"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."

Yes, mine had chemo a while back and afterwards claimed she was on a diet to lose weight, despite being told she needed to eat plenty to keep her weight up. She would make a big play of eating only a couple of lettuce leaves while the rest of us had a meal. She was spending a lot of time at my sister's, and my sister discovered that if they asked her to make a simple meal she'd serve herself s tiny portion, but if they made the meal she'd eat more than a full portion. It was all about control and trying to make us feel sorry for her as she was fading away through not eating (actually she didn't lose weight so must have been eating in secret).

She has lots of behaviours like this, sort of mimicking medical or psychiatric illnesses but when you think about it, only to manipulate other people. Details would be too identifying, but I've got lots of examples.

Went NC with my parents early this year. Was the scapegoat of the family, treated like a useless child.

On Xmas Day, my ex parents rang me from Cyprus as they normally do. This was exactly a week before dh and I were due to fly to Mexico for my 50th b.day. (Not bragging, this forms part of the call).

The conversation we had was the catalyst to go NC.

First, she moaned about ringing me at 11 am, and I said that's the time we had agreed for her to ring.. We had.

She then changed the subject by making a few disparaging remarks about dh and I going to his parents for Xmas dinner. But didn't bat an eyelid about going away for Xmas /NY for the last 7 years...

The subject was then changed to my birthday holiday.

DM: So where are you going? Can't remember where you said.

Me: Mexico.

DM: Not long off then? When are you flying out? Can't remember when you said.

Me: weeks time.

DM. Hmmmmm. Oh yeah, just remember that when you are coming out of Mexico, you just need your passport and boarding card, nothing else.

Me: Are you sure? (Having been to Mexico before, and from Travel agent advice, we knew we had to pay an exit tax also to get out of the country).

DM: Yes, you need just your boarding pass and passport, that's all.

Me: So, nothing else I need apart from them?

DM: No.

Still obviously thought I was going to actually believe her. Why deliberately tell a lie to your own daughter about something important?

Many more things were said, but the message was loud and clear enough:

We are always going to treat you like you are stupid.
Don't come back.

Sorry for the spaced out thread

Sorry for all who have suffered physical and emotional pain

ThursFri do you know why they do that, your parents? It's the kind of thing my mother'd do to start a fight if she was in a bad mood and needed someone to give her a reason to be angry.

shove what progress! That makes sense to me, those different discrete sources of anger. I've spent the last year very much in number 3, particularly because of the kids: thanks, mother, for making one more thing in my life more difficult than it needed to be.

Along those lines actually, I'd be really interested to know from any of you guys who're older/at a later life stage to me: after small kids, after your 30s, was there any particular life stage or event that you found hard because of your childhood? The parenting thing really bit me hard - I wouldn't have really realised how much my past was affecting my present, nor would I have gone for counselling, if it hadn't been for some things in parenting that I've found really, really hard. Does anyone know if there's any other unpleasant surprises coming up?

ethelb - that's uncanny. My mother is exactly like yours. I think the fashionable term for it is 'orthorexia' - acute anxiety about eating foods perceived to be calorific and unhealthy. At present, my mother does not eat: shop-bought flour of any kind, butter or cheese, juice (the sugar!), alcohol, any kind of dessert or sweet treat, or more than a couple of teaspoons of carbohydrate. Her diet is basically organic fruit and veg, eaten as raw as possible. Breakfast has to be doused in various unpleasant powders of nuts and seeds to provide dietary supplements. She is crazily thin, and getting thinner. Like your mother, eating out is a huge problem, because ingredients cannot be controlled.

In my DM's case, it started with gut issues that were really serious, and was compounded by cancer, which has (understandably) left her in a state of fear and loathing about her unwell body. I do think it's an actual MH problem in my mother's case - it's not just put on. But it is also rooted in a kind of puritanical attitude to all sensory pleasures, and is very much connected to an inability to set healthy emotional boundaries and say 'no' to things she doesn't want to do.

