I don’t understand how they could do this to me.

[TeenageDirtbaggage]

I’ve Nc for this because it’s very outing and I don’t want it to be linked to other posts.

I woke up from a random dream about my teenage years yesterday and just started sobbing with rage. I’ll try to keep it brief or it’ll be really boring for people.

When I was 17 I ‘moved in’ with my boyfriend and his parents. Home wasn’t a great place to be, lots and lots of arguments and much younger siblings who were prioritised.

I stayed there for about a year. In that time my parents moved house; to a bigger house in a different town. My three siblings had a bedroom each, I wasn’t allocated one.

When they boyfriend inevitably dumped me (because we were teenagers and never going to be together forever), I was allowed to move in with my family at the new house. But I wasn’t even allowed to share a bedroom, I had to sleep on the horrible thin sofa bed and live out of a suitcase.

I got a job in the local pub but wasn’t allowed a front door key. So I’d have to ring the doorbell at midnight. One night I came home and my stuff was in bin bags on the front step. I stayed at a friends that night and then next day my mother told me she couldn’t have me there any more, I was disturbing my younger siblings and her with my late night lifestyle; so I’d have to leave. I was 18 and I’d been there about three weeks.

I then spent over a year sofa surfing and sleeping rough. It was awful. I got into drugs, and often traded sex for food/a bed. I called home on Christmas Eve when I had exhausted all options for that night to be told I’d ‘made my bed and had to lie in it’. I spent that night sleeping rough.

I eventually got out of the situation by doing a residential volunteering job 300 miles away. Unfortunately I then got involved with an abusive man who I married. Had two children by my early twenties. I escaped him and moved home and to my parents credit I lived with them for a few months and they helped me with a deposit to rent a flat. But they did that more for my kids than me, I suspect I’d have had no help otherwise.

I have some quite severe MH issues (bpd diagnoses later amended to Bipolar 2) and I’m very sure this was triggered by the trauma of my period of homelessness and abuse.

It’s not something I usually dwell on. I have a great life now, wonderful husband, the kids are adults and thriving, I have a great job which I enjoy.

DD now is doing a very similar thing, practically living with her boyfriend. I just can’t imagine moving house without her, let alone seeing her out on the street.

I just think, what chance did I have? My sister had the luxury of living at home to save for a mortgage, my much younger siblings were both given hefty deposits (same parents btw). My mother in particular is very critical of my lifestyle, and I’ve largely gone very low contact, no big announcements, I’ve just pulled back a bit.

I popped in to see my sister the other day and my entire family were there for Sunday lunch. That stung a bit. I just feel like they have always judged me for my choices in life but actually I didn’t have many choices. It was only in my late twenties that I started to make any good decisions and now in my forties I have qualifications, own a house, have a career. They take the piss out of me for this all the time, my sister in particular because I’m not a high earner. But how, at 18, with no money and no home was I supposed to do ANYTHING with my life? It’s hard to hold down a job when you have nowhere to sleep (believe me I tried) and you can’t rent anywhere without money. It was even really hard to claim benefits when you are No Fixed Abode. It was fucked up.

I clawed my way out of homelessness but was left fucked up and vulnerable and I’m just so angry about it now, I’ve always blamed myself but now I have kids the same sort of age it’s really hitting home. I mean, my DD in particular can be vile to me, she’s even stolen from me. My worst behaviour was coming home late from work ffs.

How can I get over this anger? It’s like it’s suddenly hit me and I keep rage crying about.

Shit, that’s long. I appreciate anyone who wades through that pity party. Just needed to get it out there I think.

I think your family were (and still are) despicably cruel and abusive towards you. How anybody could treat their own child like this is beyond me, and there is absolutely no excuse for their behaviour. They made you their victim and the family scapegoat.

You need to get angry. Angry with the way they treated you, and still blame you for everything. They are utterly loathsome, and to be honest, the best thing you could ever do is to completely cut them out of your life altogether and go no-contact.

Agree that your family have made you the scapegoat and identified patient. There's a shed load of dysfunction going on from what you describe.

Dysfunctional families often pick someone to carry all the blame and can go so far as to literally drive them away to feel better about themselves. Ironically it's often the mentally strongest that is selected as resilience is required to withstand that level of abuse.

