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

[toomuchtooold]

It's November 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
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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
May-August 2019
August-October 2019
October-November 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."

↪️ Creatures of impulse playing at being adults ↩️
If you hold fast to your position all of their machinations and ridiculousness will unravel
Choose a stance and stick to it like glue, they have no strategy it's just make it up as you go along, you can easily outmanoeuvre these clowns, but you must stop feeling guilty ...guilt is counterproductive it has no place in your strategy.

Ultero can you give an example of what you mean by strategy in this context.

That was seriously what I lacked in my engagement with my family. I was trying to make sense of choices they were making but they made no rational sense. Then the sands would shift and it would be me being unreasonable because I was not doing what they expected.

An example would be I tried to talk to my sister about how I was finding it really difficult to talk with her because she kept undermining me and out of no where she started talking about being bullied by her classmates at Uni. It bore no resemblance to the topic of conversation we were having and it sorted nothing out. It drove me completely nuts. Then she decided she didn’t want to speak to me anymore and that was my fault with everyone because whatever I said made her decide that. And on and on and on.

I needed a strategy. I still need a strategy.

Myduck, I can tell you what worked for me. It's simple, not easy, but it gets easier over time.

Stop trying to communicate. Stop trying to engage them in meaningful conversation. It can't be done. Stop making the effort to keep the lines of communication open. If you normally ring/text/visit them, stop doing it. If it's you who normally makes plans and arrangements for get-togethers, don't make them. Concentrate on yourself and your family, on the things that you like and enjoy.

If they notice - and at some point, they will - then they might try to draw you back in by ringing you/texting you/asking to meet up. Be busy. Be unavailable. (This is if you can't bear the thought of no contact but just want low contact, by the way). If they ring or text you, don't answer straight away. Leave it for a few days until you are mentally in the right place. When you do respond, grey rock (don't ask them questions, don't volunteer any information about yourself or your family however trivial, just acknowledge what they are saying with non-committal replies such as "OK", "Oh dear", "That's life"). Make yourself small, quiet and above all, boring.

Decide how often and what kind of contact you want with them. And stick to it. Above all, don't respond to their nastiness or their delusional behaviour, and whatever you do, never attempt to justify, argue, defend or explain yourself. Learn how to shrug. A lot.

You've been carrying the emotional load for a long long time. Just step back and let go. It's empowering.

@Honeyhoneyhoney I'm so sorry your parents are like this. Agree with everything said already. My last counsellor was very keen the idea that as adults our close relationship with other adults needs to be parent to parent (or adult to adult) rather than parent (adult) to child but that in dysfunctional relationships we tend to swing between being the parent and being the child. We were actually looking at my marriage when we were talking about it, how at different times each of us acted like a child (non-communicative, sulky, stroppy, lazy and self-centred) so the other would take on the parent role (controlling the situation, telling off, a bit patronising), but that isn't healthy. Anyway, I can see you trying to act as 'parent' but at the same time, like most of us here, it is difficult nye on impossible to move yourself out of that feeling of being that child from 30 years ago trying to please and appease, living in fear of their reaction if we don't. Our dysfunctional relationships with our parents haven't transitioned to a healthy adult to adult as they should have (and in my case I lacked the tools to cope with other normal adult to adult relationships as a consequence). My councillor tried to help me see situations in the parent/child roles that my husband and I adopted, and think how I could have reacted differently to bring us both to the parent-to-parent level. Much of it was asking my husband "What do you think would help at this point?" "What do you think we should do?" while at the same time making sure I could calmly say if I was not happy with something he suggested and give my own suggestion.

