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

I've been reading and holding you all in thoughts and thinking how awful it is that we need this wee community here but at the same time thank goodness we have it.
I've managed to get through some big life stuff without feeling too guilty that my birth family (am non contact) weren't there. But it still ate at me and I know it's fear of obligation and the years of having been trained etc. I have had anxiety meds for a couple of months now and it has made such a difference in giving me brain space to think and process stuff.
@MonkeyfromManchester I think capacity includes being able to choose to put fish fingers in the wrong place, unfortunately. It's ridiculous. It took until my ex grandmother -in-law had been found wandering the streets in her nightie by the police three times before social services decided she couldn't be home alone and found her a place in a care home. That was 30 years ago when things weren't as stretched as they are now.
Your mum sounds like a complete hero. I'm glad she is looking after you both!

The "capacity" issue is ridiculous. You can be 24 sandwiches short of a picnic and still be deemed to have capacity.

Hang on in there @MonkeyfromManchester

Keep the phone switched off. Distract yourselves with all the good things. Entertain yourselves. Eat well. Have wine. Binge watch. Maybe do a themed movie marathon. Space is a good one - The Right Stuff, followed by Apollo 13, followed by Interstellar. I can't recommend Pollo Ad Astra (isn't that a pizza express thing?) because it's a load of shite with Brad Pitt having daddy issues in space. Although it does have a deranged monkey in it.

Imagine yourselves in your golden castle home with your shields up and phasers set on kill rather than stun.

Sending you all the solidarity.

@CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau this is exactly it. Capacity is so low bar. Utterly ridiculous.

I wonder if it was me and I got sectioned whether if my behaviour was like this that I wouldn't be straight back in a psych. unit.

@Parentalalienation it’s completely mad, isn't it? I was saying to a friend the other day that all the social worker fuck ups with children hit the headlines, thousands of cases with older people just don't reach the media. That's a terrible story about your grandmother in law.

@Sicario thank you. We ARE going to get through this. Tonight we’re seeing some friends for dinner and the phone is staying switched off. MM will deal with her tomorrow for the shopping thing and then take her to the GP (slave son is driving) on Monday. I'm encouraging him to switch the phone off at all other times. He does the job required then the phone is switched off.

I won’t go into this in too much detail because it’s not the mental health thread, but @MonkeyfromManchester nowadays you’d be unlikely to be sectioned in a million years unless you were hallucinating or homicidal (and maybe not even in the former case). There are just no beds. Being really nasty to other people and ruining their lives isn’t a qualifying criterion. I don’t know if you’ve been sectioned before but I have actually begged for it and it’s not been done, despite actually ligaturing myself at hospital to get out of my home situation (that makes it sound more calculating than it was, it was a real gesture of desperation and I just honestly thought I’d rather be dead than go back, but a nurse came in to take obs and found me). I’ve had a social worker actually laugh at a psychiatrist, recently arrived from Russia, who suggested I was so deeply depressed I should try to admit myself. They then said yes, forget about it, that isn’t happening.

It was ridiculous, the police took her home (this was at well after midnight) because she knew her address, and phoned my ex as he was next of kin the first time. The second and third, she couldn't remember her name let alone anything else and that's how the duty social worker got involved as she ended up at the police station!

@MonkeyfromManchester I am putting my tin hat on but every time you phone SW shows you are still engaged in Hags care, they will just keep letting you take shopping up, let you sort freezer stuff, washing machine etc the shopping NEEDS leaving. I know it's hard but it is a case of who blinks first, you blink and call them, they know you will call proving you are very much involved in their eyes.
Refuse to engage with SW it is now their job not yours. The sooner it goes tits up, the sooner she will be in a care home, they wont do that while she still has you, MM and slave. It will get worse before it gets better, there has to be a crisis like a fall, no shopping, can't get to medical appts before they will take it seriously. They rely on family guilt and will manipulate you just as much as Hag.

I am saying this from a place of love, when carers, adult services or SW called me, I just laughed and said I don't care and it was for them to sort not me, not my responsibility.
My dad was collapsed on the floor 15 hours before he was found, not nice but not my problem. My mum had to go into a home as dad could no longer cope because we were no longer picking up the slack. It is a war of attrition.

My ex husband's girlfriend has tried to kill herself 5 times in as many years...she takes an overdose, spends a couple of days in hospital and is released. She's severely bipolar and hasn't been sectioned once...even though she's now got to the state where she's being physically abusive to him (and he doesn't leave because he feels guilty, even though he's got plenty of places to go, but that's another story).

