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."

@Angliski please read that over and over.

What type of hospital were you in @CecileDeRetour
You said you felt less awful there than you do at home.
Can you arrange to go back for a while. what you're going through is really really challenging and you do sound very low right now. You need support.

I am in a place where I can feel supported by people chatting about similar or overlapping experiences, but I think where you're at right now, you need more support.

I hope you can access that. It's really smart to take support.
xx

I’m partly doing it because one of the other patients said I should. 2/3 of my boyfriends have promised to save me.

I’ve been in the general hospital and the mental hospital. The latter has cost money. I’ve tried to be sectioned but it hasn’t worked.

When I was in the ward I chatted with two similar patients. The other said I was attention seeking and I shut up.

It’s the second time I’ve begged for help but my sister and my mother packed so I had no cards, nothing which matters. I couldn’t move. A refuge costs.

You're in a difficult situation right now. You need help and you know you need help and you can't get it.

You were you begging for help? By the sounds of it, your mother has closed her ears, the only people to plead with are GPs.

Have you been to your normal gp just to let them know what you're up against? What your thought processes are right now?

xx

My mum got to the GP first. She’s always talking about how badly she felt and how many of them she spoke to about me when I cut contact. She also sent a statement about how bad I was to the hospital.

As in “I’m a nasty person” not “I’m very ill” bad. The hospital have been dealing with my suicidal activities for a little while now, to my shame. They always comment to my face that I’m a model patient because I never complain and will laugh with the doctor trying to place a cannula or an arterial line for hours, and have never complained about anything in hospital. I am always there, though. I think they maybe get the better side of me because they don’t accuse me of lying or attack me.

They also anaesthetise you if they are going to do something awful. I could probably face massive needles through my chest or into my heart without anaesthetic but this place, I can’t even do a few hours of. My mum also keeps coming in and saying “they say I CAN’T take your alcohol” and it’s almost funny because I can understand taking alcohol off an alcoholic but the rest of my stuff she treats like it’s mine and she’s so indignant that she can’t just steal and dispose of something I bought. I suspect she was referring to when I went out to get some more wine because I was awake most of the night let alone blackout, but she also said “what are we going to do when we get yourself attacked again?” And then told me I was a liar when I said she had told me not to talk about the previous attack. I told my dad, not her, because I was afraid of her reaction, and I do remember it. They just say everything I remember is a hallucination, a lie or irrational. I’m not psychotic. I’m not even drinking enough to black out right now. Just enough to stop crying for a bit.

*she treats my stuff as if it were hers, I meant. Sorry. There are so many people going through worse stuff here. I’ve just lost my oldest friend (the one whose mum is close to my mum) over this and I can’t call.

I come to the Stately Homes threads now and again when I'm feeling particularly upset. It's 3am and for the second time in less than a week I can't sleep because thoughts about my mother are going round and round in my head.

I feel so guilty even thinking about her in the way that I do. I'm not sure whether what I think about her is true or not. Am I being a bad person, maligning a person who is old & vulnerable, who is the good person that I want to believe she is (I felt myself physically cringing back in my chair as I wrote that). have I convinced myself that something is true when it isn't - gaslighting myself, I suppose I would describe it. I could drive myself crazy thinking about it - at this moment I feel like I live in a world where I don't know what's true and what isn't. I can't trust my own thoughts.

I see things but I don't know if what I see is true or if my brain is distorting everything. I apologise if you're reading this and you can't make head or tail of my rambling - I'm not drunk or on drugs. Tonight I burst into tears when we were in the supermarket. I felt like I just couldn't cope anymore. I stood there in Morrisons and sobbed and she didn't even notice, she just kept piling things into the shopping trolley. The other people in the shop must have thought I was mad. She never said a word to me. This is so stupid, I feel like a 6 year old not a woman of 60. I had to carry everything to the car - I already have a double incisional hernia and am not meant to carry anything heavy. Getting in the car I saw I had a flat tyre and had to stand there trying to pump it up with my foot pump. I got in the car and all she bloody said to me was that I must have a car because she depended on me being able to drive her.

@iammarmite I’m so sorry that you are in pain. There is nothing worse than being awake at 3am alone with your thoughts. A hug from me.

