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

[toomuchtooold]

It's December 2017, 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
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March 2015 - Nov 2015
Nov 2015 - Feb 2016
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Oct 2016 - Feb 2017
Feb 2017 - May 2017
May 2017 - August 2017
August 2017 - December 2017
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
The Echo Society
There are also one or two less public offshoots of Stately Homes, PM AttilaTheMeerkat or toomuchtooold for details.

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
Childhood Disrupted by Donna Jackson Nazakawa

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."

HorseDentist, I'm so sorry. If you wanted to stay in touch with your parents but never hear about this woman again, the standard sort of advice would be to be very clear with them that you won't hear her mentioned, and if they do bring her up, you put the phone down or walk out and you don't go back until you've said you will. You could even say to them that it's a condition of being in contact with you that they have no more contact with this woman, but I suspect that if you do that then you will end up going NC pretty quickly.
Your parents didn't need to mention that card - it would have been the easiest thing in the world for them to just avoid the subject and TBH I suspect that if they really didn't believe you, that's what they might have done - kept in touch with her, but never mentioned it to you. The fact that they're bringing it up to you, to me suggests that they know (in their hearts, despite their best efforts to deny it to themselves) or they strongly suspect that you were abused, and your dad's bringing it up sort of subconsciously hoping that this time you'll react differently or give him some reason to believe that the abuse didn't happen. Do you know what I mean?

Lizzie do you have the Pete Walker book? He talks about the fawn-flight type, he calls it supernurse or something. Someone who's massively overcommitted to helping lots of people and always micromanaging and stuff. It sounds like your mum. I mean I'm not trying to armchair diagnose her with CPTSD but they're all just extremes of normal behaviour, it's a spectrum.

Paperweight hello
You mention dementia - is that what you suspect? Did your mother's behaviour go downhill suddenly? Are there other symptoms that are making you think that?
My dad had Alzheimer's - the assessment and remedy is really quite good these days (my dad was screened for all the other causes of memory loss/confusion, such as kidney problems, depression and so on, he had brain scans to confirm it, and he was on Reminyl, which did help) so if you or your dad can convince her to get to the GP and get referred, she'll get an answer one way or the other. As part of the screening she would see a psychiatrist too. (That might put her off).

I'll say again that I don't want to armchair diagnose, but the flavour of some of what you've said makes me wonder whether the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder will ring any bells for you. I would also point out that even if your mother's symptoms came on quickly, it might not be dementia - if it was around the time you were ill and your DD was born, the fact of you being the centre of attention and also not being able to emotionally manage her as you may have done when you were younger, might have been enough for her to show her true colours.

In any case your mother is behaving like a total horror and I'm really sorry that you've had to go through that, especially with cancer to contend with as well. Is your mother's life tough? I wonder. Is yours? It bloody well has been if it isn't now. Your dad's life's tough as well.

My advice for the visit would be:

• grey rock technique so as not to give her too much ammunition
• have an escape route (e.g. make sure one of you stays sober so you can drive) and if she goes too far, use it!
• play arsehole bingo. Sorry about the swearing, I can't think how else to describe it: every time she says something outrageous, give yourself 5 points, remember it, and then laugh with DH about it when you're in bed.

Good luck!

Thank you, toomuch, yes that does sound like my mum. I'm not really in a place to help her and she can't face the idea of therapy at the age of 78. I have to look after my DDs now first and foremost.

Thank you, thank you.

I only think dementia because over the past 10 years she's been getting worse. For example she's rewritten history in that I've felt mad as she blamed me fir things she didn't tell me about. At the time I remember having the conversation that she "didn't want to worry me" by telling me my dad had had an accident. Years later it became that I knew but didn't bother to come over.

And recent history, I was part of a conversation where my aunt said she'd like to see my mum the following week. Minutes later my mum was telling me my aunt never wants to see her. She la la la her way through me going over the conversation and got really angry at me.

Such odd behaviour , it's not like any depression I've seen. I just assumed it may be dementia. She's so very cruel and nasty.

