How can you get over emotional abuse if you still have to be in contact with who did it?

[meepthebeep]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been thinking a lot about my childhood and my relationship with my parents recently, although I’ve been having counselling on and off for years (first started in about 2014, I think).

Over a period of time, I’ve come to realise that our mum was emotionally abusive. She’d threaten to give us away to Barnardo’s, give us a huge amount of Christmas presents and then throw them away when we were ‘bad’, ruin days out and holidays by flying into a rage and then giving us the silent treatment for days. Some of my earliest childhood memories are of trailing around the house after her crying ‘mummy mummy’ and her ignoring me completely. I was scared of her, even though I didn’t really entirely understand that at the time, but I understood that my friends had approachable mums and mine was scary.

When we got older, she’d rage at us for totally normal, age-appropriate things, like buying contact lenses, having travel injections, or going on the pill aged 17-18. I went on a study abroad placement which I really, really struggled with, but she refused to speak to me unless it was ‘a good FaceTime’, i.e. I didn’t burden her with my feeling upset or lonely.

All of this (and lots lots lots more besides, but for the sake of brevity…) meant that when I got to my early twenties, I wanted less to do with her. That’s when I first started having counselling and started to realise our relationship wasn’t normal. We spent our childhood and adolescence dealing with her emotions and nobody had any regard for ours, even when we were tiny. My dad commented that when I was a baby, I was so funny and smiley, and then that changed ‘as soon as I was aware of outside influences’, which is his way of saying as soon as I was old enough to be scared of my mum, I suppose.

When I was at uni, she’d call me every day and wanted to put tracking apps on my ipad. If I didn’t answer, she’d call my then-boyfriend to find out where I was.

So, when I left uni and met my now DH, I tried to put in some boundaries, and that just made everything worse. I wanted to stay near my uni town and DH’s hometown, about an hour away from them. She emailed me to tell me that if she walked in front of a lorry tomorrow, I’d be sorry that I didn’t see her more. My dad said that she ‘needed the support of her eldest daughter’ and that mum was about to be diagnosed with MS. We then found out that she did have MS, but she’d been diagnosed for years, because my younger sister had accidentally found a hospital letter about it at home some four years prior to that.

I was summoned to their house where she proceeded to cry all over me and beg me to tell her I loved her, so I did, to which she replied ‘I know you hate me’. When I didn’t react to her crying (she wanted me to cry too), I was deemed ‘cold and unfeeling’.

In between all this, at family occasions she carried on being rude and cruel to me, making jokes about me in public and crowing ‘oh, she doesn’t like that!’ about me.

Since then, she seems to have mellowed, but she still makes awful comments and we’re expected to just get over it, because that’s jusy how is.

I had a miscarriage before Christmas, and she’s been messaging me things like ‘if you want a hug, just say and I’ll be there ❤️❤️❤️’ - but the background is that she has never been there for us, we have had to think only about her our entire lives.

On the total flipside from that message, she asked about a scan I’d had to have before having surgery for the miscarriage, and then said ‘so it had died then?’ My dad phoned me the day after surgery to ask me to keep my mum ‘in the picture’, and said she was only trying to help.

I feel so angry towards both of them for years and years of this. My mum for how she treated us, how she never reflected on her behaviour and never sought to change or make amends. She has never apologised, we’re just expected to be happy families now. And my dad for throwing us under the bus for years, and for still doing it now even weeks after my miscarriage.

We’re expected to see them and keep in touch. I can’t bear it when I see a message from her on my phone. Yesterday she told me that my dad was going to drop her at my house - told me, didn’t ask if I was free or if I wanted to see her. The very very cynical part of me thinks that she is going to try and use my current state and grief to try and get back ‘in’ where I’d put up some boundaries.

Sorry, this post is a huge long mess (even though I said I was going to try and keep it brief!). I’m just unpicking the damage she’s caused, finding my sense of self that I never ever had in childhood, and she is still there still behaving in the same way, and my dad is enabling her.

I’m going back to counselling next week after a break of a year or so. Sorry, I think I’m just venting. Does anyone have any advice? I don’t even really think I’m asking about going NC because I know I couldn’t go through with it and it’d make her much much worse.

