"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
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
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."

I got linked over here, so thank you and hi all
I shall have a read, quite low since recent thread got trolled so I'll lurk for a bit lol

Hi all! I keep wanting to reply to people's posts but I've been away and now the in-laws are here. As is so common for people like us, my In-laws are also somewhat dysfunctional with FIL a nasty, attention seeking old windbag to MIL's enabler. We went out for lunch yesterday and in his race to be the helpful one he wrestled the table that DH was moving out of his grip and then the sugar bowl on the table fell and broke. He was then sour faced all the way through the meal, grimacing in shock when it was suggested that the kids might have a big ice cream. I ordered them anyway but the kids went all shy, realising that there was some sort of bad atmosphere going down. I said to them, ignore him, it's not up to him what ice cream you can get, it's up to me. But I'm so fucking angry that once again history repeats itself and I'm sat in a restaurant with family trying to eat a meal with the shit mood of one arsehole casting a pall over everyone else. I hate it. But it's not bad enough to stop seeing them, mostly because MIL manages him, and she is nice and the kids like her and there's nobody from my side. There's other stuff too, I won't bore you with the details. All very petty, boundary-testing little bits of malice. Oh how I wish he would bloody well die. I just can't wait till they leave. The kids really look forward to seeing their gran and I feel sad that I'm hurrying the visit forward as they won't see them for another year but I will be so glad to have it over with.

Yes my friend is very well meaning but her parents are also fabulous, caring people.

she agrees my sister is a pita but rather than lay the dysfunction at the feet of my parents, I think she has placed it with my sister.

Whereas I feel that my parents doing what they did have allowed my sister to do what she does. And if things had been different, it might have been more balanced between my sister and I.

Minisoks I think people with decent families can be quite unaware of how much influence their parents have had on them. Their parents have been supportive enough that they could take them for granted to some extent, and they also weren't the sort of front and centre attention seekers/controllers that you have to think about the whole damned time. And they get this gift of seeing themselves as independent, self-made people and assume that if anyone else has problems, it's problems of their own making. Do you know what I mean?

So this morning I said I wouldn't bore the thread with details but sorry, here they come. Last night before bed, DD1 complained to me that when granddad gives her a cuddle he pokes her, hard, in the chest, and it hurts. I said to her that I would say something the next time he did it and he did it this afternoon about an hour ago. I said to him nicely that it hurt a bit, and could he just be careful not to do it? It was exactly like they say, if you want to tell whether someone is a narcissist, enforce a boundary. From a normal person I'd have expected an embarrassed apology - maybe a bit of discomfiture but you'd apologize, right? Instead he pretended not to hear me, then not to understand me, then he said "oh but she cuddled me", then asked whether I had taken her to the doctor for her skin sensitivity, then asked how I expected her to manage at a normal school (she starts school tomorrow) and what would happen if she was hit by a ball. What. An. Arse.

Blimey, that reaction to a boundary sounds horribly familiar. My parents both ask after my mental health every time I raise anything

It's basically concern trolling, isn't it?

Yep! Gaslighting 101 😕

I mean, I don't want to lie, I am completely bonkers... but more of a 'colourful, eccentric scatterbrained dog owner than my parents sort of bonkers... they're more your narcissistic malevolent abusive kinda bonkers.
It's interesting, I've a cousin who I have been held up against all my life by my parents, especially my mother, this cousin is a now a Gp, hugely successful and stable etc... consequently I grew up hating her, and had no interest in any kind of family connection with her at all.
She sought me out 2 years ago through social media and we met for coffee, which turned into lunch, which has ultimately turned into an incredibly honest and strong bond. We compared notes you see, nobody ever thought we would... we've lived parallel lives and we never knew. It's a long story, but of all of them, outside of my own children, she's the only one I trust and feel wholly comfortable with.

Hi all - long time lurker, first time poster. I've been wanting to get this off my chest for a long time, but part of me has been really hesitant to actually type it out - I don't really know why. Over the last 6 months or so I've been thinking a lot about my childhood experience and I'm finding it difficult to come to grips with a horrible thought: were my brother and I emotionally abused by our stepfather? Any insight would be much appreciated...

I have a fairly complicated family, so I'll try to make it as clear as possible: DM & DF separated when I was 5 and my brother was 3 (we are their only children together). Rumours have swirled for many years from many sources that DM and Stepfather had an affair while both were still married - DM to my DF, Stepfather to his ex-wife, with whom he has three children (my stepbrother and two stepsisters) - though DM has always vehemently denied this. Whatever the truth (and I doubt I'll ever really know), DM and Stepfather were engaged less than a year after my parents' separation (and Stepfather's separation from his ex) and married the only 6 months later.

