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

[toomuchtooold]

It's November 2018, 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
December 2017 - November 2018

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."

Yes avocado there is nothing my son could do that i wouldnt speak to him, every family has arguments dont they but i suppose they are normal and talk to each other to try and resolve issues. With our dysfunctional one sided family who treat us like 5yr olds its impossible isnt it.

My NC was accidental. Like others, I tried LC for awhile but it wasn't successful. Deep down, I'd known for years that putting up with my mother's awful behaviour was the price I had to pay to spend time with my father. I loved Dad because throughout my childhood, he was the one I ran to for reassurance or comfort. Even as a small child, I knew not to run to M. She doesn't do empathy, sympathy, hugs, kind words, or indeed anything remotely human, not even for a distressed child.

Inevitably, though, the price became too high and so I started to ration my time with them (they are a package deal) and mainly kept in touch with my father by email instead. By then, however, he was so under her paranoid thumb that he started to 'cc' her into every email just to prove that he wasn't engaged in some sort of evil conspiracy against her. It was so demeaning. When I had little choice but to see them, she would mutter spiteful little barbs under her breath at me knowing full well that my deaf father couldn't hear. I never reacted because I knew exactly what her game was - to provoke a reaction from me that would seem to my oblivious father to have come out of the blue and then she could characterise me as unreasonable or even crazy. Instead, I just plastered a big smile on my face and counted the minutes until I could escape.

After about a year of LC, my mother decided to punish me for some transgression or other - still no idea what - by banishing me from her presence for a while. This was the ultimate sanction from her point of view and was intended to bring me to my senses. (She once, rather hilariously, threatened to banish my DH "for a month" as a punishment but he just burst out laughing and asked what he needed to do to earn a lifetime ban. Her face, oh, her face...).

I am pleased to tell you, however, that her sanction did work because I did indeed come to my senses - by realising that LC was stressful but NC, by comparison, was sheer relief. Not quite the lesson M intended me to learn. Since then, there have been two little family dramas intended to draw me back but I haven't responded to either and I've been NC for five months now.

NC is not for everyone and I wouldn't be doing you any favours if I pretended it was easy. For me, it was like an early form of grieving. There have been times when I was overcome with grief and anger and I was like a woman demented, but those times became less frequent. A couple of weeks ago, something finally clicked into place and I'm at peace with myself. It's hard to describe but it's as if my heart has finally caught up with my brain and accepted that I really am free to live my own life. My mother's snidey snipey little voice has gone from my head and I can hear my own voice instead. If that makes any sense :)

In my mother's parallel universe, I am probably now the Worst Daughter Ever and personally responsible for all the world's ills, including the disappearance of Shergar and Lord Lucan, but that's OK. Blaming me for her own emptiness will not bring her happiness but not blaming myself brings me peace.

And peace is what I wish for all of you, however you find it.

Well done @SingingLily I need to get to that place...sometimes I think I'm there and then the grief returns

It was exactly the same for me, avocadoincident. Just as I thought great, getting somewhere, I'd be sideswiped - often for the silliest reason. It's so hard to explain, isn't it? But take heart. The sideswipes become fewer and the periods of calm and reason get longer. It just takes time.

When the grief and pain was really bad, I'd try all sorts to deal with it: long walks, chopping a mountain of veg while listening to loud cheerful music (you can always tell my state of mind by the state of the freezer!). I also kept a journal. As long-buried memories bubbled up, I wrote them down - unsparingly, venting all of the sadness and anger and frustration my child self had felt - and then put the journal to one side for a couple of days until the adult me was back in control. Then I'd re-read what I'd written and somehow processed it by reminding myself that I was no longer that helpless child and could choose how to live my life now. Without M in it.

At odd times, I'd even weaken - thought perhaps I should be "the bigger person" and be the one to extend the olive branch. Well-trained, you see. But for those particular times, I reserved my most angry memories (such as the casual cruelty meted out to my lovely DSis - somehow, it was always easier to be angry on her behalf and to stand up for her than to stand up for myself) and I'd think "Olive branch? M can shove it". And the moment of weakness would pass.

You will get there, *avocado". You just need time. 💐

Lovely put singinglily, i hope to get to that peaceful point.

