"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."

Huldra that's really cool that the thread's allowed you to see the gaslighting for what it is. It's a mercy that they all seem to follow the same playbook so that at least it starts making sense once you find other people in the same boat.

Scruff it's brass monkeys here as well. We're supposed to be getting -4 daytime by the start of the week. Aargh! The whingeing from the kids will be spectacular.

Good luck on the counselling Steve.

I'm sorry to keep chain-posting.

I saw my counsellor on Thursday and have been very upset and barely functional since.

This was my second session. I've detailed before I had major reservations about seeing a male counsellor so I don't know if this is actually my fault. At first session I handed over printed notes about my major issues. Knowing I was seeing a man I didn't detail the sexual assault.

So I'd spent perhaps 25 minutes of first session, and 40 minutes of this outlining everything briefly. Counsellor sat back, thought for a minute or so, then to,d me that I had a lot of anger stored inside, a lot of pain and hurt, and that despite my claims against my mother that I should apologise to her for the animosity I hold and for going low contact.

I am bereft and destroyed. He has mind-fucked me, I have no idea what to think or do.

Christ Steve I am really sorry you had to go through that. What a total waste of space that guy is. He really is.

There are people, therapists included, who carry the prejudice that although you would leave any other abusive relationship, in the case of your relationship with the people who were supposed to care for you when you were too young to care for yourself, when you were vulnerable, when you were forming yourself and your ability to deal with the world - if these people abuse you, they believe you should just keep exposing yourself to the abuse over and over again. It's bullshit. And if you were getting therapy privately you'd walk out of that office and never go back. Can you request someone else? I can't see that there is really anything for you with that guy.

Steve

So very sorry to read of your recent experience with that counsellor. I would complain and report this person (if you have not already done so) to the counselling organisation he is a member of and never see that particular person again. He was indeed someone who knows nothing at all about toxic families, let alone the machinations of narcissistic families of origin.

Poor counsellors like you describe also serve to bring the profession into disrepute.

Hello,
This is a bit of a AIBU but this seems like a thread where people might understand what I'm saying and maybe have some good advice so here goes

Without putting anything too identifying..
I live in a town, my DM lives in the same town (5 mins in car)
My sister lives in the next town (30 mins in car)
I have one small DD, my sister has 3 - 1 primary, 2 secondary age
Here's the thing - my DM only seems to be willing to help out my sister with childcare, and never me.

My small DD is about the same age as my sister's youngest.
I've been a LP since the beginning and don't share custody at all (DD's DF refuses to see her) so don't have any 'time off', apart from work (I work full time)
My sister split from her husband just over a year ago, and moved out - since then she has shared custody so gets every other weekend 'off' already
My DM will then look after my sister's kids - ferry them to and from things, have them stay at her house overnight. Sometimes just the youngest as the older 2 can sort of look after themselves by now.
I've suggested DM could have my DD overnight or that she could just stop by and babysit for a night so that I could go do something I want to do.

She doesn't say 'no' outright, but doesn't say yes. She changes the subject, says something vague, talks about how busy she is - which is an evasive way of saying no?
But she bangs on about how much she loves having my sister's kids over.

So my question is, AIBU to feel slighted here?

Trying not to drip feed, but I've had a hang up since being a small child about DM favouring my sister. To the point where I was very upset by it, and last year sat down and told DM. I told her things like, I feel she favours my sister, compared us negatively (e.g. my behaviour growing up was a problem, sister was much easier). Said I didn't like her talking negatively about me in front of DD as she was growing up enough to understand. When I did that, I feel like she sort of listened but then each thing I said, she denied (e.g. said oh no that's not true your sister has already said that she feels you were the favourite) - so while I had said my piece, there was no acknowledgement as such or acceptance of what I had said.

Do I need to be more direct? - in the sense of 'why are you helping sister but not me'? - or is this just the way that some families work and I should get over myself?

The way I see the childcare, my sister has left a relationship but has so many nights out, goes out with friends, parties, dancing etc (the pics are all over Facebook) that she has quite high chance of meeting someone new and moving on to have a great new life. Whereas I feel like I'm stuck - literally, stuck at home unless I can afford a babysitter (rare) and though I've been a LP for much longer, have less chance of improving my life by getting out jus a bit, if that makes sense.

I hope @shovetheholly sees your post phoenix, as I think she might have insight.

