September 2023 - well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

Welcome to the Stately Homes Thread.

This is a long running thread which was originally started up by 'pages' back in December 2007)

So this thread originates from that thread and has become a safe haven for Adult children of abusive families.

The title refers to an original poster's family who claimed they could not have been abusive as they had taken her to plenty of Stately Homes during her childhood!

One thing you will never hear on this thread is that your abuse or experience was not that bad. You will never have your feelings minimised the way they were when you were a child, or now that you are an adult. To coin the phrase of a much respected past poster Ally90;

'Nobody can judge how sad your childhood made you, even if you wrote a novel on it, only you know that. I can well imagine any of us saying some of the seemingly trivial things our parents/ siblings did to us to many of our real life acquaintances and them not understanding why we were upset/ angry/ hurt etc. And that is why this thread is here. It's a safe place to vent our true feelings, validate our childhood/ lifetime experiences of being hurt/ angry etc by our parents behaviour and to get support for dealing with family in the here and now.'

Most new posters generally start off their posts by saying; but it wasn't that bad for me or my experience wasn't as awful as x,y or z's.

Some on here have been emotionally abused and/ or physically abused. Some are not sure what category (there doesn't have to be any) they fall into.

NONE of that matters. What matters is how 'YOU' felt growing up, how 'YOU' feel now and a chance to talk about how and why those childhood experiences and/ or current parental contact, has left you feeling damaged, falling apart from the inside out and stumbling around trying to find your sense of self-worth.

You might also find the following links and information useful, if you have come this far and are still not sure whether you belong here or not.

'Toxic Parents' by Susan Forward.
Here are some excerpts:

"Once you get going, most toxic parents will counterattack. After all, if they had the capacity to listen, to hear, to be reasonable, to respect your feelings, and to promote your independence, they wouldn't be toxic parents. They will probably perceive your words as treacherous personal assaults. They will tend to fall back on the same tactics and defences that they have always used, only more so.

Remember, the important thing is not their reaction but your response. If you can stand fast in the face of your parents' fury, accusations, threats and guilt-peddling, you will experience your finest hour.

Here are some typical parental reactions to confrontation:

"It never happened". Parents who have used denial to avoid their own feelings of inadequacy or anxiety, will undoubtedly use it during confrontation, to promote their version of reality. They'll insist that your allegations never happened, or that you're exaggerating. They won't remember, or they will accuse you of lying.

YOUR RESPONSE: Just because you don't remember, doesn't mean it didn't happen".

"It was your fault." Toxic parents are almost never willing to accept responsibility for their destructive behaviour. Instead, they will blame you. They will say that you were bad, or that you were difficult. They will claim that they did the best that they could but that you always created problems for them. They will say that you drove them crazy. They will offer as proof, the fact that everybody in the family knew what a problem you were. They will offer up a laundry list of your alleged offences against them.

YOUR RESPONSE: "You can keep trying to make this my fault, but I'm not going to accept the responsibility for what you did to me, when I was a child".

"I said I was sorry what more do you want?" Some parents may acknowledge a few of the things that you say but be unwilling to do anything about it.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate your apology, but that is just a beginning. If you're truly sorry, you'll work through this with me, to make a better relationship."

"We did the best we could." Some parents will remind you of how tough they had it while you were growing up and how hard they struggled. They will say such things as "You'll never understand what I was going through," or "I did the best I could". This particular style of response will often stir up a lot of sympathy and compassion for your parents. This is understandable, but it makes it difficult for you to remain focused on what you need to say in your confrontation. The temptation is for you once again to put their needs ahead of your own. It is important that you be able to acknowledge their difficulties, without invalidating your own.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I understand that you had a hard time, and I'm sure that you didn't hurt me on purpose, but I need you to understand that the way you dealt with your problems really did hurt me"

"Look what we did for you." Many parents will attempt to counter your assertions by recalling the wonderful times you had as a child and the loving moments you and they shared. By focusing on the good things, they can avoid looking at the darker side of their behaviour. Parents will typically remind you of gifts they gave you, places they took you, sacrifices they made for you, and thoughtful things they did. They will say things like, "this is the thanks we get" or "nothing was ever enough for you."

YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate those things very much, but they didn't make up for ...."

"How can you do this to me?" Some parents act like martyrs. They'll collapse into tears, wring their hands, and express shock and disbelief at your "cruelty". They will act as if your confrontation has victimized them. They will accuse you of hurting them, or disappointing them. They will complain that they don't need this, they have enough problems. They will tell you that they are not strong enough or healthy enough to take this, that the heartache will kill them. Some of their sadness will, of course, be genuine. It is sad for parents to face their own shortcomings, to realise that they have caused their children significant pain. But their sadness can also be manipulative and controlling. It is their way of using guilt to try to make you back down from the confrontation.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I'm sorry you're upset. I'm sorry you're hurt. But I'm not willing to give up on this. I've been hurting for a long time, too."

Helpful Websites

Alice Miller
Personality Disorders definition
Daughters of narcissistic mothers
Out of the FOG
You carry the cure in your own heart
Help for adult children of child abuse
Pete Walker
The Echo Society

There are also one or two less public offshoots of Stately Homes, PM AttilaTheMeerkat or toomuchtooold for details.

Some books:

Toxic Parents by Susan Forward
Homecoming by John Bradshaw
Will I ever be good enough? by Karyl McBride
If you had controlling parents by Dan Neuharth
When you and your mother can't be friends by Victoria Segunda
Children of the self-absorbed by Nina Brown - check reviews on this, I didn't find it useful myself.
Recovery of your inner child by Lucia Capacchione
Childhood Disrupted by Donna Jackson Nazakawa

This final quote is from smithfield posting as therealsmithfield:

"I'm sure the other posters will be along shortly to add anything they feel I have left out. I personally don't claim to be sorted but I will say my head has become a helluva lot straighter since I started posting here. You will receive a lot of wisdom but above all else the insights and advice given will 'always' be given with warmth and support

My cat likes scratching the sofa arms occasionally decides to use the scratching post but it’s the bottom parts she gets have just bought arm covers that seems to have stopped her touch wood

@Shortbread49 absolutely. Never really thought about it before but something doesn't add up. We bought her throws when we gave up on the new furniture argument. Throws are in the same room. All of the stuff will be going to a very good home when this shit is over.

Spare room!

@BlastAroundTheOutside i have no advice to help, but I wanted to say solidarity. I could have written your post about smacking and the psychological twisting that used to happen - especially when all I was asking her was to interact with me. I know how dark it can make your head go - and how it’s like rot, seeps in everywhere. Solidarity 🌹

I’m sorry but I’m going to be venting a lot on this thread. Sister and her boyfriend have been here two hours. Velvet was snoozing on my bed as per. I brought her in to the kitchen to meet them both. My sister, whose voice has gone up about an octave after a decade of mocking me for having a naturally high one, has not acknowledged me for a second. She didn’t look at me. I’d taken a huge effort of will to come out and say hello which to her credit my mother acknowledged. We haven’t seen each other for two years (my sister). Her boyfriend seems very nice and polite. I was then sent back to my room with Velvet who was very quiet and wary as she is a bit unsure around strangers.

@MonkeyfromManchester thank you for your kind words. This thread does help getting things off your chest. Glad to hear MM is standing strong and hopefully that comment has strengthened his resolve. Does the hag believe he won’t turn up at the hospital to take her home. My mum wouldn’t believe me and says things like you’re just saying that but you’ll be there I know. What’s the plan going forward with regards to seeing her, phone calls etc?

