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

That's really great that you've found an appropriate ward, @CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau. Your persistence is a super power!

I'm not a regular on this thread but have dipped and out over the years. My childhood was very much a stately homes type of childhood! I hope you dont mind me posting.

I have a complicated relationship with my parents, particularly my Mum. When I was a child/ teenager we had some very difficult years and she spent a lot of time in mental health hospitals. She had an eating disorder, and what I now realise was most likely a personality disorder. She was very cruel towards me and the trauma of my childhood and those years have left me quite scarred.
Over they years I have had periods of being no contact, but have had some/limited contact for last 10 or so years.

Yesterday my Dad died. This is hard. I had a better relationship with my dad, but it was complicated. But I will miss him and I am grieving.

When sorting out some of my dad's papers yesterday I found some diaries and letters my mum had written to my dad during her hospital stays, and one time when she ran away for a few days. One of the diary entries states: "I hate cosmos. " and goes on talk about how painful my birth was, how I always cried as a baby and how I have now become " unfriendly and surly" and refers to me as a " little bitch" I was 13 when she wrote this. In contrast she talks about how lovely and funny and amazing my sister is ( 3 years younger than me) and how much she loves her, and how she has never loved me.

Whilst I always had the sense of this growing up seeing it written in such stark terms has just floored me. It was 35 odd years ago and I went off to uni at 18 and then made a life myself in a town 2 hours away, we visited mum and dad a few times a year and had a sort of superficial platonic relationship in more recent years. I am lucky that I have my own wonderful family now, and a happy life, but this has brought up so much stuff for me.

I'm currently staying at my mums house, helping sort funeral stuff with my sister etc. I'm grieving the loss of my Dad who I did love and who tried to protect me as much as he could. 2 of my adult children are here with me today, but they love their Nan and I believe she loves them.

I just dont know what to feel or what to do or how to process this in the the midst of grieving my dad.

Not much point to my post but thought this may a safe space.

You’re welcome here cosmos, and very much a trouper for dealing with everything as you are.

I don’t have anything to say that will console you over either of your current… I don’t know what to say, problems? Millstones? I’m afraid. All I can say is anyone who would write down what your mother would write is unworthy of you. Eating disorders and mental health issues can make us behave out of character, but unless it’s something like extreme paranoid schizophrenia they should NEVER make us write stuff like that about our own children. I never like this word but I’d consider them “unforgivable” and harden my heart against her, as the bible would put it.

You’ve formed your own lovely family, which is a sign visible from space that you’re at least a normally nice person and have broken the chain of abuse.

This sounds really cliche but maybe the path is to soak up the love of others around you and also to love yourself? A bit of mindfulness/meditation wouldn’t go amiss and it helps you actually notice what you’re feeling, so you can take care of that part of yourself. Don’t be ashamed to let yourself grieve your dad. I know and most of those on this thread know what it is to hear (or in your case read) those heart rending types of comments. But people who aren’t twisted and horrible believe differently. Seek them out. And stick around on this thread, please. x

Welcome Cosmos. I am so sorry for the loss of your dad and the discovery of such gutting comments from your mother.

It's incomprehensible that she would say such things about a child.

It's a cliche, but you feel what you feel. I imagine it will be a lot of mixed emotions. Try to let them come and go without too much judgement.

@Shortbread49 @CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau I think four times, twice when I've been ill and twice when my Mum was busily engineering family dramas and wouldn't apologise for what she was doing, I've asked my Mum for some space and a bit of time before she got back in touch - they were all preceded by her contacting me multiple times on a daily basis during quite high stress situations, once was when I had super high blood pressure and a tiny newborn, and she kept trying to contact me anyway.

The last time when I called her back after a couple of weeks she shouted at me for being hurtful. Every time it's just been when I was absolutely getting to the end of my tether with her.

She's also not spoken to me or been very frosty at times particularly when I was growing up.

I think there's a difference between shutting someone out for a while because of a one off infraction and lowering or cutting contact after trying to talk about what they're doing that is upsetting. Although I don't think my DM would see it like that at all, but then she can never, ever see that she's done anything wrong.

Thanks for the replies
And sorry to those of you dealing with your own challenges and sadness.

