You cannot communicate with batshit

[Pingpang]

Following on from a recent thread regarding those who are NC/LC with family members.

Welcome to the good ship Narcymcnarcface! The bar is stocked and there's a seat for everyone. Shuffleboard starts in 20 mins.

Garlic - thanks for that, I will keep it up my sleeve. I usually try and use humour to laugh it off, but am fed up of taking the piss out myself, as she then goes and quotes me taking the mickey out of myself, then telling people how HILARIOUS I am. She's special, this one.

This thread has made me realise how petty my batshitter is though. I'm pretty thick skinned, so please have a laugh at me, I know I am with kindred spirits.

Misc

special - God no, you may have been right and honestly it's good to know when stuff is typical mum stuff; I'm not looking to portray mine as the devil incarnate (at least I don't mean to)!

Insult bingo is good, as is just a blank smile and nod - like any bully they can get bored and move on when there's no response.

Just dropping in briefly to say keep on keeping on, and love to all x

Lol, it basically comes down to the fact that you can't communicate with batshit (IPad is now trying to autocorrect me to batshitter lol).

I read the link about dissociation that was kindly posted earlier, and I realised that I do that a lot but explain it to myself 'as drawing a line under something I can't do anything about, and moving on.'

Merd, thanks for being understanding.

Sorry posted to soon - ping pang, tell me more about the laugh. I reckon I could do it with a bit of training.. Patronising, with some pity and smug thrown in maybe?

Yes, I've read about it being used in other threads. As fake as possible, with maybe a slightly disguised withering look.

And Misc and

Margo from Good Life, Blond, if you're old enough to remember her!

Can't respond to all sorry will do what I can.

Welcome to new shipmates, NOBODY is as unworthy as a stowaway you are ALL first class passengers.

Hair - my mother took/takes great care of hers but this is partly down to the abuse she gets from my father.

Hair being 'done' yes to vicious drying and combing/brushing (because my father loved my hair?) yes to vicious tying up including bobbles slammed against head, made to put up with hairbands that were digging in/too tight.

Tangled I get what people are saying, I have seen the film but I'm mostly anti Disney anyway and the irony that tangled is produced by a company fathered by someone rumoured to have been abusive themselves.

My mother has actually said she was jealous of my relationship with my father - which until the sa I liked of course, because what child wouldn't like tons of positive attention and being put on a pedestal? Of course I didn't know then that he had ulterior motives but fairly or unfairly I think she should have been thinking not to be jealous but concerned. What kind of father doesn't like his newborn being held by other family members ESPECIALLY male ones? Or me talking to male family members, enjoying time with them? Even his own brothers? Fucked up is what that is!

The batshit non relative - head tilt and 'oh is it time to see your specialist optician again ? Because NOBODY else sees what YOU see?'

I have the hair thing too. My mother had long sharp nails, always with nail varnish, she wore a lot of rings. She was very proud of her nails, and used to be disgusted that I bit mine. I have a very clear memory of her washing my hair and really digging her nails into my scalp. I can't remember if I asked her to stop. Probably not. I also had to have my hair cut very short. I hated it so much and used to cry while it was being cut, she used to laugh. God this is hard.

My mum hated my nails too, she was constantly roughly and really painfully pushing back my cuticles, it was almost like a sort of compulsion for her

I'd like to come aboard if I may!

I've been lurking on this thread and Stately Homes for a while. My mother is a narcissist. Amongst other things. I discovered this thanks to MN.

Thank FUCK we have the internet these days eh? It was such a relief finding out I'm not the only one.

I'm not even sure why I'm posting, because there are so many things whirling around my head and I just don't know how to articulate my thoughts. I suppose I just wanted to say I'm one of you guys solidarity fistbump

Since coming to the realisation that my mother is, in fact, batshit, I seem to have a new realisation every day. Memories pop into my head, and it's like I'm seeing them through a different set of eyes, if that makes sense. I didn't realise just how awful she is, and how much damage she's done to me (and others), for such a long time.

Today, I read the posts on here about disassocciation, and realised that's me.

I also strongly identified with the poster(s?) who said they weren't believed when they were ill. She rarely took me to the doctor, and automatically assumed I was making it up for attention. (Projecting, I now realise!) Pain was dismissed, symptoms ignored. I just had to toughen up and stop being so pathetic. This has affected me in my adult life, and I have neglected my health terribly.

And the hair! Oh my god! I had really long hair as a child. When she brushed it, it was like torture. She never tried to make it any less painful - she would just rip through the tangles with great force - and it's just dawned on me that she was taking her anger and aggression out on me. And she'd whack me on the head with the hairbrush if I complained.

When I was a bit older (about 8?) she got sick of brushing my hair - it was "a pain in the arse". (Curly). I had to do it myself. Trouble was, I wasn't very good at it. I remember the hair at the back of my head was matted for months and months because I couldn't get the tangles out myself. There are pictures of me with clearly matted hair.

