November 2022 - well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

This is the latest thread, please feel free to write as much or as little as you please.

I'm not sure but I feel that my therapist just 'gets' me and the situation. I also often feel like it must be in my head since others, including family members, don't seem to notice or be bothered by it... but again, my therapist is helping me to see that it isn't normal and it isn't me. I'm looking forward to not hoping that it might be different and then being disappointed and hurt when it isn't

I am completely distraught.

My father (flying monkey) called me from mother's phone. His first wirds were: you can't do this to us, that you don't want to have anything to do with us?

I never said to them I'd go NC - interesting that they concluded that for themselves.

Mother sat next to him sobbing, I did not see her, only heard her.

What followed was a long discussion (stupid, I know). He asked what my problem was, I told him, etc. He tried to listen, but mother interjected 'I am not going to go over what was 20 years ago; that did not happen; who does anything like you are claiming? etc... whilst I spoke. Typical narc. No hint of accountability.

The feeling of guilt and loss was immense, so I shamefully gave them some illusion that there would be some future for our relationship. I feel like a con artist. But my main problem is with my mother and, as usual, anything I said was complete nonsense according to her. Interesting also that she felt the need to interject 'at the right moments' whilst I was talking, i.e. she knew exactly when I referred to her problematic behaviour.

I told them I have no idea where to go from here, that I am busy looking after myself.

I have lived abroad for the past 20 years and they always think I am lonely here and I should be near them. Like they are desperately trying to remain in denial about the fact that I pretty much fled from what was supposed to be my home.

They are emotionally stunted. My father says they'll work on things, but I know it will not happen unless they go to therapy for the next 10 years, which won't happen.

I basically relapsed by answering their call. I need to work through the feelings around this to finally free myself from the guilt and their expectations.

It's hard.

@Twatalert - I am so sorry you are being put through the mincer like this. It's incredibly painful. That phone call must have been awful for you.

This might have to be your line-in-the-sand moment, when you resolve to yourself NO MORE OF THIS and throw in the towel.

Narcissistic/toxic behaviour always ramps up when the abuser realises they've gone too far or are about to lose power over their victim. This is what is happening now. It's designed to make you change your mind and step back into line where you belong (in their eyes).

I hope you find the strength to drop the rope and walk away.

It's really hard, but it gets easier as time passes and you begin to heal yourself.

Leave your parents to sort out their co-dependent, manipulative, enabling mess themselves. You're a grown-up now and can choose to live your life however you wish. You owe them nothing, but you definitely owe it to yourself to remove toxic people from your life.

And just a reminder that Dr Ramani on YouTube has some excellent insights on toxic / narcissist family dynamics.

@Sicario thank you for taking the time to reply.

You are right about them ramping up their game when they realise they have gone too far. I was thinking this in the past few days, but didn't expect it to escalate in that moment. I now know I answered the phone because I felt pressure to do so. I have had a few missed calls from my mother over the past months, and they became more frequent at weird times of the day the less I engaged. So the pressure was already there in the weeks beforehand and I hadn't dealt with it.

Thank you for your recommendation. I have a recommendation too: check out the account of Marnie Grundman on tiktok. I have utmost respect for her.

I'm going to try and soothe myself now and hope to find good sleep tonight.

Wishing all survivors much love and strength.

It took me a while to get the courage and share my story as well, I was following this thread for a while now.

only after having my own child I realised how mean my mom was and that something about our relationship was so so wrong all these years.
my mom and I we had more friends relationship rather than mother-daughter one.
but she always reminded me with sentences like “I’m your mother don’t forget it, I know you better than you know yourself”.
since leaving home my anxiety and panic attacks begin (never experienced these before).
when I asked my mother what it meant she just said to me “ohh..just ignore it, it’s nothing serious”.

She never talked to me directly, if I ever wanted to know how she really feels about something that I’ve done, I would try to listen to her conversation and what she would say about it to her friend on the phone (sometimes she would call on purpose to that friend just so I’ll hear her conversation and feel guilty).

So i never put a lot of attention to it, as it didnt bother me that much, I knew from a very young age that this is wrong, that something isn’t right in our family dynamics.