The other thing that struck me is the gender issue among siblings, and the roles you assume. You as daughter feel much more obligation than your brother does. I think this is common even in the most functional families. Not right, but common. My DH has two DSis and a very sickly, housebound M who lives fairly close to us and much further from either of them. Youngest DSiL has taken on much of the overseeing of her care and finances, and there's definitely guilt/obligation that my DH doesn't feel at all. He lets her get on with it, and there have been comments made where she clearly feels he's not pulling his weight, and resents doing as much as she does. If MiL calls us, then we'll do what she needs (take her dog to the vets or look after him, do a bit of shopping, get some cash out), but she'll usually call DSiL first even though further away. DH view is that DSis has chosen to take it on, and tbh he's not emotionally as close to MiL as the daughters. There is definitely a sexist element to his thinking, I'm not going to deny it - as a man he doesn't see the care side as his direct responsibility, and as he has sisters (luckily) he's happy to let them get on with it. MiL would most definitely be in a home by now if it was just him. He does not think that his DSis SHOULD have taken it all on, but at the same time he is happy that she has as its lets him off the hook - but if she hadn't then I know he would have found a solution pretty damn quick that meant his own life and family wasn't impacted on for any longer than absolutely necessary. I think you need to mimic your brother more and actually he's probably not thinking that you SHOULD be putting your parents up, he's just glad it means he doesn't have to think about it. I apologise to any men reading this, but I do think generally they are better at being able to switch off that guilt when it comes to parents and to sisters taking on the crap. Men will be men

Myduck, strategy might not be the right word stance or position might be a better term...you tried to have a conversation about someone to explain to them that they keep undermining you but during the conversation she carries on undermining you.
I would say that you're acting out of an underlying assumption that if you just explain yourself to them they will understand and they will want to co-operate with you, but they won't, they don't want to work with you or co-operate for mutual benefit, they want to exploit you ...get what they want at your expense
This person is your opponent

I agree with Fresh, we should do what the men do... 'nah not my problem'
So often women are seen as inherently a soft touch, the few times that my mother has tried to contact me she always goes through my daughter, never bothers to try manipulating my son

I think strategy is right word. The dissembling response is classic narc tactic.

It’s not so much a set of responses to arguments, it’s a series of lines you will not cross with the person.

But unfortunately in the end you cannot have a relationship with a narcissist, you’re just in their orbit. They don’t choose to use empathy so can’t be anything to you other than a source of pain.

Learn about narcissists, learn about their traits and tactics, their set of responses. Then think about how you can deal with it if that’s what you choose to do.

It’s human to keep trying, we all hope for love.

Something else I have found useful to give some thought to is: "Expectation is the root of all heartache". On different levels. We all have basic expectations about how those around us SHOULD behave, and that's right. We should expect to be treated with respect, for example. However, to live without expectation is to free us from inevitable disappointment. We are in a tricky situation with our narc parents, as we deserve to be treated differently (better) by them, but we have to stop expecting it. I am also angry with my F for having an expectation of what life should be like and reality didn't match up which was a huge disappointment to him. I am part of that reality and it hurts.

SingingLily I know you are right. I know you are. Before I cut off contact with the last of them I was trying to do just that but really struggling to understand why on Earth I would want a relationship like that after all that had happened. I am suffering badly from cPTSD gifted from my family but for some inexplicable reason I seem to think my family is more reasonable, and less bonkers than they really are.

I had 10 years where my parents were the best grandparents any children ever could have asked for (and by extension good parents to me when I needed that support with young children) but when the shit hit the fan the whole situation became totally bonkers.

Making sense that people who on the one hand loved my kids and supported me with them so well were the same people, especially my father, who simply did not even realise that he should have any responsibility in the fact that his son was sexually abusing his 2 daughters under his watch. And all the while my mother not understanding how we didn’t all realise that she was the main victim in this in spite of her having shut me down 10 years previously telling me I would ruin every bodies life if I didn’t keep this quiet.

Freshstar On another note you could be describing my DH there. The social/obligation guilt heaped upon girls just is not the same as that on boys. I really feel for my 2 SILs, my MIL needs serious level of care, my FIL (an out and our controlling abusive fucker) is completely refusing to get involved except to thwart whatever SIL tries to achieve and DH has massively stepped back because it is torturous watch in fog in action with SIL.

I am totally in the lucky place of having totally dysfunctional families on both sides.

Ultero

I would say that you're acting out of an underlying assumption that if you just explain yourself to them they will understand and they will want to co-operate with you, but they won't, they don't want to work with you or co-operate for mutual benefit, they want to exploit you ...get what they want at your expense
This person is your opponent

^^ this is absolutely the truth. I have tried to explain until I am blue in the face.

