other thread, I gather GNetters are just as capable of tough talking as MNetters are. I wouldn’t like to think that MNetters get the impression that GNetters support grandparents unconditionally, because they clearly don’t.

Lizkeen being careful not to out myself as I normally NC to discuss this, but I get what you mean.

I have joined here from being a lurker for a while. I lurked on the gnet thread talked about and it is a closed shop...A controlled closed shop with an enabler, as is always the case.
I have so much to say, the guilt of going NC (we often feel guilt) but this is not the time or place.
I am so relieved this has surfaced now due to the obvious identification (a child was photographed) and the naivity of some who thought their thread was hidden and safe. Em..Gransnet, Forum, Active. Thousands do this every day.
It is about time this discussion arose, and I am pleased that it did.

I think it would be a good insight for the No Contact Mums and the No Contact Grandparents did look at the opposing site. There may be a chance of more understanding of the Parent and Grandparent views. It might even be useful to have a joint thread.
There has to be at least two sides to every No Contact story and maybe even more sides as each will be from that persons point of view.
There is a lot of No Contact going on around me. I have no idea what to do about it, I am involved and not just taking one or other side. No attempts to discuss the situation has been accepted by a certain party. I am sick of having to nod sympathetically when I am told of the distress being caused. Maybe the Mumsnetters would know what to do or give advice when someone just wont see what is causing the stress. OF course this person would probably give a completely different story. They are just not prepared to back their own people and treat them fairly. By complying with another person's wishes is cause NC with the very people who would be there in a heart beat to defend this person in a crisis but this compliance is putting them at risk. Abusers are known to like to isolate people and there has been abuse repeatedly in this person's life.
We worry we fear for the future and safety of our relative but we are all flesh and blood too and how many rejections can we take from our loved one?

It is sad that any family is split apart.
We all see our own viewpoints as being the facts when perhaps some talking and attempting to see another's point of view would alleviate a lot of NC.

Actually from another glance at their threads, I'm not sure about a stronger crossover any more.

Yesterday a random online thread (which wasn't even about GN!) was taken as a personal attack by members there. Posters tried to rally overs to attack it and are now calling this one a windup - a thread where people are talking about real experiences of a pretty drastic solution to a relationship.

There are voices of reason on GN (thank god) but there are clearly also some nasty bullies. Pushing the two groups together would be a bit like "let abusers talk directly to their victims" which is a shite idea in any circumstance.

I just don't think they can ever or will ever recognise their own faults, even in therapy - it's denial in its purest form of self-protection and I don't know if the human brain would allow it. How do you truly tell someone "your version of love was wrong"?

"But we're family! It's thanks to me you're alive! Remember that card you wrote me as a child? Remember that nice day out? I'm ill you know. Do you want this money? I'm telling everyone you're abandoning me. My mum wasn't easy either you know. Your brother's fine so it wasn't my fault. You were never an easy child. Is this about not buying you those shoes? I put myself through hell raising you, now you owe me!"

It's all that Stately Homes stuff and it's so insidious that you can feel crazy when you try to explain about the dynamics to an outsider, let alone try to open someone's eyes on the inside. It was a total relief to find other people here (because it's rare to see or discuss in real life) who have the same issues.

Anyway - I'll try and stop posting as I don't know if I'm helping the discussion while I'm this cross, but it is (as this thread title says) chilling....

Right, I'm sure you didn't mean to but this really got on my tits:
There has to be at least two sides to every No Contact story and maybe even more sides as each will be from that persons point of view.
There are indeed 2 sides to my story; mine and my mother's. There are actually more than 2 as my mother has told different versions to different people at different times. That does not mean, however that what I have said about her is untrue. If she goes around denying, inventing, lying, truth twisting, it doesn't make my lived experience different and the "there are 2 side to every story" just makes it sound as if I am at fault.
What is comes down to is my mother is too unpleasant to me for me to be around her or have contact with her, so I don't. How hard is that for some people to understand?

I only have ONE side, it hasn't changed. I have told her why she has upset me to the extent that I don't want to be in contact with her and offered her the olive branch that if she apologises we can make moves to contact, but she'd rather be right than apologise.
Why can't people accept that there are people in the world who aren't nice? That there are emotionally dysfunctional people who hurt their families? Why do people who have no experience of being continually hurt by the one person who is supposed to love them keep insisting that the hurt person is wrong? Why do I have to keep putting up with really outrageous shit from my mother because she gave birth to me? When she has the chance to make amends and she'd rather emigrate?
It's why the Stately Homes threads start because there's always this undertone on other threads "there are two sides to every story".

Well said Good.

And I totally agree with Merd too. If these types of people were able to listen and take on other people's points of view then none of us would be where we are. They wouldn't be NC with their kids and I wouldn't have walked away from my whole family. A joint thread would be the same as sitting in a room with my mother. No way is that a good idea, or ever going to help anyone.

I do wonder if the "there's two sides" people actually have experience of this, or if they are the people caught in the crossfire of a NC and they are trying to rationalise it to themselves without placing blame or stepping out of the role the abuser has assigned to them.

Yes Good; in every other sphere of society we accept there are horrible people and reserve the right to not spend time with them, but no, anyone can have a family and deserve their loyalty for evermore. For some reason there's this societal taboo about confronting horrible family members.

I think the word "love" does us disservice sometimes. The phrases "but she loves you really" or "I know deep down he loves me" reveal this issue: actions should speak louder than words but people can't get past this sometimes.