I don’t think people wake up twice a week with racing thoughts based on nothing. It’s based in reality.

Abusers (and that includes neglect) make us feel inadequate and therefore we can’t validate our own feelings. We’re in a mire of that didn’t happen, I’m exaggerating or it wasn’t so bad.

It WAS bad.

You are still having visceral reactions to your mother. It sounds like being in close proximity is very triggering. To ignore you crying in a supermarket is failing to acknowledge another human’s pain. And having you carry everything to the car - I appreciate she is old - without saying ‘be careful’ or checking in with you is mean. Never mind the flat tyre! The remark about the car says it all - her needs are more important. The evidence is right there.

Keep talking here, you will get tons of support and belief.

A huge hug to you. Xxxxx

leatmarmite

I have read some gut wrenchingly sad posts about the abuse that narcissistic mothers do to their daughters and other family members over the years and yours is right up there on that list.

How can you be helped into freeing yourself from your abuser and being further abused by her?. You bloody well matter, the fact is that your rights in this dysfunctional family system you're in are not there and never will be as long as you remain any part of this. Your mother has basically trained you since childhood to serve her and put your own needs and wants dead last. She instilled in you fear of her and she installed those fear, obligation and guilt buttons. She knows therefore how to press your buttons. I would think she treats any and some siblings the same whilst others (the golden children) are more favoured.

What are your boundaries like re your mother?. I would think they are very much non existent; she very much sees you as an extension of her and you're not permitted to have any opinion of your own or one that is outside her orbit.

You are now 60; you cannot go on like this and you need ultimately to grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got. Have you ever had or considered therapy re your mother?. Youtube also has a lot of good resources on it re narcissistic abuse.

@Angliski

I think you’re right to contact your SM in your time. You need to be in control of this and not lassoed back into being compliant.

I’m a right little ‘peacemaker’ so I’d be right in there accepting her message and trying to smooth things over so well done on you on taking your time and putting your needs first. It’s a very bard thing to do.

I’ve held myself back from inviting Toxic Hag (MIL) to Sunday lunch in a futile gesture of ‘New Year, New Her’. My cooking a vast vegetarian lasagna is NEVER going to heal Mr Monkey’s toxic family or EVER change the fact that the Hag is one vile human being. And if I was dim enough to invite her Dry January would be over the moment she stepped across the threshold.

It’s incredibly hard to stand firm so cheers (organic apple juice) to anyone who is doing this.

Angliski

You are actually under no obligation to reply to her message at all really. She is still very much her H's enabler here and your dad has not changed an iota.

Re your comment:-
" It still remains that I’m not welcome to share any pain as it relates to criticism of DF and I am still a bit staggered that my own story suddenly turned into a focus on him and something I needed to apologise for."

Sadly I am not surprised in the least. Any just criticism you have will be seen by him and in turn them purely as an attack on them and used against you. These people do not apologise, do not back down that readily if at all nor do they accept any responsibility for their actions.

Be very careful in any and all dealings with them going forward. And tbh I would not bother with either of them now.

I do wonder if part of the bitterness that toxic mothers display towards their daughters is wrapped up in the generational domestic slavery and drudgery that they were subjected to. Whether there's a deep jealousy in their perception of how we all have it better somehow. That we are now allowed to choose not to tread the same path as they did.

They want us to stay in our female-born lane. Not that any of this matters of course.

It's no wonder that the birth rate is plummeting when women look at the cold hard facts of what motherhood does to their lives. The penalties are severe.

My mother showed no understanding at all of the complexity of my life (choosing to divorce young, being left with sole responsibility for 2 babies). She couldn't understand how I managed to stand on my own two feet and earn my own money. She even asked my sister once if I was a drug dealer.

Rejecting the generational pattern of "doing as you're told" causes major ructions. Thinking "fuck this" and walking away is beyond the pale. We will be punished for ever more.

There is no changing their way of thinking, and no reasoning with an unreasonable person. We will never be forgiven. Never be understood. It's utterly pointless to even try.

I cannot believe how guilty I felt at taking my life back. But I'm over it now. Shaking off the guilt took 3 years. It's a long road to walk, but the destination is worth the journey.