What can happen though, is tension builds up within the family and either a new scapegoat is selected or the original scapegoat is invited back to take the blame. Is that what's happened to you here? It doesn't change and unfortunately the only way to deal with this is to keep away, to protect your own MH.

Your anger is justified. They have not been a family to you and probably won't ever be. Why keep trying? Better to grieve the family you never had and celebrate your success despite the awful childhood you experienced. You deserve better.

Thé below is an extract from online but rings true in this situation;it happened to me;I was targeted by my abusive father since the day I walked out the door at 18;my two younger siblings (7&10 years younger) have no idea of the abuse I endured as they were too young to notice.

People often assume that abusive people mistreat everyone, but some discriminate in their abuse. It's what experts call the "Cinderella phenomenon," which is when one child in a family is singled out and abused while other children are not.

Wow, they were horrible to you and you did not deserve that.

they have scapegoated you and projected all of their fears and repressed emotions on to you.

I would treat yourself to (more) therapy. I had q second round of therapy after thinking ten years ago id benefited from the first round. But it's ongoing. It's good to go back for more.

My parents were nowhere near as cruel as yr parents but I cannot live with their projections so I don't contact them. Although they weren't contacting me either tbh. It's submit to our narrative that you're mad bad and angry or be ostracised from the family and I think they haven chosen to ostracise me rather than listen to me and I have chosen to stay ostracised rather than to keep begging them to show empathy and give me some understanding they know they hurt me.

We are all made to feel that any family is better than no family but sometimes no family is better for our peace of mind.

It's not like they'd help you in yr hour of need.

Xxx

You know what to do if they come to you ever to ask for you to care for them when they are older. Tell them that they have made their bed now lie in it.

OMG the mad bad and angry narrative thing is spot on. Whenever I’ve tried to bring any of this up I’ve been made to feel that way.

I started pulling away about five years after coming home, they’d been almost over involved up until then through me meeting DH, buying a house down the road from them, having our youngest. (The thing about inviting the scapegoat back in resonates hugely here). We went to theirs for Christmas as always. I was breastfeeding a three month old. As always I had asked what I could do to help with the Xmas prep and was told nothing. Huge deal every year with weeks of food prep and drama. Like every year my role was washing up. I couldn’t physically do it that year as I was permanently feeding but was told I was lazy and not contributing. I told them to fuck off, dh and I grabbed the kids and went home. That was the last Xmas we ever spent with them.

It’s still talked about as the year I had a tantrum and ruined Christmas.

I’m so sorry you went through this.
I would suggest therapy and look at boundaries. Some people do
not know how to deal with conflict. If they are still letting you down maybe look
at why?

Also I have spent my adult life believing I’m broken and bad and that creeps into my life now still; I can be hugely self destructive at times because I struggle to think I deserve the life I have. I’m very fortunate that dh gets me and work value me because fuck me I’ve given them both enough reason to cast me adrift.

This is interesting,I’m 50 and have kids that are young adults,I’m also currently mentally struggling,due to similar issues to you ,also on waiting list to be diagnosed with autism,but equally BPD fits .
it really does seem to be effecting me more now ,than ever before ,at the time I just got on with it and coped as best I could
but now I look back and wonder if my parents ever loved me at all.
i also married an emotionally abusive man ,but I’ve yet to find a way to leave .
I’ve had countless counselling and 2 lots of CBT ,nothing works ,it’s all tightly packed in my head and any therapy is like lifting a lid of a box of frogs .
im very frustrated my parents moved on with their lives with out giving my mental health a second thought.
I think people can only take so much difficulty in their lives ,before it starts to effect them mentally,.if you leave a pot on boil for long enough,it will eventually boil over ..
for me .the answer is to find peace within myself and learn to love and value myself ,something I have no idea where to start doing .

good luck op ,it was a difficult childhood and early adult hood for you ,but you smashed it ,you pulled it out of the bag ,you survived despite your parents 💐

I'm sorry they treated you so horribly. How strong you must be to get where you are now, from that start.
Have you considered therapy? I am a huge believer in talk therapy (although it's not for everyone).