Seems like nowadays you have to be about to kill someone before you'll be sectioned. I'm bipolar myself, had a bad relapse 3 years ago, ended up attempting suicide...all I got was a couple of CPNs coming around to my flat twice and then I was left to my own devices. Pretty upsetting as everyone from my GP to psychiatrist knew I have no family in the UK and my partner lives 200 miles away.

Having someone in the family with severe mental health issues, this has been my experience too.

That is very upsetting, @FreeRider. The lack of care provided for seriously distressed and mentally unwell people is indefensible. I've never got any effective help in decades, except for an occasional kind GP who tried.

@BluebellsForest just checking - if you need help, are you in a queue for it at least? If not, would recommend you really go back to those GPs and rub it in, and in the meantime try some self-help. It’s taken me eighteen years from showing the first concrete, diagnosable MH symptoms (bulimia) and twenty-three years since I started cutting to finally even get in line for help that might work. But I have to believe it will be worth it. I’ve tried and tried with private therapy, reading everything I can get my hands on, and at this point I just need someone to help me with every aspect of my life, which luckily my support worker is trying to do now. It’s worth setting the process in motion - YOU are worth it.

On my side, my mother has just texted me that she is so angry with my grandmother who has just had an emergency radical mastectomy saying she’d rather get paid help that she has gone to her own house to review admissions interviews (yes, apparently my mother is suitable to decide the fate of teenagers, the way she spoke about them was absolutely vile when she got their personal statements). She also included the charming statement that she wished everyone in her family including her didn’t have MH issues. Others may disagree but I don’t think narcissism is a MH problem and preferring paid help to my mother is DEFINITELY not. Also, has she ever considered that there may be a common denominator? I mean at least she admitted that some of us do struggle with our mental health instead of what she seems to view as the absolute party of being unable to get out of bed, eat and generally wanting to die, but it’s still a bit hurtful. I mean, I wish she wasn’t a bitch but I don’t go around saying it.

@CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau @MonkeyfromManchester thank you both but don’t worry. On the NHS I waited three years and then was allowed ten talking therapies online only. That’s all I was entitled too even though it was helping so much. That was it and was for the anxiety based stuff that I had got whilst waiting for help with the older stuff.

No I don’t have any money for private therapy with my therapist, I am not working anymore because of my MH and we can’t stretch to cover it. (If I got better and could work I’d be able to afford it so a vicious circle).

I am in a lot stronger place than I used to be and the therapy was so helpful so hopefully I will be OK.

I’m also going to try to be really really brave and start looking for some voluntary work in the new year that I might enjoy. And maybe eventually get back to some PT work.

@Tbry have you tried silver cloud it is online service, free and you can self refer or referral from your GP.

Back from a weekend with my extended family. I managed to dodge speaking to DM much. When I did see her she immediately asked for a cuddle. I absolutely hate this - we're not a particularly huggy family, she never really hugged me much growing up, so I just looked at her and she backed off.

Then she asked me for a cuddle the next day again. Like she could see asking me the first time was making me really uncomfortable but thought she'd give that boundary a good old shove anyway.

I also ended up drinking far too much. I find family weekends and the run up to them are a real trigger for getting pissed and I need to find a better way of coping.

I'm seeing her again after Christmas and am going to have to remind her NOT to turn up early, she appeared an hour and a half early at my sister's.

@HoraceGoesBonkers sympathise with the hug boundary violation. I will seek out hugs from my closest friends, used to actually snuggle up to my school friends and most of my time with my boyfriend is spent basically attached to him. But attempts at physical contact by my family make me go limp. They feel so insincere and crowding. I grew up with a peck on the cheek as a standard physical gesture, although my mother was very insulted when I stopped wanting to hold her hand in my early teens (!)

BluebellsForest just checking - if you need help, are you in a queue for it at least? If not, would recommend you really go back to those GPs and rub it in, and in the meantime try some self-help. It’s taken me eighteen years from showing the first concrete, diagnosable MH symptoms (bulimia) and twenty-three years since I started cutting to finally even get in line for help that might work. But I have to believe it will be worth it. I’ve tried and tried with private therapy, reading everything I can get my hands on, and at this point I just need someone to help me with every aspect of my life, which luckily my support worker is trying to do now. It’s worth setting the process in motion - YOU are worth it.

Thank you, @CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau, so kind of you. I have lost all faith in the MH services in my area, having been through the mill a few times even before the last few years of funding cuts.

I'm so glad you have a support worker and have some therapy lined up. That's great progress.

