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
February 2009
May 2009
January 2010
April 2010
August 2010
March 2011
November 2011
January 2012
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November 2018-May 2019
May-August 2019
August-October 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."

@herocomplex that sounds so familiar. It's always where they want to eat and my mum will not try a new place, she turns it into an ordeal

@singinglily
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
😂 made me laugh because it's so true

Jinglebells, I'm glad I made you laugh. We should probably start a "Stately Homes - The Holiday Edition" thread with all the times that their contrariness reduced us to tears of laughter because they were just being so impossible. We could visit it on our darkest days when we need to be cheered up by our fellow survivors.

Oh my goodness, I have some corkers.

I haven’t spoken about my father much because I’m still trying to work out what he was.

He was definitely her enabler but probably a bit narc too.

He had a very domineering mother and was packed off to boarding school when he was 11.

He was quite a bit older than my mother and got married to her fairly late. They were both late marriers for that generation.

I imagine she saw that he needed a mother figure in his life and played that role perfectly till they got married.

I do remember him reading me stories when I was little and playing with me in the garden. There are a couple of photos of me on his lap.

But by the time I I was about 9 that had all changed. He was cruel. He still cherished my sister, sided with my mother, played jokes on me and was just generally nasty. I can’t go into too much detail due to outing myself.

When he was dying I did the dutiful daughter thing and cared for him. My mother of course had gone to bits and couldn’t speak, just moped about the house for weeks. Moaning that people weren't coming to see her.

One day about a couple of days before he died I was at the end of my tether with my mother. We were trying to sort out stuff and she just would not speak.

I upstairs to my dad and said ‘I just don’t know what to do. She will not speak. There is nothing there’.

And he said ‘I know, I’ve had to put up with it for 40 years’.

He knew, He fucking knew. And even then he still couldn’t say ‘and I’m sorry you had to put up with it for nearly 40 years too.’

I was furious. I was mad at myself for putting myself out to care for him. I have no feelings for him and haven’t missed him once since he died.

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

Indeed she did along with a few others on that thread.

I do like the sound of the Stately Homes; the Holiday edition thread. Which part of MN would you all like this to be posted in?. Or should it be a part of this thread?.

OPs have made me smile wryly to myself re the recent comments made about "cats bum mouth on a picky eater" (LOL). This is MIL to a tee. She likes plain food and did not even understand the pub menu properly (she was wondering what the numbers on the menu signified). My MIL (narcissist) is very much like this, the woman clearly has no idea what to do. I have found too that no prior made arrangement is straight forward with such people and I still recall one of her milestone birthday meals with absolute horror and dare I say a degree of embarrassment. I knew it was going to be bad anyway because it is (there is always some drama or complication) and it was but my DH, bless his socks, still views her with somewhat rose tinted spectacles. My late FIL was no better; he had no social discourse and he could clear his plate seemingly in five seconds flat.

I'm still here, mostly lurking and reading. I'm enjoying the stories too, a nice bit of light relief amongst the general dismay 😀
I have a restaurant related tale too add....so my parents went to a local Italian for a Xmas night out a few years ago and then proceeded to leave a scathing trip advisor review. It was really long and OTT, pretty unpleasant. Anyways, my mother had some weird trip advisor name, it wasn't her real name, a pseudonym like 'mountain 99' or something daft. Anyways, she then got a Facebook message a day or two later from some bloke who lives locally saying 'that's my mates restaurant, your review is really out of order and it's bad for his business, I think you should take it down'. My mother flatly denied writing it, said she didn't know what he was on about. So he said 'well your ID is linked to your Facebook profile so I know it's you'. So they got all full of fury and threatened to call the police . I was pissing myself about it. Still makes me smile 😂

I think owning your mistakes and apologising isn’t a strong suit with narcissists. In fact I think denial and outrage is the default isn’t it?

@Herocomplex for sure. It's like 'how dare you!' The impertinence of anyone thinking they have any sort of right to challenge them! They believe that can do and say as they please, without consequence, and fail to
see what massive hypocrites they really are !

I can't find the Christmas lunch beef in gravy thread and feel like I'm missing out. I can just imagine Toomuchtooold going straight to the point but in a kind way.

I'm quite tickled that you like the idea of a Holiday Edition, especially with it coming up to Christmas (always a difficult time for all of us). It might be a useful antidote to the gloomy days ahead. The tales might be a bit outing though so perhaps we could start a special thread in OTBT and keep this thread just as it is?

Happy to start it off in the next few days and let you all know...

@herocomplex oh yea my mum very rarely apologises and if she does it's insincere. She even admits she hardly every says sorry and laughs.

Yes like the idea of a Christmas type thread. Would be good to hear some tales we could laugh about/relate to.

Yes a thread for sharing teeth-gritting nonsense. I don’t know what OTBT is though...

It’s in AIBU, entitled ‘Christmas Dinner Drama’ @SingingLily

I'd be up for a Christmas thread! It would be a nice landing place for people who're dealing with batshit parents over Christmas - it gets really busy on here in Christmas Week.

My mother was awful to take to restaurants. I believe my mother has paranoid personality disorder, which is basically NPD without any of the (superficial) charm, and restaurants set her off something awful. She seemed to regard every dish as a personal insult.

Thank you, Hero, I'll find that thread!

OTBT is "Off The Beaten Track" and can be found under Other Topics. It's called that because it can't be found via Google. A kind of private thread. I'll let you all know as soon as it's up and running

That beef in gravy thread - this is why this kind of abuse is impossible to explain to anyone who hasn't experienced it.

@yellowlemon agree 1000% people just cannot fathom parents behaving this way if they have not been through it.

One of the other reasons I am so grateful for this thread is because I have started to reframe what happened to me as abuse, rather than just neglect. I know neglect is another form of abuse but what happened to a lot of us was deliberate.

On some of the other narc parents forums I tried to get an understanding from it tended to be much younger people who had alcoholic, or drug addicted parents. I know there are a lot of people on here who also had those type of parents and I can't begin to imagine how dreadful that was for them. But it's why for so long I felt because I wasn't getting beaten up and I got fed and clothed it can't have been that bad.

Thank you all so much for sharing your stories and making me start to realise it wasn't me who was the monster.

It's years of built up pain isn't it Looking back and just seeing how you were so small and young and vulnerable. You just needed to be accepted for who you were. A hug and a bit of love. these sum up exactly how I'm feeling. I've been lurking for ages and it feels like I'm finally breaking through to the surface. Thank you al so much - it's crazy to see how many similarities there are.

And yes to the Holiday Edition thread. I have some hilarious stories.

For someone who thought she was the queen she really had no idea how to behave in the most basic of social situations. I've actually been laughing quite a lot today about some of them as I've given myself permission to view her as the stupid woman she really was.

Hi @Jamonfirst welcome.

I've been reading for a while and posting only for a couple of days and it is so helpful. Post what you like - nobody will judge you and you will start to feel better.

Hi jamonfirst!
It was an incident where I realised that my mother understood the effect of her behaviour that made me go NC. Up till then I'd always thought she had no control or insight about it, because it had such a terrible effect on her own life - she stuck in a minimum responsibility job her whole life despite having the opportunity to do more, and as we've been saying, she struggled with the most basic social interactions. But I think on some level that was preferable to changing anything.

Also, can I suggest "But We Took You to Santa's Grotto" for the holiday thread? Or is that too flippant?

@toomuchtooold
I like that title. Maybe we could put at the end stately homes Christmas edition? So people who aren't actively following atm could maybe find us if needed?