"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.

Just looked at your profile and your a bit far from me, otherwise we could have met for a coffee. Which would have freaked you out . I have unsocialble (sp?) days...and generally prefer being alone. But I also find it easy to make friends. I think its a complete lack of shame...my mother and sister humiliated me so much I don't really feel it anymore and just shrug it off and get chatting.

Haha yes that wouldve freaked me out lol I met up with a girl off a mum and baby site a few times but then for some reason all the contact stopped, so naturally I took that as my fault and it knocked me a bit.

Im going to try and go to a baby group on tuesday(if theyre on again yet), Ive spoken to the woman that runs it a few times on the phone and she sounds very nice but my god I'll freak that morning lol

You've still got a sense of humour intact then...thank goodness! Or that comment could have gone badly wrong!

I have friendships that go 'off'. I tend to blame myself too, but it could be they want to be chased up. Quite a funny situation going on at mo where there is a relative of my dh, we have met a number of times, both get on and like one another, but she's so shy (according to her mother) that she wants to contact me about going swimming with dc but daren't. And I haven't contacted her as she was last at my place and I was being polite and waiting for an invite back rather than pushing myself into her house... madness. Going to ring her next week. Like I said, I have no shame!

Dillinger- I still have not broken away entirely from my parents. But I am biding my time and currently I haven't spoken to my parents since November. I've got them in a sort of holding pattern IYSWIM.
I know 'exactly' how you are feeling, it is a huge step to take. Up until finding this thread, doing a lot of reading and starting therapy, I felt the same as you 'that i couldnt possibly vut my parents out of my life'
I dont think there generally any of us would have many RL friends that we could discuss this with.
Of course making friends is important, but you need to build your sense of self and confidence in order to achieve this. A break from people who continually undermine yor confidence will probably only improve your ability to increase your circle of friends.
Dillinger You dont have to make any decisions about this right now, you can just start to prepare yourself and continue with your journey of realisation about who your family are and how they relate to you, just by posting on here, writing about how you feel in a journal and reading books.
Do enquire at the surgery but also Danae mentioned charities that can help with the cost for therapy.
They are your family, yes, but not as close family as your ds and dh. Focus on them, not these people who continue to attack your self-worth. YOU are worth so much more than that

Hi

I'm new to this but have been reading thru all the posts. Never knew so many people were in the same situation.

Mine is a long story but to summarise, I have finally 'fallen out' with my mother. The limit was around two weeks ago when she did something that I cannot forgive. It was an attention seeking thing that backfired and instead of getting my attention, she has succeeded in making me never want to see her again. Before this event we never spoke for nearly 3 months as she cut me off from the family but as usual told everyone I had in fact cut her out etc etc, the usual.

All the things you guys say ring a bell to me. I feel like she is poisoning the entire family against me, especially my sister.....divide and conquer....

My mother is the victim of all victims and accepts no responsibility for my 'badness'. What makes me most mad is the things she is saying about me to relatives, most of it lies, and I constantly have to go around correcting her stories and wondering what people think about me based on the untrue thing she is saying.

I am sick of it. Like really sick of it. I am soon to be married and have relatives telling me that if they come to my wedding, that my mother will fall out with them?!?! I realise they are in an awkward position but why should I pay for her emotional hijacking.

I pity my mother because her intent appears to be to ruin my life. I have a fantastic fiance, a nice house and (at last) a good, positive life. It has taken me years to shake off the choosing of bad partners, doing crappy jobs, failing at everything, no confidence. I feel like she thinks I deserve none of this and has on several occasions made serious attempts to sabbotage my relationship with my fiance and his family.

I feel guilty though at times. I am missing out on things like my neice growing up. I am having to have a secret 'text' relationship with my sister because if my mum knew we were taling she would freak, so hence I don't get to see my sister or my niece and all of my other relatives are weird with me.

But hey, my mother has always 'done her best for me' and how did she end up with such an ungrateful and bad daughter.

Talk about frustrating!!!!

