"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
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December 2013
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Nov 2015 - Feb 2016
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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."

'D'B has predictably escalated his attacks. I'm in the middle of a cancer scare, this shit I don't need. He's attempting the martyr approach.

I just hate it makes me question myself and my recollection of things, maybe it really is time to escalate to NC.

@SimplySteveRedux
Oh no, what’s he been doing/saying? I hear you what you are saying, have been in this position myself and prob will be again soon as I’m going to attempt some ‘boundary placing’. Is it the whole the ‘poor me/us, after all we’ve done for you/you are remembering it wrong, all I’ve/we’ve done is try to support you etc etc blah blah blah typical narc shit. While failing to acknowledge what you are trying to say? This is the right place to talk about it 👍. I remember you said you still live with them, how are the DP behaving? X

What would you need SimplySteve to get from a maybe to a definitely?

Dealing with severe illness takes huge reserves of personal strength. You don’t need distractions from people who take that resource from you. You can give yourself the permission you need to take steps to protect yourself. X

stable as difficult as it is to accept you are not responsible for the awful childhood your mother endured, it is her choice to react to it as she has. You cannot change it or fix her, it’s not your load to carry. Lots of people have shocking childhoods and go on to be nurturing supportive parents, she has chosen to let hers define her and is amplifying her pain into you. It’s wrong, and you are allowed to take steps to prevent it continuing. You need to decide on what your boundaries of acceptable behaviour are and hold them strongly.
It’s extraordinarily tough, but easier than being the passive victim of narcissistic manipulation. Reading and understanding are your tools. Good luck x

@Etty17 hope the bbq goes ok. I think having an ally in your brother and sis in law could be a real source of strength for you as they can validate what you are feeling. This will negate the narcs attempts at minimising, gaslighting and various other strategies they like to use in their repertoire. My situation is very similar to yours only with stepfather being abuser and mother being enabler. Let us know how you get on xx

Etty narcissists encourage division and conflict in their family as it is easier to manipulate individuals rather than a united group - divide and rule. What were the clashes about, can you remember? My DM used to tell us things that the other has said or done, which encouraged jealousy and resentment, but do it in a way that was ‘family news’, about new possessions mainly. If you mentioned it to the other person it was never quite what DM had said, but the damage was done.
It’s the small things, done often over time that have massive effect. You make yourself more and more accommodating, grow smaller and smaller until you barely know yourself anymore. You can’t fight the behaviour, but you can refuse to engage with it. Calmly and rationally, disengage.

It's the whole "done everything for you, never hurt you, you never did anything for me" rewriting history bollocks. No my brother, you assaulted me after I was raped with your controlling me, me, me bullshit. I travelled 150 miles three times a week to save you thousands on specialist services and never even asked for petrol. Just constant narc bollocks. Giving it the "his childhood was the pits". Yet while I've always maintained he suffered too, he was out the door before mental illness really took hold of mother, and he became complicit in their abuse of me.

Live with DB? Nah, I live with DP and DD.

He, and parents, know I'm on a two-week cancer pathway, and that I'm looking at something requiring major surgery even if not cancer, suspect DD told my parents. It feels, as it did during childhood, they all carefully choose their moments when I'm most vulnerable.

What would it take to go NC? Had the discussion with DP last night and tbh, I feel I'm over the line now. I'm done with all the shit. Just done, there's a sense of loss but finality and relief developing. Parents will remain VLC because of DD, but I've become very good at restricting contact to 3-4 times a year.

Steve

So very sorry to read about your serious problems with your physical health.

As herocomplex rightly points out you can give yourself the permission you need to take steps to protect yourself.

I would further cut back the amount of contact your DD has with your parents, over time and gradually if needs be, but to a point of zero all the same.

May I ask roughly how old your DD is; is she teens for instance?. I would seriously consider keeping her well away from all your family of origin and she needs to know the full truth re your parents and brother. She in all likelihood does not realise how your family of origin are manipulating her and they will use her to get back at you and your partner.

My best wishes to you and your family

Hi Attila, hope you're well.

Yes, I'm definitely there with my brother, it's just so exhausting dealing with his utter crap. Don't need it, so I'm not having it. I've not seen him in almost three years, shall be blocking his number and FB.

DD is almost 20, her grandparents have lavished her with monetary things over the years, my father I must admit has, in effect, the relationship with her that he should've had with me. If I'd realised the toxicity of my childhood much sooner then she wouldn't have had any access to all, but I was young and naive. I recognise now the treatment DD and, then, DSS received were oodles apart, despite DSS being in their lives before DD was conceived, and before he was 2. In many ways the cycle of golden child/scapegoat has repeated and it causes me a great deal of pain.

I've not considered enlightening her of the abusive, neglectful, stance of my childhood and I wouldn't know where to begin. Yet I found it incredibly easy to talk to her a couple of years ago about my sexual assaults. I think she's going to withdraw anyway, yes, my parents will use her as a weapon. I just don't know how to begin the dialogue.

Thanks for all your kind words.

