Questions about childhood / relationship with mother

[Knitternatter]

Hi, sorry for the long post. I was hoping I could get some perspective on this. I feel that my childhood has greatly impacted my life now, I think it would be fair to class my childhood as abusive but the only other person that would be able to confirm this is my sister and she won’t talk about it. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking recently and feel that my low self esteem and anxiety may well be a result of this (but I’m not sure). Would you class the below as abusive? I also feel so strongly that I don’t want to parent my DS the way I was parented or make him feel the way I did. For info I grew up with just my mum and older sister - no other parent involved.

1. We would be hit with a leather belt as punishment. I don’t remember much of this but I do remember it was my sister that bore the main brunt of it until one day she buried it in the back garden.

1. A lot of what I think is emotional abuse. Being told by my mum that she wished she never had us. I can’t remember her ever telling us she loved us. Locking us out of the house for hours at a time. A regular favourite punishment of hers was to send us to bed for DAYS on end. This meant no books, playing etc just lying in bed all day. We were called down for meals then sent back up again. I actually had to sneak out of the house to sit one of my GCSEs as I had been sent to bed for the day that I had my exam and when I told her she told me I wasn’t allowed to go (I waited for her to go to work and snuck out). I remember spending my 9th birthday in bed. She would also get really cross sometimes and smash picture frames with our pictures in etc on the floor.

1. Just weird punishments really. I remember once I must have been about 11 or 12 and I stole my sisters tampons. I didn’t know what to do with them and so tried using them, then ended up hiding them in my drawer. When she found out she cut all my hair off (she did take me to the hairdresser to rectify it but the only thing they could do was give me a pixie cut as it was so short). I remember once when I was about 5 she had arranged a birthday party for me. My sister did something on the morning (can’t remember what and it wouldn’t have been that bad as we were both terrified of her). She cancelled the party and told me it was my sisters fault. Several times she gave away our pets as a punishment for something. She made my sister go to school in her pyjamas once when she was 14 as a punishment.

1. When I was a teenager she refused to acknowledge me in the mornings quite regularly, I would say good morning and be ignored. She would also pull up at the house after work and end up sitting in the car reading a paper for at least an hour regularly before coming in and would then give me the silent treatment. We could never really afford holidays and had 3 that I remember, but once we went camping in Cornwall (about a 6 hour drive away). I asked if I could set the tent up as I was really excited to do it. I did it but set it facing the wind apparently - she ordered me to pack it up, she packed everything back in the car and drove the 6 hours back home in silence. I once poured sour, mouldy milk on my cereal (didn’t realise it had gone off). She made me eat it. Got a summer job once when I was 16 and got myself an expensive sporty coat with some of my wages - the same day she made me clear up the dogs shit with it so obviously it went in the bin. I wasn’t allowed to brush my teeth for a week once at primary school.

1. Just a lot of random stuff really. I think she got pleasure out of seeing me disappointed. I remember once I asked if I could go out to the youth club with some friends (rarely got to do things like that as I wasn’t allowed to other peoples houses and we weren’t allowed friends over to ours so didn’t see friends out of school). To my surprise she said yes so I got ready and was really excited, then just before I was about to leave she asked how I was going to pay to get in with a smile on her face (I had no pocket money so no way of paying the fee to get in and so couldn’t go).

1. She would send us off on ‘hunts’ for various things around the house for hours as she was sure we had taken them. They never turned up and we had never taken them in the first place.

For reference we were good kids, we didn’t do anything really awful as like I said we were petrified of her. The punishments etc were for things such as bickering with each other or leaving light switches on etc.

Now I’ve read it back it doesn’t actually seem that bad but would appreciate thoughts.

@Knitternatter

Hello, thank you for your reply. No I’ve not had any therapy, I have been wondering if this could be helpful for me, but I find it quite difficult talking about myself. I will look it up thank you, I think maybe some sort of counselling would be helpful.

I guess when I read it back it just doesn’t seem as bad as what I had made it out to be in head when written down, but i obviously haven’t put everything. I guess I just don’t want to attribute everything I feel is wrong with me now as a result of her parenting as I know she loved us but I think she had her own problems. I’m no contact with her now, she stopped talking to me years ago after I mentioned something from our childhood but still sees my sister.

Knitter, it does sound awful. You shouldn't minimise how you feel. I would definitely recommend that you have some sort of counselling or therapy to go through was was an abusive childhood.

It's such a shame that nobody else knew or helped you. And I'm sure you will be an amazing mother to your child and fill their life with love.