Me and my husband we were 10 years together before our first baby arrived.
All that time my mom would bother me with the same question all the time “ when you are planning to have kids?”, “you will miss your opportunity to become a mother and it is such a wonderful thing”, “I always had a dream of been a grandmother before 50, don’t you care about me enough?” And so on… (I really suffered with this topic and her attitude because we were trying for a while and it was heart breaking for me - I never told her that but I did put her in to place as this is not her business).
When me and my husband announced our pregnancy I genuinely thought it would make her happy and she will change, WRONG!
She become even more impossible and judgmental.
after the birth i really felt that something is wrong, I was controlled by her remotely(she lives in a different country and it was during Covid) it’s like she was in my head constantly.
She did judge me a lot, never said even one good word, and my self esteem was not existent at some point.
She always tried to find a flaw in my baby and point it as it was my fault.
I was searching for her approval almost on everything but I also was trying to fight her ideas.

Now I’m much aware of what she is and who she is and I went NC about couple of months ago.

The guilt is still there though and I’m looking for ways to heal from her in my life.

I know the Story is a bit long, but any suggestion how to heal and where to start would be amazing.

Thank you!

Dr. Ramani’s YouTube channel is amazing, thank you.

Hello @SysEngMom and welcome to the gang. The guilt you are experiencing after going NC is totally normal. It's a horrible feeling, isn't it? But it does get easier as time passes. Well done on going NC. It's not easy. Emotional detachment is key to the healing process, and do read up about FOG (fear, obligation and guilt). The website outofthefog is a good place to start.

@SysEngMom guilt is entirely normal. I feel no guilt now about cutting ties with Toxic MIL. You can work through the pain.

@Twatalert yep, they love ramping up the shit to get a reaction.

Jesus H Christ. I could kill The Hag.

After a break of a week or so where I stepped back. It may have been a week, it may have been a couple of days - who knows?

I just know it felt better.

Fast forward to yesterday. Mr Monkey was taking the fucking bitch for her appointment to get the skin cancer off her face, which she could have sorted two years ago, but, obviously, better to be a martyr. At that stage, she could have had ointment.

It's not serious skin cancer (sadly).

He was dreading the day.
He had to take his final day’s holiday (entitlement renews at end of March) to take the bitch to the appointment at the other side of Manchester.

She moaned about the taxi, she moaned in the taxi, she had strops about food, she had strops about waiting time. She was seen within two hours - the dept brought her in early, but there were some urgent cases. It is the NHS. It is in crisis. The Hag is always regaling us with stories of how her parents couldn't afford to take her to the doctors as she was born in 1937. She keeps bitching and kicking off about wanting to go home.

MM takes her home after the procedure. It starts bleeding when she's back in her lair. He says that she needs to go to A&E as instructed by the consultant if it bleeds.
Massive kick off about this. She's seen within TEN minutes by an A&E doctor, it's dressed and she's sent home. Cue more moaning.

When I say moaning it veers from screaming, to shouting, to putting her head down like a little kid.
She's HIDEOUS.

Mr Monkey phones her this morning to see if she's ok. Massive kick off about her laundry, with the expectation that he will drop everything - he's WORKING - to go round and do it for her.

Going forward she needs that doing by a carer OR Slave Son can take it to the laundrette where he has a service wash.

MM for ease says he’ll pick it up on Friday.

“You need your coat washing”
“What for?”
“It's got blood all over it”
“Then it needs washing”
She is probably wearing the bloody coat as some Catholic symbol of suffering.
“I haven't got another coat”
She has ONE other coat.
“Wear the summer one, you're not going out anywhere”
“I don't have any other clothes”

Who's fault is that? She refuses to go shopping. She threw her existing rags put in a bin sack away “accidentally” a couple of weeks ago.

She rings him this evening.

“Can you take me to the hospital in the morning as my face is bleeding”
“No, I'm working. You need to go now”

Shouting.

He has gone to her lair. She is now in A&E.

MM and I had a discussion last night.

I talk to social workers

He talks to Slave Son about doing some of he doctor’s, nurse, podiatrist appointments. Sadly, a Forensic Pyschiatrist is not yet on that list of medical appointments. But should be.

MM cannot take all this on. Slave Son, yes, is disabled but he's RETIRED.

