"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.

By the way, can I ask if any of you never had your mothers at your wedding due to 'falling out'? And how did you deal with it on the day (feeling emotional etc)? And what did you tell people? Also, did any of your mothers try to ruin your day?

oh well it gets worse.......
today my mum took it upon herself to go to my xdh,s house and visit the kids.
she told him she was walking the dog and saw ds on the street.

she asked how xdh was "are you friends with jen" she said and he replied yes and she said "well id pick up the phone and call her but i dont think she,s speaking to me" xdh said he felt embaressed and didnt know what to say.

she stayed for 30mins and then asked him if next weekend when he has the kids if he will bring them to hers for their tea.

i feel a bit pissed off at this i think its pathetic cos a couple of months ago i told her xdh was willing to take the kids round to her for their tea on a weekend and pick them up and she said "oh no im not getting involved".

Jen- Think your mother is being very manipulative. Asking exdh, behind your back to see the kids. How do you feel about her seeing them? Have you made any decisions about that yet?

Cheezypeez- My mother came to my wedding but she made things difficult, bit like a sulky child. She was supposed to be with me and B'maids on the day getting ready, but refused. Then she turned up late and proceeded to hold everyone up (I was travelling seperate from her with my b'maids and dad).
So you get the picture just general beligerance and more resentful than happy for me.
From what you have written you mother may be capable of more overt sabotage, so its your call, but its going to be tough if she 'is' there, tough if she isnt.

Misstaken-Feel so to hear some of your story. Such mixed messages are terribly confusing aren't they.
I am pg too, and it does seem to get a lot of different emotions bubbling to the surface doesnt it.

Earlybird and duke- I feel for your situations, and have to admit this is my biggest fear in divorcing my parents, somewhere down the line should we remain cut off, I am bound to get that call.
I think you can only be true to yourself and I think the way you have decided to handle things duke strikes a good balance.

i dont have a problem with her seeing the kids, they wont take any notice of her anyway, BUT why has she asked xdh to take them when HE has them to give him a break, what about the other 90% of the time i have them? obviously i dont deserve a break.
when she saw them before we fell out i had to go with them and spend time there, i wasnt allowed a break away but it appears to be very different for xdh.

Pages- so many things you write bring further clarity for me.

I felt like a 5 year old who really had been abandoned - I then started to find it liberating to acknowledge and accept that, because it has freed me up to stop trying to make her love me and I have turned that love back onto myself.

I think this is was 'so' key for me. And the reason I say this is beacause I now know I have tried every other trick in the book, rather than face up to the fact I was as a child abandoned (albeit emotionally) by my mother.
There 'is' nothing I can do to change that. I can not re-create the past, or re-fill the empty space from that initial loss by winning her approval 'now' as an adult.
What I am struggling with though, I think, is 'truly' coming to terms with that statement (as in her abandonement). I 'know' it to be true, but have I yet 'felt' it to be true. I have felt quite down (after a period of feeling incredibly well) these last two days.
I feel depression descending, and I ask myself, so, am I still burying something? I must be.
I know you have not suffered depression Pages, but did you find yourself using other methods of avoiding the rawness of some of the emotions which have to spill out in order to begin healing? If so how did you get past this.

I have just finished reading 'Drama of the gifted child' and wondered if this book itself had brought something up for me, I feel the need to repress?

Sakura- I was wondering if I could ask wether you had come accross any uncomfortable feelings with regard to your role as surrogate mother to your siblings, and wether it has impacted at all on your relationship with dd?
I have/am finding it difficult to access feelings from my early childhood. A lot of my early childhood, like yourself, involved minding my siblings.
Yesterday I had a recollection of being locked in a car with my db. He was a few months old and I was 6. He was screaming, and I did not know what to do, but I remember becoming very stressed and agitated. I have since made a connection now with this memory and feelings of incredible anxiety whenever ds cried as a newborn.
I've never dwelled to much on my surrogate role, but now I wonder if there are some feelings I hadn't dealt with. Some feelings of resentment, or of feeling overwhelmed by responsibility.
I think maybe why I found the 'sitter' role as a child to be so difficult is that I not only became 'responsible' for them physically, but by default became responsible for their beahviour, i.e if something happened, I would be punished, as I 'should' have been minding them.
I just feel that residual feelings from this may be impacting on my relationship with ds in some way.