I haven't put too many details because she has also been stalking me on the internet and sabbotaged a wedding website I had set up and changed passwords on my email accounts! Yes, honestly! There are no bounds!

Thanks for having this thread, I feel better being able to write here cos there is no one I can talk to apart from my finace and I don't like to burden him too much and let my mother win by allowing her to be the main subject.

I want to get to the point where I don't feel bad, guilty, angry. Sometimes I think i am going mad.

Thanks for reading.

Sakura, thank you so much for your posts, I'm sitting here crying at your words. I have been blaming myself in a way, I've been desperately trying to remember what i was like as a child, trying to find a reason why my mum didn't like/love me. But you're so right in that now I have my 2 darling children I can see how they are born completely and utterly innocent and vulnerable and full of nothing but love for their mummy. And to kill and destroy that love in a child you're so right that a parent must have done something terrible to that child for many years. Knowing and realising this all helps in one sense in that it enables me to see that my mum didn't love me because i was bad/difficult in some way as a child, and that it was all her, but it makes me all the sadder in a way, just knowing that my mum couldn't find it in herself to love a beautiful, gorgeous baby just as we all once were.

Yes, I think you must be right in that my mum's own childhood needs must not have been met which is why she couldn't love/bond with me. But she also was given the opportunity to overcome her childhood losses by being given the gift of a child (that is really how I see my DC's as gifts given to me to enable me to overcome my childhood pain and to ensure it is not passed onto them) but I think she was too cowardly and scared to take the difficult and painful path everyone on this thread has undertaken and that I why I have no respect or liking or love for her, as ultimately she put herself before me and in my eyes that sort of person does not deserve the privilege of being a mother.

oneplusone- I think i got stuck at that point for a long time. As in yes I understood she wasnt a normal mother, must have been something about 'me' though.
When I was pg with ds, I became petrified I wouldnt have the capacity to love a child. I kept saying to DH, but what if Im a bad mother? I honestly thought what if I dont have it in me...just like my mum.
I had a long and horrendous (sp?) labour, just like she'd had with me. Yet the very second I layed eyes on him, I felt nothing but heart stopping love. I would have gone through the whole process again there and then given the fact he was the end product. His needs would forever from that point in time take precedence over mine.
That is when the realisation begins to dawn, babies, are just so perfect, how can they instil any negative emotion?
But then you also see how difficult in real terms being a mum can be, and you begin to think about your mother not having the tools because of her background.
But we are still just letting them off the hook. WE weren't given the tools either, yet we take the more difficult path in motherhood, always, in order to get it right.
How is it I can come to the conclusion I will never hit ds, and yet my mother having been hit herself by her mother came to the opposite conclusion. It is beacuse she took the path of least resistance. She did whatever was easier for her, not what was best for me.

smithfield you have summed it up exactly, my mum has always done whatever was easier for her, never what was best for me.

Oneplusone, and Smithfield

"My mum has always done whatever was easier for her, never what was best for me."

For me, this is a seed to release feelings of selfishness (thus shame, shame, shame on me) in our/my wish to heal.

Effectively, we were not allowed to have needs (or our needs were diminished, ridiculed, dismissed, etc.) in deference to the toxic parent as stated above.
We need some selfishness to survive.
And now we need the selfishness to take the time, energy, money, and tears to face our wounds, fears and try to heal and grow through our healing.

AND WE KNOW that the word "selfishness" is a tool of the opposition-what it really is called is
self-esteem
which is unapologetically valid.

Feeling it now
which is really
maybe I am hormonal.
ackkkk-Middle Sister talking again.
I think I'll stay ...need to do some housework. lol

Dillinger - remember that having toddlers/babies is a very lonely time and it is very hard to make friendships at toddler groups. I think the best thing is to go to these groups and concentrate on playing with your children. Then you give of a confident air not a desperate please talk to me, if anyone comes into your space then smile and you say hello and take it from there. It does get easier when you start school.

Don't worry about cutting your kids off from your parents, your mental health and therefore your kids are the most important things. And you have supportive DH and family.