@BluebellsForest not at all, I generally say as I see anyway :) sometimes you just need to try even if you don’t see any hope. This sounds boasting and doesn’t reflect my current life AT ALL but I managed to get the best grades in school and an Oxbridge scholarship despite absolutely no belief I could do it, I just went through the motions until I could stop and was shocked at how well I succeeded (this is a thing of the past). NHS waiting lists can be exhausting and defeating but at least they actually want you to get better - it’s in their financial interest rather than private doctors whose financial interest is in keeping you hooked. Sorry, that sounds cynical but it’s accurate.

That's an amazing achievement, @CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau.

My experience of NHS practitioners has been that ether either want to help but simply have no appts or therapies to offer, or they are just focussed on getting me off their ever-growing list.

I haven't had the same experience as you with private. Usually though the really good therapists are totally booked up. The ones with room are often not the best 🤷🏻‍♀️

or they are just focussed on getting me off their ever-growing list

by that I mean at the assessment stage. Being told I don’t tick the right boxes for either IAPT or secondary services.

I wouldn’t discourage anyone else from trying, but it’s been an awful, frankly gas-lighting process for me at times.

I’ve had the same experience @BluebellsForest and I’m sorry you have. I’m at huge risk for self-harm so I don’t qualify for the lower-level services and have behavioural difficulties like anorexia and alcohol use so the higher-level services don’t want to engage, also much more importantly there aren’t even enough beds for homical schizophrenics, let alone me. I’m going into a ward which caters for all of it (I hope) but it’s taken fifteen years of begging desperately for help and might take months more, by which time I shall have damaged myself irreparably even more. I don’t know that hearing my experience will help you but sometimes it’s the squeakiest wheels that get the oil. Please keep trying to squeak.

^might take months more for admission. They’re looking at a longer-term stay to address the fundamental difficulties and it could be years to get in and months to years before I get out.

@binkie163 no hat necessary. And thank you for your words and wisdom.

I completely agree. I need to get to a better place with her. It's been clear that The Hag has sucked us back in - to a lesser extent than the witch living here - but she's incredibly manipulative. As my mother pointed out yesterday...

After Xmas, hospital transport is the way forward. MM has no leave and just doesn't want to. Slave Son can do GP etc.

Oddly enough, MM told her that he was switching his phone off after the 17 abuse calls on Friday, phone stayed switched off and she was reasonable for her - just griping - this morning when Mr Monkey took her to the GP. She's accepted memory clinic going round to the lair.

MM has told her the phone is going off and staying off.

After Hag screamed evilness at me last Sunday we confirmed no Xmas/New Year for her. Plan anyway. Mummy Monkey said Hag is never crossing the threshold into Mummy Monkey Towers ever again after what Hag screamed at me.

I need to chase social workers because I DO need to get the last bits sorted. Nope, we are not picking up her fucking shopping twice a week or taking it to her flat. Carers can do that. No, of course, social services haven't sorted that as they said they will.

I just want to tie loose ends up - project manager head on - and walk away.

I totally get everyone who's commented. It's a case of who blinks first. Fuckers.

Hah, of course, is playing the blink game.

And to everyone having to deal with the vagaries of mental health services in this country. I hear you. I was sectioned in my 20s. There would be NO support for me now.

I just read this article in the Guardian about the silent treatment. I did find it helpful in that DM does seem to trigger a "fight or flight" response in me sometimes when she came up and started talking to me last weekend I could feel my stress levels rising.

But I generally found it unhelpful in that not responding to someone is a completely valid way to handle them if you can't reason with them about what they've done to upset you. Like the article infers you can always talk things through which I found a bit strange.

The silent treatment: ‘One woman was ostracised by her husband for 40 years’ | Psychology | The Guardian

My mum is fond of the silent treatment I first remember getting it age 11 , have seen her do it to other people she didn’t speak to her own sister for years . Is now doing it to my children I think it is childish and pathetic. I now think they if she doesn’t want to speak to us it’s her problem not mine

I have complex feelings about silent treatment. In relationships which are in any way normal, it’s generally regarded as abuse, right? And it is tremendously hurtful to be shut out temporarily as punishment, or because you’re unbearable, or whatever. However, there’s a difference between using it as punishment or actually as a productive tool in relationships (my current DP and I will occasionally ask for a time-out so things don’t escalate in the moment, and although neither of us are particularly good at doing it it’s actually quite productive anyway because it’s a good indicator that we need a break from the situation) and using it as what is intentionally a permanent break to the relationship. There’s a world of difference between deliberately paying someone no attention to make them feel small and get them exactly where you want them, and saying “I cannot deal with this any more, please stop, preferably forever”. I often say that I do love my mother but I wish I could love her from a distance, in silence. I think she’s earned that, many times. I’ve also had a completely different reaction to people who have repeatedly given me silent treatment in relationships and people who have just decided to end them - the former is terror, the second is sad but understanding.