September 2020 Well we took you to Stately Homes thread

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

It's now September 2020, and the Stately Home is still open to visitors.

Forerunning threads:
December 2007
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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."

@Sssloou sorry you are dealing with a disordered sibling as well as parent and that she is trying to involve your children. Hopefully they are old enough and have your example of recognising that it is not a good idea for them to engage with her dysfunctional behaviour. Last week I messaged my younger DB as haven't heard from him for some months and had been thinking about him and hoping he was ok. He was the 'troublesome' child who my mother would wring her hands over in a 'where did I go wrong?' kind of way (drugs, a bit of petty crime as a teen, never held down a job, can flip out and is very unpredictable as to whether or not he's going to be nice to be around. Looking back to our childhood he could have benefited from ed psych assessment at a young age as there were concerns but mother resisted and just kept moving him from school to school). Anyway since I went NC with mother, younger DB has gone from scapegoat to her new project to 'fix'. And he has been turned into her flying monkey. Answered my message with an irritable tirade of how I should call our mother and 'it's not like she threatened to kill [my child] or anything' - I'm just being ridiculous and mean. Had a feeling from the timing and nature of his responses that he was with our mother and relaying my messages back to her. I now realise it's going to be more trouble that it's worth to stay in contact with him, for me but also for him as every time he hears from me, she will grill him for information about me and he does not feel able to say no. I have kindly said I want to keep in touch with him but I will not be calling our mother, I am not going to repeatedly explain why and he has the choice not to allow her to interrogate him. The ranty messages from him stopped after that. Again it's sad but NC with siblings can be necessary to maintain NC with parent. I wouldn't bother asking your sister to back off your kids. Just ignore her completely. I learnt the hard way you can't make a disordered person be reasonable by JADEing - you end up going round in circles and exhausting yourself

I wouldn't bother asking your sister to back off your kids. Just ignore her completely. I learnt the hard way you can't make a disordered person be reasonable by JADEing - you end up going round in circles
and exhausting yourself

Thank you @YesSheCan those are v helpful words. Any communication is just more fuels / bones to be chewed over and twisted. I am glad I have resisted this urge - even though it was extra tough because it was directly to my son. I wanted to protect him. However the best gift is giving him the permission and resources to protect himself. He has found the texts weird and random (he also said that he had another identical text from another one of flying my monkey sibling’s - which he has ignored) - he was also asking me why they were zoning in on him after all this time and he felt v confused and uncomfortable as they would never usually text him - which gave me the opportunity to explain that he was seen as the soft target to be groomed and manipulated to ultimately be used to undermine me. So he is now taking the same approach - disconnect, ignore, distance. I am sad that my teenage children have been dragged into this. But you are right there are no words that will straighten out the disordered person - they just double down with the fuel of any response and you exhaust yourself trying to get them to understand.

@SometimesIwish I’m thrilled to see your update.

I was Sunnis, and I’m amazed my advice meant so much, but I’m glad if it helped you.

Congratulations and enjoy every minute of your new life. Your parents do not deserve you, and you deserve to have the life you want to lead! X

Hi everyone

I have a question. Have any of you gone through the majority of your childhood and maybe even young adulthood thinking your upbringing was normal and your parents were good parents and only coming to the realisation later on that things were not good at all and your childhood was quite dysfunctional?

Up until around a year ago I would have said I had a good childhood. However a few things have been coming up recently and that I have been thinking about and I realise it was not normal. There were definitely elements of parentification and I carry a lot of shame with me that originates from childhood (I made a thread earlier on here you may have read).

To this day I would say that I am close to my parents. But it has been quite disorientating having a present-day "close" relationship with them whilst also trying to mentally deal with memories of childhood that do not sit right with me. I am wondering if the parentification I experienced as a child still exists now and the basis of the relationship with my parents is not because we are close but rather because I am still having to act like a parent to them. I have been monitoring the conversations I have with my parents and it is maybe 10% me talking about my life and 90% about them. I believe my parents did the best they could with the knowledge of raising children they had and I have no lasting resentment for that. I find it frustrating but I don't resent it.

