"But we took you to Stately Homes" - survivors of dysfunctional and toxic families

[pocketsaviour]

It's October 2016, and the Stately Home is still open to visitors.

Forerunning threads:
December 2007
March 2008
August 2008
February 2009
May 2009
January 2010
April 2010
August 2010
March 2011
November 2011
January 2012
November 2012
January 2013
March 2013
August 2013
December 2013
February 2014
April 2014
July 2014
Oct 14 – Dec 14
Dec 14 – March 15
March 2015 - Nov 2015
Nov 2015 - Feb 2016
Feb 2016 - Oct 2016

Welcome to the Stately Homes Thread.

This is a long running thread which was originally started up by 'pages' see original thread here (December 2007)

So this thread originates from that thread and has become a safe haven for Adult children of abusive families.

The title refers to an original poster's family who claimed they could not have been abusive as they had taken her to plenty of Stately Homes during her childhood!

One thing you will never hear on this thread is that your abuse or experience was not that bad. You will never have your feelings minimised the way they were when you were a child, or now that you are an adult. To coin the phrase of a much respected past poster Ally90;

'Nobody can judge how sad your childhood made you, even if you wrote a novel on it, only you know that. I can well imagine any of us saying some of the seemingly trivial things our parents/ siblings did to us to many of our real life acquaintances and them not understanding why we were upset/ angry/ hurt etc. And that is why this thread is here. It's a safe place to vent our true feelings, validate our childhood/ lifetime experiences of being hurt/ angry etc by our parents behaviour and to get support for dealing with family in the here and now.'

Most new posters generally start off their posts by saying; but it wasn't that bad for me or my experience wasn't as awful as x,y or z's.

Some on here have been emotionally abused and/ or physically abused. Some are not sure what category (there doesn't have to be any) they fall into.

NONE of that matters. What matters is how 'YOU' felt growing up, how 'YOU' feel now and a chance to talk about how and why those childhood experiences and/ or current parental contact, has left you feeling damaged, falling apart from the inside out and stumbling around trying to find your sense of self-worth.

You might also find the following links and information useful, if you have come this far and are still not sure whether you belong here or not.

'Toxic Parents' by Susan Forward.

I started with this book and found it really useful.

Here are some excerpts:

"Once you get going, most toxic parents will counterattack. After all, if they had the capacity to listen, to hear, to be reasonable, to respect your feelings, and to promote your independence, they wouldn't be toxic parents. They will probably perceive your words as treacherous personal assaults. They will tend to fall back on the same tactics and defences that they have always used, only more so.

Remember, the important thing is not their reaction but your response. If you can stand fast in the face of your parents' fury, accusations, threats and guilt-peddling, you will experience your finest hour.

Here are some typical parental reactions to confrontation:

"It never happened". Parents who have used denial to avoid their own feelings of inadequacy or anxiety, will undoubtedly use it during confrontation, to promote their version of reality. They'll insist that your allegations never happened, or that you're exaggerating. They won't remember, or they will accuse you of lying.

YOUR RESPONSE: Just because you don't remember, doesn't mean it didn't happen".

"It was your fault." Toxic parents are almost never willing to accept responsibility for their destructive behaviour. Instead, they will blame you. They will say that you were bad, or that you were difficult. They will claim that they did the best that they could but that you always created problems for them. They will say that you drove them crazy. They will offer as proof, the fact that everybody in the family knew what a problem you were. They will offer up a laundry list of your alleged offences against them.

YOUR RESPONSE: "You can keep trying to make this my fault, but I'm not going to accept the responsibility for what you did to me, when I was a child".

"I said I was sorry what more do you want?" Some parents may acknowledge a few of the things that you say but be unwilling to do anything about it.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate your apology, but that is just a beginning. If you're truly sorry, you'll work through this with me, to make a better relationship."