She won't go to the gp and to be fair I doubt she'd get much help even if she did. It's almost impossible to get help for mental health disorders even if you want to, let alone if you don't. I tried years ago to contact t their gp when my mum drove my dad to drink. I said they needed help, they were mentally ill. The go was so absolutely awful to me I can't tell you. Condescending and rude. I was told there was nothing they WOULD do, not even they could do!

We will be trapped at theirs. It's a train journey away, we don't have a car. No where to get to even if we could get a taxi. Like Royston Bloody Vasey. staying two nights.
I think mantra wil be to only let her bloody get away with speaking if what she says is positive, kind and true.

Interesting about her not being the centre of attention. She did go to pieces when I got ill with a new baby. New baby is nearly 9! I'm as ok as these things can be. I do have health issues but I just don t tell her.

She loaths DPs family, especially his mum. My DD and her other gran are very close.

I will look at that link thank you.

My dad is physically ill and now mentally ill.

I wish I had some advice for you all but instead I hope in sympathy help.

Today I've been mourning the relationship I could have had with my sister. I'm sure its permanently fractured, but I've realised we never stood a chance thanks to our mother. One day she may break free and if so I would like to try to rebuild a bond, but I can't see it happening.

Also I realised that what I have in me is love and empathy and kindness, and those are things that should never be killed. So I won't feel angry at my parents. They did the best they could given their horrific upbringings, but their best wasn't good enough. I can only hope and pray my best will be good enough, whilst knowing it will never be if I open my DCs to this cycle.

I know I am lucky, because I'm at least second generation of this so I have a double perspective of the damage. It makes me stronger, on DCs behalf at least.

paper is your DM fairly isolated where she is? My DM has started acting similarly, with a lot of hatred and bile in excess, in recent years since she's become disabled to the extent where getting out of the house is an issue. TBH there is support in the town she's in but DF is oddly controlling that she either wont or cant attend groups. Her behaviour has massively ramped up since, and I'm sure its because she's gotten herself trapped.

Paper, your mum sounds very like MIL.

She completely does the rewriting history thing both to paint herself in a better/more martyrlike light and I suspect also to make DW think she's going mad when she's insisting a conversation went differently.

DW describes it all from childhood, so it doesn't seem to be new, but MIL seems to have branched out and to have been caught out more in the past few months. When she was in the hospital she span a new nurse "My DD never comes to visit" until another nurse overheard and pointed out DW was there every day!

I'm so sorry for your situation Hashi. I'm totally with you though, I'm second generation damaged goods. I want it to end here. I do find myself exhibiting my mums behaviour, or more usual thinking g it. I'm going g to try and get counselling (again). My dd and Dp deserve more. Also by ending it here I feel I'm helping my deceased grandparents who had real problems.

Spine to my brother who says he copes by ignoring! The Grey Stone idea! He says she few victimised and just wants an audience. He was home alone with them as a teenager while I was at Uni so he must have honed skills I haven't during that time.

Yes, very isolated but she could get out more than she does. She's in a village rather than a hamlet.

I do wonder if my mum has always done it too Pigs, to a lesser extent, but that I didn't notice as it was my normal.

pigs and paper Similar here too. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I've known what my mother was up to, but its only really become massively obvious since her health took a downturn. My father's behaviour has always been more overt, mum seemed to temper him which made her look like the reasonable one. But now she's lost control of her rantings and can't fully keep a story straight.

The thing that really brought it to my attention though is that in some of her ranting she's accused her mother of doing certain things, but these are things she does or has done herself. TBH this is where I've realised just how much my sister and my relationship was manipulated by her. My sister is very bullying and massively codependent though - but exceptionally bitter about it, which is why I can't see our relationship being fixed.

Regarding the rewriting of history: gaslighting

My mum is also good at rewriting history. Like saying that there were no clues whatsoever that my father was an abuser that she should have acted upon. (Although she's constantly apologising and I find myself wondering, what are you apologising for??) Whereas other people who knew us back then saw red flags, and no one we've spoken to has expressed surprise at our revelations.

She's very keen to pin all my brother's problems on being given Lariam (an anti malarial prophylactic), when he was in his late 20s, so that his problems couldn't possibly have been anything to do with our childhood. Whereas he had problems long before then. (That was the point of the Lariam, that he shouldn't have been prescribed it because of his pre-existing problems.)