@loveisembarassing yes, absolutely. As a child I thought my mother was really loving and also right about everything. As a teenager she made me her counsellor - I would sit on her bed while she offloaded to me for hours about her woeful childhood, past relationships and difficulties with my dad. I was her little ally against my dad. She encouraged me to feel like a good daughter for doing this and so much more mature than other teenagers who rebelled and were disrespectful to their parents. She knew best and I used to believe this. It took me until my mid-30s to realise the impact this had had on me and was now having on my child. When I eventually stood up to her and tried to set some boundaries, she unleashed her rage on me and I had to go NC. Life has been so much better since then. But if you had asked me in my 20s if I had a good childhood I would have said yes. From my early teens I had a pervasive sense of unease but would immediately dismissed it as the most important thing was not causing my mother any stress and validating her feelings. If any friends pointed out that she was difficult I would feel great internal pressure to defend her. Does any of this sound familiar? I recently bought a book called 'The chosen child syndrome: when a parent's love rules your life' by Dr Patricia Love. You may find it useful

Yes I idolised my DM due to her hardships. I was also a parentified child. I only saw this when I was much older and had my own DCs. It was emotional incest and I was lent on so much it stunted my own emotional growth even though I felt special and mature - it was the opposite. It has impacted on my life choices, behaviours, self belief and MH considerably. In reality I was exploited, engulfed, intruded on and spousified. My childhood was robbed. I became a vulnerable people pleaser emotionally as an adult with poor boundaries but also incredibly resilient (strength or weakness) and successful career wise. I continued shouldering my DMs issues at the cost of my own marriage and parenting of my own DCs for far too long. This is how inter generational trauma keeps on going. She is dead now (died relatively young) - but I still hear her pleading and criticism in my head. Toxic Parents by Susan Forward helped as did the website Adult Children of Alcholics and Dysfunctional families (she wasn’t an alcoholic). Therapy saved me. My siblings still see her as a saint because of the tragedy she endured. But they weren’t crushed as I was. So in therapy it was the only place to voice my own truth.

I also adopted a scripted about my childhood and my family basically handed to me by my parents. Before realising it wadnt my real experience I could really feel my own feelings much at all. I was like some echo chamber that provided the 'right' responses as I had been taught. While feeling increasingly tired anxious and depressed.
Every now and then it would stray into my consciousness. Esp if doing something I'm good at. So my parents wanted me to write ot co-write my F biography. Once I had my writers hat on (that's what I do professionally) I remember listening to the first interview tape and my own voice in my head saying with utter clarity 'this man is a pompous twit'. The penny didn't drop. Instead I felt cripplingly ashamed of my thoughts and avoided the book writing by being busy.
Today I listen to that voice

Hi, Im new to this thread but not new to abuse. I am still getting my head around things despite as a 40+ woman knowing I have always been a scapegoat child in a narcissistic family but it does not hurt any less just because I now, for many reasons, know I need to keep away from my family. That is all I can say right now but believe me I could write a book on how I have been treated but suffice to say I have to take it one day at a time. I am so sorry that so many of us have been affected and afflicted by narcissism.

I had an interesting counselling session this week. My counsellor noticed in my most recent sessions I had alot of anger towards my parents. Looking back when I first started with her almost a year ago I would cry so much and feel pity towards myself. Now I don't cry alot and just feel anger. Is it possible to go through these stages like you're grieving the childhood you wished you had, does that make sense?

@loveisembarassing yes I feel the same! Although I do feel resentment towards my parents and I don't forgive them. However I still see them and they are in my life. I'm very much holding back from them at the moment and keep them at a distance now which is a shame. Up until 3 years ago I would have said I had a great upbringing, but it's not true and now I have my own DS I realise that although they did their best they were really not good parents....

I'm struggling with Christmas and worry about telling them for the first year in over 40 years that I don't want to see them on Christmas Day. I'm also worried about what gift to get them. I like to give thoughtful personal gifts but I can't bring myself to give them anything that expresses my love or gratitude to them. How do you all handle Christmas/birthday gifts?