"We did the best we could." Some parents will remind you of how tough they had it while you were growing up and how hard they struggled. They will say such things as "You'll never understand what I was going through," or "I did the best I could". This particular style of response will often stir up a lot of sympathy and compassion for your parents. This is understandable, but it makes it difficult for you to remain focused on what you need to say in your confrontation. The temptation is for you once again to put their needs ahead of your own. It is important that you be able to acknowledge their difficulties, without invalidating your own.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I understand that you had a hard time, and I'm sure that you didn't hurt me on purpose, but I need you to understand that the way you dealt with your problems really did hurt me"

"Look what we did for you." Many parents will attempt to counter your assertions by recalling the wonderful times you had as a child and the loving moments you and they shared. By focusing on the good things, they can avoid looking at the darker side of their behaviour. Parents will typically remind you of gifts they gave you, places they took you, sacrifices they made for you, and thoughtful things they did. They will say things like, "this is the thanks we get" or "nothing was ever enough for you."

YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate those things very much, but they didn't make up for ...."

"How can you do this to me?" Some parents act like martyrs. They'll collapse into tears, wring their hands, and express shock and disbelief at your "cruelty". They will act as if your confrontation has victimized them. They will accuse you of hurting them, or disappointing them. They will complain that they don't need this, they have enough problems. They will tell you that they are not strong enough or healthy enough to take this, that the heartache will kill them. Some of their sadness will, of course, be genuine. It is sad for parents to face their own shortcomings, to realise that they have caused their children significant pain. But their sadness can also be manipulative and controlling. It is their way of using guilt to try to make you back down from the confrontation.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I'm sorry you're upset. I'm sorry you're hurt. But I'm not willing to give up on this. I've been hurting for a long time, too."

Helpful Websites

Alice Miller
Personality Disorders definition
Daughters of narcissistic mothers
Out of the FOG
You carry the cure in your own heart
Help for adult children of child abuse
Pete Walker

Some books:

Toxic Parents by Susan Forward
Homecoming by John Bradshaw
Will I ever be good enough? by Karyl McBride
If you had controlling parents by Dan Neuharth
When you and your mother can't be friends by Victoria Segunda
Children of the self-absorbed by Nina Brown - check reviews on this, I didn't find it useful myself.
Recovery of your inner child by Lucia Capacchione

This final quote is from smithfield posting as therealsmithfield:

"I'm sure the other posters will be along shortly to add anything they feel I have left out. I personally don't claim to be sorted but I will say my head has become a helluva lot straighter since I started posting here. You will receive a lot of wisdom but above all else the insights and advice given will 'always' be delivered with warmth and support."

Perhaps the minimal self care is related to "appearances can be deceiving". As youngsters, we were deceived in a most fundamental way. Imho, it isn't surprising that foundational aspects of ourselves (self care, reasoning processes, "fitting in") became distorted.

I've NCd but was on here before about my not so DM. I was initially NC with her until I allowed her back in gradually after a very scary time over the summer where I nearly died. This has proven to be shortlived however as I was recently readmitted to hospital really poorly again and she was beyond nasty (long story but she caused my DSis much upset when she decided not to tell her i was in. My poor sister was worried sick). My Dad is my NOK but he couldn't get hold of her.

I've been skim reading the last few posts. I think the issue with self care is we have it ingrained in us that to do anything for ourselves is selfish - it isn't. We are so used to doing things for others because they expect it. I had a really rough week last week. This week. I am not doing anything for anyone but myself. As myself and my mental health need it. to all.

Struggling a bit today. The counselling brings up some difficult emotions - grief, fear, anger - which can be quite consuming.

One of the things that really frustrates me is the way my DSis acts like I am paranoid/unreasonable. As some of you know, I'm dealing with the backwash of emotions after finding out I am infertile, and my family have just been hideous over this. Not only unsupportive, but just uninterested. At no point have they asked me what's going on, or how I feel about it. They just pretend it's not happening. This leads to conversations like this:

So this is a classic conversation with "D"Sis:

Me: I can't believe it. My friend just offered to be a surrogate for me. I'm not going down that route, but I am so touched she would offer.

Dsis: That's amazing! I didn't know you were thinking of children. Well, not whether you were thinking of it as a plan or not.

