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

[toomuchtooold]

It's May 2019, 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
November 2018-May 2019
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 liken it to tiptoeing through a minefield with a blindfold on, trying to work out The Rules...only to realise much much later in life that there never was any rule book as such, apart from one rule. To know that your job is to be in the wrong. Once I understood that, the solution was obvious.

I am sorry to hear that you are going through an unhappy period now. Sending you kind thoughts and the hope that tomorrow is a better day.

I am so tired of being tired.

Constantly analysing each and every thing that happened during a fraught childhood? Procrastinating about each and every contact in adult life, then examining in detail if you did anything "wrong"?

I've spent years telling myself that my parents were, no, must have, been aware of the effect their actions throughout my childhood must have been having on me, and that once things "calmed down" they'd reflect and apologise, be nicer to me. That there must have been a change in my behaviour, my mannerisms, following my sexual assaults.

Fat fucking chance, the scapegoating continuing into my 40s, the, attempted, weaponising of my daughter against me. I even approached my mother's sister last year in an attempt to equalise some things in my mind. The response I received, that I was the problem, destroyed me more. The adage "within these four walls" has never been more true.

So I spent years teaching myself I was some bastard human being, unlikeable, unlovable, fatally flawed. It was just so completely draining and led me down the path of self harm.

The onset of various mental health problems (depression, anxiety, PTSD, CPTSD) and physical autoimmune conditions, fibromyalgia, M.E followed in the last 15 years with my making no correlation between them and what began in my childhood.

It was these very Stately Homes threads, the words of many but most Attila, toomuchtooold and Singinglily that opened my eyes that what I'd experienced was abuse.

It's still not easy, and I still self-harm, but I have reasons for what happened/still happens and none of them were my fault.

Going LC has been a blessing and given me some of the control I never had as a child, the control to not answer a phone call. I still have major issues with authority figures (which has been fun over dozens of hospital admissions this half-decade), but I'm awaiting a second spell of therapy and managed to blurt out details of my rape at my pre-assessment. The psychologist just reduced me to a very raw state.

My front teeth were damaged during my rape (not that my parents were ever bothered what had happened to them), and I've had problems going to the dentist since. Read: not gone. Tomorrow my front teeth will be removed under deep sedation - a grip my rapist has held on me for 27 years will be gone tomorrow. I can't bloody wait.

Sorry for the essay

SimplySteve good luck with the teeth, not easy but it’ll be over by this time tomorrow (?). Your story is difficult to read so I can’t even imagine what it’s like to have experienced it. Hope you can keep moving forward.
Can never be said too many times, it’s not you that did this, it’s them.

Steve, 💐

But then they could visit but never have...why?
imo it's a power/control thing but you can (in theory, I know the guilt and programming kicks in) ...you could potentially make it work to your advantage, they dont visit you, you're unable (for health reasons or whatever) to visit them, job done, result! You dont have to put up with the fuckers.

They have treated you appallingly, I try really hard to be fair to my children and I am horrified, my heart breaks to think of you being treated like this, shoved out in the cold, it's a way of ostracizing you, invalidating you, denying you. This is so damaging and every time you hope they'll be kind and fair and they just dont, well you let them rub salt into the wound they created.
Turn your back, hold mock funerals for them and reclaim your life.
I know it's not a simple matter, but maybe think about how it would feel to just give up the struggle

Tomorrow my front teeth will be removed under deep sedation
Will you let us know how it goes @SimplySteveRedux
I feel this could be hugely symbolic and help you to get past things or aspects of things?
How are you feeling about the procedure, have you been able to organise yourself so that you feel ready?

Steve

My best wishes to you for tomorrow’s visit to the dentist 💐

Best wishes Steve. I hope this helps in your healing

How are you feeling about the procedure, have you been able to organise yourself so that you feel ready?

