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
March 2008
August 2008
February 2009
May 2009
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April 2010
August 2010
March 2011
November 2011
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May-August 2019
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November-December 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."

@dacquoise broken record is what I'm going to go for. Otherwise it just opens it up to conversation and that will then derail and I'll start to feel guilty.
When we see them and they start to talk down to me in front of or to ds, dh and I have agreed to challenge it there and then rather than let is go and stew on it later. We will pull them up on it each time in a polite but firm way because we have the control over this situation.
As for answering the phone. I had already stopped answering to my mum who clocked on and now gets my dad to ring me. She knows that I'll answer to him because before now he has never been one to ring me unless it's an emergency. So she knows that I will worry something has happened and ring him back straight away. I need to remember this and only ring back when it's convinient for me and when I have the support I need from dh there too

@YesSheCan that’s one nasty man there. HOW HORRIBLE. Utter psycho. A big hug. That experience would stay with me for a long time, too. It’s hard to see it as not your fault but it isn’t. He’s an abusive arsehole.

@Dacquoise I think I stay in the ridiculous circle of it all because of DP. Before lockdown, my disabled son in law did everything. We wanted to do our share but she wouldn’t let that happen. He knew what was happening but wouldn’t push back “I’m my own worse enemy”. We would really try but she would also nix it. It didn’t suit her. Her daily activity was getting on a bus at 5.30am (unsavoury area), getting to his house at 6am, waking him up, “cleaning” and letting feral flea ridden cats who would shit in the house. Every day. Her illness over Xmas and into the NY saw us looking after her and then boom lockdown.

I felt ok yesterday but not great today.
Bipolar! DP has flipped to feeling sorry for her. Apparently (Crone) ‘I’ve not had a wash today”. But has found the mental fortitude to scrub the kitchen? By 8.20am. This is the sort of woman who boil washes her skirting boards FFS. She knows exactly what buttons to press. He’s now going to have the battle over her washing. It used to be eating. It’s POINTLESS as it’s not real. The “poor old little old lady not keeping herself clean” has tipped him into “my childhood wasn’t that bad”. Pure guilt.

By midday when she behaves like a cunt he will flip back. I cannot believe a 4ft 9 84 year old woman can do all of this.

@MonkeyfromManchester - you need to emotionally detach from your Mil/DP enmeshment.

Don’t discuss her care with him. Tell him you don’t want to hear it. Agree when he visits / takes calls from her.

I did this. Finally she died. I have no guilt. It was for my DH to work out the distinction between them - it was not going to triangulate ME. Also I put boundaries down with him about taking her calls / him visiting in “our time”. She would ring morning noon and night.

No regrets. Find something wonderful to fill your mind.

Hello fellow stately homes people 😇
Poster of old checking back into the thread!

So she knows that I will worry something has happened and ring him back straight away
One thing I find quite useful is to never return a call with a call, instead reply by text or email, that way you take control of the situation by moving into a medium of your choosing and you can control the pace by responding when you're ready

@Wellhellyeah and @Mrsmadevans, the process of detaching from enmeshed dysfunctional relationships isn't a cut and dried one. You don't just decide to go NC and then everything is okay and you never think or feel about them again. It's grieving, just like when someone dies. You go through a process that goes back and forth from one emotion to another, sometimes it's anger, sometimes guilt, sometimes it's relief, then back to anger etc. It takes a long, long time to grieve for the relationship you hoped it was but you have realised wasn't. You will have good days and bad days.

I can honestly say that my feelings towards my DM are pretty much 'meh' now. If I think hard about the nasty stuff she did I feel angry but it's much, much less than when I first started to detach and that's because I have thoroughly and properly processed my feelings towards her. I don't feel guilty at all. She's just someone who gave birth to me, was and is not able to genuinely love or care for another person. I feel pity for her but not loyalty. I am not quite there with my ex-DH and my DB. I am looking for my 'meh' moment but know I will find it.

And it's the same with 'friends'. I went from a very wide circle of 'friends' and acquaintances to just a handful of genuine friends. Again painful, lonely, sad, angry etc etc. I don't think I go out into the world now with a mission to find friends @Wellhellyeah, I just have much healthier boundaries. I don't give too much of myself to absolutely anybody in desperation to not be alone because I am content in myself. I think that's what drives accepting a lot of bad relationships, a need in ourselves to belong somewhere and to be accepted because we weren't in our FOO. I can identify bad or exploitative behaviour in others and avoid those people now. So I wouldn't necessarily go on a mission to cull people, that will come naturally as you build yourself up in therapy. You start to respect yourself more and don't put up with the bullshit and as for being 'alone', it is far better to have one person that actually cares for you than to be surrounded by loads of people who use and abuse you. I hope that helps.