DM & Stepfather met as a result of my friendship with my now-stepsister; we are very close in age and met at nursery when I was 2 and she was nearly 3. We spent a lot of time together as small children while our respective sets of parents were still married, and as such Stepfather has known me since I was a toddler and has known my brother since he was born. Likewise, I have known my younger stepsister since she was born. Other than this post I have never referred to my stepsiblings as 'step', and they don't refer to my brother and I as stepsiblings either - we have called each other 'brothers and sisters' since DM and Stepfather married in 1995 and make no distinction between one another, given that we have all known each other most of our lives. As children and teens we were all fairly close siblings and spent a lot of time together, and I still have a close relationship with each of my (step)sisters.

While as children we have always loved each other and gotten along fantastically, my Stepfather did, frankly, make much of my childhood and teen years miserable. He has always been highly critical of my biological brother and I and has had markedly different rules for his biological children compared with my brother and I - an example (though it sounds ridiculous) is that my (step)sisters had their own new computers in their bedrooms with unlimited access to the internet, whereas my brother and I were only permitted to share the use of an old desktop (10+ years old in the mid-2000s) and were heavily monitored while using the internet; we had an unlimited internet package, yet Stepfather would sit upstairs in his home office while my brother and I used the computer and monitored every megabyte of internet used and installed software which disconnected our desktop from the internet after 60 mins. We were often asked to account for whatever we had downloaded while on the internet. It sounds really stupid typing that out, but it felt really demeaning at the time.

Another example occurred when we were quite young - I'd imagine I was around 10? We were all on holiday at my family's beach house (note that Stepfather is quite wealthy and owns three homes) and while out in the seaside town as a family one day, Stepfather made a big show of telling his biological children to choose expensive body boards from a surf shop, which he bought them. I remember asking which ones my brother and I could choose, and he said "they're not for you". I remember feeling devastated and sat on the beach that afternoon watching the others body board while DM just said "well, he's not your father, your father can buy you things like that" (DF worked abroad for much of my childhood and I only saw him every 6 - 8 weeks). This was a common trend - Stepfather would regularly take his biological children out shopping and purchase them brand name clothes and trainers, and would only permit DM to purchase my brother and I supermarket brand equivalents. Stepfather has always been extremely controlling of DM and her access to money (he insisted on her being a SAHM for 15+ years and monitored all her spending), and although I know DF paid a significant amount of child support (more than he was required to) I have no idea where it disappeared to. DM, while in many ways a kind, loving and caring person, will never hear a bad word about Stepfather and refuses to acknowledge that any of his behaviour was malicious towards my brother and me.

All I know is, despite DM's protestations, I felt deeply uncomfortable and unwelcome in my own home for much of my formative years. I can't explain it really, but I always felt like Stepfather was watching me like a hawk, waiting for me to do something he could berate me for; he rarely spoke to me if it wasn't to tell me off, and there were several occasions as a young teenager where he'd shouted at me over trivial things and then made DM force me to apologise to him and tell him I loved him - the thought of it makes me uneasy to this day, and it's something I've pushed to the back of my mind for a long time.

I don't really know where I'm going with this...I could come up with many similar stories from over the years. I tried to talk to DM about this a year or so ago and she downplayed it and told me that "it's in the past", but I just feel like he ruined a lot of my early years when I should have been young, happy and free - instead I felt miserable, trapped and alone and somehow deficient. I spent a lot of my later teen years sleeping at friends' houses every weekend to avoid being at home, and I eventually went on a long gap year at 19 to escape as far away as possible.

I guess I want some validation that the way he treated my brother and I wasn't okay? Sorry for the rambling length of this post

Hi autumnevening.
I guess there is no definitive answer. I think we all tend to downplay 'only emotional abuse' as not as bad as physical/sexual etc (I know I certainly do). But in fact I have seen posters on here say that in fact the emotional abuse is harder to get over in the long term.
I think the acid test is how his behaviour made you feel and from what you have outlined certainly no one here will argue with your own assessment of your experience.
Sadly your DM has never recognised his behaviour as damaging to you and most probably never will, but this does but diminish your own conclusions.

