"But we took you to stately homes"... a thread for adult children of abusive families

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This thread is a follow up to "My mother has cut me out of her life - long sorry" because we reached the end of the thread life.

I originally posted on that thread to say that my mother had blamed me for something that was in fact her fault, called me a liar, got the rest of the family to gang up on me and then blamed me for splitting up the family.

It generated a huge amount of interest from a number of women who, like me, had grown up in an abusive, or "toxic" family environment where we had been the scapegoat or the dustbin for our parents to dump their own unresolved difficulties. My mother, like all our mothers, has refused to apologise for what she has done and many of us have cut ties with our families in order to recover our lost selves and self-esteem.

I haven't read all the posts yet- I just had to reply to something about the presents.
Pages, that book "Controlling people" talks about presents. It says that controlling people never get something that the person might actually want or need, because that would be admitting that the other person is a separate entity with individual wants and needs and their own unique character. This is too "painful" for the narcissist, who likes to keep people in little boxes for their convenience. So they get things that they would like OR they get something that would in no way reflect the authentic character of that person.
It actually says in the book something like:

"if you want something in particular from a narcissist, you'd be better off not mentioning what you want. Then you'd have more chance of getting it because the narcissist might then accidentally buy that thing for you. But if you mention something you want, you can guarantee that the controlling person will not buy that particular thing."

I have a friend in Japan with a toxic MIL. She took my friend's son shopping to look for his birthday present. He said he wanted a bike, so the MIL took him looking at bikes and he picked out the one he wanted. On his birthday MIL turned up with a completely different present (something practical for school!!). My friend was gobsmacked and had to go out to buy the bike anyway for her son because he had been so looking forward to having it. She has a LOT Of kids and so it wasn't as though she could afford it!!

Apparently narcissists enjoy inciting want and desires in other people, getting them to desire things they otherwise wouldn't really have thought about without the narcissist's "help". Its all about control..

Sam VAknin also mentions gifts. About how narcissists tend to be stingy and may often give a gift of something they had lying around the house.

Smithfield, sorry I didn't realise you were so pregnant (I'm a bad skim reader!)
Oh, no, please do not contact your mother around this time. I feel with 100% certainty, that had I been pregnant around the time of my wedding when I started to stand up to my mother, I would have lost my baby. Without a doubt. It was the constant, relentless stress that my body went through. I think I suffered irrepairable (sp?) nerve damage from that time. When I visited the UK when DD was 3 months, I still never saw her but she bombarded the place I was staying with evil calls and my milk nearly dried up. Thank GOd it didn't (and at 15 months I'm still breastfeeding) but it so easily could have done. I just couldn't relax enough to let the milk come, no matter how long DD sucked for, or whether it was at night. Please wait until at least 3 months after the birth! I decided around that time that if were ever pregnant again, I wouldn't let any of my family know, because if my mother found out, the threats would start again...

Nurture yourself, comfort yourself. You're so lucky . I'd love another baby...

Danae, It was really interesting- your viewpoint about your mother just throwing random bullets of hurt around and you happened to be in the firing line more often. I thought about it but I think in my case its not like that. I think my mother actually despises me because I can't meet her childhood needs. She feels that I'm a failure as a daughter because I'm not a good enough mother to her IYSWIM. I don't think its a coincidence that a lot of the mothers leave the brunt of their abuse for their daughters. Or maybe I'm wrong and the sons who receive abuse simply react in different ways i.e. men are more likely to become narcissists, unable to commit etc while women more likely to be borderline and hysterical and suffer depression. I think at least women are more able to look at their pain than men. I think men end up hating women in general (misogynists) rather than hating the mother who caused their original pain. Whereas women turn in on themselves in the kind of self-loathing that we all feel here.

Hey can i join? i have a very toxic mother, in fact neither myself or my 2 brothers talk to her. We don't talk to my dad either cause he just agrees with whatever she says/deos for a quiet life. Last time i saw them was at my brothers wedding in sept 2006 (which they tried to ruin)... they also caused a load of trouble in the run up to my wedding and on the day. They don't know about my baby, born 30th oct 2007, on my dads birthday . I think my mum is a narcissist, at least thats one of the conclusions my sil has come to (she's a trainee psycologist). My mum recently turned up unnanounced at my middle brothers house - 4 hours away from hers and sat there in his lounge shouting and slagging off his wife to be, my dad just sat there not saying anything, my brother tryed to chuck them out and they refused to move even when he said he would call the police but they eventually gave up and left - mum turned on crocodile tears... Loads more has happened in the last few years but haven't got time to write about it all right now.