Jenk1 - because she has to look good to other people "well, I don't think she's speaking to me", seems like a typical 'poor me' response from your mum, like she can't see them cos you're not talking to her so maybe someone else will take pity on her and help by taking them round?

She has obviously wound you up but I wouldn't give her the satisfaction of letting her know that because she might only get to act even more innocent amidst your frustration. Call me sceptical?

Smile sweetly through gritted teeth and ignore.

If she wants to see the kids so badly, then she could possibly make the effort to contact you and sort things out but that's possibly far too much like backing down.

Just my opinion btw.

Smithfield - thanks for the reply, my mother will NOT be at my wedding, no way jose, my decision and also that of my fiance since she wrote something on a public website that could have torn his entire family apart that we both cannot forgive. I STILL can't believe she f*cking done it!!! She did this thing because I was ignoring her. I can't put details of it here because it is so personal to my fiance and his family, believe me, it was absolutely horrendous, the actions of a psycho. It was on our wedding site which we had only just invited everyone by email to look at for wedding info. I had to threaten her with the police to get her to admit it was her who done it and very luckily we managed to get it removed before the people concerned seen it. 2 of our friends saw it, contacted us totally gobsmacked, and we asked them to never mention it to anyone or to ask us about it and luckily they completely understood why.

I can't see me ever talking to her again and it stems back years, I need to find a way of coping on the day and telling other people why she is not there.

Sorry, I'm writing loads on this board, it's because I can't believe there are so many people with similar problems to me, mine are zilcho compared to most of you here and I respect you all for being able to be so open and genuinly supportive of each other

yes agree 100% with what you say.
ive had the tears,drama,the telling off and now cos im not giving her a reaction she,s acting all innocent but xdh knows what she,s like and is not fooled.

im not going to give her a reaction cos thats what she wants and she,ll be going mad cos she doesnt know whats going on in my life

Smithfield, yes, for many years I avoided the emotions in various ways, alcohol being one of them. (But it didn;t work because I used to get drunk and scream and shout at my boyfriend)

You sound from your posts as if you have come such a long way already, I think perhaps you are being too hard/expecting too much of yourself too soon.

I spent many years "intellectualising" the process without feeling it on an emotional level - in fact I did some of that with my mother. Her: "I reckon your stepdad treated you that way because...", Me: "Oh really, yeah, that makes sense..". She actually prevented me from feeling it all for a long time because she was making sure that I saw it all her way and rationalised it.

I suppose the reason I have made such huge strides in the last year or so is that she actually did abandon me, almost my entire family ganging up on me and treating me so shoddily was a huge shock to my system and I was in crisis for several weeks/months which in many ways forced the emotions to surface and I had no choice but to deal with them. Not sure if this makes any sense. But I guess what I am saying is that maybe while you are pg and keeping your mother in a "holding pattern" your body/mind are telling you to keep this all at bay for a while as a matter of self-preservation. You are, after all, going to need all your energy for your newborn soon, so is it possible that you are emotionally taking things a bit easy for the time being and not overloading your system too much?

jen, the reason she has gone to see your exdh is for one reason, the operative word: control. Everything our mothers do is about control, and like cheezy said, because she just has to have the approval of other people, while stamping on you and your feelings. She does this because she can't understand that you are a separate person from her with rights and feelings. She probably still sees you as a 5 year old, who is being naughty, and she wants to do everything she can to get you back into line. Also, and my mother did this, she wants to give you a sign that your children in someway are her property and that she doesn't have to defer to you to see them. I had a dilmma, when my mother started sending gifts to "My beautiful grandaughter " (who she had never seen because refused to meet me on my terms . After a dilemma, I threw them away. I heard from an uncle that she had said "I bet that bch has thrown them away, hasn't she".
I just didn't want her going over my head to my daughter. And I didn't want relics reminding me of her about my appartment!

cheezy, I can't believe she wrote something horrendous on your website. I mean I can believe it, but I can't believe she thought she could get away with it. Its just again, as though she can't fathom that you are an adult and she can't just do whatever she likes to you, like she could when you were a child.
I started this process because of my mother's behaviour around the time of my wedding. I should have suspected something when she said in a gushing, smug voice, "Well, you can have a white wedding then, and I'll buy you dress"
I immediately said "Oh, we're going to pay for it ourselves"
She flipped and actually said "you're f*cking up my head!"