It's so surreal really. I mean my Mum was basically awful and abusive to me as a child. But over the years I suppose I've minimised what happened to me. I've made excuses for her. I've buried a lot of it. But to see it there, written in black and white "I hate "cosmos" " and then the tirade of everything she believed was wrong with me, calling me a little bitch. I was 13 years old. I'm so angry. And sad. And I know she hurt my Dad too in many many ways. And now I'm sad for him all over again. But now he's gone and I can't even talk to him about it all. But also I'm angry with him for not stopping her. For jot doing more to challenge her. For jot taking me away from her.but he's fine and I'll never see him again.
And I'm here in the house with my Mum and sister, listening to my sister fuss over her. She isn't even sad mybDad has gone. As always she is only bothered about her own needs. And I want to scream at her you evil, hateful person. I want to ask her why she never loved me. What did I do wrong. But I can't. And my children( now aged between 15 and 25) do have a relationship with her, and would be devastated to know. They don't know much of my childhood. And no, her mental health difficulties do not exclude what she wrote, or how she treated me at all. She was totally in control of her thoughts and actions.

In some ways I feel massively validated. I can finally stop asking myself if I imagined how she doted on my sister and treated me like crap. I can stop thinking maybe it wasn't as bad as I remembered. Finally I knownfor sure It was that bad. She was / is an awful person and she abused me pretty much for my whole life.

I am counting down the hours till I can get on a train back home tomorrow. I will hug my dh hard and laugh and cuddle with my teenagers and be so so thankful that I escaped and built a better life for myself.

And you deserve your current life cosmos. Never doubt that.

I hope this doesn’t sound wrong but your feeling of anger and being wronged is actually a good sign - it shows you knew you weren’t being treated well and now it’s been validated.

@prettycosmos I always knew my mum was spiteful to me, especially jealous and nasty when I became a beautiful teenager. Children intuitively know they are neglected and emotionally abused. From very young I was threatened with being put on the street.
My mum was a user of people all her life but especially me.
Both my siblings were treated differently, financially subsidized half their lives, including first home/mortgage deposits.
I wouldn't look after her when she was old and frail, she bitched about my not liking her, moaned and sponged off me financially. I stopped all contact last January.
She died recently, my God what a relief I no longer have to think about her ever again.
It is a shit thing to read while grieving for your dad, my dad was my mums enabler who turned a blind eye to how I was treated and is now on his own.
It is a reflection on your mother not you, these narc women like to play favourites, is it possible to walk away from her, low or no contact ? You may find it very liberating, she doesn't deserve your love or your tears, her mental health problems do not excuse her disgusting behavior, you were a child. She had the capacity to treat your sister nicely so there was no excuse. xx

@prettycosmos my experience wasn't as bad as that, but my mum wrote a book about the aftermath of one of my siblings dying and gave it to me to read delibarately. It felt awful.

DO you want to keep in contact with her at all after this? Can you go and stay in a hotel tonight just to get away?

Finally, is it worth showing your sister and asking her to go through any other stuff now or after you mum dies and bin it all so you don't stumble across anything else?

I’ve never managed to successfully talk to my mother about anything there is only one opinion hers, even disagreeing on something minor will result in the silent treatment from her

@Shortbread49 Yes, we get a lot of huffing and sighing and poor-me justification no matter how completely outrageous her behaviour has been!

@prettycosmos My mother called me a bitch on my 11th birthday. We were living in what was then called the Third World for my father's work and it was pretty miserable...no school, no friends, no family, no tv, no shops, no nothing really. I probably had the nerve to complain about it. I can still see it as clear as yesterday...her, my father, myself and my two brothers were in our landrover, mother sat in the front next to my father who was driving, myself and my two brothers in the back (no seatbelts in the back for myself and two brothers which was as dangerous as fuck but this was 1979 so no one gave a shit back then).

I can still hear the venom in her voice as she said it...she fucking meant it. The rest of us were all shocked into silence. I sat there with tears streaming down my face, when we finally got back to the compound I ran into the room I had to share with my two brothers (my older brother was year older than me and ended up sexually assaulting me on numerous occasions) and didn't leave for the rest of the day.

I was diagnosed with C-PTSD 5 years ago and am having treatment. The above is just one story out of many I could tell about how shit my childhood was and how crap and narcissistic both my parents were. I'm 55 and I didn't realise until I was in my 40s how fucked up it all was.

My mother now has the fucking nerve herself to wonder why none of us have given her grandchildren...