Counter-intuitively, I think this is a problem for many women who were brought up before feminism, who struggle with an internalised misogyny that says they must not have their own desires, wishes and boundaries, that such things were wrong and unfeminine. But no-one can survive in denial of those things, so in my mother's case, she has become a martyr who does everything unwillingly, and on whom any slight request weighs as a heavy burden. She visits my grandmother once a week, but the way that this one hour trip weighs on her, you would think she was a full-time carer. Over the years, I've realised that behaving in this way isn't unselfish - it's, in fact, even more selfish than just saying 'no I don't want to'. What it allows is for her to maintain the fiction that she is offering huge levels of kindness, support and empathy, when she's actually offering nothing to anyone except my sister. It's a gateway into a parallel thought-universe that shores up her ego and sense of herself as a 'good' person because she's 'making sacrifices'.

toomuch - I'm in my 30s, so I'm taking about what I've observed in other people here - but I know someone who went through really bad abuse as a kid who is now in her 50s, and she found each stage of her kids growing up quite difficult, since she was always thinking of her treatment at an analogous stage of her own childhood. Parenting without good role models looks more tiring and trying, I think, because you constantly have to create and innovate. A bit like how we all constantly have to self-ground for self-worth rather than relying on families. I doubt it'll be a question of 'unpleasant surprises', though. I imagine you've been through a period of intense learning about your self and about your kids and what they need, so you've done the groundwork. Sending for you.

And jeez yes to the sibling thing that shove describes upthread. Will save that for another post. Off to work with red bells ringing loudly!!!

Sorry mumbo - hope you are OK! Go safely!

Sorry to barge back on again. Just feeling so lost. Had an argument with my partner in one room this morning while my son who is four was watching television in the next room. Then afterwards I just couldn't stop crying, in front of him. I was taking him to London today but I just don't feel able to go anywhere, I feel completely overwhelmed by the whole mess and I feel as if I have nobody left really. I'm saying 'partner' to avoid getting into a complicated backstory but actually we are separated and I'm living here because when we first separated I stupidly moved back in with my parents for a few months to save up. Then after the incident with the holiday which was in the US I blew all my money coming home and moved back in with him.

I don't know why it's all hitting me so hard today. It's just that I looked at his messages and he'd had a few texts from my sister which he hadn't made me aware of and when I asked him this morning if he'd heard from her he just lied. The messages were to the effect that I'm determined to alienate myself from everyone. It feels so unfair and I feel so incredibly alone, yes I am alienated from them and it's scary and I don't know if I've done the right thing or not. I'm angry and I hate feeling like this, I hate having to be the bad guy and I don't know where to draw the boundaries. I want to get counselling but I have no money to do so, I'm still saving to leave and I won't have any disposable income in the future either really. It just feels like a never ending awful mess. I feel as if I'm in the wrong and I'm just an awful awful person.

mumbo, um, yeah, that's weird! Although it's hard for me to gauge as my parents are the complete opposite. I don't think I've ever even seen them hug. But while it seems to me that some PDA is fine, your parents were taking it to another level by weirdly including their children in it.

I'm curious about toomuch's question too. I read a shitload of parenting books, because I realised 'follow your instincts' was particularly bad advice when your instincts have been shaped by a strange upbringing. But I'm worried that I might overcompensate away from my experience - I notice that the things I really enjoy about my daughter is seeing her develop as an independent being (because I think my parents still don't see me as anything other than an extension of themselves). I encourage her to learn things and do stuff herself (because my parents actively prevented me from doing anything). But I don't want to err on the side of pushing her to be too independent and not giving her the support she needs.