Sorry I've just gone back and read recent posts on here, should have done that first really but wanted to get my thoughts down.
@loveisembarressing that is Excatly the same as me, you are not alone.
Growing up my friends would say how great my parents relationship was. I would always agree and even tell people I wish I had this relationship when I grew up. I look back and can't believe I said this.
My parents would only show people what they wanted, the outside world would never see their abusive relationship or toxic ways with me and my sister.
I am still quite close to them. Probably because I feel guilt and obligation (no longer feel fear). It wasn't until I had my son that I became questioning their parenting of me. My views and ways of parenting are literally on the opposite side to them. As I said before I no longer feel pity towards myself. I've forgiven myself because I was just a child and I couldn't have done much. However I feel so much anger now because they had a chose to break the generational abuse. They chose not to.
My sister is so far in denial and is heavily Co dependent on my mum just like I used to be. I know she won't seek to change this and is passing the generational abuse down in her family.
I'm at a bit of a crossroads at the moment. My mum isn't accepting who I truly am and I can feel myself resenting her.

"I'm struggling with Christmas and worry about telling them for the first year in over 40 years that I don't want to see them on Christmas Day. I'm also worried about what gift to get them".

I would state that you are going to stay at home this year with your son particularly in these times of covid, so no JADE-ing them (i.e. justify, argue, defend, explain).

You are under no obligation whatsoever to buy a gift for them.

I personally handle Christmas these days by either spending Christmas Day at home with my family (also ideal these days particularly if you live in a tier 2 area) or going abroad just before Christmas (some sunshine and a break from the UKs christmas festivities has in previous years done me a power of good).

@AttilaTheMeerkat thank you, good advice. I feel I have to give a gift and they will be hurt if I don't...... I'll keep searching. COVID rules will certainly make the Christmas conversation easier!

I think your parents would be more hacked off at you than feeling hurt (these people do not do hurt) for not getting them a gift. You're supposed to play their game still. My advice - drop the rope, concentrate all your efforts now on your own family and grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got.

It is really not possible to have a relationship with people as disordered of thinking as your parents are. Your mother is a narcissist and your dad is her all too willing enabler. Women like your mother cannot do relationships and need such a person to help them.

Use the COVID rules to your advantage here!. Spend Christmas at home with your own family and make your own traditions. You will indeed thank your own self for doing so.

Hi Everyone, addressing this to my fellow scapegoatees.

Something that has begun to sink in lately, possibly due to ongoing therapy, reading around the subject and closing off the door finally to my golden child brother, is that once you are assigned the role of scapegoat in a dysfunctional family, the role is pretty much set for life. It doesn't matter what you do, don't do, achieve etc. you will ALWAYS be viewed as deficient, bad, mentally ill and wrong. That's a very big concept to get your head around. Even if someone in your family or connected to it are not consciously aware they abuse you by scapegoating, something that has been conditioned in them will always view you as inadequate.

Can I ask please how other scapegoatees deal with this? Does everyone see it this way?

Interested in replies too. I have been the scapegoat without even knowing for years. My mother used to tell people what a hard child I was to garner sympathy for herself and of course then I became a problem child when in fact I really was not in the least but I became opinionated and then of course when others disagreed with my point it was ME that became the argumentative one for daring to have a differing opinion. One of my aunts cottoned on to the fact that I got blamed on things and used my name in a ridiculous lie (ridiculous as in the thing she said had been said by someone else 20 years before i was even born) and my entire fathers side of the family stopped speaking to me over it. They have never even discussed it just took it as fact which has hurt me over the years and it all stems from being my mothers scapegoat child. No matter what anyone else in the family has done it is me that seems to come out worse for it even when I am not around!

I have had that too. Something passed around the family accepted as gospel even though the believers knew me well and 'should' have questioned it. My relationship with my entire family and all the hangers on was indelibly set when I was a baby and would be destined to lead to me being ousted from them eventually to protect my mental health and to be authenticated by normal people. Not such a bad thing, as I have never been happier, but still a huge, indelible stigma for someone to be landed with.