Cosmos

i would give your children the age appropriate truth re your mother, a woman who is not worthy of the term. It sounds like you grew up within a narcissistic family structure and became her scapegoat.

If you can leave say an hour earlier than planned tomorrow then I would do so, never have anything to do with your sister or mother again.

You have two qualities your mother entirely lacks - empathy and insight.

I want to ask her why she never loved me. What did I do wrong. But I can't.

I found this post helpful, @prettycosmos. These are people who use their children to meet their own emotional needs, one way or another.

I've saved the screenshot for years, it was by @rvby, from this thread: www.mumsnet.com/talk/relationships/3747924-Is-this-narrative-about-me-real

Welcome to the group Cosmos!
It's unforgivable what your mother wrote about you.
I assume you will want to mention that entry im her diary saying "I hate Cosmos" etc. when you were small, but don't be surprised she denies it (even though is written down).

Your sister is the golden child and you always suspected it. That's also my case.

I am sorry about your dad. I'm terrified of my dad going first. I absolutely dread my mother.
I did tell my eldest about my mother when I was growing up. Not to a full extent but she asked me one day because she noticed how tense I am in her presence and also because she got her lying, storming off and basically being nasty a couple of times (we only see my parents over holiday visits as I moved away from my country).
I felt my daughter understood the situation and was a great relief for me. My father eveb though he is much better he always tries to deny or minimise all the drama so I am angry about this too.

Sending you love ❤ Please stay in this group.

That is absolutely terrible, @FreeRider I'm so sorry.

I often find myself lost for adequate words on this thread, but wanting to acknowledge what has been shared.

@FreeRider I'm so sorry I just read your story. I really have no words. I hope you are recovering from such traumatic past. Sending love ❤

@prettycosmos I meant to add that I'm sorry for your father's loss...I can also understand why you are mad at him for not getting you away from your mother.

@BluebellsForest @girlswillbegirls Thank you for your posts. It is such a comfort, and so refreshing, to relate this stuff and not immediately have someone say 'but they're your parents...' or 'it's in the past, forget about it' (the second one was a favourite of my ex husband...one of the many reasons he is an ex).

I am sorry too @FreeRider - and it’s the questions like why don’t I have grandchildren, why don’t you want to spend Christmas with me and in my case why would my grandmother prefer a paid carer to me that are difficult as well because you can’t very well just say “it’s because you’re a bitch” or “think about your own conduct” (I have tried this one but it didn’t end well for me and I had a hell of a lot of Dutch courage before).
I used to keep a list of all the insults my mother called me when I was maybe 9-10? I memorised them so I wouldn’t be bad again. I remember stupid fat selfish ugly pig was the start. Then there are the recent “evil” comments and her coming into my room and saying to me and the cat (I’m severely depressed, have barely eaten in days to the extent my boyfriend is angry with me and have this rubbish GI bug that’s going around) oh, you two are so lazy! I can barely catch my breath after walking from room to room. So I can really empathise and it must have been much harder before we had mass communication through the internet. At least I can send a WhatsApp to a friend to show appreciation or speak to my best friend or boyfriend about what’s happened.

@FreeRider That's terrible.

My parents moved by siblings around three developing countries before moving back to the UK. So they were on their fourth country by the time my older siblings were 15 and 14.

My childhood was more settled but once my DM randomly announced on a Sunday afternoon we were moving back to her homeland. I was really upset but apparently my older siblings had coped so I would too. I'm not sure what happened but she seemed to change her mind and didn't mention it again.

She would always go on and on about how things were better there, how inferior my home country was, and it didn't help any of us settle down. I know quite a few mums my own age who have settled here and they don't behave like this at all .

I've had to ask her to stop banging on to my kids about it because she was clearly manipulating them up to ask to go on holiday there and it's not somewhere that's particularly safe, or that I want to revisit, or that's particularly affordable as a family of four either. It was all made up bollocks as well about how fast food tastes nicer there.

I accepted it all when I was little but now I'm older I wonder how much of the disruption had an impact on my older sister's alcoholism.

I found reading Wavewalker by Suzanne Heywood helpful, it's about a girl who is forced to spend her childhood sailing around with her parents.

Thanks all for your replies. I'm really sorry to hear what some of you have also had to endure in your lives. Freerider, I can't imagine how horrendous your experiences were and I'm so sorry that was something you had to go through.