FWIW that looks like a really lopsided arrangement from your mother and I'm not surprised you feel slighted. If you were on AIBU they'd probably say you've no right to expect childcare from your mother but it's not about that really is it, it's about the inequality. I don't think there's much you can do about it though but that doesn't mean you have to try and believe it's fair.
After you raised it with your mother about saying negative things in front of your DD, did she stop doing it? Because that's the litmus test, for me - if she's able to respect a boundary when you set it, that's a good sign, even though she's not willing to acknowledge that your childhood wasn't as rosy as she thinks it was.

Hello everyone! I just got a notification via email to say I had been mentioned on here! I have no idea what this magic is that you are working toomuch, but you are a proper technical wizard, you are!

I hope everyone is doing OK. I'm so sorry I've been silent for a while. I have been following the thread, but quietly (unusual for me, I know!) Part of the reason for that is I'm doing a lot of work in counselling, which is changing a lot of things for me, almost all of them for the better. So I have felt really horribly guilty about posting that things are going well, because I know I am so, so lucky to be able to have this help, and I wish you could all have the benefit of it as well, and it's not fair that I'm being able to improve when other people are still unhappy.

steve - that is a really, really outrageous thing for a counsellor to say and I am furious on your behalf. I think some people do the job who are not cut out for it, and they do so much harm not only to the people they are counselling but to the profession. Please don't give up hope. Just because you encounter one asshole in a place doesn't mean everyone there is awful.

phoenix - I have a similarly lop-sided relationship with my parents, which is why toomuch mentioned me. I think the first thing to say is that the feelings associated with this are not acknowledged enough in wider society. There is no 'adult' language for discussing the feelings of hurt that are produced when one child is disproportionately helped and favoured, perhaps because this is never, ever entirely an adult experience. By that, I don't mean that it is in any way childish. I mean that it almost invariably plugs into really deep-seated, primordial feelings of parental rejection that really go to the heart of our sense of self. It brings out from the shadows very early fears of being abandoned and helpless by the care-giver on whom we're completely reliant, but also feelings of worthlessness and failure that go right to the core of who we are. (If our parents don't love us, the child inside says, then who on earth will?) For you, that might be emphasized by the fact that a very early self that is worried by primal parental rejection is meeting a much older self, who is practically worried about the consequences of this for your own relationships (the fact that your sister may meet someone new, but you can't).

So how do you cope with this? I think, as will all such deep and painful problems, the answer is quite individual. One thing that helped me was to stop thinking of my 'selfhood' as a single thing, and think of it as a plural thing. So I think of my development as a series of stages - a young self, very afraid and desperate to 'win' love, a slightly older self who has learned to try to compete for affection and who is an incredibly harsh inner critic, a teenage self who is in out-and-out rebellion, a late teens self who is quite damaged and self-destructive, a 20-something self who is angry, a late 20s self who has given up and withdrawn, a 30-something self who is more patient. All these selves have voices, largely self-critical ones, and they pop in and out of a kind of internal dialogue with each other. I am trying to learn to put each of them in its place, to learn to manage their different voices and to correct those that do me damage (for example, the voice that says 'You can't do it, you're nowhere near good enough' and the voice that says 'There's one standard of work for other people, but you have to reach a higher one'). In the process of doing this, the pain of parental rejection has diminished a lot - I feel somehow more whole, more capable, less negated by it.

Of course, none of this seems to solve your immediate practical problem, which is your mother's unequal distribution of resources (in this case, time and attention). But sometimes you can't 'solve' other people's fucked up attitude - you can only manage your reaction to it. By this, I'm not saying that you shouldn't confront your mother again and at least try to even things out. It may be that she's more ready to listen this time, particularly if you present her, very calmly, with 'evidence' of the bias in her actions. But if she doesn't listen, and doesn't acknowledge that there are issues here, there are still things you can do. Firstly, you can protect yourself emotionally by withdrawing from this dysfunctional relationship a little (and I do think you need to be prepared to do this, not vindictively as a teenager and not to get attention as a young child, but in a way that comes from your calm adult self saying "I have had it up to here with this and I refuse to put myself in harm's way any longer!"), and secondly, there are things you can do to improve your life and meet people with a child in tow - just maybe not clubbing!

Phew, I've written a whole essay. Sorry! and an unmumsnetty hug for you.

phoenix,

It seems that your mother still favours your sister over you even now; my parents similarly have a lop sided relationship with us but in my case I am a parent whilst my brother is childfree. He is also very adept at getting my parents to dance to his tune. She has always to my mind favoured him over me whilst leaving me from the age of around 14 or so to get on with it (that took me a very long time to realise that is what she did).