@SimplySteveRedux ah I mistook DP for ‘ dear parents’ not ‘partner’ 😖😂. We can’t chamge the past can we bit we can change how things go from now on. Sounds like you are making good progress and are nearly there. I was thinking today, ‘the truth will set you free’ is a good quote when it comes to people like ourselves. Once you see the truth of things and can separate yourself from there webs of lies and layers of bullshit you start to feel empowered. X

I understand that hesitation SimplySteve my children are around the same age. I think they see more than you realise. Some DC’s might be angry, think you’re threatening to withdraw people and things from their lives that they don’t want to lose. Other DC’s will be very aware of your emotional state after contact with your abusers, and will be more receptive and empathetic to change.

Choose your time carefully, maybe make your own health and treatment your main priority.

hello, I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this. I'm in shock I think. I have nc for this. My mother just said the most horrible thing to me I have ever heard. There's a huge backstory which I won't go into now but the jist is that my db had an accident many years ago which changed his personality completely. We were close as kids But he's been downright nasty since his accident to a point where I am very lc with him now. I went to help my Mum with a job she needs doing & she refused my help as she had asked him to help her & said he would be annoyed if i did it & he would shout at her. I said i found that behaviour unnaceptable & she said she thought I would have preferred it if he had died when he had the accident as it would be easier for me. I'm just gobsmacked

can’tbelieve
That must have been so incredibly wounding to hear. Sometimes people accuse others of things they are afraid of confronting in themselves. Maybe your mum dreams of being able to cut off from your brother but she just can’t. So she’s turning her pain on you instead, speaking her worst thoughts out loud.
It’s not your weight to carry though. It sounds like you’re doing your best to maintain your relationship with your mum whilst protecting yourself from your brother.
You don’t really say if this is the latest in a series of abusive behaviour or a one off, so it’s difficult to to say what you might do next. If you feel your relationship is otherwise good you might want to have a heart to heart with her and try and help her through this. If you feel you’re realising this is part of a pattern then go to the beginning of this thread and look st the books and websites recommended. Good luck 💐

'D'B is now removed from all channels of communication. Final straw was my father being shown the text messages he sent me yesterday and still refusing to condemn his behaviour. I can do no more, this is a war I cannot win, that has been having a polarising effect on my physical and mental health for decades. At least I finally have clarity.

I passively aggressively had Linkin Park's - Numb, on repeat, for an hour in the car too. I doubt my father got the message.

This week is going to be a lot of soul searching and worry as I'm seeing psychiatry end of the week. Shitting myself.

sorry I've just gatecrashed in here with no idea of anyone's story I just didn't know where else to post. It's not a one-off, just the latest in a lifetime of never being good enough to gain any attention/affection from my mother & always being beaten/abused/blamed for everything. Thanks for your reply @Herocomplex i will look at the resources you suggested

Bloody hell it's busy on here. I've been out for so long I don't even know where to start so I'm just going to jump in and wang on a bit, I hope that's OK...

Thinking of you @singinglily

@Simplysteveredux I hope you can get a bit of peace in amongst all this. They do seem to sweep in when you're at a real low and then kick you when you're down. I think with your DD, you just have to play it by ear and see what she's willing to hear. She's had a number done on her and she's going to have to discover that herself, just like we did - you know she might be in a place where hearing your experience will validate feelings she's having about her GPs, or she might not be ready to take them off the pedestal. Go slow. And look after yourself - I hope that the clinical pathway you're on now is going to actually get you some resolution.

@cantbelieveshesaidthat outside of any other dysfunction that is going on, and I bet it goes deeper, that thing of being like "oh you've enforced a totally reasonable boundary, that must mean you hate us all forever aargh" is really familiar to me. I never know how much of it is genuine feelings of distress that are triggered by criticism, and how much is just using it as a way to never have to hear anything negative... I think at some point it becomes impossible to tell the difference really. We were on constant eggshells with my mother, the slightest implied criticism would set her off.

@yetianothername it sounds like the scales have fallen from your eyes regarding your family, and I think that is a great thing. Society pushes so hard, the idea that everything our parents do is motivated by love I think that we often give them the benefit of the doubt far beyond what they deserve.
Sorry, I had to quote this:

I suppose I bullied you because I sent you to a private school

It's just Stately Homes in a nutshell isn't it? That handwringing about the one thing they did for you that they're proud of. My mother used to go "maybe I did overprotect you, I suppose it must have been the miscarriages I suffered before you were born" which is just a beautiful piece of theatre. How do you argue with something like that? I don't know if maybe people had realised that her overprotectiveness meant sabotaging my friendships by picking fights with my friends' mothers or spending Sundays alone in the house with me screaming and shouting at me because I'd scratched a spot on my face and my school photos wouldn't be perfect... would that have changed their opinion of her? I think some of our family and neighbours saw me and my mother as some distasteful, creepy little unit, like Lisa Arryn and Sweetrobin, if anyone's a GoT fan here. People don't seem to realise that the child in those situations has no control over what is happening to them and that if they seem to be compliant it's because a) self preservation and b) they've never known anything else.

Sorry, drifted a bit off the topic there!