After that it was just one horrendous experience after the other. I went to visit my fiance in his country for 10 days at xmas before we were married. When I got back, I found that she had turned up at where I was staying, had ransacked my room, and tried to put my stuff in her car, all the while screaming "she's going back to live in (my childhood home)
Absolutely psycho!
She turned up at the church with a face like thunder (they know you can't turn them away from the church). Then strode up to us after the service before the reception, gave us a big public toxic hug and stormed off into the sunset, and that is (thankfully) the last I have seen of her. She refused to meet me to see DD at 3 months, because I wanted to meet at a coffee shop instead of at her place (as if I would go to her place with a 3 month old and lay myself open to abuse!)

Smithfield, I haven't really thought deeply yet about the parental role I had with my brothers, and how that could affect my rel with DD. REgarding my brothers I've always considered it a good thing. For example, while they don't remember things like me jumping to defend them from my mother's anger, they do remember things like when I used to sing them to sleep. I knew that even though my mother was trying her damndest to get them to, they wouldn't turn against me at my wedding, because of the strong role I played in their childhood. With DD, the only thing I would say, is that once or twice I've had the feeling that I loved my brothers "more" than her. Not sure how to describe it. As though the love for them was with more feeling and more deep, and I love her just because she's my daughter. Maybe its because she's a girl, but I don't know, I feel she's going to be more capable in life. Thats bad isn't it. She's just a little girl who needs as much love as the next child, and I do give it to her. But sometimes I catch myself thinking, "how would I have reacted if my brother needed this or that, or I think about the future how I reacted as my brothers became teenagers, and use that as a guide to raise DD. But sometimes I feel its not coming as much from the heart as it was with my brothers. I dunno, maybe we're only suppose d to be a mother once . But basically its not bad, and I think me and DD are going to be fine.

Thank you for the replies. Felt good to just write it down. I am still in touch with my mother, she is two different people from one day to the next though. As long as I am the perfect daughter, polite, kind and willing to listen to stories and make appropriate remarks at all her 'news' then we have a relationship. If i make any remarks or ask for any detail regarding her 'stories' she changes the subject. For my DCs sake, i just listen now, she forgets what she tells me TBH, the story is always changing.

One thing that i did remember and that my dad had turned a blind eye to was her daytime drinking...i wonder if she spent my whole childhood depressed and spent afternoons secretly drinking. You know what else i was thinking about? The stories she would make up when i was younger....like 'why are you late home from school?' the truth was 'the bus was late mum, sorry' 'you liar, mrs x just phoned me and told me you were hanging around outside school with x boys' I wasn't, and really was late because of the bus. Why did she always want to catch me out?

Thanks again. Just getting it all out i think.

Hi all, I have (yet more) stuff i need to get out of my head regarding my mother. After the big 'realisation' i had about her and that she didn't (and doesn't) love me, i did, i suppose try and make myself feel better about it by telling myself that she acted entirely unconsciously and wasn't 'trying' or intending to hurt me when i was a child. But i was thinking about things last night and it occurred to me that actually some of her behaviour most likely was intentional and not unconscious on her part.

I grew up always feeling left out and excluded from things and the family in general as my mum and my two sisters always did things together and i was never even asked if i wanted to join in or go along to wherever it is they were going. I remember feeling so hurt and upset on so many occasions when i found out they had all been somewhere and i had just been completely left out.

I now think my mum was doing this to me deliberately because of the way she was treated in her own childhood and she was somehow trying to 'get her own back'. Of course she could only get her own back on someone who was defenceless and vulnerable, over whom she had total control as the real perpetrators of her childhood pain are adults who of course she had no control or influence over. My mother was the youngest of 10 children and i know that she was always left out of things by her older brothers and sisters and that she was always desperate to be included in everything they did. Even as adults i can see that my mum is excluded from a lot of things my aunts and uncles do (her brothers and sisters) eg meeting up for dinner, outings, even weddings, and as an adult my mum tries every which way she can to be involved even where she's not wanted. I remember once she 'gate-crashed' my cousin's pre-wedding party even though she had not been invited.