Welcome, thats great that you have the support of your brothers and families in dealing with your toxic mother.

Interested in Sakuras point, do you think that you get it worse being a daughter?

Danae, I'm pleased you can identify with what I said. I think that as we were abused in one way or another as children we find it hard to become adult in the parental relationship and almost forget we have the choice to be in it or not.

We are adults and in dysfunctional parental/child relationships it seems to be the major barrier that cannot be crossed.

We are often blamed for things as a child that only an adult could be responsible for, yet once we reach adulthood and understanding we are sudenly incapable of it, in their eyes anyway.

Sakura, yes, I believe you are right, your mother probably does 'despise' you personally because you are 'you' not because of how you are as a person, but because you are the only mirror that can really reflect her own failings.

VS

That's because a toxic parent wants a child with the capacity for responsibility of an adult ... and the ability to refuse it of a child.

They expect this when the child becomes an adult too.

Completely Colditz, it's probably the one thing that makes them think they are being resonable in their own head, if it's the child's fault the adult is behaving that way, then they were made to do it, yet once the child grows up, they can claim that we couldn't possibly understand, again affording them no-one to answer to and no blame.

Ally- I relate to you in the way you respond to your mother. My mother pushes my buttons so much I end up shouting at her and then of course 'she' gets what she wants. Not a good thing whilst pregnant and last time she was here was the worst it had been in a while. Yes probably due to hormones.
And why indeed should we endeavor to play ?jolly hockey sticks?, when the mood suits them. In all honesty we both know that that façade would only last so long and then old patterns would soon emerge again anyway.
I can relate to what you must have gone through at 8months pg. (((hug))) to you by the way re difficult birth and added stress of stalking mother.

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I think how Im feeling now is in reaction to what I went through with ds. But also I?m finally gaining some real perspective on my relationship with my mother, I realise that I need to start sorting out some serious boundaries between us and that, yes, actually I am entitled to do just that.

My mother came o/seas to visit me when I was 8 months with ds. Looking back it was ridiculous I should have asked her not to come, but having been removed ?physically? by distance from her for 4/5 years, I think I had painted my own self fabricated picture of what my family actually was.
I obviously, unbeknown to me, was still so enmeshed with her at that time that I did not feel I had the right to any boundaries and enforcing any only brought the FOG in the extreme.
She was at her NPD best during that stay, mentally pushing and shoving me around. Dictating what I should and shouldn?t do. The upshot of it all was a blazing row, sending me into labour followed by horrendous birth (sounding similar to yours Ally) and me on a drip and ds in special care unit. I am not exaggerating when I say that I believe the birth would have been an entirely different experience had it not been for my mother.
There is no point re-hashing the whole experience and besides you all have mothers like mine so no need to elaborate. The point is if I had had the tools to deal with her at the time, maybe the outcome would have been different. Instead she sucked me back into her world which for the most-part is quite a vile place to be.

I think you are all correct in what you are saying about delaying the ?actual? divorce, which may or may not happen further down the line, but what I do know is I do not want to be anywhere near my mother before ?or? directly after the birth. It doesn?t sound like much but that means I have come a long way in establishing a separation from her mentally. That I can and will establish this boundary for my own mental health and that I will not be brow beaten into altering that boundary is a huge step for me!

But also I think I might be capable of achieving this much (with a bit of ingenuity and stalling) without being sucked back into her world, bit like a practice run for me, I guess.
She called again this am (we were out) so she then called dh?s mobile, we were with friends so good excuse for not being able to talk. I feel her stalking reaching a crescendo. Yet I feel a bit removed from it. Dh says you see its because you are playing by ?your? rules not hers and she can?t bare it.
So is this the basis of NPD? Play by their rules, all is well in the world (at least for them) start playing by your own and all hell breaks lose! And when it does, we had better be prepared.

So indeed Im beginning to see now that it?s about being able to establish boundaries, yes. But it?s also about being able to do so without them drawing you back in. It?s about calmly saying what you want, knowing you are in fact entitled and being able to sit calmly while they spin off into the hemisphere. Knowing this time you ?won?t? be joining them.
(Bit like your last meeting with your mum Pages) This I guess is what detachment means.

Think I?ve got a long way to go but am finally getting it!