My problem is that I believe under it all that there is a lot of goodness there. I’ve seen huge evidence of it over a lifetime. There is just no solution to what has gone on and eventually sooner or later they just all sweep it back under the carpet, having more or less done nothing about it except, I feel, undermine me and there we are again. Again it comes back to me really not wanting superficial and inauthentic relationships with these people because they think nothing of undermining me continuously.

I believe under it all that there is a lot of goodness there. I’ve seen huge evidence of it over a lifetime.

This is what makes it all the more heartbreaking, isn't it? It feeds our hope that they can be different. A narc's emotional development stops at around 6, and it doesn't necessarily mean that they're bad people just as small children can be utterly delightful and caring, but their empathy has not developed, something is sorely lacking.

That's one of the hardest things to untangle, Myduck. Our parents do not behave like bad people all of the time. They can be engaging and cheerful and witty. They can be generous.

Therein lies the rub. It's confusing.

You and I do not see the world, or the people in it, in stark terms of good-and-bad. We see the nuances and the shades in-between. They do not. You are either in their good books or their bad ones, full stop. And you can flip from one box to the other in the blink of an eye without any notion as to why. That's the really confusing thing.

There was a spell of about three months when, according to my mother, I walked on water. I could do no wrong. I was a walking saint. This was the period when Dad was first diagnosed with cancer (I practically frogmarched him to the GP resulting in an urgent referral, and pushed and pushed for him to have the right treatment quickly, although it was already too late, too advanced, thanks to their combined stubbornness). M used my sudden wonderfulness as a stick to beat my siblings over the head with; why couldn't they be more like Lily? Middle sister ground her teeth. I don't actually blame her.

Dad was so poorly and M was so attention-seeking (naturally, she was the one suffering the most from his illness) that I wore myself out caring for both of them, even though she was perfectly capable of doing it. And somewhere, in the middle of all of this, M flipped the switch. Even though I was doing exactly what I had been doing, running round after them, exhausting myself in the process, suddenly I was evil controlling Lily, lying to the doctors, lying to her, making out that Dad was more ill than he really was, pandering to him when all he had to do to fight the cancer was give his head a good wobble and get on with it, silly weak little man that he was.

So I had to be punished. For my own good, you understand. I was banished from her presence "for a month" (she was fond of doing this; the ultimate sanction). I cut myself up into little bits worrying about my Dad but the month went by and he didn't contact me, even though he had the opportunity and the means. Placating her was more important than his health.

I realise you believe that the goodness is there somewhere. I used to think that too but I'm sorry, Myduck, I no longer believe it. The apparent goodness is rooted in self-interest, first, last and every time. Niceness, thoughtfulness, generosity - it is all conditional and there is an invisible price attached to it.

We turn ourselves inside-out trying to bring back Nice Mum or Nice Dad. That's the hope they keep feeding us to keep us in line. That's all it is. Sorry.

@SingingLily well said. Xx

You’ve described the situation so well SingingLily, sadly one that so many of us can relate to. This time of year brings my pain and confusion much more to the surface

Yes Singing I get what you are saying.

Hi can anyone point me to the Christmas thread please? I'm sure I've seen it discussed but i can seem to pick it up. Thank you!

Hi Jamon, here's the link:

But We Took You to Santa's Grotto (the Stately Homes Christmas Edition)
http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/thirtydayss_only/3749297-but-we-took-you-to-santa-s-grotto-the-stately-homes-christmas-edition