I feel so sure sure that in always doing activities and going on outings with my 2 sisters and leaving me out she was somehow getting her own back for having been left out of things by her brothers and sisters when she was a child. I don't really know as yet how i feel now after this realisation, i am sure the 'feelings' in connection with the realisation will soon come to the surface.

I find it incredible to know just how different my mother and i are. I am absolutely and totally determined that my DC's should not feel even a fraction of the pain and hurt and upset i felt as a child because of my parents. And yet my own mum used me, her own daughter, to vent her feelings of hurt and pain from her childhood and thought nothing of the pain she would cause me in the process.

I have to say i totally, utterly and completely hate and despise my mother for the way she treated me and my only regret in cutting off my parents was that i wish i had done it a lot sooner and i can honestly say that i never want to see them again for the rest of my life. And with each day, month and year that passes my conviction about this just gets stronger. I have a feeling that they (my parents) somehow think that I will 'come round' given time and will get in touch with them. How wrong they are.

Sorry for not replying to the recent posts, I just had to get some of this stuff out of my head. Will be back later to catch up on the recent posts. Take care everyone. x

oneplusone- I do admire you 'so' much. You have worked so very hard to get where you are now. What you say regarding your mother makes perfect sense to me.
You are not prepared to allow your dc's to go through what she put you through because, unlike her, you have done the hard and brave emotional work of going back and realising the pain she caused you in acting out her resentments.

Thank you Smithfield, Kaz33, Oneplusone, Cheezypeez, and Pages and (Sakura and Ally -over due thanks) for your understanding and help. And others I have forgotten, earlybird...

Oneplusone- I hope you are doing ok. Your description of ups and downs brought to mind the grieving process. I believe grieving is different for everyone-based on their own life's circumstances/experiences. I thought of it as a 'grief monster', you never really know when it'll sneak up and jump on you. Tears are the remedy-acknowledging in your mind, allowing these feelings to be valid, and crying as justified expression of coping or dealing with it. I think grief has an amazing shelf life-if people don't deal with it, grief will wait (as we all here know) forever, if necessary.

MistakenID- good luck with your pg. I am too, and I am trying to 'pace myself' with my healing process since there is a wide range of things going on physically and emotionally.
My dd was diagnosed last week with mild scoliosis, and ds -well, I will bow to privacy here just in case Middle Sister should ever find this. They are teenagers...

Earlybird and Duke- You have my sympathy. While both my parents are deceased, their passing was rather sudden (Mom-unexpected heart attack, Dad-within two weeks-complications from surgery).
Duke's boundaries seem healthy to me and I really don't think guilt should have a place at your table, so to speak, duke, (even knowing that I know next to nothing about your circumstances). Your feelings are valid, and you know this, and have proven it, by setting boundaries.

Pages-a couple of months ago, I mentioned Middle Sister in a conversation with dh, and caught myself and I said-"Sorry, I wasn't going to talk about her today." He was appreciative that I recognized what I must be putting him through.
I do still 'stew' about her, trying to rehearse and prepare for setting more boundaries. Dh sometimes asks what is going on and I say, "Oh, just stirring the stew" and he knows what I mean .

I want to work on how Middle Sister analyzes and evaluates us. Her parting comment at Christmas was, "Well, it looks like you have things under control, so I will leave you to it." Besides being condescending, and diminishing...tell me- is that judging me? She SWEARS she doesn't judge people (that is part of her "what she wants me to believe strategy" though, isn't it?).
She'll probably say it next time-
I want to say "Oh Thank God, then you won't have to come so often. Make it one, one night visit, once a month, then. That will be best for me, thanks SO much."
(She regularly uses that martyr line-"I only want what is best for you"). Depending on her response, it may be the opening for me to say IT:
"You are not matriarch over me or my family." I want to follow it up with "You have worn us out; you'll just have to take your power festivals to someone else's house". Which I believe will be the watershed comment. She'd probably just dismiss it in regular fashion or try the strategy of 'we'll just have to agree to disagree'- no I will not agree to that (she believing she is matriarch).
Or she'll say, "I'm sorry you feel that way."
I am working on that one. I know my feelings are valid, but we never quite get around to why I feel that way (that is the NPD strategy of me believing the way I feel is my fault -switching the topic focus from her to me)...it is her behavior that makes me feel that way.