Me: Whaaaaaa??? But I told you about being infertile, yes? Or am I taking crazy pills?

DSis: You did indeed, but I didn't know if you had plans or whether you hadn't made any decisions but had had the ability to make them taken away. Does that make sense? Both v upsetting but I didn't want to jump to conclusions or ask for more info, because it can be so horribly upsetting to pry.

I mean, in WHAT UNIVERSE don't you ask someone whether they wanted kids when they tell you they are infertile? In what twisted, parallel place do you not care enough to find out what someone is going through?

Apologies for the rant - am preparing for the weekly conversation with my parents, in which they will no doubt tell me how "traumatic" a week my sister is having because she has an amazing new job.

Oh, and the "upsetting to pry" thing is PRECISELY the kind of distancing work she's always doing. It's always "You don't belong, you are a stranger to us, you are outside of the inner circle of care".

Gah, that sounds horrible, shove. It's not only distancing, to me, it also sounds like, you're completely weird and unfathomable and not like normal people so I don't ask you normal things. Or perhaps that's just me projecting how my family thinks about me.

I understand about the counselling. I had a session on Thursday night that left me absolutely in bits and I've been tearful and struggling ever since. I'm sleeping badly and waking up and thinking about it all in the middle of the night. I've been considering whether I actually want to continue counselling as it's so difficult. I have a breather as my counsellor is on holiday this week so I don't have to go back until the middle of next week.

I ended up just not even saying anything for the last ten minutes of the session, I felt so traumatised and too distressed to speak. I'm not sure the counsellor handled it particularly well but he did make sure I could talk normally again (about mundane things) before letting me go home.

justawoman - thanks for understanding. I knew if I posted that anywhere else, I'd just get a chorus of people saying 'Oh but your DSis is being nice' because it wouldn't come in the context of the whole dynamic. And yes, it is absolutely othering and very much intended to be so.

But, but, but - the more important thing - you poor love about the counselling. It is awful when you have a session like that. I totally understand why you would want it just to stop. It is horrible feeling like you are being hustled out of the door as well. I totally understand the need for boundaries (temporal and emotional) in counselling, but it's very, very tough at those moments.

I suppose what I've learned in my time (I'm 39 tomorrow and feeling very old ) is one brutal truth: for those of us who weren't loved unconditionally within the family, there is nowhere to hide. We can distract ourselves temporarily, but we always come back to the loss, the absence of care - it runs so deep and so often we have allowed it to define us (because what else was a tiny person going to do?). I know that it's only really by confronting this I can lead a better life, anyway. SO I keep telling myself that some things have to get worse before they get better.

Have you ever noticed how, if you have an infection in your finger or anywhere else, making it bleed can lead to proper healing? It hurts like hell, but it works. I think this might be the same.

Thank you shoveholly. I'm hoping the same thing about counselling. For years I was quite anti-counselling: why focus on the bad stuff, why not just try to be positive and live life instead of ruminating about it? That got me quite far, but in my early-mid 30s (I was 38 two weeks ago so we're about the same age!) I found myself crippled by strange anxieties and inabilities in relationships and so on, and it just wasn't working not to open up Pandora's box and have a rummage inside, either.

I think my counsellor unintentionally hit on a really hot button that I don't really understand, and we probably need to try and talk about it so perhaps I can get some insight into why that topic distresses me so much.

Yes, I feel the same - I've been functional on the outside for years and trying really hard to be positive - but not on the inside. I've been able to muddle through, but I haven't been able to really fly, to reach my potential or to feel free. I do think that I've just reached a road block, where I have to renegotiate this. I don't know what the future holds, but I am going to try my best to ensure it's not governed by the dynamics of the past.

I also think sometimes we can surprise, even shock, ourselves at the unexpected acuteness of an emotion. It can be distressing not only to feel that, but to realise that we have been fighting hard not to see it for all that long while, and to fear what is there when we come to uncover it more fully. All those emotions are so normal, so natural - but nonetheless so scary to go through. for you. Can you be gentle to yourself until you see your counsellor again? Extra wine, cake, time out never hurt anyone going through that kind of moment.

shove

I think that ultimately you will need to be in no contact with your sister as well.