Well, that was quite a long post considering I didn't think I had anything to say! to all.

Yesicanhearyou

It is a maelstrom initially, but talking and thinking does clarify. Are you getting help in real life?

< pours a drink for yesicanhearyou>

Evening all

All these hair stories are really shocking, I think I got off lightly! my mother refused to touch my hair after I decided I wanted to wash it myself age 2 probably a good job I was such a "difficult little bitch"

I think where my experience is different is that she saw me as a kind of doll, she would always choose my clothes and my hair styles we never went shopping together or ask my opinion she would just come home with clothes for me and that's what I wore until I started earning my own money.

I remember once she bullied me into having a perm one of those tight curly ones that was fashionable in the early 90s I really really didn't want one but she kept going on until finally she got her way.

The problem was no one told me how to take care of it so it ended up all matted her solution was to march in to the bathroom while I was in the shower with my father and they then proceeded to brush my hair out while I stood naked in the bathtub they didn't even offer me a towel I was around 12/13

Some of your mother's were truly horrible! to all

YesIcanhearyou - ha to the matted lump at the back - yes! I had one of those for over a week, until Mum noticed it - god, her getting that out was punishment! well over half an hour, if not an hour, with the fine tooth comb, lots of yanking etc. Mind you, I suppose I should be grateful she didn't just get the scissors and cut it out (it was a big patch).

Mum took great care of her nails but had less luck with her hair - she also had very fine hair, but of a more non-descript colour than mine (I was ginger, she was medium brown) and it didn't take styles very well. She tried lots of different ones but never really settled on one that worked - long hair tied up in a chignon was good in the 60s and early 70s, but she had her hair cut short because of "breakage" on the hair line after she had me (not sure if it was actual breakage, or the usual hair loss post-partum followed by lots of regrowth) and short hair just Did Not Work for her.
But she always wore make up when she went out, and always had her nails done nicely.

Dad told me when I was in my 20s that some of the reason Mum was awful to me in my teens was because she was jealous of me. Was a massive shock! But she wasn't vile, like Misc's mum, or like Bacon's mum. She would put me down: accuse me of anorexia because I wasn't fat (I was a size 10, ffs!); accuse me of being a lesbian because I didn't have a boyfriend - that one came back after my first fiancé fucked off with a secretary from work and I didn't immediately start seeing another bloke, but was hanging out with my female friends instead - I mean, seriously?; and generally pick holes in my choice of apparel, hairstyle, make up/lack of make up, appearance (I suffered from spots, she made sure I was fully aware of them at all times!).

I see now that a lot of it sprang from jealousy but God.

My younger sister didn't get half as much of this - but then she was a blonde, blue eyed pretty child, instead of being a freckly ginger thing who needed glasses - and also my brother had been born by then. I was a HUGE disappointment, by being female.

We have an extensive running buffet on board, everything that you'd most like to eat (bit like Hogwarts, eh? )

(And fuzzy - I'm pretty sure it's just the way I'm reading it, but just for clarification, you weren't in the shower with your father, were you? He came into the bathroom with your mother, yes?)

Yes hope posting helps you a bit, sorry to hear about the dreadful time you've had.
So sorry shipmates and Rick and Bacony about the shit you have gone through too. Hair is such a symbol of so many things in life, the batshittery always seems to pick up on it.

My DM's disinterest in helping me with my uncut, matted long hair while snickering about me being so dirty, came home to me about 6 or 7 years old and I realised then I didn't like her, as guilty as I felt about that. As I grew older I was better at 'saying the right things' to her so she was less openly hostile to me but I always felt anxious about falling out with either parent as that could land me with the other 100% of the time which I feared.

As a young teenager I was mistakenly desperate for some kind of motherish connection with my DM having seen friends interacting with their cuddly and understanding mums.

I was foolish enough to confide in DM about bullying I was getting for my thick dark leg, arm, monobrow and upper lip hair (at school and from siblings). DM just sucked her teeth and said mmm that's all your fathers bad genes, they are a horribly hairy family. She helpfully pointed out by rolling up her trousers that she herself of course didn't have to do anything about hair removal naturally (being fair haired) so she didn't see why I needed to do anything about my natural hair and so it should all be left. (Amazing logic that)

There was no advice and no money forthcoming so next time I saw my dad I asked him for Jolen which I had seen a magazine ad for- at that age there was nothing more mortifying than to have to mention this to him. I wanted the ground to open up.