I think a journal is a great idea @SingingLily . My problem is I can't remember many specific scenarios. It's as though I've buried them deeply. Then out of no where a memory of an incident will pop into my head. I need to collect them up so I can remind myself of why I've gone NC in the first place

Soooo.... I've just joined for the express purpose of kvetching about my NSDM (Not So Dear) Mama.
Both parents alcoholics, father more functional, mother totally dependent, repeatedly hospitalised, seriously physically compromised.
I moved to the far end of the country to get away from their co-dependent, toxic and mutually abusive marriage. I won't go through all the grim things I saw and was subjected to as a child but let's say... my DS will not see those things.

Soooooo.... almost four years ago, dad dies. Mum goes on massive bender, police have to kick the door in to rescue her, blah blah. My instinct at this point when neighbours start to make contact expecting the cavalry to come, is to say "well, that's a shame" and let her go to hell in her own particular way, but OH (who is a dear soul) said she might sort her doings out if she was nearer to us and she could see her grandson regularly and it might, just might, be a reason to get sober.
It ain't. (Bless him for his faith, he's a better man than I am.)
13 hospitalisations for alcohol abuse later in two years, she's been through every intervention going, she's STILL bang at it. I want to go NC but she lives in my village, even if I refuse to speak to her on the phone she knows where my DS goes to school, she has come up to my house and let herself in whilst in alcoholic psychosis before now before I took her keys away.
She is a damaged, destructive woman and I don't want her damage to carry on to another generation. (Sober, I love her very much. That's the awful part of it. Mostly, she ain't sober any more.) My DS also loves her very much and I know we've done a good job that he can still love her and that he's never seen the manipulative, drunk side.

So she's in hospital again and I am done with her. The crisis of conscience I have is this. NC means that there is, literally, no one who would know if she'd fallen, collapsed, started vomiting blood again, blah blah. And she would die. And I would have known - because even if I don't see her, I do a welfare check on her every day: she is still a human being - I would have known and left her to it.

That sort of keeps me on the roundabout, and I hate it. But I'm not sure what else I can do....

Mrs Russell

She will in all likelihood remain in hospital now. If the staff talk to you tell them straight that you are done with her. You need to get off the merry go around that is alcoholism because you are still playing your roles here associated with all that.

Re the comment that your other half made:-"OH (who is a dear soul) said she might sort her doings out if she was nearer to us and she could see her grandson regularly and it might, just might, be a reason to get sober".

I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I read that, infact I sighed. I knew how that was going to turn out before I even read the rest of it.

I would have simply looked at him and said no that is not happening nor is that ever going to work. If I was being extra uncharitable towards him I would have also commented he has no idea about alcoholism whatsoever and tell him to butt out because he really is not helping as one of her enablers.

You seem to be still profoundly affected by your mother's alcoholism.
Go no contact even though she lives in your village. What are you afraid of here; people talking about you and or her?. You need mental distance from someone as disordered of thinking as your mother. You have done well indeed to protect your son from his drunkard grandmother but he has seen your reactions both spoken and unspoken to her too over the years. Children too are programmed almost to love indiscriminately almost as well and your son does not know what his nan is really like. At his tender age he is not a good judge of character and I doubt very much actually that he loves her like you say he does.

Deal properly and now with your own FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) and codependent behaviours re your mother. You also need to stay away from her now and I would suggest too that you contact Al-anon as they are very helpful to family members of problem drinkers. You are still very much an adult child of an alcoholic with attendant codependency, hyper vigilance and super responsibility issues. Those are also but three additional damaging legacies she has herself left you. Do not pass all that onto your son.

The only person who could have ever sorted her own self out is her own self. Not you, not your OH and certainly not her grandson. She made a choice here and she chose booze over everything and everyone else. Her primary relationship has been with this substance for many years, its certainly not been with any of you here.

She could all too easily lose everything and everyone around her and she could still choose to drink afterwards. My guess is that if they do discharge her she will drink alcohol again. Its not your fault she is like this and you are absolutely not responsible for her actions nor her drinking to excess.