Weirdly calm, I expect emotions to flare during the removal. I've been referred to a specialist and I felt able to express why my teeth are completely knackered (all of them require removal), and I felt empathy and no judgement. I'm unsure how things are going to be practically with dentures, and no normal teeth at 41 but at least the psychological torment relating to them will have closure.

With no coercion, no judgement by anyone, sincere empathy, I'm 100% certain these SH threads have saved my life. Various posters, you know who you are, have made an intrinsic impact that have inspired me to change my mindset. This community, and its members are an integral part of my life and I harbour such love, thankfulness and sincerity towards them, and it as a whole. Sincerity and integrity have so long been extremely important qualities to me and feeling them grow in my time here has been very rewarding.

I shall update tomorrow, of course, and I wish all of you very best wishes

@SimplySteveRedux, you deserve the best, most empathic, most nonjudgmental dental care🤗

Lily thank you for your kind words
Steve am thinking of you today lovey and hope it goes well X

All done, was given IV midazolam which spaced me out and provided complete amnesia. Mouth is very sore (six teeth removed) and my sex appeal has disappeared for life.

Going to take a few days for everything to settle down now, painful few days incoming, but that bastard's hold on me is now erased.

Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for your well wishes, they mean so much to me. 💕

Steve

Glad to hear that this part of it for you is now over.

Be kind to yourself. You will smile again and you deserve every kindness as does everyone else on this thread.

(Do follow any and all instructions they gave you re dental hygiene to the letter).

IV midazolam :o
nothing but the best for you!
Sounds like a very big deal to say the least Steve, hopefully could also be cathartic for you?

Glad to hear you are now safely back with us, Steve. Your smile will always be your smile.

Oh, I'm in pain and really very sore, but I'm happy I went. A dark cloud has been lifted

Well my life long anxiety just got clearer. This focuses a little more on relationships but certainly relates to a life long abusive mother. Hope this link works.

www.healthyfoodhouse.com/the-connection-between-verbal-abuse-and-anxiety-everyone-ignores/?utm_source=Grid&utm_medium=Grid&utm_campaign=Grid&fbclid=IwAR3Vgkdu9Eb4IF-9OZGD55V36aoAWeMI4pO6_KmEKsFw7gN60_W8n41S7Eg

Hello thread / contributors to thread - I need a rant please.

I am a survivor of child abuse – 15 years, physical, some sexual, lots of emotional. Middle child of 3, older sister younger brother. He was the golden boy, myself and sister abuse but myself MUCH more. Think loads of hitting, slapping, shoving, being grabbed by hair and head banged on wall, bitten, spat on, pushed down stairs, head held under water in cold bath. Pretty bad.

I’ve been no contact for years but my sister got in touch Nov 2017 to say she was having her first baby and it had been so many years I decided to start writing to her. It didn’t take long for things to go wrong. No one but me has had any therapy, my brother completely denies it and sticks up for our mother. My sister was caught, holding her new baby thinking ‘How on EARTH could she have treated her babies this way’ and trying to get answers but only ever getting so far and then getting slapped down by our brother for daring to bring it up.

Anyway whats bothering me is this – the writing to her started to go wrong. We have nothing in common. She still treated me like shit and spoke to me like it. I would see little signs. For example I should not have broken contact, I should have just sucked it up and got on with being an adult in the family and never saying anything about what happened, just accepting my place as the black sheep of the family. After 20 years of not being treated badly in any way by my friends and surrogate family, it was too much. I got shitty messages in the middle of the night, told to fuck off by her. It was just too much.

This is my sister, and she once held me down to be molested, sat on me and held one leg and looked at me in the eyes while doing so. How could I even write to her whatsoever after that??

So after she told me to fuck off I just thought, what am I doing here? All that went on and I’m just allowing more to go on? I wrote to her – big mistake – and told her she is selfish and shallow and what she took part in with me needs discussing and apologising. And she is not allowed to speak to me like shit going forward.