Fortunately he was willing to give money for this though complained it was expensive (which of course it would have been compared to e.g. tweezers and a cheap pack of razors [hmmm]) so I went along with him to the chemist to buy a tiny box of face bleach (so embarrassing to me in our small village, he asked for it at the counter). So for a short time I went around with bright ginger legs and arms and tache but obviously couldn't keep it up without buying more so was just left to grow out making it all even more noticeable. That all went down great at school!. I appreciate it that my DF was basically helpful though this was also used later as ammo against my mum of course, so it wasn't entirely clear cut.

He or she could easily have taken the angst out of it and said, it's ok, no big deal, you're growing up, sorry that some people are being twats about that, but here's some tweezers and razors and you can use these in private to sort yourself out, lots of people do this, etc.

I thought I was SO disgusting and abnormal. There wasnt information to privately find out about what to do about body hair then, I was too embarrassed to ask anyone. The posh girls at school were being taken for regular leg waxes with their mums (this totally blew my mind when I heard) and other people had started shaving or immaccing their legs and arms by then and weren't admitting it (I know now with hindsight) but I didn't know enough to recognise that then. I thought I was the only naturally hairy one. I hated my horrible disloyal body.

Now as an adult when friends joke (only in a nice female bonding type way) about needing to remove their tache or wax legs or foof or whatever, i still freeze up and change the subject. It's ridiculous.

Anyway. HAIR. It's bloody complicated (or maybe only if other people make it that way [hmmm]).
Sorry for the long trivial post, I know it's off topic and hirsutey angst is really not big in the grand scheme of everyone's childhoods.

Catsnores, please please don't apologise. You have nothing to apologise about. I am so sorry you did not have a cuddley mum. I am sorry for all of us, we did nothing wrong, we did nothing to deserve the mothers we had. I feel for the teenage you, and by sharing your story, you validate mine and others, I empathise with you showing your mum your hairy legs, and her showing you her smooth ones, my mother did something similiar with my awful cracked heels, of course hers were smooth as silk.
I am trying to stick with one memory at a time, and love the child that was feeling so alone, I had forgotten about her laughing and joking with the hairdresser as my hair fell to the floor. I am trying to protect myself from that now. I am crying but I think they are helpful tears.
Wishing everyone a good day.

I am a secret stowaway on SS Batshittery but I had to come out of hiding to tell you my hair story. I had fine blonde hair as a child, my DM had short permed brown hair. My hair was often praised by others, so at the age of 6 I was taken to the hairdressers for a perm exactly like hers, which is also the same perm that the Queen has had for the past 60 years. This is the woman that never took me to the dentist, because she didn't like them, but had me walking round with an old lady perm at 6!

Just to add to the complete batshittery, the hairdresser was DM's secret daughter who was brought up by relatives & didn't find out DM was her mother until she was a teenager.

I don't think DM was being deliberately cruel just stupid, stupid, STUPID.

Sorry, I lost it there at the end.

Oh Rick so sorry you are having a hard time with this. The past can be so fucking painful. But I think it has to be better to sort through it all, than leave it to affect your life. which it can't fail to do- no fault of your own but soldiering on with your stuff unaddressed isn't going to help you ultimately. (Though I think we've all done bloody well to get this far..not trying to take away from that)

If it helps at all to know what a stranger on the internet thinks, your mum sounds absolutely vicious and I am so sorry you had to suffer at her hands (literally with her horrible nails).

Posting is cathartic for me, thanks for being kind about my waffle. I don't always know what's run of the mill angst and what's related to my parents at the moment. Feels like they loom negatively over a lot of stuff at the moment.

Hope everyone onboard has a good day (and lurkers)

Thumb witch no I was on my own in the shower my dad came in after my mum decided that it was the opportune time to attack my hair.

She used to involve my dad inappropriately in a lot of things like when I got my period and she didn't explain anything about pads and how often I should change them she'd just sneer at me that I smelled and that she'd tell my dad if I didn't do something about it.

And with that positive Monday morning thought I'm off to work

Lord x-post and welcome. Come up on deck.

Holy (bat) shit at your DM. Fucking hell. I think STUPID is putting it very kindly.

Hope you and your sister have a decent relationship now?
I'm trying to be a bit vague for privacy purposes but in my family we have at least four generations of not mentioned/lost contact half/full siblings too. I can relate.

But I don't know that they ever eg used the professional services of one of them while pretending not to be related to them. Fucking hell.

Footnote: the above is why (if I can go back to Tangled...!) the 'safety with birth family' fantasy never really worked for me.

'accuse me of being a lesbian because I didn't have a boyfriend '
Yep same here - except by the father who bloody should have KNOWN why I was wary! (Narc bingo anyone?)

I struggle to hear my mum called 'vile' (that's not a criticism by the way) as she cultivated the persona of martyr until VERY recently and that she actually was a victim of dv reinforces that (although they did have splits and she always went back and is still with him now) I've noticed on other threads people can't get their heads round someone being both a victim and abusive themselves.