Overall Im feeling really good, I spent the most part of this pg plunged into depression, and now every day I feel better and better. I honestly feel so much of this is down to this thread. You guys sharing your innermost thoughts, raw emotions, and childhood experiences is so enlightening, so inspiring and so supporting.

Thank you!

Danae, not crass at all, and yes, funny!! Me and DH had a bit of a grin at each other when we looked at it. I think it's just the thought that maybe she really is losing her marbles that I find a tad too disturbing to really laugh it off ...

Oneplusone, I am probably way too far away from you but if you want to CAT me I am more than happy to tell you where I am. I don't mean to be secretive but my job and other reasons make me a bit prone to being cautious on here.

Bah, now I feel bad for making you feel bad Danae. What are we like, eh?

Aww, so glad you are feeling so upbeat Smithfield What an awful situation re your DS's birth, you must make sure that she comes nowhere near this time - remember to stay in "adult" mode at all times and you'll be fine...

Welcome Dalrymps. It must be nice having the support/validation of all your siblings.

I agree Sakura about the female abuse link being the strongest. I think my mother is very masculine in her emotions (or lack of)which is probably why she became NPD rather than BPD. Older brother was just too independent-minded for my mother to take, which is why he was the chief scapegoat. He threatened her too much by having different thoughts and opinions to remain in favour. He was actually fairly sanctimonious himself when younger but he (like us) was blessed with insight enough to get out of the family and take a long hard look at himself.

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well i find i get different abuse, i'm the youngest, i'm the girl my mum always wanted and tried so hard to get and must live up to the expectations of being a perfect daughter and she wants everyone to think we have a wonderful mother daughter friendship whilst being able to make bitchy insulting comments towards me at the same time, also my husband gets 'intimidating' treatment from my dad if i don't 'behave' and my dh sticks up for me when they 'tell me off' then he gets it in the neck, gets told he's really done it now and instead of shaking his hand in the recieving line at my brothers wedding my dad squeezed his hand and tried to break it whilst acting like he wasn't doing anything wrong at all. my mum tries to play me and my 2 brothers off against each other and would love us all to fall out so she can control us individually. They see my eldset brother as the black sheep, a lot gets blamed on him. Our partners all get insulted on a regular basis and also all get blamed for leading us astray when we don't 'conform' and behave as we should - like good 'kids' (i'm the youngest at 26, we are not kids anymore!!!!!

Danae, BPD is more emotional instability, violent mood swings, fear of abandonment/engulfment, hystrionic behaviour... I think the definitive study of it is "I Hate You, Don't Leave Me:Understanding the Borderline Personality", can never remember the author, but you can google it. BPD can incorporate some NPD traits but overall it's more likely that the child of a narcissist will have BPD rather than NPD. The name I think derives from the fact that it is a condition which lies somewhere between neurosis and psychosis, ie on the borderline.

Yes, my mother is also very good at the helpless victim role, but on the whole I think she identifies more with men than with women in the sense that she reacts in the same way a man does to any upset, her own or someone elses. She doesn't cry, goes silent, goes into her "cave" and is generally uncomfortable with displays of emotion. I remember her and both my brothers all rolling their eyes and taking the mick out of me when I was crying, at age 5 and upwards. It was so hurtful.

DH says she panders to men and that's why I am at the bottom of the pecking order in the family. I think that is true but it's also because she identifies with them emotionally more than she does me. In fact one of the reasons I can see how manipulative she was in getting my brothers and sisters to side with me against her was because she did it by crying down the phone to my sister as a result of receiving my and my brother's email (see original post on previous thread) and I know for a fact that she doesn't EVER cry in front of anyone, she has even admitted to me that she never cries, even alone.

(It's true that my older brother later became the no 1 scapegoat but probably only because I was by then adept at mirroring my mother, sharing her brain, not answering back or having a thought or opinion that hadn't first got my mother's (and stepdad's) seal of approval. OB on the other hand was a real teenager - he rebelled against my stepdad big time and rejected my mother in many ways so he was the obvious target for the role).

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Oops - BPD for me then, that sounds like the bad side of me. I remember lying in bed when I was younger and imaginging what it would be like if my parents were dead. The loss of my mum would send me into floods of emotion and tear, I felt very little for my dad . That definitely sounds like fear of abandonmnet.

Mum definitely NPD. Think dad is a bit NPD as well, Bloody hell.

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Can't believe there are so many toxic parents out there.