She's also constantly saying that our household was child friendly, that she was always ready to listen to us. Rubbish, her mind was always on other things, even when she was at home, and we were mainly brought up by au pairs because she was fully occupied running a language school. When pushed, she will admit that the truth is that she left us with our father quite a lot, too, as his health wasn't great (Parkinson's), so he was mainly the one at home. The truth is that if she didn't know precisely because she was hardly there, and she was remote and not approachable.

It's very hard when she presents a very different picture from the one we remember. Since our memories were repressed for a long time, it makes it feel that I'm going crazy sometimes. Except that my DSis has similar memories, and other people have told us things which fit with our memories of our childhood rather than mum's, ie her not being much involved with us.

I have heard of gaslighting on mumsnet, I just never thought about applying it to my mother.

paper Im desperate to end it my generation too. My DS who is the only grandchild says he is adamant that he will not perpetuate our behaviours, and I'm constantly questioning my parenting of him wondering have I don'e it wrong there? Bearing this in mind I'm actually considering proposing having family therapy with him rather than bothering with DM as she's beyond help.

I have just had a big blow out at her which is very unlike me and I'm feeling really shaken by it.

Lizzie it's probably not always malicious/deliberate gaslighting when people rewrite history like that, but it's maddening either way. I've come to realize that my mother lied about all sorts of stuff, including things that had nothing to do with anything. I sometimes come across some belief I have about my home town or something and I have to check it because if my mother said it, it was probably not true, that's how bad it was. And there's so many things that you learn off your mother that you don't even know when or how you knew it.

I think you're right that it's not malicious, toomuch, but it's bizarre with my mother, as she's so intelligent. She's got a PhD, which she obtained in her 70s, so it's hard to believe she could unwittingly remember things wrongly. Or for that matter miss so many of the awful things that happened.

But then, my father did a number on her, too. He constantly thought she was being unfaithful to him, told me he thought that (he thought a woman's adultery was worse than a man's adultery fgs). She's been very different since he passed away.

Just wondering if I could get some insight on why my dm is narcassistic with me but yet towards her dgc she goes above and beyond.

It's like she's trying to parent them but giving them all the love and attention I didn't receive?

My children obviously don't see what's she's like then there's the major guilt of me being low contact with her because of her behaviour but when shes good with dgc it's so hard!

Blue, Attila says that 1) abusive people don't change just because they become grandparents and that 2) that they tend to either over- or undervalue the relationship with their grandparents. I always suspect that it's a way of gaslighting you as well - "look how great I am with your kids, your horrible memories of your own childhood must be all in your imagination!"

If she was around for a bit longer, you might see a different side to her.

Very interesting.
I just started counselling and realised how much I've been abused when a child and is all coming out now almost 40 years later :(

Will read it all
Thanks

blue my mother was the same. Always above and beyond for my DC. Definitely made me question myself again for quite some time. Though it's barely taken anything for her to drop them like a hot potato.

Thanks for the insight.

I'm due therapy in the new year but I'm hoping that by sorting through some issues myself it'll help me see the bigger picture.

Hello everyone. I wonder someone here could give me some advice. I am NC with my abusive mother, but spend time with some other family members who are in contact with her. They frequently make comments about her like nothing has happened when we see each other. It is clear that they are just waiting for me to "get over it" and stop being NC. I got a new years' message from one featuring a photo of very recognisable decor inside my mother's house (they aren't closely related but I guess she was invited there for NY)
How would you respond to things like that? (My tactic is ignore or answer in a mhhm/yes/no type of way)
Finding this to be a very painful time of the year.
to everyone.

How is it that things you realistically know were not your fault hurt so much ?
My estranged sister’s death and my having to take responsibility for my very, very abusive but now very old mother have brought my whole facade tumbling down. Posted about this earlier.
I feel pathetic and stupid and am just staying in one room. I cannot take any more criticism. DH says I am sulking.
He cannot help. He blames me for my parents’ treatment of me and his toxic parents’ treatment of him. It’s actually worse since they died. They seem to have become almost saints.
Basically I am a destroyer.
I know I have to sort this out somewhere but am quite old, ill and in pain.
Even if I could go anywhere, which I can’t, there is nowhere to go.
We moved around so much, different countries because of his job that I have very few friends.
Last night I spent half the night crying because I remembered my MIL telling me I was a bad, unnatural mother because I put my children in boarding school. I felt like I had ruined their lives. FGS it was because her son got a job where there were NO schools, I didn’t want it to happen.
I know I have to get my act together but am finding it quite impossible right now.