Mrs russell im so sorry for your life experiences. Im a nurse and have worked on gastro wards, my gp was also an alcoholic. Although u probably know only she can help herself, what is the state of her mental health. Does she have capacity to make decisions about her health and well being. If you think not then the doctors need to do a full capacity assessment. It can then go 2 ways, if she doesnt have capacity, speak to the staff and drs explain your predicament. You will not be expected to look after her. If she doesnt have the capacity and cannot live at home with carers maybe placement to residential home is needed. You effectivly can make decisions for her. If she has capacity and wants to go home, then she will be able to go. That is a tough one but its her rignt. You can explain her problems but she may decline carers. Please speak to the staff and let them help you. My gp ended up in a res home. It was the only way as she had vascular dementia alcohol induced.

Thanks Attila: no, the reason NC is difficult is because she gets herself hospitalised but I imagine by Monday she will be released and will be fully mobile and about 200 yards from me. She does the poor little old lady thing very well. (Social Services have just told me "it's very sad....she's been on the sofa for three days." Now tell me that's not loaded dialogue?)

I wouldn't agree re: the co-dependency thing, or rather, it's not a voluntary one. I've just had Adult Social Care on the phone, no doubt next it will be her alcohol key worker and the hospital in short order, followed by the pastor of her church coming up to tell me she only drinks because she's lonely....meh. All of them want someone else to take ownership. Of course they do! She's a drain on their resources! The hospital have previously contacted me to say "She's in the discharge lounge and she's given your name as next of kin. You can't leave her there."

• so there is a certain degree of what you might call professional blackmail there.

I could, of course, say - yes I can, and you don't know the half, chum, and similar (I've had to put in a complaint about a member of staff at the hospital who called me a "hard b*tch" thinking I was on hold... I wasn't) but what's always in the back of my mind is "how will this look when she's found dead and there's a Serious Case Review?"
Because she will be, and there will be. - this is what I do for a living

Thanks Lifeisnotsimple. Yeah, she has full mental capacity sober. Drunk all bets are off, obvs. That's the point I keep making to the professionals: I am not responsible for her care. They can't have it all ways - either she's not got full mental capacity, in which case she needs to be in a care home or a residential facility, or she does in which case she's not my problem!

Yeah mrs russell they will always ply pressure cos you are next of kin. You have to stay firm and say you are not her carer, you cant care. Very bad of them to call you that cos they haven't lived your life. Push for decision on capacity. Yes she has capacity when shes sober so she can do what the hell she likes, drink to oblivion. When in drink the capacity is lost. Can you ask for an inka via ss, so you have an arbitrator.

I wouldn't agree re: the co-dependency thing, or rather, it's not a voluntary one. I've just had Adult Social Care on the phone, no doubt next it will be her alcohol key worker and the hospital in short order, followed by the pastor of her church coming up to tell me she only drinks because she's lonely....meh. All of them want someone else to take ownership. Of course they do! She's a drain on their resources! The hospital have previously contacted me to say "She's in the discharge lounge and she's given your name as next of kin. You can't leave her there."

I would read up on codependency anyway and see how much of that fits in with your relationship surrounding your parents. Codependency often features in such relationships hence me mentioning it.

These sorts of characters (all enablers) are all featured in the three act play that is alcoholism. It is also played by the so-called "helping professions" - clergyman, doctors, lawyers, social workers. Many have had little, if any, of the scientific instruction on alcohol and alcoholism, which is essential in such specialized counseling.
Lacking this knowledge, they handle the situation in the same process of learning by "correcting her own mistakes", and conditions her to believe there will always be a protector who will come to her rescue, even though the Enablers insist they will never again rescue her. They always have and the alcoholic believes they always will. Such rescue operations can be just as compulsive as drinking.

storage.cloversites.com/recoveryatcokesbury/documents/A%20Merry%20Go%20Round%20For%20Femaile%20Alcoholic-%20final%20(1).pdf

Its a hard read but a good one and it could help you. I would tell the hospital that you are no longer responsible for her and to give them the name of these fellow enablers of hers. These people have not lived your life or childhood.

Honestly alcoholics are some of, if not the most selfish, of people in the world. You have to look after yourself now as well as your son.
You also need to put far more mental as well as physical distance between you and your so called mother. Her enablers as well will drain you.

Mrs Russell

She will likely be in and out of hospital for the rest of her life and she could potentially go on like this for some considerable time yet. Who knows?.

