But we took you to Stately Homes" October 2019 onwards thread

[toomuchtooold]

It's October 2019, and the Stately Home is still open to visitors.

Forerunning threads:
December 2007
March 2008
August 2008
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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."

So happy my internet is fixed now so I can post again

I never understood kids who had believed in Santa Claus. Same with the tooth fairy.

Interesting. I can remember being about 5 or 6 and feeling very grown up that I was helping a teacher comfort a classmate about losing their tooth so wouldn't be able to put it under the pillow - of course I knew it wasn't real, but I also knew that I mustn't let on. Same with Father Christmas, I can remember going to my best friend's house for Christmas lunch (the one year it wasn't unbearable) and her fuming that she'd discovered it was her dad sneaking into her room with the stocking, and me just feeling amazed that she could still believe that (I think we were 7 or 8). Actually I don't think I can put this one on my F, I think this one might be on my DM, and it was just too much effort in her already stressful world to continue with any kind of unnecessary pretence. I just can't ever remember believing in either of them. She's also very practical when it comes to presents (bought me a potato peeler a couple of years back - my DH thought it was hilarious - but I had mentioned that I'd lost ours and so she thought she'd get one and wrap it), and it was one of my F's criticisms of her - I think he was more into grand gestures.

Welcome back SimplySteveRedux!

FreshStart

The roles of scapegoat and golden child are interchangeable and this change of roles depends on who is pleasing and displeasing the narcissist more in the moment.

This article may be helpful:-
medium.com/@OwnYourReality/scapegoat-golden-child-how-and-why-narcissists-assign-these-roles-and-not-just-in-the-family-f78fe568dfa7

Hi Steve

I hope that nowadays you spend a far happier Christmas and birthday with your own family unit.

Seeing as they're all so unspecial I wonder if anybody could help me work out what her next move might be.

Emails have been filtered so they won't go into my inbox. I assume she will try a card for Birthday/Christmas but luckily I live in flats and we have a communal recycling bin for junk mail/pizza leaflets so that's where they'll go if I don't want to bring them into my home. Phone calls I can screen/block but she may leave voice messages which will be annoying as I'll have to pick them up to delete them.

I'm hoping that she'll stay NC. It won't be because she's respecting my wishes but because she thinks she's punishing me. But is that an option and will it last?

@yellowlemon is there anyone she’ll drag in to the drama? Someone who’ll call you or come to see you to tell you how you’re breaking her heart, or that she’s ill?

The voice mails are painful. I’ve had them and it’s horrible, but they just harden my resolve, as they’re full of self-pity and anger.

Yellow, I imagine she is very keen to 'hoover' you back in so that she can can crush you again, whatever move she does make it's important to recognise it for what it is and not respond, if you stonewall there really is very little that she can do.
Some kind of crisis may be invented or exaggerated in order to shock you into responding but even then if you're not picking up any of her messages she won't know if you are aware of said invented crisis
If you stop responding to her then I suppose her next move is likely to be to use some 'flying monkeys' to provoke you into responding.
(Both my parents have tried to use old school friends of mine as flying monkeys)

I'm trying to think who she may use as a flying monkey. I don't think her brother will play because is one of the few people who is wise to her. I've been almost NC with my sister for a long time but she may be the one to participate in a sudden illness/crisis.

in the last few months she tried using the 'little old lady' with me by buying some stupid rip-off funeral plan and putting me down as next of kin and explaining in great detail how when she died I would get a phone call from this company so I knew what to do about her funeral. Manipulation from beyond the grave!!

I think she will leave it for a bit. She will be wallowing in the self-pity for the time being but eventually that will turn to anger and I imagine that's when she'll begin the drama.

Or she'll just try and phone me in a few weeks all breezy like nothing's happened.

I remember all those years ago when my mother first banished me from her life, her lack of self-awareness made it impossible for her see that this was gift to me and not a punishment.
I remember the phone call in which she informed me that I was now dead to her, I remember my complete shock and then the awareness that ...
this is FANTASTIC 😁
In my memory it's as if the sun came out and the whole room had a golden glow
☀️☀️☀️
Several months later I received a letter from her partner listing all the things that I had done wrong and informing me of the best way to make an apology so that I wouldn't lose 'the best friend I would ever have'
Obviously I laughed at the idea that she was any friend of mine
🤣😂🤣😂
(in hindsight I can see he was implying that I was such a worthless person that I only deserve friends who would treat me appallingly)

Just popped in to say that Hero is right. Expect a flying monkey - contact by text or email or call or in person. Also look out for the sudden health scare or domestic crisis that is intended to summon you to her side as chief comforter.

Criticism hasn't worked. Coldness hasn't worked. Baffled expressions of hurt haven't worked. Now it's time to play the victim/sympathy card.

It's hard not to respond to that, yellowlemon, because it's intended to put you through horrible contortions of guilt and obligation, but it's textbook stuff.