@TommyShelby thank you. It does help knowing I’m not the only one that went through that but at the same time I’m sorry to hear you went through it too. It’s even just the fact we had to ask for attention is bad enough but then we still did it knowing what the outcome would be but still did it anyway in the hope this time would be different. Also the not knowing when it was coming, if something went wrong e.g she burnt the dinner it would be my fault as if I wasn’t so demanding she would have been able to concentrate on what she as doing. I was in my room keeping to myself but would still get smacked for it. Felt so unfair as I knew it wasn’t my fault. Always here if you need to vent on it. I understand where you are coming from.

@MonkeyfromManchester holy fuck, that chair 😮 do her a favour, throw it out, replace it with a full beds of nails, cilice belt and cat o' 9 tails, skip armchair martyrdom go straight to self flagellation, pain and sainthood.

@BlastAroundTheOutside bless you. I had similar - if she had a bad day at work, it was my fault. I tried permanently to keep away from her - I learned not to ask for anything, I stayed reading or making things. It was very lonely. But no matter what I did, it was always my fault.

i don’t know if you had this - but did she put on a performance to outsiders? She was always congenial and friendly and reasonable when there was another set of eyes. It was so confusing. It’s so hard to explain to people who have had no experience of it. I’ve tried and the words just don’t come.

Im no where near healed from what she did to me, but I’ll share my mantra that I still repeat now when she’s picking at me; ‘it isn’t your fault, it was never your fault and you are allowed to LIVE AND THRIVE’ 💜

@TommyShelby my mother and sister both do. Their voices get higher, they start getting ingratiating and they’re on their best behaviour. My mother isn’t good enough that some people can’t guess there’s something very much off about her. My sister is visibly off to me but only in the same way as fake laughter in the House of Commons, as it were, because she’s very polished and successful. It’s so common with NMs, and it’s particularly devastating when they’ve damaged you enough that they present as sane and you present as wrecked.

@TommyShelby oh god yes a totally different person outside, almost too nice. Everyone would say what a lovely person she is, always gushing about me and my brother, how lucky she is to have us and how proud she is of us etc. It’s all an act.

great mantra. I do keep reminding myself it’s her not me.

@binkie163 I know. It's truly appalling. It is symbolic of her utterly disordered mind.

Well, good ladies of the Stately Home, Monkey is in her pyjamas and will be in for them for the rest of the day. Yesterday was a HORROR SHOW.

The Hag is unleashed today, back to her flat by hospital transport with the new care package, which I, her evil daughter in law, have sorted despite the chaos of social services, in place.

Knowing that the weekend is her last opportunity to fuck with peoole’s heads and make them change their minds about not taking on full time care for her I expected some push back. Ok, a lot of push back.

It was awful.

Sunday morning was spent by Mr Monkey doing the last bits of organisation e.g., shopping so there is food in her flat. He has own life admin to do. It is also the weekend and he deserves a rest like normal people.

The phone calls start. He has his phone on silent now. He doesn't pick up until convenient. Dems de rules. His idiot brother allows himself to be bullied into ringing Mr Monkey to see why he hasn't answered the phone to the Hag, so there are a succession of missed calls from Slave Son.

MM finishes all the jobs he's had to do. He rings Slave Son.
“Yes, it's my intention as I've said to everyone to see her this afternoon. No, I don't know what time but it will be this afternoon. You need to stop getting dragged into this drama. If I don't pick up the phone it means I'm busy”.

I have a sinking feeling that the day is going to be grim. I have offered to MM that I'll go with him to the hospital so I'm a silent support to him whilst she kicks off.

We stand in the street outside our house at 3.10pm waiting for our cab. He rings the Hag to say we’re on our way, we’ll be 20 minutes.

“YOU BETTER BE”
“WHEN I RING YOU, YOU ANSWER.”

(add 20 litres of venom)

She hangs up.

MM switches his phone OFF.

We are pretty shocked in the cab.

I don't have a good feeling about this.

We get to the hospital. We go to the corner of the ward with the bed surrounded by the flames of damnation. The Hag is in it a tiny frail 5ft six and a half stone 86 year old ball of rage. She starts frantically gesturing at his phone

“Where is it? Where is it? Where is it?”

Her eyes are bulging with rage.