Morning everyone 😀
@Dacquoise you speak the truth. I absolutely adored my sister. She was in complete control of my life & family. Until the spell broke and her behaviour was so bad toward me l exploded. I miss her so much but l am never going back. Thank you for your voice of reason it means an awful lot to have validation from others especially ones who know and understand what has been going on 🤗

Pearsapeace

re this part of your comment:-

"When we see them and they start to talk down to me in front of or to ds, dh and I have agreed to challenge it there and then rather than let is go and stew on it later. We will pull them up on it each time in a polite but firm way because we have the control over this situation".

The problem with this approach is its one thing to write this and feel determined but quite another when in the lions den with them, also in their home its their territory. If you are not immediately prepared to grab your coats and all leave when they invariably start on you then you should not go there at all. It does not have to be verbal either, a look of disdain from either parent to you or your kids or a pinch can be done right in front of your very eyes. The best solution here is to actually not visit them at all and particularly in their home. As it is, you're very much unable still to challenge them due to your own FOG and your DH may well not pick up on all of it, particularly if he comes from an emotionally healthy family unit himself. It will also do your son no favours at all to see his parents being so disrespected and undermined by his nan and grandad.

"As for answering the phone. I had already stopped answering to my mum who clocked on and now gets my dad to ring me. She knows that I'll answer to him because before now he has never been one to ring me unless it's an emergency. So she knows that I will worry something has happened and ring him back straight away. I need to remember this and only ring back when it's convinient for me and when I have the support I need from dh there too".

Do you have caller ID on your phone that displays the number before answering; if not I would get this installed asap. Do not forget here pears that your dad is really your mother's all too willing enabler and secondary abuser; he will and has likely thrown you under the bus many times now out of self preservation and want of a quiet life. He is truly a weak bystander of a man. Reclaim your life pears; they have owned it for far too long.

As I wrote before you will ultimately have to grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got. It is not possible to have a relationship with a narcissist and the only people who really do bother with them anyway are the ones who have had special training i.e. the now adult children of same.

Same thing with my DB @Mrsmadevans. He is viewing within 'the family' as Mr Nice Guy but I have only recently realised what a callous, self centred piece of work he is. He was my DM's sidekick when we were children and he has continued to treat with me with a mixture of indifference and contempt as adults. I was dropped like a hot potato when I made my final stand with my DM and he has recently popped up, acting like nothing has happened, as he has now gone NC with DM. Balkan alliance springs to mind! It's weird isn't it, how you get sucked into the fantasy of how someone is until you suddenly realise what they are like under the mask? As another pp said before, we're all actors in someone else's play.

viewed not viewing!

@MonkeyfromManchester, apologies if this has been suggested before but can your DP access some therapy to detach himself from his DM? If he can get away, you can get away.

@Sssloou
You are absolutely right. Thank god I’ve accessed therapy via the NHS and started on Tue. The therapist completely got it and vindicated my feelings. I’ve walked over to her flat - I need the exercise - DP has gone in and I’m sitting in the sunshine which is really nice. He’s doing the hospital appointments with her next week (as decided last night). I have to take her to a podiatrist appointment on one of the days next week as DP has major meeting. I can’t get another appointment for her. Thankfully, it’s round the corner. It’s a quick taxi away. She has been exiled from our house after any appointment as there’s wangling to come to ours. What the fuck for? To watch shit telly and moan. That’s been happening for as long as lockdown and before so we now do things on our terms. We just need to extend that. I’ve said to DP Sunday lunches are too difficult for the foreseeable as I simply can’t bear the invasion of our lovely space. DP has said that he’ll visit her but it needs to be on our terms and NOT at a set time so she fucks me over once more. Xmas is up in the air - doable if we go to my mum with her in tow for the day. My mum is able to close her down. My mum might go to see my brother and his boyfriend in Nottingham which I totally want her to do. If that’s the case, it’s a three hour lunch at ours with her and we close the bullshit down with grey rocking (therapist explained this to me) once she’s gone we have OUR Xmas. All of this she’s made happen, not us. I’ve just re-read a load of stuff the therapist gave me and that’s what I need to do every time she pushes my buttons. Feeling brighter.

It's really difficult to grey Rick the push the button all the time. This morning ' l want you to carry on losing weight now darling, l can see a difference' l felt like telling her to FO.

Rock ,
I hope you are really able to achieve this Monkey 💐

@Mrsmadevans
Jesus with the weight comment! AWFUL.
That’s what the Toxic one does to my DP over his weight and hair. His weight is stress eating and stress drinking nice red wine.