Interesting what's been said above about the types of issues that are the most bothersome. Because I feel very much like the bit in the thread opener where it says new posters say "but it wasn't that bad for me", because it wasn't. No overt physical or sexual abuse (other than one stranger incident, which only brought home to me all my parent's 'overprotectiveness' was just useless anyway as it wasn't even functional). My parents just tried to control every aspect of my life and did so, and still do so, with all sorts of things that any individual one is actually 'nice'. So I feel like a complete fraud to even complain about it. Like recently when my father wanted to get DD a sofa-sized rocking horse. We have no where in the house for such a thing, but he wouldn't take no for an answer, and so we managed to compromise with a half-sofa sized rocking horse which still doesn't fit but at least it's small enough it can be pushed around when you want to be where it is. (And at least this one was headed off; he once sent stuff that literally filled our kitchen and it was quite a trick to figure out where to put it - he now asks if we play with it, and no, because it's stored away and nearly impossible to get out because it doesn't fit anywhere!) But then, see, I'm complaining about a granddad wanting to get his granddaughter a present, and how terrible is that?

murmuration and magic - I think it's what affects you that matters and I don't think it's some kind of competition (I have seen forums and threads before where people become kind of competitive about who has suffered the most, and it doesn't help anyone. A sort of sick, twisted logic takes over where people cling to their own misery and hold it up as a kind of triumph).

I also think this is about narrative. Narrative, storytelling, is biased towards the evental. I can tell tales of things that have happened to me that make people gasp. But they actually affect me far less than the things that are much harder to narrate. Extreme control is a terrible thing to go through - but it's also very difficult to describe, because everything happens at a micro-level of tiny incidents and gestures that are insignificant and hardly note-worthy in their own right. If you tried to tell them to someone who didn't understand, you'd be told that you were blowing small incidents out of proportion. It's only together that they add up to a kind of imprisonment that is stunting to your emotional and spiritual growth.

magic - I'm in the same boat as you, finding the secondary rejection/scapegoating more difficult than the primary incidents that led up to it. It's so painful. I don't have any answers, except to give you a big hug and say that we will get through this, somehow. It has to be survivable, some semblance of life has to be recoverable. We will get there, it is just sometimes you have to take a leap of faith, which is always a leap in the dark.

I too identify with the 'it wasn't so bad' thing. I had a big realization the other day that for all the therapy I've had and so on, actually I don't really believe what I'm saying. I can talk about the abuse I received and how it's affected me, but inside at a deep level I'm just telling myself I'm bad and a liar and I'm making it all up. I don't know if this is what shove's therapist meant by stage 2 - the scapegoating. I very much still blame myself for what happened to me. So now I'm working on just believing myself.

I'm in my late 30s and have never had children. Part of me would very much like to but I really do think it's best I don't. I feel very ambivalent about it and just think I wouldn't make a good parent because I don't know how to do it. I work with people and have a very caring side that I express that way, so it's not that I don't care about people at all, but I don't think I could be a good parent.

I very much identify with shove saying that people from our sort of background choose to be good, kind, etc. I have always tried to be, and it's the one thing at the moment that I'm holding on to as evidence I'm not inherently bad - my choices have been good.

I have never been in a functional long term relationship either. For the last ten years I've mostly been single, with one very uncommitted relationship for 2 years, and a couple of brief flings, and before that I had lots of messy short-term relationship situations, some quite abusive. It makes me sad that I can't seem to do close relationships and I can't ever see that changing. But maybe one day I'll meet the right person

Hi all, pleased to read some of you are making good progress with counselling. I think most of us can identify with the 'it wasn't as bad for me' feelings. Especially if there was no particular incident that can be taken as complete neglect or abuse. I just know that I often feel like part of me is missing. It's really hard to pinpoint sometimes.
Although mostly I've come to terms with my parents general lack of care, does anyone have days when they just want a proper relationship with their parents. Probably not the ones you ended up with but someone who you know will always be on your side and want the best for you. I'm feeling a bit crap today, struggling with work and I'm 7 months pregnant and exhausted. Was just thinking how nice it would be to have a mother who I could call and get support from. Even if it would be just to tell me that I'm doing OK. Or come round and make me a cup of tea and not make everything into a drama about her.
I know it sounds pathetic and I'm a bit hormonal but sometimes I just want to feel looked after.

toomuch

I don't know, I think maybe just testing me to see if I knew the answer, seeing if I was as still as stupid as they like to think I am.