Welcome cheezypease.

My god, I was almost in tears reading all this, how amazing that other people know exactly how I feel!!!!
For so long I have just felt like i'm a cry baby, and have been endlessly told that my moaning about 2 favoured siblings is just jealousy!
I really don't know where to go with my relationship with my mum now. Yet again we aren't speaking, all because my mum promised my eldest DD to take her out for her birthday, 2 months later she still hadn't and cancelled again the night before. It isn's about the money, it's about the fact that she can't be arsed with me or the kids. The the latest I heard was that for xmas she wasn't buying for adults, fair enough - but she was buying for my sister and brother because they haven't got kids. What, so i'm not one of her children then.
My partner says I should just have it out with her, but it's just not that easy. I've tried to before but she won't have it.
It's crazy, in truth I am scared of her, and I don't think I have it in me to hurt her. She has this hold on me still, at 29 years old. I know it's unreasonable, she's hurt me so much but I can't break it
help?!!!

Just wanted to thank you Smithfield and Sakura for your advice and comments. I'm still here but have found that I've felt hugely down and low since posting how I felt, maybe my feelings are coming out. I've found today quite difficult to get through and I still feel quite depressed. I hope this lifts soon, I'll be back I am finding this very hard.

OMG oneplusone, how can you torture yourself so much about your DD? You obviously had a really shitty childhood, and that female dynamic has affected how you relate to your daughter, forget that, I went through that for years, then one day I just sat and looked through photos, reminisced on days out etc, i've never been a perfect Mum but I have tried in a roundabout way. The simple fact that you have addressed any issues you may have with your DD is testament to the fact that you love her and want to do what's right.
Why did you ever come on mumsnet, I bet it wasn't to learn how to be a terrible mum, more like you wanted to know the right thing to do, offload, seek advice and generally try to be a good parent. I doubt your mum ever did that, so there's a big difference.
Don't linger too much on why your DD is saying she loves you a lot, I work with preschool children and it can often be an age thing, they are really learning that they are individuals at that age, that they can go off into the world and exist as a seperate entity to you, and it's often very scary for them. The saying I Love You, is a reassurance thing to balance their new found independence.
Really, don't haul yourself over the coals so much!

sQ- Feel really sad to read your post and that you are feeling low. Please try and post tommorrow, let us kmow how you are.((((hug))))

Staying Quiet, please keep posting. You can guarantee that you are feeling low because the feelings are coming out now. I've had all kinds of depression and feeling down and low is a really good sign. The really worst kind of depression is when you can't feel anything at all- not happy, not sad, not angry, not lonely, depressed ,not anything. I don't want to belittle your sadness- I know it is overwhelming, but I want to point out that this is good, because you are allowing yourself to feel. Just take one day at a time- one hour at a time. Post on here as soon as you feel like writing anything. You can get through it and come out the other end There is a light at the end of the tunnel and when you reach it, things will never be the same again. What I mean is, you'll never be able to allow yourself to go back to "how it was". And eventually when you get through it, life will be just a little bit lighter, and a little less hard to cope with and then from that you can start building yourself up again. I find these days I have energy to do things I couldn't before, like trying to make the house nice with flowers, writing letters to friends- things that just fell by the wayside while I was grappling with surviving. Keep posting :-)

For me personally, the confrontation thing never worked as it only gave my mum the chance to further assassinate my character.

My parents were divorced when I was a teen because my father had many affairs and only ever cared about his work. One of my problems is that when I was a teen, I found out that my mum was doing the same as him but we are not allowed to talk about that. That was 16 years ago and constantly I have shoved down my throat how much of a b*stard my dad was and how perfect she was. I am the only one who knows about her affairs. Whilst the whole family sympathises at my poor mothers bad marriage, I sit in the background and think "well, you done exactly the same thing so why do you deserve all the sympathy".