As shove rightly says in her last paragraph you cannot change this particularly if your mother's attitude is ingrained but you can certainly manage your reactions to it. I have also stepped back a lot from the relationship with my parents and further reinforced my own boundaries re them.

You do not mention your dad; is he still in your life at all?.

Tagging! It's the new Mumsnet thing apparently shove. You just put the @ sign in front of the username and it emails the person. Magic eh?

I'm really glad you and atilla are around, your comments are really on the money.

Hey while I'm on actually... have any of you got into mindfulness, at all? And if so are there any books or practices you'd recommend? My therapist has recommended it, specifically Eckhart Tolle, but I read the book and it annoyed me so much that I was soured off of the whole thing.

Tagging! You clever thing, you! (I still prefer the 'witchcraft' explanation...)

I have tried several mindfulness CDs. I have friends who are evangelical about it, who swear it made a huge difference to them. Unfortunately, as soon as those bells start dinging, or the sounds of blissful whales yonking underwater plays, or someone very earnest starts talking, I start to laugh. And I cannot stop laughing, however hard I try. It rather inhibits my ability to think about anything other than how hilarious I find the whole thing. If anyone can recommend one that is less likely to tickle my funnybone, I will give it another go!

That's a fantastic reaction! Maybe you're already enlightened, maybe that's what it is

You'd love the one I've been using - it's the body scan for sleep one from here - the woman's got one of those breathy ESMR voices. It will probably set me off laughing now! I found the body scanning one quite good though because it doesn't focus on breathing like most of them do - between lurgy and asthma I often can't breathe deeply without coughing through the winter. I believe hardcore people would say you just meditate through it but I'm not ready for that.

I got to "if you notice thoughts" before....

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA.

I don't even know why I find it so funny. I am not at all the kind of person who thinks it is ridiculous. I have seen it really help friends. I am sure if I could just calm down, it would work. I just can't get started.

Just found this thread and it's so good to see that many of you share similar experiences to me.

My relationship with my mother has always been strained, but I think it’s my looming wedding (5 months to go!) that has made me realise that I need to stop making excuses for her and accept that I can’t change her behaviour. I started out by trying to involve her in the preparations but that went tits up when we attended the venue open day and she kept getting leaflets and talking to supplier’s about my sister’s wedding (she had literally just got engaged!)

It was in the car journey home that day that I decided I wasn’t going to involve her anymore. She can attend, but if she causes anymore upset then I will just say fuck it. If she can’t behave like an adult then she shouldn’t get the privilege of being invited.

This decision came as a result of lots of minor gripes about the wedding and my lifestyle choices. I also realise now that I wasn't fully supported when living at home and that is probably the reason I denied having Mental health issues for so long (dealing with them sensibly now)

And just for a kick in the teeth my whole family are all going on a luxurious vacation to Florida without me (I couldn't afford it or the time off from work because you know, weddings and a honeymoon are expensive!) They fly two days after my wedding; so it really does feel like my happy day is just a forethought to their grand vacation!

On the brighter side, my partner’s mother is lovely and I have a great relationship with her – I would have no qualms about asking her for help with things

Please can I join you. I have lurked for some time.

I feel that I have reached the end of the road with my narc mother and violent enabling father.

I knew from a young age that the way my parents treated me was not right, but it was only a few years ago (via Mumsnet) that I heard about narcissism and began to understand my family's dynamics. I am now 46 and have struggled massively over the years always blaming myself and trying so hard, but then self sabotaging.

I went NC for 4 months in late 2015 but when they phoned on Christmas day it seemed churlish not to speak to them so I did and we got back in touch, although fortunately I live 200 miles from them so see them rarely.

Just before Christmas this year my mother started again, sending me an email threatening to kill herself if her children did not get on on Christmas day (long back story). It turned me into a nervous wreck and it has made me realise that I cannot have these people in my life any more.

I have had lots of counselling over the years and DH and I are in couples counselling at the moment. The therapist seems good and "gets" narcissistic families, which is a huge help.

Going NC for ever seems so extreme but I can't see there is an alternative. I have told myself I will go NC for six months and see how I feel then. The trouble is they will try to contact me and I am worried that my DC will want to keep in contact as they are ok with them. It's so hard.