She is not your responsibility; let the state take care of her. You can and should walk away before you get even more dragged down by her and her accompanying enablers.

@Attila do you think recovering alcoholics can still behave in ways an active alcoholic would i.e manipulation, selfishness, victim and do you think, though I am the daughter of a recovering alcoholic I could benefit from reading any material related to same?

I ask because my mother is an RA. I have never seen her drunk but so much of what you replied to MrsRussell makes sense to me. I’m wondering if my M is a narcissist (as I thought) or behaving like an alcoholic.

I attended Al-Ateen as a teenager but only because my M attended AA and she suggested it. I have always felt it wasn’t to benefit me but to see if going could help me to ‘understand’ her better and therefore put up with her crap more readily.

I grew up with “I’m a recovering alcoholic...” as an excuse for most of her behaviour. “You’ll drive me to drink”.

I mostly knew the serenity prayer as a sign that I should get away from her before she went into meltdown. On other occasions she would recite it as I tried to comfort her as she was upset.

I was ‘schooled’ in the disease of alcoholism from as early as I can remember. I feel it was always so that I could excuse her behaviour. She acted badly? Don’t blame her, she’s a recovering alcoholic.

I seem to only be able to post here in short bursts. The feelings that arise from discussing my M are all over the place. Guilt, hurt, anger, sadness, loss back to guilt.

I have to work tonight again so will stay away until tomorrow. I need to not be an emotional wreck until 8am.

Thinking off you all. Hope your weekend is peaceful

@Laststraw that sounds more like a dry drunk than a recovering one? Don't know if you ever read American crime fiction but James Lee Burke's detective Robicheaux I've always found insightful in the ways of alcoholism: Robicheaux works the 12 Steps but the "dry" drunk is someone who hasn't found sobriety as a way.of life - still embracing drinking-thinking, jusr without alcohol. t

My NSDM sadly is beyond the scope of a lot of this now. I wish it had been available 30 years ago. She's been hospitalised today with internal haemhorraging, so I guess I saved her life this morning. (Again...)

• reading that last, I wince at how grandiose it sounds, and wish there was SOMEONE ELSE to ring in these welfare concerns except me every time. The police didn't want to know, the GP didn't want to know. How the hell someone would manage who just wanted to ring in a concern about an elderly neighbour they hadn't seen in a few days, I don't know.

Hi all, can I ask your advice on here please? I've been aware of this thread for some time, but until this evening I haven't really taken the plunge and read much.

Both my parents are long deceased, but reading so many of your comments on here has really begun to make a few things in my mind fall into place.

If you are an only child, is it possible to be both the golden child and the scapegoat at the same time?

A question @zebakhreum - were you the only child? Or were there "ghost" children in your family - there's a lovely bit in one of Diana Gabaldon's books where she says when your child is born, you mourn the loss of the baby you had imagined in the womb. I think scapegoat and golden child are flip-sides: the golden child is expected to be all the things, and if you dont meet those unrealistic expectations you become the axis of evil...

Mrs Russell yes, I was the only child.

I've been thinking, but it is all so disjointed and long ago. Bit are floating around in my brain and come out randomly, so forgive me!
My parents were married for 20 years before I made a surprise appearance, and there were no more after me. Dad died suddenly when I was in my early teens. They'd really wanted children but the doctors didn't know why mum couldn't get pregnant. In those days, it was just one of those things. I think that maybe they spent so long imagining what it would be like to have kids that they had a picture of the perfect child in their minds. Maybe that would have preferred a boy. They did tell me: "If you had been a boy we would have called you Michael".

I spent my whole childhood being both told how precious I was to them, and at the same time made to feel that no matter what I did, I would never be good enough. They were really strict and formal, mum had a Strict Baptist upbringing, and everything was sinful. I had to be polite and obedient at all times. Good manners were insisted upon, and I was to always let other go first, never push in, never answer back, turn the other cheek, you name it. You can imagine how that went down with the kids on the fairly rough council estate I grew up on.
I was told never to be proud of myself as pride was a sin. Telling tales was evil, so I was bullied dreadfully at school, I never told anyone because I believed it was my fault and nobody like me because I must be bad in some way.