“I was ringing you. I was ringing you.”

“I had my phone switched off.”

She cannot believe someone would dare to do this.

There is no hello, how are you? Thanks for coming. She doesn't acknowledge me (this is fine and, I think, probably a good thing)

Then it's the world salad of

“nobody’s explaining to me what's happening to me.”
“I don't know who I am anymore”
“I just want to go home”
“I want it how it used to be.”
“That’s not my home.”
“I can't believe how my life has turned out.”

She's flipping between rage and false crying. She's practically shouting. The ward is quiet, it's an old ladies Ward. There's a family in the next bed along where it's clear the old lady is in a bad way.

Our old lady? Just bad. Actually, just EVIL.

What plays out is a perfect recreation of MM’s awful childhood. Accusations. Rage. Pretend crying. Spite.

“I don't have any family. Your not my son anymore.”
“Yes, I am. You have a family. Me, Slave Son, list of family members (who she never sees and never contacts), Monkey.”
“She’s not my family. She's not my family. SHE’S NOT MY FAMILY.”
“You’ve broken my family up.”

Him, very calmly. “Monkey is my family”.

“Well, she's not MINE.”

“She doesn't know what it's like to have a family because she's never given birth.”

“She’s not my family.”

Nice.

These beautiful Hallmark card worthy words are repeated to the lovely male nurse who has drawn the very short straw and has come across to deal with her.

“I don't have a family.”

“You’ve got your family. They can't do the day to day care for you. But they’re there for you. Your family are here now.”

“SHE” shaking finger at me “IS NOT MY FAMILY.”

He goes back to the ward office for a bottle of gin.

We’re left with the Hag ranting.

“She’s laughing at me. Look at her LAUGHING at me.”

I get up and walk away. She's shouting

“That’s right WALK AWAY”

MM gets up to follow

“THAT’S RIGHT WALK AWAY FOLLOW HER LIKE YOU ALWAYS DO.”

We leave the ward. We stand outside the hospital. We’re shaking.

We come home. We are shell shocked. We drink wine. We eat. MM phones Slave Son to tell him what's happened. I go to bed. There is a final call from her where she's screaming “I can't believe you've done this to me. I will never forgive you for this.”

This morning MM was again talking about going no contact with her. The choice has to sit with him.

Slave Son got a call at 6.30am from the Hag shouting - WTAF - at him to go and pick her up and take her home. He refused.

@MonkeyfromManchester
Oh I am so sorry to hear all this ! What a terrible thing to go through. I can imagine how upsetting that must have been and you must have been really shaken by it.
But on the plus side she has done her worst and made her feelings clear. It is all out there and she cannot take it back so if MM chooses to go NC she has no one to blame but herself ( which was always the case of course). And talk about revealing your true colours in public! No nice old lady act can redeem that one !
Sending love and strength to you both today. x

@flapjackfairy thank you so much.

I feel like shit. It was a horrible insight into MM’s childhood and her disgusting mind. Poor MM woke at 2am and hasn’s slept. I'll be ok - I'll have a bath and eat some toast.

You are absolutely right. Weirdly, this is a positive. It's brought everything to a head.

This is the great unsaid and she’s now said it. She hates her daughters in law. In the wailed litany of family members who she never sees my lovely sister in law (who was married to Golden Boy The Toxic Abuser Spawn of Hag) and the grandsons weren't mentioned.

With Mr Monkey he's very very kind, but there's a line and you don't cross it. The Hag has crossed it.

X

Well one thing you can console yourself with is that you won't have to suffer lunch with her at New Year this year now ....or indeed any other. Have a good soak and then a chill out day and hope MM can too. x

Fucking hell @MonkeyfromManchester - reminds me of when my Toxic Sister started screaming at me on the ward while The Mother was in hospital, to the extent that a nurse came over to see what the hell was going on.

They can't help themselves. The mask always slips.