Yes it really is a stigma. Like no matter what good I do, I am tarred for life. I have had many conversations with my best friends about this all and every one of them has said to me over the years that no matter how much I try to please my family they will never accept the person I am. For example - my brother is a goldenchild met and moved in with a lovely woman some years ago. He asked her to marry him etc so bringing her into the family. SHe was having a 'big' birthday this year so at the start of the year I organised something for me and her that she had previously mentioned she liked but in the end of course with this virus we could not go. My brother, not seeing this as a nice gesture, chose to see it that somehow I was trying to manipulate her or something and made it out to be a bad thing. I am still flabbergasted to be honest at how my trying to include his new fiance in something could be seen as anything other than a nice gesture but he is so much brainwashed by our narc mother that he would never even consider that it was a genuinely nice thing I was trying to do. You are screwed no matter what you do really.

Your brother sounds very insecure about you being friendly towards his partner. Is he threatened in some way do you think?

Something I have realised very recently is that scapegoating can spread to in laws in a dysfunctional family. My Sil GCDB's wife started to treat me with the same contempt as my brother once she had settled into the family. I remember coming across her and my brother saying some unflattering and denigrating things about me to a friend of mine who they had only met at a party we threw for my ex-H. They were gossiping about my character and personality to this friend. I can remember feeling quite hurt and injured about it and when I think back to my childhood my brother's attitude towards me was the same as my mother, a mixture of indifference and contempt. I didn't really notice at the time because it seemed normal. It's only now that I see how corrupted he was by my mother.

The same thing with my DS. She left the family with my DF when my parent's divorced and was eventually adopted by his new wife. Big family rift and I didn't see her for quite a few years. Anyway, turned up again and once she got settled back into the family, started treating me with same sort of attitude as my brother. I never really understood where it came from but I now realise it was ingrained habits from childhood. That's how you relate to Dacquoise cos it's always been that way. Same with other members of the family, a consistent attitude.

My ex-H was another recruit to the scapegoating. My family loved him, hated me and he would sit back and do nothing when I was being attacked. Consequently when I got up the courage to leave the emotionally abusive piece of work, they totally dropped me and were doing everything they could to keep seeing him.

I understand that I contributed to the dynamics with my part ie inviting the abuse by being a people pleasing doormat but it's the same scenario over and over again. Anyone else have experiences of this?

Dont quote me on this but from what I believe scapegoat and golden child can change over the years depending on the purpose to the parent. Although it may not change, but I believe it can.
I believe I have been both. I was the golden child until recently when I finally developed my own self and opinions. To my parents this isn't good and now I get scapegoated and pushed out

@Dacquoise Yes I have been thinking about this quite a bit actually and it is one of the reasons I am back out of bed responding to you as I cannot sleep tonight.

My theory is that my brother has seen how my mother has treated me over the years and whether he realises he is doing it or not, he has decided to treat me the same way. Like, we could have a blow up (usually him bringing up the past or my atheism for example) but then it blows over exactly the way my mother has always done - brushed things under the carpet and never dealing with the actual issues - and then we become friendly again until the next time it all happens. My theory is that my brother has this 'box' in his head that he puts me into. In this box he imagines me to be something I am not - manipulative, nasty etc etc but the reality is very different. I am not a nasty person and have lived through manipulation my whole life so certainly hope I am not in any way manipulative but in his head, I am this person and no matter what I do he wants to look for something nasty in my actions. I have been this guys biggest cheerleader all his life. He bought a house and I had flowers delivered the day of the move in so their first post would not be a bill. Engagement and I was the first to congratulate them, try organise a meal and got them a gift. His other halfs birthday, tried to do a nice thing with tickets for a show, his birthday even though we were not on speaking terms I sent a gift from me and my son over and it was a fairly decent gift too all things considered. Recently they announced they were to be parents so I messaged him and her to congratulate them both, she responded, he ignored me and I sent a card in the post. I have been told by my mother than he plans to post it back to me which will break my heart and is the reason I could not sleep tonight but maybe this will be the final nail in the coffin for me. Our relationship as siblings is not healthy with all this arguing and it is not good for my child nor would it be for his child going forward. That said i would love to sort things out with him and never have this nasty undercurrent but I think he really just has decided i am a horrible person and nothing or nobody will sway that view and I am literally emotionally exhausted with it all at this point.