Not posted for a while on this thread mainly because it has brought a few hidden emotions up to bite me and also because of this time of year I guess. So called "family time".

Just wanted to say I am amazed at how supportive MN is and to urge everyone to keep posting if it helps. Its just good to know we are not on our own with crap parents.

Phew, marathon catch-up session!

Just wanted to say danae it is so good to hear you sounding so very positive. When you first posted on the previous thread I worried so much for you, but you sound like a different person now. Thank you so much for posting "I have presumed I was living in a cage. That might have been true as a child when I depended upon her for my very survival, but now as an adult the cage door is open. It has actually been so for many years, just I hadn't noticed. I am free to walk out and make an entirely different reality for myself and those I love. That's my New Year's resolution." Fantastic resolution! Hope you won't mind if I make it one of mine as well .

What you wrote in your last post doesn't make you sound pathetic at all. For many months after I cut off from my mother I had day after day where I felt I was "drowning in sadness", but it's less now than it was. I don't know if this will help but I'm trying to live in the moment more and not regret the things I haven't done because my toxic parents left me emotionally crippled for so long. I know I didn't achieve my potential in my career. I'm now self-employed and, though I enjoy what I do, there will be no further "progression", for the moment I've plateaued and I'm not sure that will ever change. Remember what you wrote before about making your own reality. We can all do this, and we will survive the bad days. The other thing I do to banish regrets is to remind myself that if I'd been emotionally healthy in my twenties and early thirties, I'd probably have married then, and thus I wouldn't have met dh and ds would not exist. So in the end although I'm not glad I have awful (understatement of the year) parents, I would never be without dh and ds and the course my life has taken brought me to them.

One last thing - reading your post made me think of a good friend of mine from university and how life can turn around even when you're totally in despair. Two years after we graduated (20 years ago) she began to suffer from M.E. which got progressively worse until she was completely bed-bound (for about 6 years). At her lowest point she lost the use of her arms and I started to think she was going to die. But somehow, with the help of conventional antidepressants (taking Prozac early in her illness made it substantially worse) and even more crucially, psychological techniques, she has managed to recover almost totally. She's retrained in the last year as a therapist specialising in helping people recover from M.E., and I got a Christmas card from her saying she's now travelling to Europe to conduct training courses! She didn't have the same issues with dreadful mothers as we do but I guess what I'm trying to say (not very eloquently) is that she had 20 years of missing out on life and now she has a second chance she's grabbed it with both hands. It's not the life she'd planned, but she's going to make it as good as she possibly can. Which I guess brings us back to your comment about us making our own reality.

Must read/catch up on the thread, but before I do....here's one to ponder: is it possible that one child in a family might find the parenting toxic while other children have a reasonably OK relationship with the toxic parent?

I've just returned from a visit with family, and one sister asked 'Earlybird, why don't you just get over it? Your relationship with Mum doesn't have to be this way you know" ....

Good point Earlybird.

You guys, since I've joined this thread have made me think so much.
The issues and anger, the criticisms etc

My point is if the other sibling had lived, I had an older brother and wasn't told about him for 32 years, that killed me in itself, all them years of having a hunch?

I miss my bro even though I never knew him. My mum got pg pretty much 2 months after he passed on, with me. I feel that since mum told me, I was the easy replacement. Ever since I told her I had an hiatus hernia (through DV) and for her to tell me that's what my bro died of way back in 1972....I think she hated me for even surviving with new medecine that couldn't even save her son? I feel guilty for even having a hernia. She uses it against me all the time. Hope that makes sense? I'm not one for grammar, I'm sorry about that.

There are so many questions I'd loved to have asked her about bro. Have visited him, the callous bitch couldn't even put down a headstone for her first born child? I laid flowers in a tree when I went there, it poured with rain and a pure white feather fell from a tree and when it stopped raining, I saw a beautiful rainbow.

I seem to think I care more about my miscarried son than she did when my bro died? I just don't get it though. That was my sibling and it took her 32 years to tell me. She only told me because she thought I had been snooping. No mum, honest I had a bloody hunch that I wasn't alone!

The more I post here, the more I read here and the more I open my Toxic parents book...you guys have really opened my eyes to see what a proper bitch she really is.

I'd like to ask whether your mums have caused you to have dysfunctional relationships?
Been married 5 years, divorced for 7. Then got into DV and now in a relationship in an LDR partner lives in LA and it just seems so much safer for me....yet mum has still slagged him off, yet she never even met him.