Wishing you a v Happy Birthday for tomorrow .

BTW its been a long time since I was 39! Dim and distant memory,
ahem!!!.

Atilla - I have this horrible, creeping realisation via counselling that a lot of the stuff that has been done to me in the last 20 years was actually my sister's doing. I am starting to realise that she has been absolutely instrumental in poisoning my relationships with my parents by reinterpreting everything I say and do in the worst possible light. I think a need to remain the 'golden child' has been the driver of this (despite owning a massive, palatial house of her own and having a great job she still lives at home at the age of 36 and my parents wait on her hand and foot).

Its likely so and your parents have gone along with it as well. They are also culpable and have encouraged that dynamic too.

My BIL was similarly favoured within DHs family and he still lives at home with mother also living the life of Riley. They both get what they want out of it but there will be problems when the power and control balance shifts as it surely will do.

shove for you. I don't think it sounds like your sis is just trying to be nice. It sounds like she really doesn't want to acknowledge that you may have any problems of your own that might make her 'work issues' seem petty.
Any normal person would, at the very least, ask how you felt about it even if they were uncomfortable asking if you actually wanted children.
Your friend who offered to be a surrogate sounds lovely. At least you have some good people around you. I'm assuming your sis doesn't have such good relationships.

justawoman I can relate to this. I've also had counselling that has left me feeling completely lost. My main issue is that I would never tell the counsellor, I'd put on my fake smile and say I was fine. Have left several counselling sessions in the past and seriously considered harming myself in some way. I'd go with what shove said. Try and be extra gentle on yourself for a while. It's tough facing the past sometimes but hopefully it will help you find ways of better coping with it.

Thank you sleepy. Yes to putting on the good face. I will say something about it next time though and I don't think he will let me get away with not doing so, it was very obvious I was upset last time even though I managed to compose myself enough to obviously be safe to let me leave and drive home.

I am trying with the self-care. It's a more than averagely busy week at work but am trying to let people help me and to drop what doesn't need to happen. Am about to go and meet my best friend for dinner. I nearly cancelled as am feeling so awful but think actually I should go - staying in and ruminating isn't helpful either, and at least seeing her always cheers me up.

It so helps to know that others have had similar experiences with very difficult counselling sessions. Thank you all

When I've had counselling before it was either CBT, which doesn't go so deep, or once a very nice man who just wanted to reassure me all the time and so I never got upset. I think you're probably right that the getting so upset is something that needs to happen. But it's hard right now.

Thanks everyone for being kind to me. Your words come at just the time when I needed them. atilla - Interesting and helpful to hear about your DH/BIL dynamic. As justawoman says, it helps not to feel so alone.

sleepy - This leapt out at me:

"My main issue is that I would never tell the counsellor, I'd put on my fake smile and say I was fine."

I think this is an incredibly difficult thing to deal with when you are conditioned by family dynamics to please people and to avoid conflict. It means that the counsellor can all too easily turn into a kind of substitute parent who has to be pleased and who must like us, or else we have failed. And that can, in turn, lead to problems being completely honest - both because we don't want to displease or shock them, and because we want them to feel good about themselves, so we might go along with an approach that isn't working for too long without having the courage to say so.

In fact, what a good counsellor offers is "unconditional positive regard". UNconditional. Positive. Regard. Their role is to provide that warm, safe place that allows them to "hold" the work that we then do uncovering what is really bothering us.

I think for people who have not experienced unconditional love from families, being the recipient of it can be very difficult to accept. It's not just the instinct to seek approval that needs to be overcome, but the fact that actually gaining it can be terrifying, shocking, difficult in its own right.