I did manage to whittle her "when the baby comes- I'm coming to help" plans down from:
"How many weeks do you want me to take off?" I said long weekends will be fine (and I did say so dh could take dc away for a break ). She countered with "Ok, so I'll take Fridays and Mondays off." (This is classic MS pushiness.)
And I said- Um, no, one or the other, Fridays would be better for us.
There has been no further mention of her taking 'maternity' leave from work, so she must have been denied twice for that (pushy at work, too). Should I send flowers to the HR dept? Just kidding

yes i couldnt understand why she would want to go round to xdh,s house when a few weeks ago she was slagging him off to me left right and centre.
also she has "arranged" for xdh to take me and dd to the airport next week when we go on holiday.
im fuming over that, cos xdh was originally coming on holiday then we split up, SHE wanted him to still come but i refused to go, she said i was being selfish, i ignored her and canx him and my sister is coming instead, so she has decided to go in her and my dads car and park it there and says thers no room for me and dd and our luggage we ALWAYS get a minibus but it looks lie she,s manipulating this now.

i really really want to phone her up and blast her but i know thats what she wants and im not giving her the satisfaction but at the same time i dont want her going over my head with regards to the kids.
the next thing is she will probably fall ill for attention, she,s done that before, taken to her bed, last week my sister went to visit her and she was in bed in the afternoon crying because i hadnt told her what was going on with the holiday and who was going etc, que a call from my sister to me but i just laughed.

sakura thats awful about your mum doing that at your wedding really bad.

oneplusone lots of what you said about your mum rang bells with me, my mum never knew her dad and she damned sure made it very hard for me and my siblings to have any relationship with our father, running to him crying telling him we had been bad, standing there watching him beating us, i asked her how she could do that to her own children and she said "to make sure he did the job right"

they both beat my sister up when she was 16 because she didnt want to go on holiday with them, it worked -she went but she left home when she returned and she has virtually nothing to do with them.

Well just got Toxic parents and have spent all night reading it - rather more quickly than intended I think

The big black hole of my emotionally dead childhood still lurks and I'm not sure how to access it and find the little kid who just wanted to be loved. On the outside we were a happy, successful, stable family but I was emotionally deserted by a NPD mum and a workholic dad. Its so hard to admit the extent of the desertion, infact I feel very little about it, I have so few memories of my childhood. A journey yet to come.

But, on the positive side just starting this process has started to crack some of the veneers of my life and behaviour with the kids and my partner.

I found myself laughing at a horrid henry story that I was reading to the kids, an emotional expression of humour and joy. It was such a good feeling.

I ended up rolling around on the floor with the kids earlier in a new way, again an expression of childish enthsuasim.

I keep finding myself snogging DH in the kitchen, again new behaviour.

These are totally new feelings, I don't remember ever feeling them in quite this way. God it feel good. I think I felt love.

With my parents, I am starting to set boundaries - when they suggest something, then I counter suggest something just to get into practice. So far they have been little things, not sure how it will work when the issues get bigger but I am flexing my muscles

Hi, think i've had writer's block again recently, have a lot of stuff swirling round in my head but can't seem to make sense of it enough to write it down. Apologies if the following makes no sense whatsoever.

I have had another 'realisation'. Again now that i've realised it seems so obvious i feel silly for not realising sooner. I know now that all the unpleasant, detached feelings i have had about my daughter, which i knew were not right, but couldn't seem to change until now, were the exact feelings my mother had about me when i was a child and right up until the present day until i cut her off.