And also because they knew my birthday was close. They have form for ignoring, or trying to ruin, my birthday.

justawoman
The bit about not having children.....That resonates with me. Totally.
I would have been too scared to have children, in case I subconsciously passed down toxic messages. I don't have a clue to to have been a normal parent. I have no good role models.

I completely identify with that, sleepy. Usually I don't miss having a mum to look after me but there are times.... particularly when I'm ill or down, or when a friend tells me "you need your mum to look after you!" when I'm sick.

I don't have a clue how to..
If that makes sense.

ThursFri: It makes sense to me. I think if people from our sort of backgrounds have children we have to work very hard to counteract our own upbringing and deficient parental models, as some people have described very well upthread. Or we can choose not to have children.

Both are admirable choices, I think. Both say, to the best of my ability, the intergenerational trauma stops with me. The worst thing to do is to go unthinkingly into parenthood and pass it on.

It has recently been my birthday too, and that is a traumatic time for me as well. I got a card from my parents despite telling them not to contact me. It went straight in the recycling. Also amazon vouchers - I am trying to decide whether to buy myself a luxury as a reward for putting up with them, or to donate the equivalent to charity - I don't want to just spend it on stuff I need, if that makes any sense?

I get you.

Personally I'd give it to charity, but that's me. I would feel that they still had some hold over me if I kept it.

My ex parents gave me money for my birthday. A decent amount seeing as it was a milestone birthday.
I sent it back.

Re: The intergenerational trauma: very well expressed justawoman

Wow, yes, I mean, my parents didn't have any faith or trust in their children, and I find I don't trust or have faith in the people around me. I am working on it. At least I can see it, but would hate underlying things inflicted on my children
Happy belated birthday. They are traumatic. An emotive event.

Completely understand the fear of having children. I never thought I'd be able to cope and it wasn't until I was in a relationship with someone who had a 'normal' upbringing that I considered it an option. DH has promised to tell me if I start acting like my mother and I completely trust him. Having said that, I find it hard and generally do the opposite of what my parents did. I worry irrationally about certain things, like my daughter getting bullied or not making friends- she's only 2! I hate telling her off for things and worry that I'll damage her in some way if it makes her cry. It also puts me on edge if DH tells her off. I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm not my mother and I tell her every day that I love her so hopefully she'll never feel as isolated and lonely as I did growing up.
justawoman- I always find birthdays hard. I haven't gone NC but they always cause issues. I heard nothing from my mother this year. She phoned a week after and made up some rubbish about getting her days mixed up. I can tell when it's all BS now, she was probably expecting me to contact her. Anyway I got her usual guilt cheque about 6 weeks later. I gave it to DH and he put it in our joint account. No idea what he did with it after that, I think we put it towards our childcare bill.

"But we took you to Stately Homes" - survivors of dysfunctional and toxic families...
Great! The title says it all.

sleepyhay

Yes also to feeling isolated and lonely when young, sorry you went through that too.

At least you worry about how you treat your daughter, that's healthy. What's not healthy is not worrying how you treat her.
Big difference.

I found the you tube link further up interesting, not responding to my Mum's behaviour resulted in going from a functioning relationship with my Mum to none quite quickly. Since having kids my relationship with my mum improved and we had over a decade of a good enough relationship, she was becoming increasingly hard work but we could cope with the odd visit and the good outweighed the difficult.

When my Dad died she started to accuse me of trying to control her, being more and more nasty about my sil's, passive aggressive criticism, controlling and micro managing. I started to get reminded of why I didnt trust her as a child. Simple acts like parking resulted in her screeching "why are you parking here". Any family reminiscing was turned around to focus on what a difficult and controlling child I had been. I put lots of it down to grief and ignored but still remained nice and rushed around doing things for her.