And thank you for the supportive message. :-)))

DP spent 10 minutes in the flat. We walked back and discussed Xmas. My mum, hopefully, will go to see the boys. He (not me) hit on the brilliant plan of HOUSESITTING for my mum. There’s no way the crone can do the public transport to the middle of nowhere. airpunch. We can simply say she doesn’t want to come as it takes months to persuade her with all the “I’m so much trouble”. “I’m not sure I want to come”. OK, we’ll take you at your word then. No going back from that once it’s said (and it will be) and we can ignore the hints and passive aggressiveness. Just need to catch the right moment. She used to spend Xmas on her own - her miserable choice - so there’s a handy precedent. I realise he’s as fucked off at it as I am and is backing me up 100% and thinking far ahead of me sometimes.

It’s grim for everyone on this page as to how Xmas affects us all.

@MonkeyfromManchester Xmas my mother was trying to get me to commit to what I'm doing for Xmas about a month ago. What has upset me for years is that she didn't give 2 shits about my Xmas plans when she had a husband to spend it with and I was a youngster with no one. Now shes alone and I have my own family I'm expected to host for her. Not once has she offered to cook xmas dinner, host us at hers, go out for a meal. Ever. She just wants to be here, with us. My siblings say poor mum it's just because she loves you so much. For years I could not understand why I was so bitter about it. Last year I had her for part of it, not Xmas dinner, and she had made me feel really bad about it for weeks "oh but I didn't have Xmas with you last year" (you did mum, you had xmas eve and xmas morning, and boxing day lunch/ evening) and then by the point I feel bad and give in and say "Ok so what would you like to have Xmas lunch if your staying with us" she says "I said I'd go to your sisters for lunch" and then I'm confused/ rejected and pisses off because I've been made to feel bad for no reason whatsoever.

@LondonTowers nightmare! Total game playing. Bollocks along the lines of you’ve rejected me, now I’ll reject you. Such ridiculous game playing on what should be a nice day! Does your sister get the game playing or has your mum done the divide and rule number?

I think we should plan an island in the middle of the gale swept Atlantic and put the Xmas game players on it with a job lot of crackers and they can bitch amongst themselves. Are you in?

The bollocks with my Crone starts in late September and, yes, true to form she whines about it, has made us beg her to come (no more), brings nothing like a bottle of wine or some chocolates, sits in the living room and when my partner is alone in the room with her is vile and says “why are you ignoring me?” “You’re just with all of THEM.” All of THEM welcome her into the bosom of our crazy family, give up one of the spare rooms, deals with her misery, takes her to the family panto outing (oh yes, we do) and take her out to our fave restaurant where she behaved appallingly last year and my 10 year old niece (who lives abroad and I don’t see much) was acting like an adult and trying to make the peace. DP was so angry and upset by it. The house sitting idea is more and more appealing...stroke of genius.

Christ London your siblings know exactly what to say don't they?
I know Monkey talk about passive aggressive and patronising. I wanted to say 'do you realise how effing hard it is to lose effing weight Mum ? Especially with you ready to comment on my figure whenever you feel like it & NO DOUBT REPORTING BACK TO MY NARC SISTER'' .
I came home and binged. It is what l do and no effing wonder.

Monkey DO IT!

@MonkeyfromManchester unfortunately my siblings do not get it. I had a bit of a meltdown a couple years ago as I was sick of it all being on me so one of my siblings now has mother for a bit of Xmas which helps and my sister still has Xmas alone out of choice. My siblings literally say "poor mum, she just wants to be with you, your her baby, she can't help it" which has started to really REALLY annoy me (I obviously wasn't her baby when I spent my late teens xmas' on my own whilst she was off with her hubby, sorry i know its tit for tat but I can't help it anymore! )

Honestly I'm starting to feel that my childhood was spent being primed for service of the elderly and infirm, and shes neither of those things yet! Slightly off track but me and my husband bought our first home nearly 2 years ago, she spent the whole first year offering reasons why it would be a good idea for her to move in with us. More guilt for me justifying why it wasn't a good idea, it's not like she asked to move in once, it felt constant, what with all the hints etc. I mentioned this to my therapist this morning who said she probably just forgot she had been angling to move in because she drinks too much (she does and she is prone to forgetting things sometimes) and this has unbalanced me slightly today because I'm now doubting myself.

So yes @Monkey I'm so very up for the island :) house sitting sounds like too good reason to not use.

I'm in, that's a brilliant thought Monkey re the island. Surround it with man eating sharks too.

My MIL can bring her small bottle of evian water. She bought that to our home one Christmas many years ago; that along with some other bad behaviour meant that she has never been invited here for Christmas dinner again!. We now try and go on holiday for Christmas and hopefully we can this year also.