@autumnevening
The way he treated you and you brother was not ok.
It’s also,very not ok for your mother to minimise your feelings and tell you “it’s in the past”
It sounds very much as though your mother was
/is very self absorbed and more concerned about the money rather than you and your brother.
I have a mother like that and have been told that I am a liar about past events. I’m not a liar.
Please understand that you can’t change your mother’s attitude, all you can do is change your reaction to her toxic shit.
Maybe it would help if you had some therapy/counselling to help you overcome the shit parenting that you have had.
Lastly, it’s not your fault, you were the child and it should be up to the parents to look after you. And if they didn’t or couldn’t that is their responsibility not yours.
💐💐

In my teens I refused to go to school because I had been severely bullied for a year and I couldn’t cope any more. The school offered to refer me to a specialist centre where I could be educated safely and receive support with MH issues resulting from bullying. DM declined all help and told me I had to put up and shut up because “they” were threatening to take me away to the nut house.

For years on end I had to silently tolerate constant bullying and social isolation, and I couldn’t tell anyone because if I mentioned it DM would cry hysterically about how upset she was and how it hurt her to see me suffering. She also told me it was unrealistic to expect to have friends and and if anyone heard me crying or talking about being depressed and lonely “they” would take me away.

Last week DM asked which school my DC would be going to. I said I hadn’t decided but a big part of my choice would be the school’s attitude towards bullying, because no way would I let my DC go through the hell that hers (ie me) went through.

She became hysterical and sobbed that it was my own fault because I had never talked to her about the bullying (which is true because she would just get hysterical and make it all about her, there was no help available and I was afraid “they” would take me away like she said, so I gave up trying to talk about it). I got really angry and told her that now I’m an adult I understand that she completely failed to protect me and my life was a misery for years, and I wasn’t going to fail at being a mother like she did.

Now she’s upset and says she’ll never forgive me for blaming her and saying she wasn’t a good mother. She still won’t admit that she failed to help me. DF insists he knew nothing about it and he thought I was happy at school.

BigBlueBubble
I had that scenario exactly in my teens, and my mother would shut herself in the bathroom and have noisy hysterics too, the earliest I recall her doing that was when I was about five, I made her a birthday present as nobody had ever given me the cash or anything else to give her. I wrapped it in paper we had printed at school with inks, I recall it so clearly , I was really proud of it and excited to give it to her 🙄
She had screaming hysterics because it wasn't good enough.
My own DD has mh issues due to earlier bullying, ultimately I took her out of school and DM likes to lecture me about her job prospects.
Given I was forced to stay at school with no support, started drinking at 14, and bunked off a lot, got bigger all in exams, I don't think home ed and a therapist is such a bad option for my own child

Thanks so much for the replies, @Prestonsflowers & @fc301 xx

@toomuchtooold you've given so much good advice to so many I don't think you should apologise for getting something off your chest! Your FIL sounds like a very unpleasant character - poking your DD is just very strange, underhand and mean. Well done for taking him on, even though I bet you could have predicted his response. I hope for your sake they're going home soon, I know that feeling of counting down the hours, the small upside is that it is like tooth ache, when they go even normal humdrum life will feel great. I'd add a smiley emoji but it appears to be beyond my technological capabilities!

The other upside is that to your credit you have a DD who can voice her needs and obviously trusts that they'll be met, toomuch.

Autumn, your SF is a cruel, vindictive, mean, nasty, controlling Bastard. Your DM sounds afraid of upsetting him. I am so sorry my dear

I just want to say I love you guys so much and thank you for the support, it really helps. I'd forgotten in the last three years how hard this stuff is. You guys are awesome

Hi I'm new here.

After getting out of a horrendously abusive relationship with my daughter's father, who has NPD, my recovery has shone an unfortunate light on my family.

An incident recently with my mother where she disapproved of me doing a training course resulted in her sending me a horrendously abusive message basically saying I was a shit mother and had awful judgment. It was like the penny finally dropped that all along she has been abusive and I have been so well trained and desperate for her love and approval I never realised.

It used to feel like a tug of war between her and my ex.

She always makes comments about my body and my friendships, she is just overall a negative person who talks badly behind other people's backs and considers herself a martyr, I am never allowed to say or do anything because of the sacrifices she made to be a stay at home mum.

She also does competitive parenting with my son, to the point where she brainwashes him in "her way" and I didn't even feel like he belonged to me anymore.

I've thrown the gauntlet down and told her in no uncertain terms that my parenting decisions are not up for discussion.

Just waiting to see where we go from here.

Hopeintheair

Your ex and your mother have something in common I think; they are both narcissistic.

How old are your son and daughter?. I would keep them also well away now from the pair of them. Exposing your children at all to your mother's emotional manipulations are doing them emotional harm and could well also wreak their own brother/sister relationship.