I have mentioned before about feeling 'detached' from my DD and feeling that if she needed me because she was hurt i could just walk away. I have also felt at times like she wasn't my daughter and that i was simply looking after her for someone else. This meant that i always did my best to ensure she always ate good meals and had clean clothes etc etc but I simply couldn't give her the 'emotional nourishment' that she so desperately needed. At times i also felt a great amount of anger towards her but at the same time i knew the anger was not because of anything she had done, and that the anger was all down to me and my own emotions but it somehow surfaced when she was around.

I'm sure to all intents and purposes my DD looked to the outside world as if she was happy and well cared for, but I knew inside, and i'm sure she knew as well, that there was something fundamental missing from our relationship and that was love.

I know this is exactly how my mother felt about me as she did all the things i have described. She always made sure i was fed and clothed and provided for in a material way but she never provided the love that i needed as a child. She was able to and indeed did walk away on many occasions when i was hurt and i needed her.

I know i had eczema as a child and i'm sure it was caused by the pain i must have felt as a child feeling and knowing that my mother was not giving me what i needed but not having the capacity to understand my feelings and make them known. And i think that is why i must have turned to my father for the emotional love and warmth that i needed. Luckily he was able to give me that until i was around 11 when our relationship completely broke down due to his mental breakdown.

Although i have had the realisation that my mother did not and does not love me, and i accept that as the truth, or my truth, i still can't quite believe that 'this is me' ie that i am a child who was deprived of love by her mother and was physically and verbally abused by her father from the age of 11. My perception of myself has been so different and i know i appear to the outside world as someone who is very 'together', intelligent, successful and i suppose that is also how i saw myself. Now that i know the reality of who i am i can't quite take it in.

Hi Kaz33, i can so much relate to what you have said. I also read Toxic Parents far quicker than i intended, i think i read it all in one night, didn't sleep a wink!

You are right in that you are about to embark on a long journey in which you will find yourself, one of self realisation, awareness and insight. I have been on the same journey for a while and you are very lucky that you have this thread and the people on here who will always be supportive and understanding. I so wish i had found this thread a lot earlier, but better late than never as they say!

I absolutely know what you mean about suddenly being able to 'feel' and it affecting the way you play with your children and even your relationship with your DH. It's fantastic to actually be able to 'feel your feelings'; i'm still getting used to it.

I would also very highly recommend you read a few books by Alice Miller, her books can be quite difficult to read and i have read them quite a few times before i really grasped what she was saying, but she is someone who has been through everything we are all going through and i basically can't recommend her enough.

Also Divorcing a Parent by Beverly Engel is brilliant, in my opinion, even better than Toxi Parents. I ordered a secondhand copy from amazon.com as it seems to be unavailable over here.

Hi Kaz33 and oneplusone,
We seem to be on the same road, what you both have written is what I'm going through exactly.

Monday, I felt good, and verbalized it-said "I feel good" and genuinely felt happy.
I then felt in the back of my mind that it seemed ridiculous (put myself down). But I caught myself and realized that that thought was from the Old Point of View (from the childhood/narcissist training-my Middle Sister talking, as Ally or Sakura told me a while back -thanks again!). The old mind habits are still there, but now I can categorize them as trash thoughts and I am breaking the old mind habits.

I exist. I feel. And I have needs. It felt good feeling good.

From the New Point of View, I feel more empowered to stand up to Middle Sister and make it clear to her that I will not tolerate certain aspects of her behavior. I will not become spineless and out of focus by her tactics.

I have already started this process, going point to point (connect the dots style) per each behavior insult event rather than a huge confrontation right from the start. (For example, she started the habit of inviting herself last year.) This gives her the chance to figure it out and change, but also sidesteps her already diminishing dismissal of my "saving things up for a big explosion just like _girlfriend does". Fine, I won't do it big style then, but it'll still get done . This helps me stay in adult mode anyway, so it is better for me .

On Middle Sister changing: we know she won't sincerely change herself, but she might change to live within my tolerances-just barely toe the line. She needs to preserve the holy grail of family ties (since she is single/no children-or otherwise would be alone on holidays?). But I think these alterations are temporary for the immediate present circumstance-an act just to get through the day. The tension is noticeable and: childish- "well, I did what you wanted" attitude.