Champagne Do they know any of the details of the estrangement? Do you get the impression they're doing it on purpose? I would tend to continue doing what you're doing, as long as it's not too annoying. You could lay down a boundary with them ("as you know, I'm NC with my mother due to her childhood abuse and I'd rather you didn't bring her up in conversation") and be prepared to enforce by getting up and leaving. I wonder if they are getting pressure from your mother to bring it up? Or looking for a bit of gossip, or like to tell themselves they're being helpful?

smiling, guilt and an overdeveloped sense of responsibility are hallmarks of early childhood trauma and neglect. Not to add yet another book to your pile, but if you do want to read further, Pete Walker's book "CPTSD From Surviving to Thriving" might be interesting. It's hard isn't it. You can know a thing intellectually but the damage goes a level deeper.

You're not a bad mother. There's only so much control anyone has over these sorts of things. I've also had to move country for DH's job, at a really shit time (I had just changed career and my kids were toddlers) and I made the decision for me (and therefore the kids) to go with him. My old career is dead, and my options here are limited, but we're better off than we were before, both working. And yet I still find it really easy to be shamed by some of my peers who're still working. It's bullshit. We never got the chance to be children, we always got held to adult standards of behaviour or worse. We never give ourselves a break.
What I've found sometimes helps as a reality check is to gauge how I would feel about someone else in my position. And then if I can forgive them I can forgive me.

Can you really not go anywhere? What's stopping you? And what would it be like if you did go?

I notice in the way you talk to yourself - "sort this out", "get my act together" - it sounds familiar, I do that, there's times when every day just feels like this massive slog and getting myself out of bed is like flogging an old horse, like I'll say to myself "come on. Up. UP!" And then I think "I'm so tired" and a voice pops up "come on, you're OK, you'll survive." I am heartily sick of just surviving. Life should not be this hard.

Toomuch I do think the mental and emotional exhaustion is part of the survival of abuse. Because really it has been hard to ever relax completely and feel safe. And because we become hyper-vigilant about other people’s safety and emotional well-being. And that can be a strain too.

I know I can be kind to myself and look after myself. But somehow I will never quite give up hoping to receive that from someone else, someone caring who just understands. And that is the parenting we missed out on. Because probably in some twisted way, by being constantly aware of our parents needs, we kind of parented them instead of the other way around. (Alice Miller, Drama of being a Child, is really good on this).

For those who talked about feeling frustrated that others do not validate our feelings and experiences, I couldn’t agree more. You can tell on mn those people who have had relatively secure upbringings because they just do not understand this at all. They would view it as needy and inappropriate. But one of the hardest things I find is with my dsis, who either starts talking about how much worse it was for her (it really wasn’t) or how she has risen above it (she hasn’t, she’s just in denial). It’s not abuse top trumps: how you feel is valid to you, and is important to you. Having someone listen and understand is so very healing.

I’m really grateful for this thread. I dip in and out because it’s a bit overwhelming and painful after a while. But it’s so important that it’s there when you need it.

Also I recognise the long lived parent. My surviving parent is well in their 90s. I kind of felt a bit liberated when the other parent died (although it also brought out feelings of never having the parenting I would have wished to have). It feels like this is going to go on forever, with no closure.

Good morning!

I have had the 'happy new year' text from mother. I have not replied. New year, new me and all that shiz.

We will see where it takes us.

It was fine, nice even.

Now I know she needs to be the centre if attention it's easier to deal with. Well for short periods of time. She jumps into conversations on topics she knows nothing about. She repeats anecdotes. She even stood in front of the TV while we were watching a film, she did this repeatedly for shirt amounts of time while she had something important to impart. Previously I would have reacted in some way. This time I did nothing and therefore nothing escalated.

I find her anxiety and control sad, for her though.

Thank you all.