The doctor’s surgery she attends is moved from a ten pound taxi ride each way to some where nearer and more convenient for both Slave Son and Mr Monkey in terms of time. She's moaned about that doctor for year's.
“But I've been going there for eighty years”

She's fucking sick in the head.

@MonkeyfromManchester I don't know how he puts up with her. Maybe he should send her a multipack of those disposable paper hazmat suits.

In the meantime, hoping your stress levels and MH are returning to some kind of even keel. Gin might be required.

Hi @Sicario it is awful! even that I know that she was so horrible to me, I still think I owe her but I’m trying to remind myself that if she was my friend I would never keep in touch with here. It’s just the thinking that she is my mother and she took (some sort of) care of me during the years.

@MonkeyfromManchester unfortunately I’m familiar with this kind the “never satisfied or happy”, I do have a theory that with their older years the narc’s condition gets even worse unfortunately.

@SysEngMom absolutely. Hag can't hit her children - and a couple of occasions put them in A&E - so she's ramped up the shit.

@Sicario shes totally undeserving. Even with mad bipolar episodes, I've NEVER behaved so badly.

My poor mum has Covid, sounded awful on the phone, lives alone BUT ISN’T FUCKING MOANING ABOUT IT. My mum hinted darkly over Xmas that she had a new spade, a big garden and thinks as a pillar of the local community she would get a shorter custodial sentence. Made me laugh a lot.

MM is home. The wine is opened.

Just told MM exactly how I feel. I have massive anxiety which is getting worse, even that fucking filthy Hag dressing gown he had to wash and hung up to dry the other week triggered me so I told him tonight, I don't want her shit in my house.

I also told him that I'm so worried about his health as a consequence that I check that he's breathing at night. Every night. I also told him that she's pure evil. I'm not doing the cosy his side of the family meal this spring as she will be there.

He gets it, maybe, not the bit about his mother being the devil incarnate, but the rest he got.

He has to sort out shit with his DICKHEAD of a brother and that the fucking DICKHEAD has to help with the endless medical appointments.

I also told Mr Monkey that she threw the bin sack of clothes away DELIBERATELY.
“Yes, I think you're right. She's telling everyone. It's attention seeking and manipulation isn't it?”

YES. IT FUCKING IS.

As the saying goes, misery loves company.
Sometimes we have to double-check and re-assert boundaries.

Hi, I have name changed for this. Not really sure what I am looking for, or whether this even qualifies for this thread.

Recently I’ve had some changes in my life which for the first time in my life has made me look at my mother in a different way. Namely we moved away from her. Since then she has become miserable, self pitying, constantly laying guilt trips on me and it has got to the point where I am irritated by her. We have always been exceptionally close.

But this is what has made me question things. She tells me she is in tears. She tells me she is unhappy and I feel very responsible for those feelings. She complains about her husband. I tell her to share those feelings with her husband but she refuses.

My husband tells me I am not responsible for her feelings. And then I think about my childhood/teen years.

My mum had an affair. I was 11. She told me about the affair and I had to keep it secret from my dad. She left him, she walked out of our house. I can remember asking her not to. She still left. I chose to live 50/50 with both parents, which meant living with my mum and her new partner. I hated him and he was not a nice man. My mum always put him before me, when she was with him she would turn off her phone so i couldn’t get hold of her when I needed her. If I argued with her partner she would tell me off and cry. In the other house, my dad was devastated and once trashed the house while I was in it, and another time turned up at my Mum’s house to fight with her partner.

I was praised by the family for coping well with the divorce and never making a fuss. I remember just wanting not to upset anyone as I could see they were already upset.

My dad shortly moved in a series of girlfriends. Again I wasn’t consulted they just arrived. When I argued he took their side. His girlfriend became pregnant and one day I came home to my stuff packed and she told me I should live with my mum. My Dad stood by and said nothing. I left.

As i hit my teens, my mum and i were “best friends”. She involved me in her dating life, and looking back I probably grew up too quick and became quite promiscuous early on, always looking for relationships. I got dumped and taken advantage of quite a lot, including a boyfriend who carried on after I had withdrawn consent. Looking back, it was really clear I was a bit desperate for love. This has ended up putting me in some bad situations, I was physically abused by one boyfriend, and a few years ago I stumbled into an emotional affair with a man who completely manipulated me and I almost ended my marriage. Thank god I didn’t. My husband knows about this.