I am lucky to have the support of my Oldest Sister. She said point blankly to me the other day that she will not be beyond asking (umm...telling) Middle Sister to leave if she starts her matriarchal hi-jinks when "helping" me when the baby comes. I agreed.

www.alice-miller.com have finally managed a link!

Also Kaz33 and Oneplusone,

I am happy for you both for your breakthroughs.
I know this road is a rocky one with ups and downs. The realizations and breakthroughs give genuine hope and that goes to your core and lets you know that healing is happening. {{{hugs}}} to you. It is like Springtime in January.

I just started Toxic Parents last night. Oldest Sister and I agree that OS was abused (emotional, physical), I was neglected (ignored, unloved), and Middle Sister was the "golden child" thus her NPD. Since OS and I can recognize our childhood pain we have a chance and are healing. But MS may never see it, admit it, and probably will never heal .

I told you Monday was good, but Monday night was not. Oldest Sister told me MS told her of a circumstance that MS has created. (MS told it to me a while back, but the full force of it didn't hit me until now since I have a better understanding of what is going on). I see it now as a NPD mechanism.

I'm not a psychologist, but can't help but feel this could probably go in the Narcissistic Personality Disorder hall of fame.

Brief history: My father occasionally played the lottery and he said if he ever 'hit it big' he'd split it evenly 4 ways (himself and 3 daughters).

Present: Middle Sister is playing his numbers (he passed on in 1998) and has said that she will split a jackpot three ways. I suppose to honor father's memory (and that is fine). I don't know how much she is investing in this, but Dad would only play if the jack pot was enormous.

Now the NPD part. When she was doing her will, she spoke to the attorney about setting up trust funds for lottery winnings, just in case she wins.

When she told me this - a year or two ago- I said "What did the attorney say about it?"-she said the attorney said-"You don't really expect to win the lottery do you?" And Middle Sister laughed it off with "oh not really, but just in case". I didn't have anything to say so gave a stock answer-"well, that's nice", shrug, change subject.

What kept me up at night-you can guess.
On the one hand, if she did win, she'd have put rules and conditions on the trusts to have control over her 'gift' (something she does or tries to do when giving regular gifts). She would have the perception of owning us, manifesting in tangible terms- forcing Oldest Sister and I to acknowledge- her powerful Matriarchal status. BTW, this would not be an honor to father's memory, but rather a disgrace to it.

That was bad enough, but then it hit me-"We must use those little grey cells"...(I'm a Poirot fan )...
On the other hand, she is projecting and attempting to draw OS and I into this future grandiose fantasy for control over us in the present. We'd better behave in case she wins the lottery.

Have I assessed this correctly? What should I say if/when she brings it up again?

If the lottery thing would happen, I decided in the restless night to turn it down - so she has drawn me in (lost sleep over it ). My resolve would be to say: "Give the gift with no restrictions or control if you truly want to honor Dad". Her way or the highway: highway-she can't buy me. This is a detachment challenge because we can all use money and she's counting on it.

What she is doing is desperate, an escalation of scale, and she is turning into a mean *itch.
infinity.
I really don't want to hate her. THAT may be from the Old Point of View. So I have to face that.

Crap sister, crap sister, crap sister.

Presently, this gives me more motivation to detach under easier circumstances, and empowers my New Point of View considerably.

Toomany - its so wierd, your story to a person not in your life my sound paranoid of just funny. But to you who knows how the pain and control works it is something else.

That's how it works almost, because you have to step back and add up a lifetime of little and large incidents before you get a full picture of the abuse and pain.

I had my older brother over tonight to fill him in on my journey. He was lovely, driving an hour to see me, listening, agreeing our childhood was not ideal. But he was full of denial, didn't see the whole picture. He was not in a position to join me on a personal journey or to see that his childhood affected his relationships now - his NPD wife replacing his NPD mother, his detached relationship with his daugher. He didn't charetercise it is abuse, just not quite ideal in lots of ways - no one is perfect.

