Hi everyone. Long term lurker (cutted up pear etc), rarely post. But I lurk and read here because of the wisdom of so many women – I hope you can help.
I’ll try to be brief, but basically it looks like I’m finally going NC with my parents after years of wanting to. I suppose what I hope from this post is reassurance that I’m not horrible for doing it? And can anyone give any advice or handholding?
It’s long, sorry, so here is a tl;dr:
I’ve had issues with my parents for years – physically and emotionally abusive childhood plus lots of criticism and judgement in adulthood. It all came to a head in August; I didn’t get in touch; today I rang them after a tearful voicemail was left on my phone on Saturday morning. The call went as one would expect in these circumstances, now I want to go full NC.
Obviously you’re only getting my side of things, so I’m trying to put the black and white stuff down:
I was hit and screamed at every day. It was mostly my mum, but my dad did a lot of it too. I have tried since aged 18 to forget about it, but my mum in particular is just… spiteful, and sometimes downright nasty. I’ve felt belittled, criticised and judged by them my whole life.
Mum preferred my older brother (not sibling rivalry, she was the same with grandson versus granddaughters). I was ‘a wee bitch’, a ‘cheeky madam’ etc. When I was 8 or 9 I finally got the courage up to tell her I knew she didn’t love me and preferred my brother. She reassured me. Next day she mocked and challenged me over it at the dinner table.
I’ve been called a slut and a whore by them on several occasions since aged 15. Called fucking useless, called a bitch, a fat bitch, told to ‘get out of my sight’. I was grounded at 14 for carrying a ghetto blaster (ah, the 80s), because I ‘looked like a slut’. Mum gleefully told me one night when I was 19 ‘Your dad thinks you’re a slut!’ because I had asked her advice about condoms.
I was sexually assaulted and almost raped at 29 (only saved by my neighbour kicking the door in). How my parents reacted to it I think is a good illustration of how they think about me and what our relationship is. They love me, they’re proud of me… but only on paper. They offered to fly me home immediately, come to court with me, yet when my mum got drunk a few weeks later, she said it was my own fault because I’m a whore.
I have never been able to tell them about boyfriends – my dad sees a new relationship on my part as my ‘jumping into bed with someone else’.
My mum had/has a difficult marriage. (I don't absolve my dad from blame either.) But she really took it out on me. I literally cried every day from being hit (I remember on my sixth birthday thinking I was a big girl now and shouldn’t cry; I still did.) It wasn’t a ‘tap on the hand after running into traffic’; I’ve spoken to a counsellor who said if I was a child telling him now he would ring social services. My dad let it happen, also hit me, and joined enthusiastically in the slut comments. Our house was like walking on eggshells.
Other little things – snapshots and comments:
18: after getting three As in my A levels while all my friends at 15 had dropped out and were now either pregnant or mothers. Mum – of course, she’s brilliant academically, it’s just a pity she lets herself down in every other way.
9: urine infection, too scared to tell Mum, hit when I wet my knickers
Get out of my sight
Cheeky fucking bitch
Fat bitch
Don’t give her anything to do you know she’s fucking useless
And lots more.
I really can never believe people like me or that I have friends!
It came to a head in August over what would probably seem like a minor row (over my wish to get another tattoo, this time to commemorate a loved one). We haven’t spoken since, but I got a text at the end of November then a voicemail last week asking me to get in touch.
I rang today.
I don’t blame my mother for being defensive and off cuff, but the call just crystallised the issue for me. She picked at chronology (You couldn’t have heard me calling you a fucking wee bitch, because your dates don’t fit), said she’d never called me a slut, and said she was hurt too.
They 'didn’t mean' to hurt me.
But they did.
Advice, please?