This email was a big mistake and it unleashed a day of hell which I still get upset about. I got emails from my brother after 20 years of no contact – his email said ‘Get over it – no one cares.’ He then went on to speak to me just like our mother used to, proving that she taught them well and their lack of therapy and insight into abusive family dynamics is alive and well.

I then got an email from the mother herself; whiny, manipulative, I thought you’d got over it by now. I SLATED her. I did not enjoy it. She will die having not ever said sorry or been honest. She gets her son to protect her when my poor sister who is still embroiled dares to bring it up.

But they all ganged up on me on that dreadful day. I actually live a hood life – after cutting contact I changed my career, I started doing things I’d long wanted to do – basically I was free to talk about it honestly, to do the therapy needed to sort my problems out, to have the courage to ask what I want from life and begin working towards that. Yet they made out I am sad and still going on about it. I just think it was too serious to just forget about. If you do that shit to me, you need to say sorry to my face and listen to the effects it had on me. Both my siblings used to get me in trouble to deflect from themselves and I saw their faces when they did it – ner ner.

But in allowing that contact and then standing up for myself I got a MASSIVE wound again – I have a self help book published and my sister knew about it because I gained her consent. On the day of the argument on March, 2 years after the publishing, she gives me a 1 star review and says I am a liar and delusional and they are all sad for me.

What I can’t understand is, how can you hope to live a good life if you don’t hash out the past? If I had done what they did I would want to cleanse my heart and say sorry and move on. My sister caused me even more harm. My mother continues to lie and deny it all and my brother protects her. I feel I went from a position of strength in getting clear of them, creating a good life and living it, only to ‘go back’ and get hurt again by the same old things. I can’t believe my sister had the nerve to say those things on my book review, counting on the fact that I wouldn’t tell anyone what she did to me! And I feel stupid for having cared for her and her new baby. All I got was hurt. And my brother – no one cares. I mean really.

Reading the opening post is helping me this morning. They deny it ever happened yet in the very next email say ‘We don’t talk about it.’ Well you are clearly lying then.

I got attacked for standing up for myself.

My sister and brother both say I wouldn’t know the truth from fiction, so they are saying I am lying but they know I am not. I simply don’t get how, as adults, they can adopt this position. It’s like they are purposely throwing me under the bus – and in this, they are the liars but they twist it round to make me at fault.

In writing to her, in standing up for myself on that dreadful day, all I got was a shut door with them all united behind it – just like before.

And it hurts so much that my sister has told all her friends and partners that I was the problem. She sat on top of me and held my leg and won’t discuss that, and instead tells everyone that I have problems. I dearly wish I had never tried again 20 years later because I feel I weakened my position with them and gave them more ammunition to hurt me with, more reasons to say I was the family problem. But it started when I was too young for that ever to have been the case. I drowning incident I remember from this one house we lived in, and moved from when I was 7 – so if the drowning was going on from that young an age, I could not have deserved it, and you don’t drown children as punishment.

And yet my life’s work as a charity worker supporting adults to flee violence, my own healing years, all put down in a book now has a 1 star review from one of the abusers saying that I am delusional and they are all sad I’m in such pain.

To turn it around and feel better tho – which I believe in trying to do – even tho I lost that argument, I did stand up for myself. I know I am not the one at fault and they do too, in their hearts. I will not die ashamed or with anything hidden, I did the work necessary. And my life has gone back to normal, with work, my fiancé, my guitar playing, my friends – no more shitty emails. And it DID always feel wrong in my heart to write to her, to converse with someone who held me down to be abused. It felt like I was compromising myself, making it out to be nothing. And another massive positive is that there are huge ructions between them still and I was getting drawn back in, even by knowing about it all, but now I don’t have to know. I don’t live like they do, I don’t speak about people like they do and I don’t have to hide what I went thro. My sister thinks that money given makes it better, but I don’t. It IS better being no contact again.

