if your mother is crap sign in and tell me when you realised she was crap.

[MrsApron]

I actually believed my mothers own hype until I had children. Even though I had a very lonely stressed childhood and an abysmal teenage time.

Do you think that everyone "normalises" (sorry can't think of another way to put it)their childhood?

When i look back on mine I am amazed that I believed that we were ok.

belated hugs for baby sandcastles. so sad that she wasn't there for you.

abitmessed up - that is she said that for some reason it felt like a bigger betrayal from her mother.

she only started having friends once she got out of there, she was too scared to take anyone home in caseit happened to them.

abitmessedup - {hugs} Nothing else to say x

abitmessed up....my friend's neice was abused by her dad, while her mother 'looked the other way'. I am so sorry for what you had to endure. I have seen the effects this can have.

MrsA..thank you. It was the start of the downward spiral from there. I just couldn't shake that feeling of total abandonment. All the other mums were on the ward & there was I, crying myself to sleep....

She played the work card when I was 13 too. I called her from home when I had chicken pox. I felt horrible & needed her. She was too busy ta work.

She was a dinner lady...ffs.

She was always crap. I saved myself from becoming her by taking Prozac.

yes, everyone 'rationalises' their childhood, not normalises though.

I knew mine was always fucked up and used to dream of being adopted.

Oh Custy, you mum sounds like she was in real trouble. I know she may have let you down, but she was obviously ill. My dad died when I was 2 and I know my mother made bad, unforgivable decisions , and I want nothing to do with her now particularly (but I do let her see DS) but I do understand the stuff she went thru to get her there ? without the resource of mumsnet or the NHS. Sorry, not meaning to be unsympathetic, but it just seems a bit out of joint. [ducks ]

rationalises might be a better way of putting it thank you.

I was an avid reader of boarding school literature for girls and used to dream of being miles away at school eating buns and drinking lemonade.

This thread is very

Me too - I longed to be at boarding school.

I'm sorry there are so many crap mothers around. I just hope we have all learned from their mistakes and don't follow in their footsteps. We all make mistakes, but let's not make the same ones.

Mrs Apron, your moter has huge problems that you got caught up in. Mohterly love isn't what soap operas say. Life is hard for some, harder for others. Your mother isn;t happy, obvioulsy. You love your children. That's something she hasn't experienced. Pity her.

SittingBull, you can move on.

here, here abitmessedup - lets not let history repeat itself.

yep mt i do know she is mad.

what i find hard is the fact that she seems to be selectively mad in my direction.

wish i could afford counselling.

The NHS do it for free - in the long run too - it't not just a mad rumour that 5Live or JeremyVine like to pretend doesn't happen. You can also get SSRI's on the NHS, which especially help us once children deprived of love.

for some reason i feel the need to point out that i am a size 14 and only wear crocs in the garden .

and apparently am still excellent at displacement activity..

I always thought my parents were not perfect but since I have my own child, I can not begin to understand how on Earth could they be so cruel.

Very crap parents here too - both mother and father. Mix very young with depression, alcohol and dysfuntional parents/emotional issues of their own, and it wasn't/isn't a pretty picture.

DD keeps asking me about my parents and childhood. It's a dilemma how to answer - if I'm truthful (at a level a 6 year old could absorb), it will seriously tarnish dd's image of her granny.

Yup, crap mother here. I FINALLY had to accept she didnT love me when I was getting married. So that was at 24 years of age. I had a notion that mums should be pleased, even happy for their daughters at such an occasion. NOt mine. It had to be how and when she decided it could go ahead, and when I decided I wanted to get married when it was convenient for me and DH, she went ballistic, saying she wasnt coming etc. It was ALL about her. Not to mention the years of childhood abuse.
Thats an interesting idea Mrs Apron about whether or not people with crap mothers do attachment parenting. My 6 month DD sleeps in my bed, is carried around everywhere in a sling, still exclusively breastfed. Definitely to do with the fact I had nothing to go on except my instincts to go on. But I think had I not realised my mum was crap, I may have ended up following in her footsteps.

I wish I hadn't read this thread

Sorry for all your blighted childhoods

I've always kind of thought she was crap. SHe didnt bring me up my grand parents did, it was only when I got older that I truly realised how ccrap she was. I used to visit her during the school hols (I was in Devon she was in Essex) I had long hair down to my waist and obviously being young it got tangled, if she couldn't get the tangles out she would wallop me around the head with the brush, those paddle brush things, is that what they are called???

My brother (I have 2 and a sister, she raised them but not me ) used to get very hyperactive and when he did he would swear, once when he did this my mum grabbed him by the top of his arm, pulled him upstairs and rammed a bar of pears soap down his throat.

My sister, she must have been about 5 at the time, was having a tantrum because my brother had taken her doll, my mum got annoyed with this so grabbed her round the neck dragged her upstairs, gave her a slap and threw her into bed. She wasn't allowed down until the next day.

Luckily I could go home, then she moved to Devon, great. But my brother and sister (youngest brother wasnt born until a few years later) were closer so I was happy.

When I got older I didnt visit as much, didnt fancy a slap or to be treated like crap I suppose but I would go to see if my brothers and sister were ok. SHe was s
seeing this man (whom she had my youngest brother with), one morning I got a call saying he was trying to kill her, I went round in the car at lightening speed to find her pinning him up against the wall with a kitchen knife. I promptly called the police got my brothers and sister in the car and left. Not sure what happened but she didnt call regarding my brothers and sister until th next day.

You can get the picture form all that, but to add a little more, the firxst job she got was when she was 47, yes not a typo 47. Perfectly healthy nothing stopping her from getting a job. She would just find men she could have children with and get pregnant. My grandfather used to pay her rent and any other bill that arose. I used to pay her rent at times too, only to keep a roof over mmy brothers and sister's heads.

All in all she is a bit crap, lead to a few minor difficulties for me when I was around 15/16 as I had a lot of questions mainly why she didnt raise me, her answer was because my nan and grandad stole me from her . She lies a lot and I have only just come to accept that that is her.

Oooh my have just realised that I have typed rather a lot, apologies for rambling

She has taught me possible the most valuable lesson in life though............never to be anything even remotely similar to her.

I don't want to offer any excuses for our crap parents, but I know that in order to move on you need to stop being angry with them. I find I can do that by rationalising that she was ill, she made bad choices and I don't have to follow in her footsteps. Being angry and lashing out at those closest would be doing that. I think untreated PND had a lot to do with it sadly, but it's too late to put things right now. She's a very sad, lonely woman and though I don't care for her I don't hate her anymore.

I think I will be very confused though when she dies!

Mrs Apron

Have a look at this website which is www.bacp.co.uk. Its the British Association for counselling and pyschotherapy.