Seeing anyone crying and ignoring it is a bit of a warning sign. Crying is evolutionarily design to signal to others that we need help! I personally cannot bear to see others crying and would be running over, giving them a hug and making jokes, asking if I could help, asking if I can listen, whatever, and I’m socially clumsy and know it. I think abusive people have a strong line in not noticing what they don’t want to see. I have self-harm scars apparently so obvious that a colleague wondered why I wasn’t in a hospital (according to her) but my mum noticed maybe three times in 21 years and has now forgotten. I’m really sorry. Most people are not like this and will empathise with you.

I totally agree @Sicario

I think the bitterness applies to “getting above yourself” like university, career, moving away is a big one in working class toxic families. This is definitely the case with Hag and Mr Monkey. I think it’s a massive warning sign if your parents aren’t delighted that you want to pursue different things and improve your life chances.

If the Hag had had her way, Mr Monkey would be on minimum wage and living in a similar way to her. And then Miss Fancy Pants came along…nice house, holidays, his degree as a mature student “oh, it’s too much money”, “there are no jobs”. I just don’t get families who hold their kids back - it’s control, I guess

@MonkeyfromManchester you’re so right, as always! I think it extends even beyond working class families. My family are very well off - three grandparents went to grammar school and rose stratospherically - but I recently read some lightweight Internet stuff about “things you won’t understand unless you grew up poor” and empathised with almost all of them. I’ve never had much money - my university boyfriend had a grant and he paid for everything because I didn’t really have any disposable income - I’ve never had any pocket money but I was allowed 50p of sweets and if I kept them (as I used to do) they would be eaten by someone else, I mend clothes and shoes, my valuable possessions are much-loved hand-me-downs. It is said in my family that I inherited my cheapness from my grandad, who was brought up by an illegitimate mill-worker, but I don’t think it’s genetic! I also recently got scolded because I walk around in shoes I’ve bought until I bleed, partly because my pain threshold is so high but partly because I want to get the wear out of them. I had a pair of trainers that I kept wearing until they surprised me by wearing right through the sole, and I also had my foot punctured by a nail while wearing them, but I kept putting them on thinking I had to get my money’s worth (they cost £18. I can wear children’s).
The opposite side is I don’t seem to be able to cope with affluence. I rented a whole flat up north (for less than a cupboard in London) and was totally overwhelmed. I also give a lot of money to homeless people (and charity). My relatives and ex scolded me over giving £50-60 each time and asked why, the reason is that I’m walking by with my warm coat, probably some alcohol and a house to go to, if I were on the streets I would want at least one of those. Even if they’re working for a gangmaster or something I might save them from being hit? Either way I get that I’m a prime target and vulnerable but I can’t think of a reason against yet.

I think your parents should possibly be happy even if you’re a care worker or at Sainsbury stacking shelves (to be clear, low wage and in some places but I esteem you so highly!) when I return to my job I’ll be paid less than a PA but my employers look after me, treat me the same as they would a qualified solicitor earning three or four times what I do and eat my baked goods. I love it and I’ve had two work burnout experiences and I like my job. For my mum to say it would be frustrating to have my job and actively to prevent me waiting whenever I’ve done it (I love that too) is a lot.

It was this one www.boredpanda.com/low-income-things-rich-people-dont-understand/?cexp_id=46940&cexp_var=27&_f=featured we were rich but I got every one.

@CecileDeRetour totally agree! It’s across all toxic families.

My functional working class family - lucky to have them - value me and my brothers equally. Two of us went to Oxbridge, one works in Sainsburys. They just want us to be happy and enjoy life. There’s no comparison or championing one above the other. Healthy.

That’s why I don’t get parents who don’t support their children, sabotage and undermine them, whatever social class. It’s really sad reading people’s stores here. Makes me angry as some people have had their potential robbed.

This is what Hag has done with her sons. Well, apart from Golden Boy, but look how that turned out. He’s a sociopath who disappeared on his entire family. She created him. God knows how Mr Monkey has come out of that shit show in some way normal.

I’m glad you’ve got an employer that values and supports you. It’s so important. I’m much happier out of a pressurised job as it was so shit for my bipolar. Xxx