@BethanyCourt, I really hope you can try to not tell your mother too much about your wedding. At my cousns wedding the Grooms mother was totally miffed at not being able to impose her will on the bride's family,so did a complete hijack. The Wedding was at 2 with a meal afterwards, and evening guests were coming from 7pm,

After the meal, at about 5 pm we were all outside enjoying the sunshine, catching up when we noticed lots of the guests were missing. She had organised for selective guest to go to her house, 2 miles from the venue, where she laid on afternoon tea, canapés and champagne. She said, well there is always a lull before the evening guest arrive so she wanted to do something "for her own set".

Hi Tabby

With your parents being as they are I would go no contact and stay no contact as well; you've tried low contact after periods of NC and (unsurprisingly) it has not worked. These people will always try and trample you and your boundaries you care to set and in turn your children as well.

NC is NC and if you go no contact with them now it needs to become a permanent thing. No dipping in and out of no contact because doing that also puts you back to square one with any progress you have made in the meantime being undone.

What do these people bring into your life apart from a lot of misery?. Nothing and your mother has chosen to stay with your violent father for her own reasons. Women like your mother also cannot do relationships and such people always but always need a willing enabler to help them. He is likely to be as narcissistic as she is; he has certainly been her hatchet man here.

How old are your children may I ask?. Teens, junior school age for instance?. Regardless you are the parent here and they are relying on your judgment. This is not up to them to decide. They are not ok with your children because they are using them primarily as narcissistic supply. These people tend to under value or over value the relationship they have with their grandchildren and narcissists in particular make for being deplorably bad grandparent figures If you allow your children to have contact with their narcissistic grandparents, you can count on them being abused and manipulated.

You seem mired still in FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) and they will use that against you as well. You have physical distance between these people thankfully, you now need to put proper mental distance between you and they as well. Its a pity they phoned you, it was certainly not done out of any concern for you all but as a further way to control you. It worked for them. I would now look into getting caller ID if you do not already have it and block their number from your landline and mobile phones. Certainly block her e-mail now also particularly if she uses the threat of suicide to both subjugate and control you (I note that she is still alive).

You really owe these people nothing , they abjectly failed you as their now adult child and they are still abusive. These people have not and will not change. You do not owe these people any sort of relationship. You did not make them this way.

Ultimately you are going to have to grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you got.

I would suggest you read "Children of the Self Absorbed" written by Dr Dan Neuharth and look at the website entitled daughters of narcissistic mothers.

This is also a good link on narcissistic grandparents:-

narcissists-suck.blogspot.co.uk/2007/09/narcissist-grandparents.html

At wits end.

Have written here before. Nothing changes re: mother (of course!)

This will put me, so please don't comment/mention this if you know me.

In short, mother critical, snide, jealous and downright controlling and weird for my lifetime.

My sons find her very odd.

Anyway, my older son has depression. He walked out of school last week as he felt so unhappy and he keeps crying at which is embarrassing for him.

Son's favourite thing in the world are his hens.

Now, I didn't tell parents that son is in trouble with school, nor that he is unhappy. There is no point involving them.

Someone told them (don't care who or why). Went round at the weekend and did not know that they knew (if that makes sense).

Talking about avian flu and my mother swings round and says in a nasty sneer "well, if Bs hens all die, then he'll have an excuse to have even more days off".

She then carried on talking as normal. I know it's a silly thing but it seems I've reached some sort of limit.

Attila thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

You are right that if I go NC now it really has to last this time. I feel terribly sad about it as it seems so extreme but I can't see anything ever changing. My parents are in their early 70s but could easily live another 20 years or more (my mother moans about her health constantly but is incredibly fit for her age). They are both as bad as each other. She is engulfing but he mainly ignores my existence. He is absolutely her hatchet man.

I have tried so hard for so long to break free. It was no accident that I went to university at the other end of the UK and that I now live so far from them. That and years of therapy has helped enormously. But as you say I haven't totally broken free mentally.

I am in a much better place than I was a few years ago. I found an excellent therapist about three years ago and with her help I made a lot of positive changes. I now have a good, quite well paid professional job that is going well. This is a huge thing for me. My extreme lack of confidence and people pleasing meant that I think when I was younger I must have looked like a mug as I was bullied a lot at work and never made much progress. I felt that I could not look after myself, and now I realise that I can.

My DDs are 16,14 and 9. They are the light of my life and really lovely girls, although I worry so much about being a good mother to them as I have no role model. It was when my first DD was born that it really struck me how badly I had been treated (verbal abuse, physical abuse, being taunted, mother sulking for days if I upset her and having to beg her forgiveness) I could never treat my DC as my parents did me. My DDs see very little of my parents but they enjoy it when they do see them as my mother is very extravagent and will organise lots of outings, buy expensive food etc

I will read the book you suggest. I have read the Daughters of Narcissistic mothers book and toxic parents. It is really helpful to read all the posts here, so many really resonate.