Block her from contacting you by all means necessary. You do not warrant abusive messages from anyone let alone her (and by doing so she is breaking the law here too re malicious communications).
You would not tolerate this from a friend, your mother is no different.
Have a read of the website entitled daughters of narcissistic mothers and see how much of this fits in with your own experiences of her.

Toomuchtooold

Re your comment earlier:-

"But I'm so fucking angry that once again history repeats itself and I'm sat in a restaurant with family trying to eat a meal with the shit mood of one arsehole casting a pall over everyone else. I hate it. But it's not bad enough to stop seeing them, mostly because MIL manages him, and she is nice and the kids like her and there's nobody from my side"

You know as well as I do that those are not reasons enough to see either of them going forward. They've both had their chance here and they blew it. Does she manage him well enough, no she does not. It is tolerated by her and she gets something out of their relationship. Draw a line in the sand and say no more to this crap from him and his enabler in the shape of your MIL.

Luckily I have an injunction against my ex as he refused to accept that he is not allowed to contact me and after persistently breaching PINs etcetera they granted it to me.

My mum is difficult as up until now I have needed her for childcare but I am working on emancipating myself.

I have two books now on narcissistic mothers. I know that she is one but sometimes I doubt the severity. I'm sure I am repressing many memories too.

Attila am I right in thinking there are abusive people in your DH's family? How do you deal with that? I feel as if I don't have the authority to ban them from the house unless DH is on board (although the poking thing has opened his eyes a bit, he was asking some apposite questions about "all this stuff" last night) and I'm wondering about how to get him there. I mean I'm at the point now where when they come I won't let them be alone with the kids, and if I get asked a about that I'm quite prepared nto be completely honest about why. I would imagine that FIL will be reluctant to come back as he's getting so little narcissistic supply right now - we make a point of cutting off his long stories and listening to MIL instead. I have some sympathy for her, they've been married a long time and it's no bloody life living with someone like that. But at the end of the day it is a choice, and I'm pretty clear that if the situation escalates she'll take FIL's side every time. I don't know. They've made themselves scarce today which is nice, the kids are back in school now and have lots on so we won't see much of them till they go but I still don't know when they are leaving (and I feel inhibited from asking, and I know how unassertive that is) and I wish they would just fuck off. I mean why wouldn't you? As far as I know they are just going home from ours, if it was me in that situation I'd have left as soon as the kids' first school day was over. MIL anyway. FIL appears not to know or care how much we want him to leave but MIL knows, I feel sure. I'm going to pick up the kids just in time to get in after DH, he can run interference. I will update you!

Hi toomuchtooold

I hope I was not too harsh earlier, I apologise if it did come across as at all that. I would try and pin them down to a leaving date and they should be decent enough to tell you when they are leaving anyway.

Yes there are abusive people in DHs family. BIL and MIL (FIL is deceased) are grabby, mean and narcissistic in nature and the only way I can deal with them is to have as little to do with them as possible on a day to day basis. Unfortunately like your good self I cannot absolutely stop her from coming here occasionally but those visits anyway do not happen very often. Her mean behaviour one Christmas day planted a seed within me to go on holiday at that time and that is what we have done since.

DH continues a relationship of sorts with his mother (that usually consists of her simpering whilst asking probing questions of him) but I do not get involved otherwise. She shows no interest in me and never has so I adopt a grey rock type attitude towards her. It is really not possible to have a relationship with such people. This is hard going all the same and has been so for some considerable time. DH is still blinkered re his mother and will hear no overt criticism from me re her but he does ask her some pertinent questions now which is more than he ever used to do.

Late FIL moaned about my BIL because he (BIL) was and still is a great lazy waster of a man (and he has now become The Man of the House). Unlike MIL, he did not see DH as an extension of him or want to bathe in any reflected glory, his narcissism was more concealed but even DH called him a narcissist. FIL was himself weak and a bystander and did not have MILs backing when it came to her son who she welcomed back 20 years ago with open arms and no conditions. Their dysfunctional natures certainly predate me and go back at least a further generation on FILs side.

My DH has not entirely escaped their influences but he is not a narcissist and left home as soon as he was able to (also very telling) thereby becoming more of his own person in his own right. He met me several years later.

toomuchtooold My personal feeling on this is that you shouldn't feel obliged to have your PIL in your home. You can't stop your DH from seeing them at their home or elsewhere, that's his choice. But your home is your safe place.

We used to have my MIL stay with us for 5/6 nights, but I've put my foot down and said 3 days maximum, because I find her very stressful to cope with. She's always been desperate to create a mother/daughter bond with me, which frankly I don't want. She's never been good at respecting boundaries.

You shouldn't feel forced to have your toxic FIL in your home. Would your MIL come on her own?