@LondonWolf I did the same...got married at just 21 to get away from my parents, was divorced before I was 25. It was made clear to me that getting married was the only 'acceptable' way to leave for a young Catholic woman, and they would disown me if I lived with my boyfriend... (looking back they would have been doing me a massive favour).

I had a massive nervous breakdown after the divorce, was diagnosed with bipolar 2. My father left my mother for another woman less than a week after I got married. That was 30 years ago, my mother only accepted my bipolar diagnosis about 5 years ago...I've also recently been diagnosed with C-PTSD.

I understand the anger so well...since I turned 40 mine has bothered me more and more. Even though I haven't had children of my own, looking at my partners/friends relationships with their families, I can't understand why my parents were just so shit. They had no excuse, they both came from wealthy families and have never struggled financially themselves. I think what @gotelltheoldmandowntheroad has said is so simple it's the truth - shit people become/make shit parents.

I’ve had loads of therapy but mainly around me and my responses to things (STEPPS for BOD and then another follow on course after that; really helpful for maladaptive behaviours) but nothing to address what led me to those behaviours. I will definitely look for some therapy to look at all this, it seems to have crept up and overwhelmed me in the last two days and I’m so full of anger and sadness. I think especially having similar issues with my DD as my mother had with me, and knowing I wouldn’t deal with it by cutting her out, has brought it all up.

BPD not BOD, sorry.

Op

Look into "rewind therapy ".

Then go no
Contact.

Worked for me on both counts .
Best of luck x

I went through something very similar op. No advice as I still struggle with it. But solidarity. It's hard.

I don’t know how anyone could do that. It’s just unimaginable to do that to someone, particularly your own child. Some people are just horrible.

I'm so sorry you went through all that @TeenageDirtbaggage and you should be very, very proud of what you've achieved against the odds and without help.

I hope you don't mind me asking, but was the possibility of C-PTSD ever explored properly or did you just get the BPD diagnosis?

I’ve never looked at CPTSD, no. Starting to think I should.

From one family scapegoat to another I’m sorry this happened to you, if you feel able call them out on it every time, don’t let this narrative continue it’s so bad for your mh and self esteem. Remind your siblings that DN is the same age as I was when I was thrown to the wolves can you imagine doing that to your child, give a voice to what happened to you. Delighted you’re happy now

This is not dissimilar to what happened to me. I think my parents had very different expectations on me as the eldest, just really thought that as a teenager I was grown and if I didn't follow the rules could move out. Looking back I was so young and had not a clue (I was 16 years old). But I was too proud to tell them I was basically NFA, that I just really struggled with the rules. Got mental health diagnosis and ADHD diagnosis now, but also think I may have Bipolar 2. I just couldn't stick to their rules, and I felt like I had no choice but to make my own way (into the hands of an older man with a lot of issues who got me into drugs and drink). I know I was a nightmare to live with (still am) but they have also said they wouldn't have done that to me had they had any experience with troubled teenagers (and didn't with my siblings). We are close now, and as a parent now I can see that we are al just doing our best with what We've got, and we only know what we know. A lot of people told my parents to have a 'hard line' with me. I did feel rejected and like I was in the way (when I left they also had enough bedrooms). It was an era of 'brat camp' on the TV and 'taking no nonsense' and I think they did think they were doing the right thing and I would grow up once I was responsible for myself. Unfortunately I just did not have the skills I need to adult properly (I still struggle tbh) so I didn't rise up, I fell down in the gutter and the people I met down there definitely did not have my best interests to heart. I have seen other troubled kids, turn it around once the shit hits the fan, but for me I just couldn't cope with any of it and tried to find ways to escape and relationships with the wrong kind of people were dysfunctional and a bit toxic.

I've done a lot of work on myself, I'm a really kind person (though not always to myself) and I try really hard to constantly improve things for myself and my kids, but I do feel like I'm working against the odds after a Rocky start. I forgive them entirely, but can also see it messed me up. Because none of us are perfect parents, and they had their own shit to deal with and although their decision may have been wrong for me, they were trying to work in everyone's interests. And I was a proper little shit, not gonna lie. It's just they didn't know that was mental health and ADHD, they thought I was just a pain in the arse

It might be an idea. I think the relationship/interplay/similarities between aspects of both is becoming more recognised.