Thank you again.

My mum never really did mum things with me. She still doesn't. I've only picked up on this recently though. I knew nothing of periods, sex or anything about taking care of myself. She never helped me with my hair or taught me things. She never took me to get a bra despite it being completely visible I needed it. I learnt things from magazines and friends. I don't think my mum wanted girls (I was born in between my 2 brothers). She's so stand off-ish with Me now and the same with my DS2. Some people suggested she was envious towards me. I've been mostly a confident person growing up and done all the things I wanted to do. I remember having a suspected miscarriage when I was 17 years old and on holiday in Borneo. She accused me of trying to wreck the holiday. She never mentioned it again. Had a more recent miscarriage and got no support from her. She has a drink problem and we're suspecting she's starting with dementia now (only 63). She's retired. It's like she's on a different planet. DH and I are moving out of the country this year and I fear when I next see her she won't be recognisable. Currently 15 weeks pregnant and if I find out I'm having a girl I swear to be a different mum than she was. Gosh it sounds petty doesn't it. She barely brought us up. Never read to us. Never showed us how to brush teeth. My dad did it all. I hate her gutts deep down. Anyone else experienced possible envy from a parent like this?

Monte - my mother was not neglectful like yours (sounds awful) but I totally get the envy thing. My mother has envied me my whole life and it is incredibly painful. It took me a long time to realise that I was self sabotaging because of it.

Some of the things she has done are almost quite funny if they weren't so awful - like me turning up at her house wearing a new dress. Five minutes later I realise the is on the computer ordering one exactly the same for herself!

Just before my wedding she told me not to worry because she would do her best not to upstage me on the day, WTF! I was a 20-something bride in a lovely wedding dress. She was in her mid-50s and NOT the bridge.

DH and I used to own a house in an area that she really wanted to live in. She was so angry that we owned that house. In the end we sold it and I regretted it bitterly. I later realised, in therapy, that I had been able to cope with her envying of it. It's desperately sad.

Sounds like leaving the country is a good option for you - and do protect your new baby and other DC from her.

And Attila thanks for the grandparent link. I'm just glad they have so little contact with my DDs really. They have never shown much interest in them and have only very rarely looked after them (unlike my DSis's children who they look after several times a week).

Tabby

You're very welcome. I sincerely hope you can put proper mental distance between your own self and your parents now.

Your children are far better off not seeing their grandparents and are in a far better position than your sister's children. I presume your sister was and remains the "golden child" in your family of origin's narcissistic structure. What she and her family do not realise is that there is always a price to be paid.

You do not need your family of origin and I also hope you now realise that you can look after yourself and you do not need their approval (not that they would ever freely give it anyway).

Monte

The first few sentences of your post really resonated with me because that was how my mother was too when I was in my early teens. It took me a long long time to realise that from around the age of 14 I was basically left to get on with it.

In her case she had a repressed upbringing where those types of things were never discussed at all let alone openly. Its not an excuse or justification though for her lack of action. She never really talked to me about periods either and I found out more about those at secondary school (wish someone had told me however that persistently very painful periods were not normal!!).

I would think your mother's dementia is related mainly to her alcoholism. She will never support you (alcoholics can be supremely selfish) but you are probably expected to support her.

The 3cs are again prescient here; you did not cause this, you cannot control this and you cannot cure this. It may be an idea for you to contact Al-anon if you have not already done so; they work in countries other than the UK also.

Thanks Atilla. And thanks for the link about narc grandparents. I've been talking to DD14 a bit this evening about how we are not going to be seeing my parents and she is surprisingly ok about it. She has understood more than I realised. It is very painful trying to explain it to her, and obviously I am trying to do it in an appropriate way.

Interestingly DSis is the "secondary" golden child. She was the golden child I think until my youngest DBro was born. (We also have one other DBro). One of my earliest memories is of being told to give in to my younger sister. Her needs were always much more important than mine according to my mother.

My DSis has recently woken up to what my parents are like, but it is very very early days for her and she is much more invested/emeshed, lives in the next street and relies on them for childcare and so it will be much harder for her. I would like to support her but find her v difficult too. All my life she has treated me with a lack of respect and although it is less extreme than it once was I find it very hard to spend much time in her company as I will not accept being treated like shit anymore, and she can't seem to help it.