Sorry for the long emails. It comes up periodically for me. I will never speak to my sister again, and I hope that turns out to come true, for she poses a risk to me and she will probably never stop – and all because my living honestly threatens them. I would have just liked to discuss it with her, to tell her how it affected me, how her looking down in my eyes like that was like her saying ‘Ner ner, we can do what we like to you’ and made me so angry. It made me so angry. I get that it would be hard for her to discuss, but that’s her problem. We were both victims and she has to live with that. But wouldn’t it just be better to hash it out? They make out they are happier than I am but I don’t see how that can be the case if they deny it. It’s like all the problems just get blamed on me and that’s not right. Our mother, herself abused, did not sort herself out but instead took it out on her children, me in particular, and now she will die soon without having apologised.

It really is just best to cut ties and make a clean break of it.

@something2say
I find your posts extremely powerful and much of what you saying resonates strongly with me
In hindsight I would call them out only once... give them that one chance to redeem themselves and if they don't step up then you just fucking cutloose

the problem is that when you first start with all this you naively think that people will be kind and do the right thing once they know the truth
🙄

When you engage with these people, try to have it out with them, you just feed them information that they can use to fine tune their strategy to dominate you, humiliate you and bring you back under control
The only cure is to cut loose

something2say
I think lots of us here feel like you, that if only we can explain better how it was for us that they’ll listen and be sorry and show us love. Your sister had a flash of humanity, but you coming back reminded her of her past so she returned you to the role of scapegoat.
It’s not possible.
It’s bloody heartbreaking though.
If you can accept that they are unable to do the things you want them to do, and that you are in charge of your life now things can be calmer.
Amazon 1* star reviews say more about the reviewer, you’re the one who got published!

Hello.

Since the birth of my daughter (DC3) nearly two years ago I have joined the dots and have realised, after days upon days of reading material online that I was the family scapegoat and I had been horribly emotionally abused by my FOO for the whole of my childhood and adulthood in a toxic narcissistic family unit. My mum and my sister are narcissistic and my brother the golden child. My dad is the enabler and my other brother is in exile abroad.

Things really swam into focus when my mother didn't accept being asked to wait until I got home from hospital to meet my new baby and took a 200 mile taxi ride to land at the hospital on the day I gave birth post c-section.

Once I got wind of what she was doing I got my husband to phone her as I had just had the Caesarean and asked her to stay at our house and visit the next day. Instead she turned the taxi back. Shouted at my husband down the phone and then didn't speak to me for several weeks, didn't want to see me/help me and this triggered me feeling very low. She then smeared me to all the FOO

This is one of hundred examples of her narcissistic behaviour.

Earlier this year as it became more apparent that I was the scapegoat and only there in the family to give a good kicking to, I had, after the latest family mobbing over something I hadn't done properly , what I would call a psychological collapse.

I started feeling like taking my own life. I knew things had to change and with my husband on board, I saw a psychotherapist who has been supporting me. I have had to go NC with the FOO otherwise I felt my young kids would be left motherless.

It's been truly devastating to realise the truth. I feel decimated. I feel grief. I feel anger. I feel so misunderstood like my chest will burst.

I tried to tell my mother how I felt a few weeks ago- the depth of my pain and the affects it has had on me.

She waited 3 weeks and then told me to grow up and how I'd been a problem since I was 11. That was it. My siblings just think I am a terrible, selfish person for not speaking to my elderly parents. My sister has mercilessly bullied me for decades and this is more proof that I am BAD.

There is no point talking to my siblings- they have never loved me I have realised. I am just someone to be mocked.

My question is- will I ever be happy again? Ever truly happy? How can I be happy again with such awful estrangement in my life script.

Hi @Acorn😊
I'm so sorry for what you're going through, that's some heavy shit you've got going on!
however you are taking charge you have accessed help in the form of a psychotherapist and you have gone no contact with your family of origin, I think this is correct?
Yes you can be happy, you definitely can, now the exposure to the toxins is cut off you can start to recover and heal.
I should add that I am new here and people with more experience will be along with words of wisdom in due course🙏
How is it all going?