Right kaz33...
Sounding paranoid and ridiculous to outsiders is what NPD person is counting on. That is an endless support system of people in her corner-on her team, so to speak.
This denies my self-esteem, self existence, my validity, etc, etc. and leads to the conclusion that I am the one with a "problem".
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I read somewhere this is why the insane asylums often had many sane people, because the NPDs and their powerful, overwhelming tactics were successful in deflecting the attention away from themselves and onto their target. What a power trip that would be: having someone committed who protested the toxic treatment so the NPD would avoid their own sickness being exposed.
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This is why control is executed on broad planes as well as (and perhaps more importantly) on the subtle, small, 'a little bit at a time' plane (a la 'who could object to that little bit'- manipulation technique).
You are imagining things-diminishing brush off.

God Forbid the diminished ones should have their own brain . That is getting far too close to having their own MEMORY and putting the puzzle pieces of pain together. Then the jig is up and they have the problem of finding a new target.

Sorry, quick and no preview on this post.
DH home.

So difficult, this. My own parents long dead and I have my own family but the memories still haunt me, of violence and emotional distance. My Mother was brought up in an orhanage of Dickensian horrors and my Dad was an illigitimate child in the 20s. His Mum was a settled Gypsy so they faced terrible prejudice. Both had lots of love in them but also violence and anger which we 9 kids suffered from. Our childhood were marked with physical and in some cases, my own included, sexual abuse. My brothers still react to great stress with violence. I am lucky to have got out but whilst I do grieve for the happy childhool I did not have, I am trying to understand and forgive their own sad, deprived backgrounds and the hard, hard life they had; I will never work as hard as they did for the basics of life. This is only my story but it so easy to allow the poison to leak into your own life and destroy it. We should not allow it. I find myself sometimes repeating some of their behaviours with my son (verbal harshness only) and I check myself. I know I am a product of my upbringing but we can change if we try. Its hard though. I have spent many night sitting up going through it but dont want the past to overwhelm me.

Kaz, its good that you can talk to your brother, but a shame he's not able to take this journey My brothers are the same. Its frustrating because you know if they did, they'd have the insight to make changes in their lives. But as much as I'd love to put energy into "helping" my brothers, that would be energy I'd be taking away from DD and DH. SO I've kind of given up on them in the sense of hoping they see things from my point of view, and just show them I love them.

Oneplusone, I think its really great that all these thoughts are swirling around in your head. You are way past being like your mother because the main thing that is hurting everyone on here is the denial of the abuse, rather than memories of the abuse itself. You have gone way past the stage where you could deny your problems to your DD. And by the fact you are an insightful (sp?) and an obviously sensitive person, I doubt your DD is as badly affected as you believe, at least I'm sure she's not hurting as much as you were, because she has a mother with insight. And as I say, just try to act. Catch her eye, give her a smile, even if it feels fake. Try to do something together with her- it may seem scary because of the fear it will feel forced and fake, but honestly if the intention is there, then that goes a long way IMO. God, sometimes I have to fake affection with my husband because the relationship feels so empty sometimes, but if I generally make the effort, then some emotion tends to follow...

toomany, I think you'Ve analysed your sister perfectly. SAm Vaknin talks about this. He says that if the narcissist starts to realise they are not superiour beings and they don't have complete power over others, then they shift fron the realm of reality to the realm of fantasy. This is what your sister has done. Well done for stepping back, taking a deep breath and realising what she is doing. ITs so easy to get sucked it and believe their world. They make you believe that their reality is reality.
DHs family is like this. They are very grandiose regarding societal status, to the point of fantasy, I believe (they used to have money but they lost it). BIL and his wife live with the parents in a huge house and the wife treats me as though I'm a piece of dirt on her shoe because I'm so "inferiour". Which is bizzare, because I know her and my husband's wages are about the same (family company), and I have a couple of degrees and future earning potential and I work a bit now, and she has none of this, so really the only reason she is "superiour" is because she sponges off MIL and FIL. But for a while I believed that MIL and SIL were incredibly superiour to me , simply because they tried early on to put me in my place and get me into their world. NPD can affect groups, that is how effective narcissists are. So they are living in one big bubble of fake grandioseness. If I was a lesser person , I would be just waiting for the inevitable day they fall flat on their face and have to realise they are "just like everyone else".

Partsky, it must be so difficult to do this work if your parents have passed away. But you sound really far along in this process, and that you have worked a lot out in your head. I hope we can be of use to you.