I was bought things I didn't want and made to go to dance classes and have piano lessons. Mum couldn't have them when she was a child as they were too poor, so she made sure I had them. Whether I wanted them or not. And then I was told I was a complaining child and ungrateful after all the sacrifices they made for me so I could have those things. I wasn't allowed to have the things I did want, because they knew best.

Some of the things I remember - I once asked me why they never hit me when I was being told off like my friends parents smacked them, and mum saying that her mother used to slap her face so she would never hit me. I remember wanting her to hit me so it would be over and done with quickly, instead of the long drawn-out telling-off saga for the most minor of misdemeanours. "Wicked child" is a phrase I remember. That was used a lot. How could a little girl be wicked? I was about as well-behaved as a child could possibly get, because I was always afraid of being punished. The main punishment seemed to be disapproval and a total withdrawal of affection.

Mum taught me how to cook and knit and sew, and how to do hospital corners when making beds, but I don't remember her every playing games with me. Dad did, but she wouldn't. I had to occupy myself quietly and not make a mess, and then I'd be engrossed in whatever I was doing and get chastised for not listening when spoken to. She used to hoover round me to interrupt my train of thought.

I was on the bright side and I think maybe she was jealous of that. When I got my O'level results I'd done pretty well, and mum said that the O stood for Ordinary so everyone should be able to pass those, so I didn't really have anything to be pleased about. The day I went for my first job interview she told me (as I was literally walking out of the door to go to the interview) not to show off my intelligence because "people don't like girls to be too clever clever, dear". I didn't get that job.

I was compared negatively to X - the daughter of a family friend who was about 10 years older than me, my career wasn't good enough (although mum used to boast to her friends that I worked in a bank), she didn't approve of my first DH - presumably because he wasn't as successful as X's husband who bought her fur coats and drove around in a Rolls Royce. "I only want what's best for you, dear" she used to say.

That's some things I can remember anyway.

Would all of that be normal parental behaviour in the 60's/70's or not? I just don't know. I still don't trust people to love me just for being me, and I don't really have any close friends. I don't know how. Mum never seemed to approve of any of my choices in friends and always found fault.

None of it seems toxic or abusive as such, but was it? Taken all together?

@AttilaTheMeerkat @toomuchtooold @Lifeisnotsimple

Time has come for this account to be euthanised. Thank you for the wonderful advice you've given. I can be contacted off-board via email.

Hi everyone, I'm a grown up child of an alcoholic father.
I'm 45 now, married with 3 kids and happy.
I had a bad childhood. My mum worked all the hours God sent to keep things afloat.
I never remember my father working.
I can just remember him drunk and abusive.
He frequently beat my mother in front of us. He didn't hit us but he'd shout constantly at us and have us up all hours of the night blasting music. Sometimes I went to school with no sleep.
I dreaded coming home from school cos I never knew what was waiting for me at home.
Any family event, birthdays, Christmas, any celebration was ruined by him. He'd arrive home drunk, beat my mum, shout at us and break up the furniture .
I lived in constant fear.
Looking back, school must have known but did nothing to.help or intervene. I was a child.....why did no one help ?
My mum left him when I was 17. I kept in contact with him ( out of a sense of duty ) until I had my first d's 14 years ago.
I used to be shaking meeting him, but I felt if I met him, it kept him away from us, so I met him for the odd coffee.
When I had d's, something changed in me. I decided I didn't want him to know my Dad and be exposed to what I was.
He's never seen any of my dc' s and it will stay that way.
I believe he still drinks and blames us for everything that is wrong in his life.
I feel so much more empowered since I've moved on but my childhood hurts me still.
I have no happy memories. Even if I think of something happy, it's tainted with fear and sadness of my childhood.
How do you move past it and forget it ?
I'm lucky my kids are not exposed to any of this but I'm sure I'm affected by my past and I really don't want any of my insecurities passed on to my kids.
My dh is the very opposite to my Dad, he's a great Dad and dh. He's so loving. Sometimes I feel emotional seeing him with the kids.....I love the way he is with them, but I mourn what I didn't have myself . That probably seems selfish but I do feel I had to grow up too fast and missed out on vital , normal childhood experiences.
Not sure why I'm writing this, not sure what I'm looking for , but it feels good to write it down . Thanks for the opportunity to write this.