The Hag's display in public was probably a blessing in disguise. Because it happened so publicly, MM can see it more clearly. The behind-closed-doors nature of abusive people like The Hag is often what leaves us (in this case MM) feeling so confused and conflicted.

I really hope MM can find his way towards NC, or at the very least blocking her number and going Burner Phone so he is in full control of his availability.

I am taking your lead and remaining in pyjama mode all day because it's hideous outside and I think you need the solidarity of a fellow Stately Home member keeping PJ vigil with you.

Oh, god, yes, as ‘family’ is so fucking sacred to her it's best that she doesn't have the Season of Good Will To All Men polluted in ANY WAY by a non-family member. And a childless woman at that.

So that's a big fat NO to a New Year’s Day meal. MM said that last night.

Christ, i didn't even grow up with her as my ‘mother’ and she triggers me hugely. She is an utterly disgusting individual.

Slave Son has not crumbled.

He is not with her at the hospital.

But someone has told him that she's got her disgusting coat on and is ready to be discharged and will be back in her lair at 11.

I've let the care company know to be there at 12.

Dusts hands.

I've done my bit. Not for her as she's definitely in a sentence involving piss and wouldn't and fire.

This is for Mr Monkey. He is lovely and incredibly strong person and I'm so proud of him and myself.

Thank you so much @flapjackfairy xxx

ooh huge pat on the back to slave son as well. Maybe there is a ( little bit ) of hope for him yet . x

@Sicario i know. I was actually in physical shock last night. Today I still I am.

Jesus your sister. That's it, isn't it, they have NO sense of other people. The ward is quiet, it's full of older people, many really at the end stage, and her screaming.

What is hilarious that as the Hag is deaf - well, hears selectively - she is very loud. I think toxics lose whatever sense of ‘pretend’ when in full rage mode. At mid range rage she is able to berate MM or Slave Son and then break off into “yes, please, just milk, no sugar, thank you” to the nurse and then get back to berating.

I think he will become no contact. I think this is the very likely outcome of this shit.

Thank you for the PJ vigil. That made me laugh.

Onwards! Xxx

@MonkeyfromManchester wow! This is grim. Hope you’re ok and can stay strong. X

Christ @MonkeyfromManchester that sounds awful. Just really awful. You have been a heroine doing what you’ve done for her already. What an absolute bitch to say what she’s said. Completely unacceptable. The only upside to that dreadful scene yesterday was that she’s not physically powerful enough to get up, run after you, push you about bodily, trap you in a corner - but that’s small mercy isn’t it. Just try and focus on rescuing your own festive season. Can you block her and is MM willing to?

These abusers always want to play it every which way. They’re going to behave atrociously, but if you haven’t forgotten within a minute/hour/the next day you’ve ruined their perfect family Christmas. They are allowed to wreck every relationship in the family but if you don’t play the “I’m going to kick you into submission but you have to apologise and grovel your way back into my complete lack of affection” card without fail, you’re spoiling the family. And the fact that the facade fell away in hospital where everyone knows you can hear every word even if the curtains are closed means she got a theatre to play out her little drama.
I generally try to stay clear of firm advice because I know I wouldn’t be assertive or brave enough to do the most commonly suggested stuff here but in this case I would really strongly recommend just completely avoiding her during the festive season at least, when her abuse will be especially wounding to MM and stressful to you. Can you call SS or the carer’s agency to apprise them of the situation?

Fellow-feeling anecdote- last year when I was neatly transitioning from Covid to bacterial pneumonia, my mother fought with my dad (btw she is “my mother” to distance me from her, not because I am a snob). When she’d finished shouting at him she came into my room where I was bedbound and said some pretty choice things about how I’d ruined the family, how dare I be ill, was I loving my life of luxury (which was VERY rich given how much she loved - not - her life recovering from minor eye surgery) and all this was my fault and now she’s leaving because of me. She then flounced and performed her classic move of returning ten minutes later. I was open-mouthed and shaking and I suspect I was totally dissociated during most of the shouting because I can hardly remember what she said. At that point when she got back, right before properly flouncing out of the house to her other house, she just actually said the quiet bit out loud and sarcastically said “oh, you’re not even crying!” No, after a lifetime of stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about, funnily enough I don’t feel safe enough to cry until she’s left and my body has developed coping mechanisms to help.