I met my husband, and he was quite shocked at how both my parents basically ignored me over their partners. We moved in together, got married, had children. My mum remarried a wonderful man and we all became very close. My mum is a fab grandma. I love her very much. My dad has been in an abusive, on/off relationship for the past 12 years. He disappears from my life regularly, pops up when he has broken up demanding my time, sometimes to live with us, sees my children, then will bugger off again when he is back with her.

I’m posting because I’m pregnant at the moment and feeling very vulnerable. I recently called my mum
out on some selfish behaviour which had put me in a stressful and awkward position. She cried and stormed out of my house. Later she texted saying she understood I was emotional at the minute, but not admitting any fault.

Since this I’ve been really quite angry with her. I have been on at my husband because i don’t feel he is “taking care of me” and I had a bit of a moment when I realised that is all I want, because the adults in my life don’t appear ever to have put me first. I’ve had anxiety and depression and had counselling before, and when I have tried to discuss things with my mum she has shut it down with tears and “I see, it’s all my fault for having an affair and leaving” and then I end up comforting her and telling her it’s not her fault.

Any advice on how to move forward with those would be really appreciated. I love my mum and I don’t want to go no contact, but since I had this realisation I have felt so sad and just want to move past it.

I’m so sorry for the long post.

Hello @wonderinglywondering and welcome. I am so sorry for all that you have been through.

It's often a wake-up call when you become a parent, or rather in your case when you find yourself on the cusp of parenthood.

We start to see the things that we were put through that would never dream of visiting upon our own child.

It's very upsetting.

My personal experience was that I chose to be the antithesis of my mother and to be the kind of mum that I wished that I could have had for myself.

You have to do whatever is right for you, but I would say that you might want to start distancing yourself from your dysfunctional mother. You don't owe her anything.

Start looking for the woman within yourself. Know that you about to start a new era. You are strong and wonderful and whatever your mother (or indeed your whole family of origin is/was), you are free to create your own reality and make your own loving family.

Sending solidarity to you. The community on this threat is honest, open and very supportive.

@wonderinglywondering huge hugs. Sit down with your husband and tell him you feel emotional and why. You have his support and understanding, which is brilliant.

Your parents have made a complete disaster zone of their lives and they are expecting you to parent them. That's not on. I'm really shocked by your mum telling you about her affair when you were eleven.

I'm so sorry that you had those awful experiences, but so glad you have a great husband.

Don't buy into the guilt trips. You are entitled to your own life. You’re not her parent.

Be brisk. I've got to go now, mum. It's like dog training you have to repeat, repeat, repeat. Hard. But you can to do it. Celebrate every time you block this.

Don't let her being a good grandma be the way she manipulates you.

With your dad, his whims are not your problem. Don't give space.

Don't expect either of them to take responsibility. They won't. So, don't push that line with them. You know what happened, you know the consequences, they will never apologise in any way or any genuine way.

Hugs. Xxx

Oh my god. Update for anyone who was following the thing about my mum dying, finding out I had been removed as executor by Toxic Sister and BIL, and that they had also removed all 9 grandchildren from the will.

I was removed as executor even though Toxic Sister couldn't organise a bun fight in a bakery. She and Toxic BIL had been living out of the mother's bank account for years.

I just picked up the phone to find out what was going on and was met with a wall of "we haven't done anything wrong" by the totally dodgy lawyer who was practically shouting at me on the phone about they only work to instruction by the executors (ie Toxic Sister and BIL) and that I have to put anything I want to say in writing.

So this is 10 months after the death (with no funeral I might add and sister fucking off on holiday with 24 hours with the mother's money).

So the lawyer won't let me get a word in, is shouting over me at every turn, and is SO on the back foot. It's a shit show.

Only when I tell him I couldn't give a toss about the money, I just want to know what's going on, he starts trying to flatter me. (I am visible from a Google point of view and he says are you blah-blah-blah.)

The stuff he said, in a panic, said everything....

"We are not responsible for money taken from the estate...."
"We only do what the executors tell us..."
"No, we can't say how much money was taken out of her accounts..."

His statement, "anything you want to say, put it in writing".