My sister ended up reading the diary last night. It was all very fraught. We started out arguing but then ended up having a good talk. Although it's true my Mum treated her differently ( better) my sister was also on the receiving end of some of my mothers horrendous deranged behaviour and its fair to say both me and my sister experienced an awful childhood. Mybsister neverbtreated me badly, and nonenofnit was her fault. She was alsonjust a little girl!We talked lots , and possibly for the first time since we left home 30 odd years ago acknowledged how awful it was, and how it has impacted our whole lives. I ended up staying at my sisters house last night and after the funeral directors this morning I'm going back home to my lovely family.
I will take some time to think about it all and decide on my next moves regarding my future interactions with my Mum.

@prettycosmos sorry that you’re going through all this - it’s a lot. I’ve nothing to add to what others have said. Take care of yourself during this time and post here if you need to get anything off your chest. Doing these two things has helped me a lot.

Some golden children have it nearly as bad as the scapegoats, @prettycosmos. You’ve been through so much and I don’t know how to say this without being sanctimonious or something, but I’m glad for you that your sibling doesn’t have personal animosity to you. It’s really good to have had that talk and I hope there are more in the future. One of the most heartbreaking elements of narcissistic abuse is the way it sets family members against each other (especially through triangulation). I’m glad you have someone who can potentially support you, or at least not be against you, now you have to deal with your mother alone. My nana has later retracted it but once she was driving me somewhere and just quietly said “I can see how much better your sister is treated than you are” and I just internally went WAIT WHAT because I’ve been through three big phases in my life: I am sad because my parents are treating me shittily and even being bullied at school is more fun than home; the parents treating me shittily was all in my head and I’m a dreadful person who deserves it anyway even if it did happen; I’m a dreadful person but probably don’t deserve this degree of shittiness and I need to check with other rational people whether this is OK. My sister (big prestigious job, very spoilt, wants to be rich more than anything, goes through boyfriends like pairs of tights, golden child) absolutely loathes me. She’s lauded to the skies for having -gasp - spoken to me for fifteen minutes total in five years (if I’ve given different figures before by the way, it’s not deliberate deception, it’s just that she sort of started blanking me for a lot of years and I respected that, then she randomly spoke to me during a visit two or three years ago when I was very ill for which she apparently deserves a medal, and I wasn’t the sort of ill where you shout and are nasty to people, but ever since my mother has said “she spoke to you!!!” As if she were saying “she chopped off her arm so you could live!!!”.) I can’t remember if I wrote about this yesterday so apologies if it’s repetition but my mother had a very loud conversation about how upsetting it was for my sister to hear that my nana didn’t want to see her grandchildren (WWII generation, very proud, surviving breast cancer right now). I am by FAR closer to her than my sister who has turned down any opportunity to see her for her entire adult life but apparently it wasn’t harmful for me to hear how much she hated me while it was awful for my sister who couldn’t give two shits. Or a single shit.

Really sorry to go off on one on a thread that was supposed to be for YOU to vent on. Still so sorry for your loss but glad it’s allowed this rapprochement with your sister. Maybe you could both consider a united front?

@prettycosmos Thank you! Glad to hear you and your sister are finally on the same page regarding your childhood...I know myself that is a weird kind of comfort. I've heard from my mother how my older brother (who I have been no contact with for 15 years for obvious reasons) has told his wife he has no happy memories of childhood... my mother took that very badly but it was a relief to me to know that I wasn't wrong to feel how I do about it all.

I've also been no contact with my father for 34 years and very low contact with my mother for 26 years. I moved to the other side of the world and haven't actually seen her for nearly 15 years. I won't lie, low contact can be difficult and I do sometimes feel a bit guilty for it, but I know for the sake of mental health this is how it has to be for me.

@CeciledeVolangesdeNouveau

”I am sad because my parents are treating me shittily and even being bullied at school is more fun than home; the parents treating me shittily was all in my head and I’m a dreadful person who deserves it anyway even if it did happen; I’m a dreadful person but probably don’t deserve this degree of shittiness and I need to check with other rational people whether this is OK.”

This resonates so much, especially as someone who was bullied at school, home and the awful religious weekend school I was sent to. I’ve been through similar phases but I’m in a fourth phase in the last 18 months;

I am a decent person, the shittiness was awful but it was in the past and while I’m sad it happened, I am glad I can advocate for myself now and don’t need to continue letting my family bully me.