@flapjackfairy i know! I'm sending him a prize. I think the drama she unleashed last night may have lit a small fire of rebellion.

On SO many levels the 6.30am call is wrong 1) making SCREAMING calls before 8am on a shared hospital ward 2) bullying your disabled son. Further evidence of her twisted thinking.

@tonewbeginnings thank you. Xxx

Yep, if you’re at all considerate you stay very quiet until wars round at least on a ward. Hospital’s noisy enough. Also, I know this isn’t at all related but at hospital you go at THEIR pace - they are doing a thousand things at once and for all you know that’s someone dying over there, so you can jolly well wait for them to have time to supervise/help with your discharge.

By the way, I hope I can join with the thread to send my best wishes to MM.

@MonkeyfromManchester No one else really exists in these 'peoples' tiny minds expect themselves...they are the only ones that matter.

She'll be living in filth deliberately, so 'people' can feel sorry for her, that her evil family isn't doing all her care for her. How dare you and MM have lives of your own?

I'm sad because after literally decades of myself and my younger brother vowing that neither of us would become a carer for my narcissist mother...my younger brother has now become her live-in carer. My mother is 82, had a pacemaker fitted nearly 15 years ago...and apart from the usual problems of old age, isn't too bad. But she spent her adult life watching my 3 uncles never leave the family home to look after my grandmother, and although until she was about 60 she used to say how awful that was...the root of that being an acceptable way to treat family was obviously sown. I fled to the other side of the world to avoid it falling to me...as she's also a raging misogynist and I'm the only daughter, if I'd been even within 200 miles of her it would have been expected of me. Last time I lived with her, after my first divorce at age 24, I ended up trying to kill myself and had a nervous breakdown...at which point I was diagnosed as bipolar.

My brother is 50, his health isn't that great, he had a heart attack when he was only 30. He's being doing short-term government contracts for work for the last 25 years and the gaps between them have been getting longer, so I can sort of understand why he's done it. Still feel very sad about it though.

…and slave son. I know enablers aren’t very popular on here but it does also take strength and kindness to keep tolerating abuse when you have extra difficulties. NOT that that means I think you and MM should have to have ANY level of contact with Hag. Just some sympathy for slave son. This is the problem with abusive families (or one of many) isn’t it? My nana had such a horrific family she won’t give details about it, and has spent her life with a fairly bullying and domineering man. My mother has, as far as I can tell, terrorised everyone in the generations above and below and the only reason she hasn’t terrorised my dad is that he grew up in a relatively normal family and therefore isn’t scared of her and can brush off her awfulness (quite why, after she committed GBH against him I don’t know). My mother often gets very angry with nana about this inheritance problem which isn’t going M’s way, but OF COURSE nana is going to go along with him. She’s lived sixty years with a man who provides for her, basically functions as a service robot for him, and actually loves and is very loyal to him. She’s probably scared shitless even if he’s wheelchair-bound. There are scary parallels between authoriarian regimes and interpersonal regimes which do actually apply here.
Returning to the topic, we’re all on your side.

@CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau the thing about abusers is that they can't regulate their emotions so try to regulate yours. That's why your mother was so incensed about your not crying. I think they have a film in their head that's so strongly ‘auteur-ed’ of how a situation will unfold that ANY deviation sends them into meltdown.

Oh Hag is blocked on my phone. Xmas was never on the cards. MM was making noises over the weekend about not doing New Year Day meal before we even had last night’s Show Time. I don't want to see her ever again. I'm going to see how the land lies but I think MM is at the point of saying “enough”. That's his decision to make. I'm certainly not going to discourage him! I think he will talk it out with his therapist. Xxx

Thank you Cecile xxx