@etty17 my mum is a vulnerable narcissist. Susan Forward's books are good, and that Karyl McBride one - I also found that the book "People of the Lie" by M. Scott Peck resonated with me, the first half anyway (the bloke was religious, and in the second half of the book he goes into some very literal sort of old testament ideas of good and evil that I couldn't really get on with ) and Richard Grannon's stuff on covert narcissists, although he's not everyone's cup of tea.

I think they are definitely damaged and what you're dealing with is a defence mechanism of a very young child who soon realised that the world was not a happy place. They're massively triggered by the gentlest of criticism, and they don't feel bad about doing whatever they have to to get people to support their massive but fragile egos. I believe that it is a choice, at some level - they are happy, as long as they're getting admiration and all their emotional needs pandered to, and it's far easier to keep searching for more narcissistic supply than admit that anything is wrong and try to deal more honestly with people. And you can go on for ages like you are now, just biting your lip and not getting involved in fights (have you come across the term "grey rock"? Where you just be really boring and talk about the weather so they can't find anything to fight with you about?) but it doesn't resolve anything because from their point of view you're being annoying and withholding all that loving attention and hurt and drama and stuff that they thrive on. If you try and resolve it by talking through your issues calmly and rationally I think it will get worse - I think that what they experience then is "Etty came round here one day and had clearly taken leave of her senses because she started making all sorts of terrible accusations, oh it was horrible, I wonder why she is being so awful" and after that it's just all techniques to try and get you to come back and be sorry and start listening to her nonsense again. Maybe you need to try though, for your own satisfaction?

Ah, cantbelieveshesaidthat then welcome, come in, pull up a comfy chair and get involved. Your story is yours alone, but I can assure you will chime with many others.
Unpack here. Xx

Thanks for the Richard Grannon link about covert narcissists @Toomuch, I am reading it and getting lots of aha moments 😁

Has anyone read ‘the drama of the gifted child’ by Alice Miller? Sorry I’m asking another question but you remember I was saying the kids normally go after school on a Monday and Tuesday to my mothers? Well I was going to send my mother a message to tell them that that we no longer need them to do this, maybe on Friday, so that they can’t make out on Sunday or whatever that they have come back from their caravan to ‘help out’. But now I’ve been working my way through listening to ‘into the fog’ im wondering whether it’s best just to leave it and not even bother messaging them at all? Haven’t had contact with them since they demanded the apology 2 weeks ago. Whatever happens it’s going to be chucked back in my face isn’t it? That’s what pp have advised and I can see now that there’s really no point in dressing it up or anything as it’s still going to kick off. What do yous think? Sorry all I do is ask questions and don’t offer people much in the way of advice 😖I really do appreciate everyone on here, it’s a great place x

Hi Marmaduke 😊 I agree just don't tell them, don't contact them unless they contact you and if they contact you just give them very minimal boring basic information, ignore their narrative and just press on with your own agenda
Maybe create a grey rock persona and bring it out when you interact with them.
I'm visualising a humanoid figure made of a grey material, featureless genderless, not interesting or interested in other people, a kind of robot 🤖

don't send your mother a message that's what a friendly interesting, interested 'people person' would do, she doesn't deserve to see that aspect of you.

Marmaduke if they hadn't fallen out with you, would they normally assume they were going to be looking after the kids? If so, I would send them a short message to say it's not necessary, and then block them. You're right though, it won't make any difference to the level of crazy that they bring as a result. All it does is give you the satisfaction of knowing you didn't mess them about.
If you would normally have to actively get in touch to arrange meeting, I'd agree, don't send them any message.

@Ulterego he's quite good isn't he? I know there are a few Stately Homers who're not keen on him because he uses like hypnotic suggestion in the way he talks and stuff. But I actually like that. It needs to go in that bit deeper for me, for me to actually believe it

@ulterego thanks yes that’s what I’m going to do. Contacting them just gives them ammo doesn’t it. I’m quite interested to say how they deal with the new ‘me’, who actually stands up for herself , not the forty year old child. My husband says I’m like a dog that keeps going back for a kicking (charming analogy 😂) x

@toomuchtooold cheers x yeah normally i speak to them to confirm what’s exactly is happening as the day they return varies from year to year and sometimes they have them all day on the Monday for us if they don’t start back till the Tuesday. One of the kids had mentioned the other day that my mother had said she may be having them on the Monday (prior to the latest drama) but we never discussed it so I think I can get away with not bothering messaging them. X

Marmaduke I remember the first time I didn’t make the weekly phone call to my parents. I so enjoyed that evening, thinking ‘wow, I don’t need to feel that stress and sadness’ my DH said just don’t call, and I felt so light and free.
Looking back that was the obligation part of FOG lifting. Enjoy it.

I wonder about ILs being toxic too?

Might not be the boundary of this thread. However I’ve begun using some of the advice on here with my MIL and SIL. I greyrock and minimize their contact with DS. DH had a horrible upbringing, but minimizes it and I found that they were manipulating DS who has SN. SIL was insisting on seeing DS without me, and they were taking over from DH and being quite controlling.

They started to totally ignore and exclude me as the mother. No way was I going to have the same crap scenario for DS as DH went through - alcoholic father, emotionless mother, split family who blame and criticise each other constantly...