Well, rather like so many of us women here on the Stately Homes thread, I'm quite good at putting things in writing.

Thank you for letting me vent. I'm quite cross as you can tell.

I can only reiterate what the others have written here wonderinglywondering, you do not owe either parent here anything least of all a relationship now. Both of them have failed you in different ways and still they look to you now to parent them. You do not have to do that.

If they are actually too toxic/difficult or otherwise too batshit for you to deal with, its the SAME deal for your kids too. It was wrong and shocking behaviour from your mother to make you her confidant at a mere 11 years of age; you were but a child yourself.

Its not your fault in any way they are the ways they are. People like your parents do not apologise nor actually accept any responsibility for their actions. You will never get a fulsome apology from either.

If your H's parents are nice and importantly are emotionally healthy, I would concentrate on them going forward.

@Sicario Jesus, what a hell hound your sister is.

She's clearly worried that she's going to be found out and has briefed the lawyer. He's similarly scared.

Yep, a nice clear letter. At the end of the day, she's paying for the lawyer. Google his rates. More the merrier.

AND you could spin out the letter(s). He has to reply. Bit of fun at your sister’s expense.

You’re not arsed about the money, they don't know that.

Recent legal case for a friend was £300 an hour, I wrote the notes for lawyer’s letters to keep her costs down. Your sister isn't bright enough to do that.

Opening the letter to him with a mention of The Law Society and professional conduct and/or escalating it to senior partner could be a laugh.

I seem to remember that every letter that you send back has to be forwarded on, that's bound to be £ especially if you say you would prefer letters emailed and posted to her as you feel she's capable of ignoring correspondence....

Have fun!

X

Well, Ms Monkey has put her foot down.

Hag phones this morning.

I can't eat anything because my jaw hurts - she's just had the skin cancer on her face removed.

“Can you get me some food?”

The new round of health control bollocks has started. Predictably.

There is plenty of easy to digest food e.g. Soup, frozen Shepherd’s pies etc in her house, but she wants to further draw in Mr Monkey.

“What about some porridge? What about some soup?”

She doesn't like milk all of a sudden. Or soup.

I kick off.

“You are working. Slave Son can do this. He has a car. She's perfectly capable of going down in a lift to his car parked right outside her block to collect a small shopping bag.”

“She isn't”

“Just check when she takes the bins down”

Eventually, MM realizes the game playing. He phones Slave Son to do some basic shopping. Slave son picks up shopping, MM goes with him to take the shopping up, check her face and pick up her laundry.

Hag wants a photo of her face taken. WHY? A trophy. MM says it’s not necessary. Show time is OVER.

I have spelled it out; after this one time, we are not a laundry service. Either her carers do it OR Slave Son takes it with his stuff for a service wash. Hag used to do Slave Son’s laundry. Laundry = control.

Her stuff goes in a room here out of sight to dry as the mere presence of her stuff is triggering.

MM doesn't stay long as he has WORK TO DO.

MM talks to Slave Son about changing her doctors as the doctor duties need to go to him. Slave Son is retired. SS has a car

SS doesn't want to make the change to her Dr as he's scared of rocking the boat.
He's 63. His life has been ruined.

He’ll take her. He's not confident driving long distances so MM will do hospital appointments. Doctor isn’t far in a car, but it's a 90 mins out of MM working day and £20 taxi in a round trip. Hag pays. Tries to give him £100 each time. Money = control.

MM says her face is still bleeding from Mon’s operation. He will sort district nurses out.

He sorts this. He needs to take her across the city tomorrow to do this assessment.

He phones her.

Massive kick off.

“I'm not having them in my house”

Because her house is disgusting. Ripped carpets, sofa etc. Scruffy and dirty clothes.

Shouting.

MM insists.

Tells her that she is rude and aggressive and he will put the phone down. Then we have the poor Victorian orphan waif bollocks. He ignores it. Coolly puts the phone down.

She phones back later. He’s cool as a cucumber.
Her trying to get a reaction.

She's just phoned again. Itching for a fight. This time it's is about her medication. He's just said: “I'm going now”.
Puts the phone down.

It's exhausting. But he's sorted a lot of crap out today and back to limiting her behaviour.
It's the check up on her face on Monday - then, hopefully, all quiet on the Western Front.