@SingingLily it was the same with me when my dad was ill. As long as I was taking some of the pressure off in terms of dealing with the medical professionals, my mother was very happy with me, but then - when I wasn't there she would phone me up whenever, at my work, at night, she'd stay on the phone for hours, criticising all the doctors and nurses and carers, she would put the most paranoid interpretation on their actions, all the black and white thinking, one week the GP was her saviour, next week the woman wasn't to be trusted, and if I ever tried to supply an interpretation of someone's behaviour that didn't chime exactly with hers she would go mental. I get it. She just wanted backup. But she's asking me to join in and agree that this GP is just referring my dad for radiotherapy because she needs to "fill her quotas" and all this shit. She would bang the phone down on me and then the next night phone up again as if nothing had happened. I don't have siblings so she couldn't play the "who's on my shitlist today" game, she was just stuck with me, so I usually got forgiven fairly quickly.
I could tell I was in the good books at Christmas because she asked me what I wanted and I named something, and she got the showiest most expensive version of it you could get. This is one of those things that like, it wouldn't even be a thing if your mother wasn't fucking mental, but it was a constant fight with her growing up to be allowed to choose my own things to wear and so on. My mother wanted to dress me up like a doll in fancy, age-inappropriate clothes. I wanted to wear jeans and black t-shirts. I can't stand big, showy stuff - not to wear, not in my house - I don't like flamboyant stuff on me. I hate it. I don't know if she knows this, because when they're shouting at you in Littlewoods that they would have been grateful to have been bought clothes like you're getting, do they really register that you might have different taste, or do they just see you as a malfunctioning child unit, failing to do its job of creating their image of what it's like to be a perfect family? I don't know. And so I don't know whether the gift I got that Christmas was a deliberate windup - here, have a gift that is to my taste but not to yours, in celebration of the many, many Saturday afternoons we spent fighting about clothes - or whether it was just yet another tone deaf choice of hers. It's weird, looking back on it. Because she gave me the feeling that I was always watched. Like not in a good way. I was watched for signs of disloyalty, you know? But I wasn't ever seen, I've come to realise. I've said this before on here but the last time I saw her was when I was driving her to the airport to go home and she said to me, do you know what I really like about you? And I was like fuck, this'll be good no, and she said, you drive really carefully. Your uncle drives too fast, and your auntie talks too much, and it makes me nervous. But you drive really carefully. And I thought, well, there you go. What an excellent taxi driver I am. She didn't know it was going to be the last time we would see each other, and I suppose that if she had, she might have come up with something a bit more... about me? A bit more significant? But I'm not sure she would have been able. She was grateful that I had supplied an image of a daughter she could brag about - fairly impressive career, interestingly exotic yet well paid husband, and two beautiful kids - but it could have been anyone doing that, I think. Literally, you could just have replaced me with someone a bit thinner who she'd never met and she would have been over the moon. It's such a thin life. Me and my dad had all these wee things, you know, in-jokes, a history. There's none of that with my mother. It is to be pitied, but not by us. We have enough to do looking after ourselves and making sure that we don't repeat those dysfunctional patterns in our current relationships. Let those people with happy families sympathise with them and give them the benefit of the doubt (god knows that mainstream MN usually has a shitload of sympathy for them around this time of year if AIBU is anything to go by, although this year seems to have seen a bit of a shift, has anyone noticed? There seems to be a hell of a lot less "oh let dear old racist Uncle Fred come and insult your children and tell you the turkey is overdone, it's for Christmas!" than there is usually )

Maybe we’re getting less tolerant of intolerance. Racist uncles are not perceived as stupidly anachronistic any more.

The illness thing is awful, more excuse for dramatics rather than the focus on the ill person and their needs.

Bumping for chilledout11

Hi @chilledout11 this is the new Stately Homes thread.

Thanks so much

I have really had a hard time past few weeks really but last night I just cried for hours. I'm ok today and tough cookie deep down. Dh doesnt really understand as his family are not imtrusive but are kind and his mother is very loving. Mine blame me for my mother being on medication for mental health issues (even though she has had them all her life) and I get told I am splitting up the family. They are quite vile a lot of the time and nasty. Make horrible comments about everyone them say they are joking. There is a special occasion this weekend and I can't face it. This hurts me so much but I will get dirty looks told I am nuts. I have a very respective career and home and married and certainly never did anything to warrant the treatment I get.

She tried to sabotage things for me early on in my marriage screaming and shouting at dh. Even my father's wedding speech was more about their friends birthday than me. They never see good in me. I could talk for hours.

@Chilled (((hug)))
As if 'only joking' is even a defence eh!😕
I mean...they're saying that they find that funny??😳

Write it here @Chilledout11, get it out of your head.

These are CLASSIC tactics - you’ve broken ranks, aren’t playing the game so you’re being punished. Even the ‘we’re joking’ is part of it, making you doubt your right to be upset.

They’re very sad people, caught up in a terrible pattern of behaviour. You’re not like them, so they punishing you.

Sending you strength.