I was not a great teenager, I hung around with the wrong crowd, did badly at school and had stupid boyfriends (which I'm constantly reminded of). I used to have massive teenage arguments with my mother and she used to tell me that she never wanted me and that she hated me. At the age of 32 those words ring in my head.

I was too scared to write these things here but now I don't care.

As a teen, when my mum left, I had constant struggles with my sister and my father threw me out of the house and i was taken in by my boyfriend at the times parents. These days I am told how I "shoved" these people down my parents throat.....well, they took me in, fed and clothed me when no one else would, to this day, I am grateful to those people. I never spoke to my father or sister for 5 years.

The difference between my parents today is that my father admits his wrong doings and feels huge regret whereas my mother plays the victim and martyr. Due to their behaviour, I will never cheat on anyone, ever.

Sometimes I feel like telling people what I know about my mums affairs but I know it would only go against me and be another reason for her to prove to everyone that I'm so bad because one of the important factors for her is that everyone else falls out with me and sides with her. I will not try to ruin her life like she has mine and I will have dignity in my silence.

By the way, I found out about my mums affairs (2 of them) due to being handed letters to post on my way to school which I opened. I called my mum at the time from a phone box and threatened to tell my dad (at the time I did not know about his affairs) and since then it has never been mentioned.

I totally admire the way you all make it different for your own children. I don't have kids yet but when I do, I will NEVER put them through such emotional turmoil and that will be my way of righting the wrongs. I will never stay in such a bad marriage then spend years blaming my kids for my ability to not walk away and give them the emotional upbringing that they deserve.

Every day I wake up its the first thing I think about, it makes me angry, it wakes me up at night and I want to call her and shout the odds but it won't work.

The only way for me is to keep calm and try to get on with my life. I have moved 2 hours away and have had the long emails telling me evry single thing she has ever done for me compared to all the sh*t things I have ever done to her. I ignore them and that leads to her making ever more bitter and twisted attempts at sabbotaging my life and grabbing my attention.

Thank god, like most of you, I have a great fiance who completely understands. He is very objective because many times I have asked myself what I have done so badly to deserve all this. If it was my fault he would tell me :-) His mother would NEVER treat him like that.

Briarrose- Hello, welcome to the thread. I did read your original thread as well.

Cheesypeas-Welcome to you too!

I will be back to write more for both of you soon.

For now I have to get this out, whilst fresh in my mind.
After therapy session last night I feel I have (with some relief) re-confirmed the fact I 'did' have a mother in my nan. I was beginning to question that relationship for several reasons. Firstly, beacause I felt she must have been responsible for the issues my owm mother has in some way, and secondly beacause her nature was such that she had no physical contact with me (or anyone). So there was no hugging or kisses from her either.
But the thing which is significant and gives contrast to the relationship I had with my mother is that I have always had fond memories of Nan. I do not recollect a single moment of spite, physical or verbal, from her. She was above everything kind, and I always felt that from her emotionally. She did things for me like a mother would. Simple kind things like ironing a top when I was in a rush or listening to me reading out the beginnings of yet another best selling novel .
What saddens me is two things; How my mother treated my Nan as she got older and that I have never been to her final resting place.
I was overseas when she passed away, although thankfully a few months before she passed I had come back to see her.
On this occassion I had little money and no transport, so reliant on my mother to get to the hospital. Ineviatably I ended up having to walk 4-5 miles to see Nan as my mother refused to take me to the hospital unless it suited her.
I also remember crying after I had seen nan for the first time in hospital (she'd had a stroke). We were in the waiting room and I broke down and mother turned and called me a selfish bitch. In fact she was her usual venom spitting spiteful self the whole time I was visiting. It was as though she was the only one entitled to feelings of sadness over my nan being taken ill.
After this the next time I was back from O/seas. I specifically asked mum if she would take me to Nans resting place. She said she would, but then on the day we were supposed to go cooked up some drama about what time we should go and once again I was let down. She still hasn't ever told me where the place of rest is and yet she knew how closely bonded I was to my nan and how much it would have meant. My Mothers selfishness knows no bounds!