Oh OP your story is heartbreaking. They didn't deserve you.
From experience I doubt you will ever get any apology or even an acknowledgement of how they treated you. People like that rewrite history. They'll change events/reasons and turn it all on you & they'll convince each other they were always in the right. It's so fucked up. I get it. Too many of us do.
Be kind to yourself. Something has clearly triggered these memories to resurface so take time to process them, maybe talk them through with someone. Look at what you have achieved & who you are and be proud. Please distance yourself as much as possible from these toxic people.
I'm so happy your life is now happier.

Reading through I wondered if you were a planned child? Did your mother have pnd or other issues bonding with you?

Similar happened to me, very, very similar, and I was in near enough the same situation as you. It was horrendous and I’ve honestly never come across anyone who has been through something like me. Anyone else I knew seemed to have parents that loved them to death and no matter what they did or how “bad” their behaviour was, their parents would’ve never taken away their home or stability at such a young age. It has been so hard to feel alone and like no one relates or understands, but reading your post and some of the responses, I feel seen, I feel less alone, and understood - and I hope you do too, OP.

I never actually did anything that was bad enough to justify being kicked out at such a young age. I wasn’t actually bad at all. After being picked on relentlessly, always made the fall guy and the scapegoat for years and years, I just stopped trying. I just avoided my parents, stayed out of their way, spent as much time as I could out. My siblings didn’t have to try so damn hard for approval or “love.” They could be all the things I wasn’t and they would still be treated with kindness. Whereas, I’d be overcompensating, day in, day out and it never got me anywhere. With me, it was always conditional, my best was never good enough, I was never freely accepted and welcomed and included. It kills your spirit.

And I think that’s the worst thing, that you’re labelled horrible things - dangerous, out of control, angry - because they have to come up with something you did that is “bad enough” that other people in the community agree with them. When you’ve been set up to be viewed in a way that’s negative because it benefits their agenda, which is to pin all of the dysfunction on you because it’s easier that way than to acknowledge their own shortcomings; and when you’re being treated unfairly constantly, you do begin to act a little bit like you’re crazy - because you’re so exasperated and exhausted of everybody making out you’re the bad guy when you know you’re not. The more you try to defend yourself, and the more you realise what’s actually happening, that you’re taking the blame for their abuse and neglect, they label you as volatile and aggressive.

It’s like everyone in your family is all in on this elaborate lie, this denial of truth. Everyone dancing around the elephant in the room. And your siblings just go along with it, because 1) they’ve never been treated poorly or unfairly in the way you have, and 2) it’s an easy life for them if they agree with your parents, and reflect back to them what they want to see.

When it’s not true, and it’s your word against your whole family but it suits them and their fake narrative - that they’re all perfect and none of them have any issues and any issues they do have all stems from you, because you’re so troubled and weird and unlike the rest of the them and you’re just always causing problems - it is the loneliest, most painful thing in the world. Having to walk around feeling such shame when you know you don’t deserve it, being thrust in unsafe situations that don’t actually align with your heart, your true self and your actual actions. Punishments that aren’t deserved, become your reality, and you’re just there in this nightmare scenario with no one to turn to.

I’m so, so happy that you are married, and you have a supportive partner who loves you. You are so brave, so strong, and remember this: you survived. The way they treat you is a reflection of them, not you. Never, ever feel like it’s your fault. And never ever let them win.

Firstly OP, bloody well done for getting your life back on track, you must have so much resilience, you're one of life's survivors and you are amazing for what you've done. It's likely that your survival skills have allowed you to tolerate and maintain a relationship with terrible people who really don't deserve you.

You have every right to your anger and maybe it's a good thing you found it. It's often much later in our lives that we realise who our parents really are/were. Suggestions of no contact are good, likely best for your mental health if you choose that route. I would have no shame in stating factually what happened to you and how you have been treated if you do maintain contact. You'll likely just face scorn and a history where they are all fabulous and you are the weird outsider. You know the truth. Maintain a cold strength and don't take one word back, judge and shame them 'what kind of mother would refuse to let their teenage kid in on Christmas Eve and leave them to sleep on the streets?'.