Her continued bleeding on her face? It wouldn't surprise me that she would pick it to make it worse.

What makes me happy that after 16 years of her hating me for making her son happy is that she KNOWS I'm empowering him.

Thank you for the kind responses. It is true that I do try very hard not to parent the way my mum did - ie I never want my children to feel responsible for my feelings. I should add that my early childhood prior to the affair and divorce was very happy, they were great parents, and I have lots of fond memories. It’s only as I grew up that things seemed to go wrong.

I like the idea of “dog training”. The irony is my mum complains all the time about her own mother, how she is so negative. She openly prefers her dad. My grandma has her own issues and I have been irritated by her in the past, but as my grandparents get older and my mum does nothing but talk about how their health issues make her sad, but does absolutely nothing to help, have I realised how selfish she can be. She has always helped me with childcare and we have had some lovely times together, but I do think our relationship is a bit dysfunctional and co-dependent, and I think us moving away has left her lonely - she doesn’t have many friends of her own and always says I am her only friend. So i feel sad, but as you have all pointed out, she’s not my responsibility. When she starts being negative or miserable I have started not replying to those messages, and she will then cut it out.

I just have to keep my emotional distance and not let her make me feel bad for living my own life with my own family.

I am not going to bother with any legal shite.

As our fabulous @AttilaTheMeerkat says, DO NOT ENGAGE.

Toxic Sister and BIL are obviously doing the massive ramp-up because that's the way toxic people behave, especially when they are on the defensive.

I've had a lot of interaction with lawyers over the years - all of which has been highly professional. So this was like "what the actual fuck???" lawyer having a total meltdown and saying things like "I have a lot of stress in my life" and "you are a disgruntled person" before I had even said a word. I was all a bit bonkers.

Turns out this lawyer is also dealing with the sale of the mother's house. It's all very strange and dodgy.

There is a tiny part of my that is almost ready to come out of the traps and set off the fireworks. But as I said earlier, in the words of Attlia... DO NOT ENGAGE.

@Sicario that lawyer sounds deeply unprofessional and seems to have lost their temper and ranted at you,not behaviour you would expect from a highly trained professional. Good on you not engaging with the legal shite,you have to weigh up the cost/toll to yourself. Meaning emotional cost not financial.
I always like the saying where your attention goes the energy goes and where the energy goes your attention goes. Something like that x

Can I ask how you react to that awful passive aggressive laughing narcs do when you call them out on their behaviour. I am 51 and it took till 50 years for me to stop the weekly duty phonecall, I never ring them but every month or so they will ring me and I'll have to speak to 85 yr old enabler father and vile 84 yr old mother.

My mother often makes barbed comments,criticisms and nasty goady comments to me. This particular one concerned my fil,I challenged her and she did the awful narc cackle. Often she very swiftly follows this by ending the call and hanging up before I've drawn breath to reply. This leaves me in an impotent rage. That awful laugh,discounting anything I say,feel or think. She uses it regularly also with my sister's.

Luckily my sister's are both on the same page and we all tolerate her and nothing more. She is vile we recently had an anniversary ceilidh, they came and said to my nieces new boyfriend, you need your head examined if you're getting involved with that one.

I am doing alot of work on myself re past trauma to do with chronic pain,mind body syndrome Dr Howard schubiner. Again and again it returns to my mother labelling me difficult from birth. I grey rock have done for twenty years but it takes its toll on me. All the suppression and repression of my true feelings and opinions. I am not NC I am extremely low contact. How do people cope long term with narcs.

Also love to everyone with the annual he'll if trying to pick a blank mothers Day card. One that doesn't say I love you mum,best mum. When in reality I long for the day she is no longer here to hurt me xxx

@Coconut80 - do you really have to accept those phone calls? If it's on your landline, I got BT caller ID on my home phone (this was before I moved away) and made sure not to pick up if the call was from toxic family. You can also block certain numbers.

I really would avoid taking those calls if I were you. They do nothing but upset you and set off all kinds of triggers. You don't owe them anything. And I really wouldn't bother sending a mother's day card.

The nasty laughing is totally enraging. (I know exactly what you're talking about.) My theory is that they do it as a sort of distraction technique when they are totally caught out and can't think of anything else to say or do.