Also to just agree with your point, I do think that by us allowing ourselves to be treated in this manner than we have set the precedent for how they will always treat us. It is not nice and it is certainly not fair but you seem to do what I do and try your best to please people who just do not want you to be a nice person. Maybe because we are nice people that scares them. Maybe if they looked, really looked and saw how genuine we are it would just show them the nasty part of themselves that they do not want to admit to.

@Peanutbutterjelly10 I don't know, I often sit and wonder when this happened - when did I become the scapegoat and I cannot put my finger on it. I can go back to childhood and say yep, i can see it clearly now but I remember moving abroad at one point in my life and my mother was almost my best friend and i would call her all the time and when I got home we would hang out etc but it seemed that over the years it was like she was collecting data on me and when she finally decided that I was a failure (i left my abusive marriage which she calls a 'failed marriage' and apparently it reflected badly on her despite the fact her and my dad are divorced) that was when the cogs turned and I got to see the real nasty side. I was called a looser and a whole pile of other things in an airport one day when collecting family with her and there was no reason for it. There have been loads of outbursts over the years but as she is my mother i have forgiven her. Even now she is trying to play mother of the year telling me not to be upset by my brothers actions etc and i know she is on the phone telling him the same. The first few days she was all about how i need to sort myself out and my brother is the victim but apparently it was pointed out to her that she wont have as huge a role in my brothers childs life as she feels she has in my childs life so now I am back to being on the golden side so maybe you do have a point. It is awful when you start seeing things for what they are and you just want to talk about it all and think about it all the time to get your head straight but there is no way to get your head straight when it comes to messed up families and here I am at 3am waffling on to total strangers on an internet forum delighted that I am not the only one dealing with this while feeling sympathy and empathy for every one of you all that is going through this or has gone through it.

Hi @Notthegoldenchild, I am sorry you had a sleepless night pondering on this. I know that feeling well. It's all part of the process once you realise the dysfunction in your family is so bad you have to do something about it. It's like a light bulb has been switched on and you can't un-see what you're seeing.

The main emotion I get from reading your posts is bewilderment and I can totally understand that. There's a cognitive dissonance between how you know yourself as a person and how the people that are supposed to love you see you. They don't see you as you are and probably never will. Why do they treat you this way when all you are trying to do is get close to them? How many times have I asked myself this. I cannot count the number of times I have done what I considered something kind for my brother for him to wipe his feet on me. And it comes out of nowhere, just like with your brother. I have come to realise only lately that he sees me according to the script that was set when we were children by my mother. He is the good one. I am the bad and no matter what I do I will always be the bad one. Someone has to take the family trash and you have been designated!

I am a lot further down the line than you @Notthegoldenchild, I have been NC with my DM on and off for ten years. My DB and DSil dropped me like a hot potato at the same time and have only just recently started to contact me again because they have fallen out with DM. It has de-stabilised me a bit recently because the part of me that hopes for a happy ending was tempted to re-connect. However, MN and therapy have made me realise it's a mirage. My DB will revert to normal eventually. He is probably feeling isolated from the rest of the tribe and needs someone to sympathise. To fall out with DM is to fall out with the whole pack. He seems to have conveniently forgotten that he was nowhere to be seen when I was in the same position.

I hope you find peace @Notthegoldenchild with whatever you decide to do. I stopped trying to please my DB a long time ago. I just don't bother anymore as there's nothing there. You really can't have a relationship with a dysfunctional family or not in the way normal people do and the biggest joy I have found is being the scapegoat will eventually set you free. You get to escape the bs.

@Peanutbutterjelly10, I kind of agree that a scapegoat can be made to feel like a golden child by the main narcissist as I have had periods of this with my mother but it's usually been when she's been able to exploit me for her own purposes, or golden child wasn't available. I don't think it really changes how she views me as it's always conditional. It always defaults to scapegoat. The same old script about me being the difficult one, the bad daughter etc etc (yawn).

Something I meant to mention to you @Notthegoldenchild, why is your mother telling you that your brother intends to post your card back to you? Triangulation springs to mind. Sounds like they've has a real session pulling you to bits in your absence. Not nice.

My DM used to do that to me. Tell me what disparaging things other people had said about me. She absolutely revelled in being the bearer of ill tidings because she could stick the boot in and look innocent at the same time.