I have made the mistake before of being less than honest, and I have absolutely determined to be completely truthful in my counselling now. And I am managing it - as far as I am aware, anyway. When I was doing that thing a couple of weeks back of writing down all the worst experiences that had happened, I deliberately wrote down the experience I am most ashamed of in my own life as well. I couldn't even write it on the computer - I had to write it on a piece of paper, with a view to burning it afterwards. However, when I told my counsellor about it, she actually shed a whole new light on it. It wasn't that she excused me for it, but she put it in context and I didn't feel quite so ashamed and negated by it any more - in fact, I started to see that something I'd always represented to myself as a major misdemeanour actually had a funny side and wasn't the terrible act that I'd made it out to be. It really mattered to me that I had been able to be THAT honest with the counsellor. Was I testing the unconditionality of her regard? Perhaps, but I was also testing my own ability to go to that place.

And I didn't need to burn the paper. I just put it in the bin.

Sorry, that should say "I have made the mistake before of being less than honest WITH A COUNSELLOR!"

This is so helpful.

Shove, it's really helpful to be reminded that this is 'just' a feeling. Not that feelings aren't important, but they do pass. I'm clearly reacting like a scared child because of some long suppressed trauma: at that time I couldn't feel sadness or rejection because it would be an existential threat. Now it isn't, it's just a feeling. Thank you for that

Well done with the shameful memory, by the way. And yes to unconditional positive regard being deeply unsettling to the likes of us!

Sometimes when I feel something strong and I don't know why, it helps to remember when I felt like that before... Not the event but the time period or any slight detail of the environment. Somehow it means I approach it sideways. I don't know how if this is just me making strange connections though.

I am sorry for your devastating news about your infertility.

I hope you have a wonderful birthday Tuesday!

Your sister conversation example reminded me of my (narc) Middle Sister when I was pg with my third. It was a bit of a high risk pg because of my age (46). Sister just didn't get it at all- because she had never been pg before: it didn't happen to her so it must not be important. Anyway, the gist of the story is that she withdrew her offer of help (around which I had to construct major boundaries) because she had not heard anything from me. As if it were my Duty to check in with her...because it was somehow a subordinate marker to be the one to initiate the call.
The next phone call was the one I announced that I was taking a break from the relationship, that my "family duty" card was all punched out and that I was not a renewable resource for her ego supply. That was very hard as both our parents were deceased (10 years at that point) and I had horrible guilt over it because she was/is single/no dc. That was 8 years ago.
I agree with Attila...your enemy sister may be keeping you close to distort your view of the big picture. Take a break from her (even temporary) to give yourself a chance to re-process events now that you have more clarity.

You guys are all so awesome. Once again in that place of wishing we didn't need this thread, but so glad it exists.
I was thinking about self care and for me there's a thing about how much of it was attended to, but in the most unloving, unhelpful way possible. Bodily care was like torture with my mother a lot of the time, she made it as unpleasant as possible, painful, like brushing hair and stuff, the way she did it was the most painful way you could do it, combing all the tangles into a big mat halfway down my hair and then just dragging the comb through that, not even trying to take a section of hair and hold it in a ponytail, just pulling it straight from my scalp. When I left home I was just glad to be rid of any and all of that. But what I'd also missed out on was the teaching, not just of the skills, but of the habit - you're supposed to help your kids gradually take on responsibility for that stuff themselves and for me all that happened was that at age 10 or so my mother stopped doing anything and would then just shout at me if she found out I wasn't doing some aspect of self care that she thought I should've, even if she'd never told me it was a thing I had to do. So as an adult I just see it all as a slightly anxiety inducing bore.

Happy birthday shove!

It sounds like your sister's hands off approach is part of the whole general gaslighting around you being the difficult/oversensitive one. Not nice at all. And wtf is it with infertility? My estranged BIL expressed frank disbelief that we'd had trouble to have kids - he's infertile, I think it was like "the infertile one" was his role in the family, so we were stealing his thunder. I was three miscarriages down by this time. Arsehole. Sorry.