In any abusive dynamic I think the benefit of the doubt should given to the less powerful person (at least at first), which in this situation is the child who's grown up with at least one fully grown adult shaping their existence.

Wow, this has moved on...

Merd that quote is pure mil, dp is the sg and she always tells him he was a difficult child. Er really? 2 childhood friends of Dp's and his dsis have independently asked me how on earth I get on with mil as the very first thing they said when I met them. She is well known to be difficult. Atm we are in contact, we live quite close by, but any bad behaviour and we withdraw. I suspect bpd, lots of anxiety, ocd etc.

I think a lot of this comes to a head in relationships and then with gcs, especially as those outside a dysfunctional family are not programmed the same way and there is a wish to protect dcs. Interestingly, my df was a sg too, but he made sure he didn't treat his own family like that. It doesn't have to be passed down.

I certainly did not mean to upset anyone with my comment about there being two sides to every NC story. I personally think there is some truth in the statement. Both parties will view things from their own angle.
As many daughters have said here they do not want to be in a thread or in the same room as their mothers and I presume many of their mothers would not feel much different in being in the same room as their daughters.
I think from the way this subject is discussed the young mums on MN blame their mothers who are maybe on Gransnet complaining about their daughters. It likely hurts just as much whether you are the MN daughter or the GN mothers. The young children/grandchildren are missing out on family. I think this is because two adults can not put their point of view across and be listened to and have the situation adjusted until it suits both sides.
Life is about co-operation with others a lot of the time. It is so uncomfortable to think that the closest people, parent and child, can not co-operate.

But you are turning that lack of cooperation into a two sided thing. I am plenty able to cooperate. If I had a non abusive parent who was able to do the same. You are laying blame at both sides feet when the cause and problem is the abusers alone.

Victim blaming.

And your line about grandchildren missing out on family makes me so angry. Its not my fault my kids are missing out.

I am going to stop before I say something I regret.

It doesn't have to be passed down, quirky, but I think certain conditions need to be met before a person can even comprehend that an unhelpful pattern's being repeated. I imagine personality's a big part of it. Another necessary factor is at least one person who tells & shows the child that the way they're treated isn't okay; that there is another way. This has been supported by numerous studies.

In stressful times - poverty, wars, epidemics - societies encourage their members to be brave, to get over it, get on with it, to survive cheerfully. There's no time for being upset; everyone's upset. These values were absolutely central to my grandparents' lives. Because of this, they shaped my parents. And my parents were extremely poor with a young family. Adding to the emotional pressure-cooker of all that, Dad was a soldier and a policeman: brutality was part of his every day.

If there had not been a fair few balanced, kind and decent adults in my childhood, I would have been even more screwed up than I was. I would literally not have known there were kinder ways of living; that softer values are better. Even so, my upbringing informed my choice of abusive partners (threads passim) - I couldn't "see" really decent men, they might as well have been a different species.

So this is a long-winded way of saying I think there is another side and it probably looks a lot like this. It's not an excuse, it's an explanation. I wouldn't have broken my pattern if a breakdown hadn't forced it. I'd have delivered a softer version of it, as my siblings have ... but it'll be a miracle if their DC finally manage to build emotionally balanced families of their own. There's a chance, and I hope at least some of them do.

But it's a big ask. Those of you who've broken your family patterning are actually the fortunate ones, though I know the price feels high.

The young children/grandchildren are missing out on family.

Bullshit. The only thing grandchildren miss out on is abuse and they should miss out on it. Parents should protect their children. No one protected us - I missed out on having a supportive loving mum! Why is that ok? Why should she ever have unrestricted access to any children I have?

So I agree with Liz on victim blaming and maybe it's one of those things you can never understand unless it's happened to you.

theBouquets - do you have any actual, first-hand, personal experience of being on the receiving end of this type of behaviour? Because you are talking like an enabler, like a "flying monkey", someone who tries to mitigate the abusive behaviour and get the abused victim to make up with the abuser.

This is a ridiculous stance.

And I entirely agree that, in the circumstances described by the posters on this thread, the only thing that their children are missing out on is a relationship that only exists in fantasy land (decent grandparents), but are being saved from a toxic relationship that will only cause them damage and distress.

Quirky, yes - it's practically a script! Have you ever seen Tangled? The witch in that reminds me so much of my mother!

Great post from Garlic there on social changes.

"Co-operation" is an unpleasant word because it assumes both sides need to grin and bear it in an equal partnership - but why should victims of abuse put up with it all?

I bet 99% of everyday healthy relationships are based on cooperation ("I hate your noisy eating but love you so will not comment" "I hate the way you like the colour pink but it's not a big deal so I won't mention it") - but the 1% abusive ones are where it's all gone too far ("you are damaging to me and I have to speak up"). I don't think these relationships can even be solved, even in intensive therapy with impartial third parties present.

I couldn't "see" really decent men, they might as well have been a different species

Arrggghh
So true
So obvious in hindsight, after the hurly burly, after the race is run, when you finally get some peace to look back and reflect
And wonder how could you have been so stupid
Couldn't someone have pointed you in the right direction?

Someone could but I never came into contact with them, glass! I don't think everything in 2016 is better than 1976, but - what d'you call it? Emotional common sense; psychology awareness - is better, and improving. A benefit of living in relative peace & prosperity, perhaps?