While I was thinking through my response, Ulterego got in there first

I guess we all know the script pretty well now Singinglily 😊
When these people are not very bright it's fairly easy to out manoeuvre them, my mother has no idea of strategy, she shoots from the hip with such a bad aim that she shoots herself in the foot
🤣😂😂
I mean really, her opening move was to give away all her power by showing me just how much nicer life was without her 😲

Exactly so, Ulterego! Just reading Attila's link and it reminded me that during my recent "home truths" phone call with M, she went off the deep end because I had apparently called my GC brother an alcoholic.

Now my brother has many problems but alcohol isn't one of them. I have never called him an alcoholic. If I wanted to have a go at him, the truth would be rich pickings enough without resorting to fantasy. So I asked her where she got that particular little gem of a lie from and we went through this "I can't tell you, it would only cause more trouble" game for about ten minutes before she finally said my DSis had told her. "In confidence".

Have you ever been torn between boiling with anger and wanting to laugh yourself silly at the same time? It was just so obvious what she was doing - real textbook stuff. Eighteen months ago, I would have been crippled by the thought that my lovely DSis would tell lies about me. It would have felt like such a betrayal. Not now. M can't touch me now.

My mother grows old but she will never grow up. That's her tragedy. It's not mine.

Thanks everyone.

Luckily she's not really that bright even though she thinks she is because she can memorise a few random facts and knows a bit of Latin.

And of course what she doesn't realise is that she's been training me in her 'strategy' all my life. Like a general who's given the enemy his whole war games blueprints.

she's been training me all her life
I think this is one thing that bullies don't realise, the victim sees everything that's going on and they understand (even if only implicitly and unconsciously) the dynamics of the situation, in this predator-prey dynamic the prey has been trained from an early age to pay very close attention to The Predator... so much so that you can almost read their mind.
The bully has created a situation which, when it unfolds, will backfire on them, the victim is highly motivated to get revenge and they can read his/her mind well enough to know exactly how to do it

My mother grows old but she will never grow up. That's her tragedy. It's not mine.

This whole idea about narcs being stuck as children has made me remembers some tiny snippets of conversation about my mother being ‘indulged’ as a child. I can’t remember who said it - it could have been my father.

It sort of makes sense. Why she didn’t achieve the things her siblings did because she had no need to work or strive for things.

She was always a terribly fussy eater. At family events people had to make separate dishes for her which would be met with a ‘oh how sweet you are to think of me like this’. And if they hadn’t then she would sulk and spend the whole meal picking out minuscule bits of tomato, onion, pepper, cucumber, mushroom, white chicken meat, whatever and leaving them in a little pile on the side of her plate with this complete look of disgust on her face.

Apparently a wonderful domestic goddess yet unbelievably lazy. The house was always a tip and I did the chores. And her cooking was atrocious - there I’ve said it.

Even evening had to go and fetch her slippers because she was too lazy to go upstairs and get them herself. The obsession with being ladylike and looking down her nose at everyone. She kept some really stupid things on display in our house like a dolls table and chairs, and the only books she read were ancient children’s books (not to me obviously).

I always thought she might have been neglected as a child but I’m now wondering if it was actually the other way round.

I could never understand why she acted like a 1950s housewife when she was in fact a teenager/young adult in the 60s and all the progressiveness that went on in that decade and the 70s passed her by. Got misty eyed about pounds shillings and pence. And claimed she’d never heard a Beatles song.

But of course she got stuck in the 1950s when she was a child.

Anyway I’m rambling. And I know I need to stop searching for the answers to why she was like she was because I will never ever get them so it’s a pointless exercise.

Ha @yellowlemon my DM does the food attention-seeking thing. Everything’s such a bloody performance, especially in restaurants. They must be around the same age too. It’s so boring.

@herocomplex It really is boring. You're an adult Sometimes you have to do things you don't like and suck it up. (To her btw not you!)

Oh yes, that lesson was well drilled into us. It doesn’t apply to her though, unless it was for throwing back in my face at a later date. Martyrdom was a speciality.

If you really want to see a cat's bum mouth on a picky eater, try taking your parents to a fancy French bistro, thinking you are giving them a real treat.

My parents never went to restaurants and certainly never took me to one. After my father died I treated my mum to a really nice meal in a fancy but very relaxed restaurant. It was one of the most excruciating experiences of my life.

She had no idea how to behave, was rude to the waiters, turned her nose up at everything, complained, criticized, never said thank you. Of course waiters in restaurants like this are professionals and know how to deal with troublemakers so it must have been maddening for her to watch them be nice and smiley and chatty to me and do as little as needed to provide her with a decent service and not rise to her attention-seeking.

Although it was a waste of money I was glad I didn't take her somewhere like pizza express where she would have been able to push the buttons of someone with less experience, have a massive tantrum and end up complaining to the manager about someone earning minimum wage to pay their way through college (or whatever)

It was after that I realised she would never change, never soften so it was the trigger to go LC and never bother trying to do nice things for her again.

The last time we went out just over a year ago it was to an Italian my DP suggested, we sat down, looked at the menu and they said there was nothing they liked the look of, so we went home (they were staying with us) and I cooked a meal instead, while apologising to them for not planning ahead better.

I know a few of you are over on the Christmas lunch beef in gravy thread. It’s so bloody triggering. @toomuchtooold doing sterling work.

They're just awful aren't they.