When I'm in therapy I find myself trying to be funny to gauge if they still like me. I've found that with some therapists it can be a bit of a struggle because they're trying so hard to be sort of neutrally positive that they come off as false, and I can't read them, and it makes me uncomfortable. I have a therapist now who will sometimes interrupt me or disagree (pleasantly) about stuff and I find it much more reassuring as I know that as long as he's still smiling and listening, he's actually happy. Not that that's the main aim of the therapy, but it's one less thing to worry about, you know?

shove sorry to hear about your infertility

And yeah, your "D"Sis isn't interacting like a normal human being. Even if for some reason you hadn't ascertained for sure if someone wanted kids, when they tell you something like someone offered to be a surrogate, you click in your head that clearly they had some inclination that way and say nice, supportive things. You don't make it all about you and what you knew or didn't know, and how sensitive you are that you hadn't wanted to pry, etc. You adjust your knowledge and move on with the conversation!

Yeah, I think of the self-care thing for me is that I've ingrained in me that I don't count as much as other people in some way. And I have to admit that thing that's really gotten me to take care of myself is my illness and the realisation that if I don't take care to make sure I stay healthy enough to be employed, my family is going to be in a lot of trouble (DH is more ill than I). I wonder if I would even pay as much attention if there wasn't people riding on me. But good for me, I suppose, that I don't have to find out...

tomboy, I think because you do care and worry about your behaviour, that means you will do a good job. If you were shouting and saying "oh, that's how I was raised, it's how it's meant to be", that would be the problem. I'm pretty sure my parents are positive they are the best parents in the world. Everyone gets shouty at times. If you apologise to your DD and reassure her you love her she will know you care and that you are fallible, and recognise it. It's laying into them afterwards that "you made me shout because you're so bad" and stuff that does the most damage.

When you realise this about your parent/parents. Do you start to clock on with other relationships and friends you have too?

I was friends with a bloke (platonic) and he is usually the personification of kindness when we meet for a catch up. However, the last time, I was late through no fault of my own and he went absolutely batshit at me. I apologised at the time and it was forgotten about but I was chewing on it all weekend, that I deserve better, and I wouldn't let my ex speak to me like that so I'd be damned if I let anyone else. I messaged him and made my feelings clear and I got an essay of excuses arsiness back. Usually this would upset me (the whole people pleasing thing and compromising for others). This time I simply messaged back "And I wont tolerate being swore at again either". I then got further messages which I didn't respond too. I knew I had no obligation too. Once you pick up on the narcisstic (sp?) traits you start to spot them a mile off. It may sound silly, but I felt empowered, that for once, I was doing what is right for me and nor compromising to please others.

I have a dear friend who reminds me a lot about the importance of self care and to 'believe in better' for ourselves. To set a bar and boundaries for ourselves and to stick to them and this included friends and family.

Away I knew something was off with my mother for years but once I copped on that it was probably NPD, there were three people from my past who just leapt out at me as probably also being narcs if not full blown NPD. They were relationships that had troubled me - I always seemed to come away from them licking my wounds, never really sure why - and I was suspicious at first that having found myself a hammer, I was going to make every difficult person in my life into a nail. Then my therapist talked about how, if you've suffered narcissistic abuse in the past, narcissists can sense it off you - and then it made sense. One in particular, she was my boss, and there were other people who she'd been really good to, really helped them in her career. They were the golden children, I was a scapegoat. I wish I'd known, I'd have moved jobs at the first opportunity instead of sticking it out with her.

TooMuchTooOld yes that's what I've started to realise too. I'm rather confused as to what to do re this platonic friend at the moment. When I told him I won't tolerate being swore at he said "ok I will consider the position". Do I leave him to stew and eventually realise he's been a bit of a dick? Or do I just cut all contact and leave it at that without an explanation? Assuming once he reads his own messages back he'll realise what an arse he has been. On the other hand I've been unwell for a while (3x hospital admissions in 6months and still unwell now) and I'd rather focus my own energies on me and just let the friendship fizzle out gradually. I dont know if its me keeping the peace or just trying not to make any stress impact on my health any further.

I sympathise with you. I had a horrid boss when I was 17. I didn't know how to handle it and it still affects me over 10years on some days.