SQ- I hope this helps, its from the book Im reading called Divorcing a parent;

Dillinger- this might be a good book for you to read as well (Beverley Engel)

'Coming out of denial is an importamnt step in the recovery process for adult children. Unless they face the truth about their childhoods, including the truth about their parents, they cannot fully recover. Because the truth becomes so important to adult children, they become particularly offended by denial and dishonesty.........
Some adult children cannot continue to be around parents who are still strongly in denial because it confuses them and causes them to doubt their own perceptions....sometimes a parent's denial is so contagious the adult child goes back into denial in his presence'

it has just registered that my mum is on the Asperger's syndrome, it all fits. I now want to understand her and learn how best to make it easy for everyone. If only she wasn't so beligerent when she can't dominate the conversation and proceedings it would be easier to generate sympathy/empathy for her, but she grows more and more beligerent if she can't dominate the proceedings and conversation that she's not the easiset person to like

DH was wonderful today, he insisted that I go on a day trip with ds1 and my dad and he stayed at home with her. God I needed that, there was actually a family trip that was simple and positive and without tension. Gutting that I live 12000 miles from them and they are only here for another 10 days and in their late 70s. I thank dh for his work and kindness and jsu thope I can keep it together for hte rest of her stay.

how is everyone else doing

Thank you Briarrose for your supportive comments. I am just so conscious and terrified of somehow putting my DD through even a tiny fraction of what I went through, perhaps I do sometimes overanalyse her behaviour for signs that she may not feel 'loved' and wanted by me. And the truth is for a time I didn't love her, not in the way I love her now and so sadly I am sure that somewhere inside her there is a little bit of the hurt and pain that I felt as a child.

I too am feeling quite down and low at the moment, have spent most of the day trying to hold back the tears as I don't want to cry in front of the DC's. I have had another realisation, again something that is going to be obvious to many of you, that because of the way i was treated by my parents, i must have given off an 'air' of being an easy target for others and now when i think about it there are so many instances when people have said really nasty hurtful things to me and have just got away with it because I would never say anything back or stand up for myself. I would just feel hurt inside but say nothing. I have done this all my life.

But what has made me feel so upset today is that i have realised that even my MIL (who i have mentioned is toxic herself, perhaps not highly toxic but definately toxic) has said some really nasty, vindictive things to me. That is bad in itself but the absolute worst thing is that whenever I have mentioned any of the things she has said to DH, he always defends his mother (perhaps I shouldn't be surprised at this?) and of course i feel very hurt, betrayed and let down by DH.

It makes me feel very alone, like i have nobody at all in this world to stand up for me, who will always be on my side. I suppose if I had had 'normal' parents, whatever my MIL and/or DH did, I would feel that at least they would always be on my side, but I don't have that and so it hurts very much when DH lets me down.

I don't know whether this is something I should speak to DH about, it's difficult as he is so caring and thoughtful in many ways, but i have always felt that when it comes to the crunch he will be on his mother's side and not mine. I have read in many of the books about dysfunctional families that once you start going through this process of self awareness and realisation that quite often you reassess all your relationships and some people ultimately end up divorcing their DH's too.

I don't feel my and DH's relationship is so bad that I want to divorce him, but I do feel that we got married long before I started on this journey and i was a very different person then to who i am now. Without realising it, I had very low self esteem when I married DH and i wonder now if he could somehow sense this and this is one of the reasons he married me, as it perhaps makes him feel superior which I think is very important to him. I have noticed that a lot of his friends are much worse off than him in terms of careers etc and I have for a long time thought that he likes to surround himself with people who are worse off than him in order to make himself feel better. And perhaps I fall into that category as well?

Has anyone else experienced anything similar to me?

oneplusone- Im sorry you are feeling down. I think you have had so much to process lately you are bound to feel a bit overwhelmed.
Regarding your dd, if you read my earlier post with regard to my nan, I still 'felt' loved by her. She wasn't demonstrative or 'overly' attentive,that was not her way, but she was kind and never cruel like my mother. This in itself was fundamental to the relationship I had with her and how it differed to the relationship with my mother.
Dont forget with our mothers we had no attentiveness, no closeness and a bagful of nastiness on top (in whatever form that came). This seperates your experience and the damage caused from your dd's.