The anger is bubbling over right now, please help me? x

Hi PurpleOne, so sorry about your bro. I can't imagine how horrible that must feel.

I'd say that almost all my "romantic" relationships between my very first boyfriend (who was lovely) until DH (who is also lovely) were dysfunctional (so that's from age 18-35 ). In my twenties I was in a four-year relationship with someone who hit me a few times, who cheated on me once and tried it on with several of my friends (who all told him to get lost), and who was emotionally distant and manipulative. All the other relationships were with men who avoided commitment and again were emotionally distant and often cruel. I put up with it because I had zero self-esteem and this is down to both my parents I think. Both of them did a good job of preventing me from developing any self-esteem, and there was the added problem that they had/have an incredibly unhealthy relationship, though obviously as a child I didn't realise this. So I had no model of a good relationship to follow. I know this has also affected the relationships my brother and sister have had, though neither of them would ever admit it. Hope this helps.

Danae - still in recovery but the thing that is helping me is forgiveness. I have forgiven myself for not sorting out my life earlier and having spent all those years unrequited seeking parental love. I am also trying to forgive my parents for something that to a certain extent was not their fault. It hurts to carry around all that anger, its destructive and pulls us down without us knowing about it.

Purpleone - definitely my relationships have been coloured by my upbringing. Relationships with losers, unemployed, alcholics, drug takers. All the half decent men that showed an interest I pushed away, but if you were a waster I took no persuading. No discernment at all.

Earlybird, that is exactly what my relationship with my mother was like, and I too used to tell older brother to "just get over it". That was until I became the target of the abuse. But yes, my younger brothers and sisters have enjoyed an entirely different status in the family, and the younger boys in particular have both been "golden" children. My sister told me to "get over it" and that she knew people who had had far worse upbringings, been put in children's homes etc - the sad thing is, she doesn't even know the half of what her father did to me (and is not aware that I did get put in a children's home for a short period). DH is constantly saying I should tell her everything, but the fact is she is on my mother's side and doesn't really want to know. My mother has told her her version and that's the one she wants to believe.

Danae, I am so sorry you feel so sad at times, and you are right to grieve the lost years but it may not be that they were completely lost. As a high achiever, I was never held back by anything careerwise but like PurpleOne and bearsomom, all my relationships were dysfunctional ones until I met DH, like all of you because of zero self-esteem. I do regret the years I wasted on complete t*ers who were actually not worthy of me, the unloving men I gave myself away to sexually and the degradation that came with it, and the years of loneliness because I couldn't recognise a nice man when I saw one (and looking back I can see now and actually remember many). But then, like bearsmom says then I wouldn't have met DH and have my lovely dc. And I learned so much along the way about what I didn't want, I think it has taught me a lot about relationships and myself.

Careerwise I did well, and yes, I trravelled a bit, but I have changed my career and retrained a couple of times so in fact even though I am now in a good career I am behind my peers and in fact two of my bosses are younger than me. I used to feel very much like you 7 years ago, very behind my peers, but I have got to where I want to be now and I think the richness of my experience in previous jobs adds to the one I am doing now. It doesn't bother me anymore that other people 15 years younger than me are at the same stage as me, and I am less concerned with my status now than what I am doing and how it meets my needs on a spiritual level.

What I guess I am trying to say is that this is what life handed you, and you have no doubt learned a lot along the way whatever you have been doing or not doing. It sounds also as if you are feeling a bit overwhelmed by work at the moment and sounds like you have a big project on and are thinking "if I'd done this years ago I wouldn't have so much to do now to catch up" but if you knuckle down now, a few years down the line and you may well find you are "there" - wherever that is! I can honestly say that I felt so "behind" in every respect 7 years ago, it seemed like everyone I knew had dc (I kept having mc's) their own home (we were still living with MIL) and money (we were in debt). DH and I have worked hard but without me really realising it things just all somehow progressed and now things couldn't be more different. So, a bit of a ramble, but you will get there before you know it and it doesn't matter that you weren't first off the starting block. Quite the reverse, in fact (tortoise and hare analogies now springing to mind) - many of my peers are actually a bit bored and disillusioned where I am still finding my work fascinating. And I think the experience all of us has had has contributed to our personalities. Pain makes you interesting. And Danae, you are certainly that!

Kaz, I had discernment - I was actually attracted to the wasters