She got worse and ramped up her negativit towards me so I changed tactic:

Passive agressive behaviour, strops and sulking I ignored. If she couldn't ask to sit in a certain place using adult words, I wouldn't automatically move..
Attention seeking comments like "Huldra wouldn't say anything nice about me", I ignored.
Situations like parking, usually I would automatically stop pulling in and then park when she told me to. Instead I would carry on parking and ask her what was wrong with the space. The constant driving instructions and pointing out every car on the road I would be mildly irritated and tell her that I couldn't concentrate.
If she bitched to me about my Sil's I would leave an uncomfortable silence, then change subject, she hated that. Before I would defend them or give another view point, in retrospect all this did was give more fuel for her anger.
Every time she was critical or snappy with me, I did nothing. Actually I stopped asking her what I could do for her, stopped offering to help in the garden, take her out, make coffee, I would put down the accounts I was doing for her and carry on with something for me.
The constant instructions and corrections I became ok with showing my irritation. Not rude but made it clear that it was not ok.
Say I was standing at the sink washing up, she would just move into that space and kinda barge me out the way. Intead of moving I would stand there and carry on.
When she tried on the you're so controlling line I would give her a harsh look and state "no, you asked me how to do xxx and I showed you how to do it yourself".

A few months later and my last visit with her and she:
Gave me the silent treatment for most of the visit.
Refusal to join in most group meals. When she did, she would eat a full meal and then insinuate that it made her feel sick.
Would walk away and stick her nose in the air with a sniff if I tried to tell her something. She would then go around asking every one else about what I was doing, thinking, planning because I wouldn't tell her. Yes, the very things that I had been trying to tell her.
Glaring at me, taunting that she was winding me up.
More shoving me. More sulking. Wounded animal noises from her room if we hadn't all jumped when she sulked.
Throwing food I brought in the bin, or taken out of the fridge to rot.
Throwing my clothes out in the rain. Or we would go back into our room after a few hours out and find something swiped off a shelf, luckily my camera survived one mysterious fall.
Wierd things like putting a full trash sack on my case. Go I to room, see trash (clearly not mine), ask her if she had seen my shoes (having seem them out in the rain). With a big innocent smile she would say that she had found some stuff and put it in my room, she looked so pleased with herself.
Things would go missing, if I asked enough times and was seen to have spent enough time looking... yues, they would turn up all neatly folded somewhere I had looked several times before, with not a word from her.
Anything I said in group conversation was met with comments like "well we all know what Huldra thinks now", glares, shocked intakes of breath, dismissive snorts. Over whst? Its not lime we were talking about politics. I thought she was going to faint when I ordered my own food in a cafe. She looked so wounded when I said I would sort out what my kids were having and didn't let her talk over me.
I can't think of one normal conversation the entire visit, if she could have leaked venom she would have.

It's so weird, none of it needed to have happened st all and consequently I haven't spoken to her since. She has created a story for herself that I am depressed and she doesn't know what she has done, this is what I have heard through the grapevine. She has included me in group emails to my siblings about which I'm have not replied to about who wants cetrain items. Then today she sent me a direct one, all innocent and listing items that are just for me. What should I do? I am thinking just reply to one of the group ones and say I don't need anything.

I don't hate her but I can't be bothered to have a relationship with someone who is clearly so ready to make me into a scape goat for her anger. I would have been happy enough with what we had before. The only conversation I want is to say that it felt as if she was projecting her anger onto me. Not rake up the past or anything, keep it to recent events and let her use grief as a reason is she wants.

Hello. I think that this is a thread for me but I'm not sure (and also not sure if I'm ready yet). Is it normal for a mother to not care? Not support, love you for who you are, make the child do all the running? Generally think that the child is worthless? Comparing siblings in a really horrible way? I'm sorry if that doesn't make sense, I know what I need to do, I know who she is but it's too big at the moment. So much information has come to light recently and that coupled with how she's always treated me makes me want to walk away.