With regard to Dh, I cant really help. I do know where you are coming from though. Recently I have looked back and realised practically all my female friendships have been imbalanced. I have picked woman over and over again who have given me a superficial friendship and used me in some from or another. In other words I choose friends like my mother. I guess we pick these poeple in a bid to fix the past.

I also used to make horrible choices in men, until a really messy break up, that sent me to counselling and then o/seas. I dont think there was any realisation at that time though. I didnt date after that for two years.

I think looking back that was a huge time of reflection for me, especially with regard to relationship choices and why I made those I did.
I met Dh and was friends with him for a year before we got together, and I think that by then I had evolved into a different person somewhat. However I now see the person I evolved into as one with a considerably hardened exterior, someone that had lost an immense sense of trust, and therefore was unable to trust anyone. Its been hard work for DH to get through this exterior and there is probably still some way to go.
I think the answer is, maybe just go with the flow for now. I think changes are afoot for you and there is a shift which of course makes you now see the world and the people in it in a different light. If you were to come to the conclusion that some of DH's behaviour has to change in order to accomodate the changes in you, there is nothing to say (at this point) that he wouldnt be willing to to this. In other words dont think the worst just yet.
As for you MIL, draw a line under what she has said for now but I think in the future you need to say in both words and stance 'no that is not acceptable.' let's face it for all of us this is a new one as we have been used to being downgraded by the very person who was supposed to protect us. It becomes a norm for us.
The new you that is emerging will be able to do recognise more readily what is not appropriate and you will begin to make a stand.
All in all though you need to give yourself time.

oneplusone - when I got together with DH (11 years ago) it was definitely a relationship of dependency, I didn't demand a degree of respect that I should have been given (because I wasn;t used to receiving it in my childhood) and he was unsure of how to give it. We were both two damaged souls who have been muddling through for 10 years.

But, we have been changing together and slowly getting our lives back on track. DH is now addressing his childhood issues and he is loving, kind, gentle man who genuinely wants the best for me and his boys. When I think of the things that I have put him through but he has stuck by me.

I started the journey and started talking to him about it and that has prompted him thinking about his childhood and we are now doing the process together. We both want the same things and this has caused huge honesty in our relationship which has been sadely lacking for a long time.

I suppose what I am saying is give you DH a chance, but don't attack his relationship with his mum - focus on yours and maybe he will pick up on the vibes

Thank you smithfield once again for your advice. It all makes a lot of sense and I will try and so what you say. I feel a bit better now (after a fair amount of sobbing) but it is all so painful and so many things just seem to set me off. But it is just so reassuring to 'talk' to people that are further down the road from me and know how I'm feeling. Thank you again smithfield, you don't know how much you have helped me in this whole thing.

Another thing that is getting me down is i'm sure all this emotional stress and long suppressed feelings emerging is having an effect on my physically. A while ago my hair was falling out in handfuls whenever i washed it, thankfully it seems to be not falling out so much now and my eczema has flared up again quite badly. Has anyone else had physical symptoms due to all of this emotional turmoil?

Just checking in and had a very quick skim through but wanted to welcome the new posters and to say SQ that I agree with what Sakura said about working through your sadness. I felt dreadfully sad, angry, hurt, depressed on the journey to recovery, but there really is light at the end of the tunnel and you will really reclaim your life in the process.

Oneplusone, you too, sounds like you are making huge strides already. You are fantastic for allowing yourself to go through this pain for your DD, as much as for yourself.

Smithfield yes, in answer to your question, we talked loads about the past, but there wasn't any real structure to the sessions. My therapist let me talk about what was on my mind really, and just kept bringing me back to certain "points" to explore a bit deeper.

So many interesting things have been said but yet again I will have to say "I'll be back"...