October 2021 - well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Its late October 2021 now, and the Stately Home is still open to visitors.

Picking up from previous thread
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships/4182916-March-2021-Well-we-took-you-to-Stately-Homes-thread?pg=39

Forerunning threads since December 2007 are linked on the previous threads if you want to click back and have a look.

This thread 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."

I told the hospital that I would prefer not to be alive but wasn’t actively planning on suicide and if I returned here and couldn’t get out, I would be planning. I think I’m too depressed to actually try anything as I’ve failed so many times before. Even hanging, which out to work, failed and I came to with a broken belt around my neck and a lot of bruised. Who lives through taking 60 amitriptyline or 20 codeine for God’s sake? I always planned to kill myself when I left home and it’s been years since I’ve been happy to wake up (apart from brief intervals when I’ve woken up with someone I loved, but I’m too messed up not to sabotage that sort of thing). My latest also I think had narcissistic traits. I adore him but we went through the idealise-discard cycle several times and not a lot of what he said was consistent, and he has had a string of short relationships on those lines. A mutual friend said she’d seen him do it with three people. I once travelled for eight hours to try to patch things up and he called me and shouted to get out of his city. It’s been years since I cried like this but alcohol isn’t really numbing me any more. I’m not a tearful and self-pitying alcoholic but it appears that I am as a sober person. What help is there for someone who as an eight year old child beat herself up? Even when someone talks about my inner child I want to find her, hit her and leave her out in the cold. Not that I would ever do this to another child, that is just my response to a younger me. My parents should have exposed me.

(Not the emo post by the way)

@Angliski same, I'm not looking for them to flagellate themselves, berate themselves etc. Not even looking for any apologies (although my father told my brother that an apology would be ''wholly inappropriate''. Wow. Even though I wasn't looking for an apology, that twisted the knife more). But as you say, I just want them to acknowledge my reality. And they won't.

Why is it so unreasonable you ask? It's not, but they cannot and will not sit with any uncomfortable thoughts. Their rosy perception of them selves comes before any acknowledgements that they failed to do better. That would be uncomfortable and unpleasant.

I can't imagine that demonising your daughter, trashing her to anybody who'll listen is comfortable either. So I still don't get it.

We could have had a good, real, relationship if they'd just acknowledged that I was hurt.

But after two years I've figured out that their defences are like Fort Knox. We are never going there. We're never even nearly going there.

It is so sad though. I'm past the anger and now I feel sad, which is nearly worse. Well, no, it's calmer, it is. But when you're in the angry phase, you have hope that they're just being stubborn.

@Sicario yes, the smear campaigns, omg, my mother has just trashed me to all of her sisters and sisters in law. I know this because they didn't respond to simple texts to thank them for cards sent to my daughter a while ago. I was taken aback by that. Her victim status has been cemented. I'm the perpetrator. The End.

I know some people get wound up by facebook wisdom but I saw a post a while ago saying ''sometimes you have to be ok with other people not knowing your side''. This has to be true for my. I have to accept that. That and ''what other people think of me is none of my business''.

@CecileDeRetour you deserve your place in the world. You deserve your life’s I’m so’s party you are suffering so much. Is there anyone irl you can get proper support from? It sounds a very vulnerable time just now?

@angliski, so interesting that it all kicked off when you put up a post that resonated with YOU.

The trigger was something along those lines for me too. Finally, my brother acknowledged something, sort of, and I went to my parents with that thinking that now the logical golden child had acknowledged something, they would also have to sort of acknowledge it, but then, suddenly they all joined forces against me and my brother who I had thought, with his near off the cuff acknowledgement of what I'd experienced suddenly joined forces with my parents labelling me emotional, sensitive, angry

I couldn't keep up.

I hope the therapy goes well!

I had therapy for 18 months and it did help! It's not a magic wand, lot of acceptance has to be processed on your own.

No, I’d be on their sofa.

I’ve had therapy for coping tools for many years. I just want it over now.

I’ve done this enough. I want to look OK for them.

I even joined a dating app but people don’t want me there.

@cecilederetour can you get any relief listening to anti anxiety meditations on youtube? It's not xanax, but it helps a bit.

I highly recommend watching Dr Ramani talk about what happens to the scapegoated child when they reach adulthood. It's deeply insightful.

@Angliski But why on earth can't they just say 'we could have done better. we did this but we wish we'd done better''

Exactly what I want from my mother - not even really an apology, just a 'hands up, that huge, permanently life-changing decision that me and your father made back in January1978 was a MASSIVE FUCKING MISTAKE'

Even though anyone with the IQ of a pot plant or higher would have realised that at the time, but that's another thread in itself...

I think my mother won't admit it because she's always known, knew at the time, it was a mistake but she was grasping at straws to hold onto my father, her marriage...she admitted to me last year that when my father came to the UK for a month in the summer of 1977 (we were living in Oz then) to visit his mother, she wasn't actually sure he was going to come back...

It's not, but they cannot and will not sit with any uncomfortable thoughts. Their rosy perception of themselves comes before any acknowledgements that they failed to do better. That would be uncomfortable and unpleasant

Yes, again. In my mother's eyes she was/is perfect, my father was the evil one and it would KILL her to have to think for even a second that she might be wrong. No insight whatsoever.

Well in the positive, out of the blue I got a very kind email from sm where they absolutely acknowledged what I wanted them to hear and have made suggestions for how to move forward
Constructively.
I’m so relieved. I’d hate to be without them, bonkers as they are.

Maybe 20 year ago. This year I’ve felt better being in the mental hospital - it’s far from my parents and they take your phone - but most things don’t help.

@Angliski

Well in the positive, out of the blue I got a very kind email from sm where they absolutely acknowledged what I wanted them to hear and have made suggestions for how to move forward Constructively. I’m so relieved. I’d hate to be without them, bonkers as they are.

That's good news @angliski I know you're relieved and who wouldn't be, things aren't as bad as you thought they might be.

My advice would be not to rush back in with that keenness to have more meaningful communication. Let them have time first to really understand first that this concession (if they see it that way) or acknowledgement has won them respect and warmth.

Not that I ever got this much from my parents. I thought that my parents would be the exception to the rule. I used to read on here, my psychotherapist used to warn me, Dr Ramani used to warn her viewers (!) that it is very very unlikely that parents ever back down, let go of their defences etc..

Maybe your step mother has that distance to be able to feel less judged than a mother would feel.

The past couple of days I have been thinking of and missing NC mother. I think it's really a mother figure that I miss not actually her. Thank you Mumsnet for being there in the darkness. Just having somewhere to write it down and offload the though helps

I know what you mean.

The practice of self-compassion is my new Mother.

xx

I'm listening to this

There's a work book too. I'm working my way through that.

@CecileDeRetour

I even joined a dating app but people don’t want me there.

I would make the decision not to date. You need to look after yourself right now. Can you imagine the users and abusers you'd attract when you are feeling so vulnerable. ''Date yourself''. Always be asking what's right for you now and give yourself what you need (where possible).

You say that you have felt better in the hospital than anywhere else this last year. That is a good insight. You had space there to think/heal/talk. xx

I have so far.

Just had a conversation with my mother. She mainly said “you’re an alcoholic, who lies, how dare you?”

So maybe I am.

I mean you can’t top “hallucinated it” but either I’m more mentally ill than I thought or they’ve given up on subtlety. I’ve just been accused of wandering the streets drunk. My feet aren’t dirty. I’ve run down the street barefoot before.