@Sssloou thank you for your supportive words. I did get triggered and feel a bit like I used to years ago. I had therapy in my mid-30s as my anxiety had got so bad and my therapist pointed out that all I talked about in my first session was my mother and nothing about myself, and after 24 sessions of cognitive analytic therapy I had come to realise that my mother's behaviour was emotionally abusive and I needed to take action not only to protect my own mental health but more importantly my child's who was starting to experience the negative effects of my mother's behaviour too. Before I had insight into all this and learned to understand myself better, I had at times reacted to various situations, mainly involving men and relationships, in ways which I now understand were probably 'borderline fleas'. I still have a fair bit of shame about having behaved like this in the past (getting disproportionately upset if things didn't work out with a guy, not being able to handle conflict, JADEing to the max by sending lengthy messages, obsessing over how to win back someone's affections etc etc) and the situation I posted about got me feeling really disappointed in myself for allowing some of those feelings to be triggered. But you are right about our feelings being our alarm system and feeling them being a good thing - thank you

@MonkeyfromManchester thanks too for your supportive reply. Yes, I think when I met this person I was still in the habit of attracting and being attracted to abusive people and I obviously still have a few issues with boundaries - I should have cut him off long ago. Guess I'll just have to write off getting my jewellery back but the unfairness of it rankles.

Those of you who are contemplating going NC with a parent/parents, not sure if my experience will be useful at all. But in my situation I had tried to set boundaries and be assertive, starting to use a bit of grey rock/broken record technique, with the guidance of my therapist, and my mother did not respond well but really ramped up the disordered behaviour. When I realised I needed to go NC, I sent an NC message to my mother, otherwise she would have hounded me with phone calls. Did my best not to do any JADEing (justifying, arguing, explaining, defending my decision) and kept it compassionate. Also sent it with no expectation of a reasonable reply or my mum having some kind of damascene moment.

She did leave me alone although things she has said about me filter back to me via my dad, my younger brother (older brother is also NC) and a family friend about how she loves me so much and can't understand why I'm being so horrible. It has been 2 years since I went NC so relatively early days. I feel no guilt about the decision as it was totally the right thing for my child and myself. However, I have moments when I wonder if I will ever see my mother again and wonder if I should get in touch to see if there's a chance we can build a healthy relationship. But when I hear from others that she does not understand why I am NC then I am reminded that unless she does understand and try to change her behaviour, there is zero hope of us having a healthy relationship and I should not put myself or my child through an attempt at re-establishing contact. So yeah, it isn't easy and there are moments of doubt and guilt but it was still the right thing to do and my life is so much better now than it would be if I hadn't cut contact (I think I would have had a complete breakdown by now and goodness knows what would have happened to my child then)

Mrsmadevans

Her comments re your weight are abusive in nature and she does this in order to make it easier to control you.

People like your mother with Narcissistic Personality Disorder need external validation to keep their self-esteem high. Their self-esteem is like a balloon that will slowly drop to the ground unless someone is around to give it a tap back up on a regular basis. This need for external validation makes narcissists acutely conscious of whatever their social group regards as high in status.

People with NPD believe that being close to high status people increases their own status and that being associated with low status people decreases their status. This means that narcissistic mothers believe that their daughter’s body affects their status. When their daughter looks slim, this makes the mother’s self-esteem rise. When the daughter becomes chunkier or more voluptuous than the group’s ideal, her Narcissistic mother will feel embarrassed by her. She will envy other women in her group whose daughters more closely fit the current standards for beauty.

All daughters want their mother’s approval and love. Being constantly evaluated by their weight, passes the mother’s insecurities onto the daughters. They tend to internalize these values and develop an internal critical voice that constantly gives them either positive or negative feedback about their body weight and whether they appear slender enough.

You need to drop the rope your mother holds out because otherwise you will keep blundering into the bear traps that are laid out for you.

Grey rock is a hard process to keep up over time, its actually quite exhausting and does not always work all the time with narcissists. Best thing really is not to see your mother at all now. That is so hard to do but its likely the only way you are going to have a modicum of peace.

Attila thank you for the support & replying , l am just hanging in there , the guilt trips forced upon me are unbelievable .

@AttilaTheMeerkat on my gosh Attila, what you say about weight is really interesting. My mother was a very pretty young woman and looked great for her age well into middle age also. She would frequently go on about how she would get complimented on her looks and would also frequently tell me as a teenager how she had an 18 inch waist when she was a young woman. Looking back now it's clear she based much of her self-worth on her attractiveness. I was never a fat kid but gained weight around the hips in puberty, as girls do, and my mother would comment how I needed to cut down on the chocolate bars as I was getting 'broad in the beam' and tell me certain trousers were unflattering and made my bum look big. My younger brother joined in calling me 'fat arse' and I would regularly measure my hips with a tape measure and do leg exercises in my room to get the measurement down to 36 inches. Yet she would also tell me how beautiful I was (because having a beautiful daughter reflected well on her? The dictating my studies and future career to me was definitely about me having a high status job which would reflect well on her). Strangely at the time I never felt that anyone was being mean to me as I was so out of touch with my feelings. But I would not dream of saying these things to my own child. I advise her about diet and exercise from a health perspective every so often as she is going through the lazy teenager phase and quite unfit but am very careful not to pass comment on her appearance.