Your vulnerable after a mc and your mum is playing the concerned loving mother is freaking you out but I think it goes deeper than that. You’re worried about being a parent, putting boundaries down to your own parents to protect your own child and breaking the circle.

Your experience with your parents is very similar to mine. The difference being that when I left for University I just did low contact and kept that up until they were both very elderly.
I felt I had to help at the end of their lives to relieve the stress from my lovely aunts and cousins.
But I didn't go and see my mother when she was dying. I just didn't want to.
My advice and this is just my experience for what it is worth is that you will never find out why they treat you as they do, even if there is a reason it won't help.
Put your energy into yourself. I saw a therapist and just said all the things I wanted to.
Maybe I am a lot more selfish than you but really you must put yourself first you are worth as much as anyone else and deserve as much.
It was very important for me to see my mother as a nasty selfish and limited woman who did not and never had loved me.
My very best wishes to you.

I'm sorry OP. I recognise a lot of this from my own life. Ironically my mother resolved the situation by dying, which has shamefully been a bit of a relief in some ways. It's been ten years, and I now, finally, miss the person she could be sometimes. But I don't miss all the bullshit and boundary pushing, absolutely not.

Your father knows how it was. You need to tell him first and foremost that you don't want to be around either of them because it brings back too many bad memories, and leave it there. He will tell you you're not being fair, but to him fair = making his life easier. That is not your responsibility and never was.

You know you’re going to have to put boundaries in place to them because your mother will play the devoted grandmother who you can never trust and your father can’t be trusted neither to be an active part of a grandchild’s life as he just enables your mum’s behaviour.
Your parent’s will never hear criticism nor understand any boundaries and dismiss the abuse that you went through due to their own parenting and you won’t stand for it when it involves your own children

I'm sorry about the miscarriage and the way in which you were brought up. My mother was no better but different to yours.

She got Alzheimer's in her eighties and turned into the loveliest woman, kind and caring and couldn't remember the people who, she'd been worried about what they might think.

She died two years ago but she redeemed herself during the Alzheimer's years, the last 6 months were bad and I didn't feel the need to sit with her during the night she died at the hospice, she wasn't alone two nurses stayed with her but no family.

Ohhh @meepthebeep I am so sorry for your loss- your recent heartbreaking one of your baby, but also the loss of the mother’s love you deserved and were entitled to. It is NOT your fault that she was incapable of such love, and you are a loveable and important person who deserves respect and love- and I hope your DH gives you that kind of love and support.
I am very fortunate to not have experienced this kind of thing with a parent, but I was married to a very damaged and resultant narcissist for many years and had to coparent with him to an extent. You (as you’ve already realised) need firm boundaries and to protect yourself as much as you can.
What I would do now is send your parents a message or tell them (whichever you prefer and fee you can do easiest) what you want right now- this could be some space to heal and no contact for x amount of time (a few days, a week, a month- it’s up to you) and say you acknowledge this may be difficult for them but it is important to you and is what you want and need from them in order to heal from your miscarriage. If they respect that, then you can go low-contact and set the pace. Perhaps getting to a point you are comfortable with this token contact and semblance of a relationship moving forward.
If they don’t respect it, use that information to help you build yourself the case for NC. Frame it as them not being able (for whatever reason) to meet your needs and never having done so. If you think they aren’t willing to- then you will always tie yourself in knots trying to do the “right thing” to make them want to. Accept that they are broken, but you did not break them and are not responsible for fixing them. And you have the right to walk away.
I believe the links here are fab and the “stately homes” thread is invaluable to many… who sadly have also been there and experienced this. And can show you the path to NC should you choose this.
You are strong and you can and will get through this and I am sending all the baby dust to you too 🌟

@meepthebeep

I think I’m so so damaged by everything that happened - I didn’t feel all emotions until a couple of years ago, I just couldn’t articulate them, and now suddenly I have this huge anger within me.

Good. Use this anger to formulate a plan. That's what it there for. You would not let a stranger treat you like this. Just because she's a blood relative does not mean she has the right to take out her crap on you. You are not a human punch bag.

I desperately want to heal but I don’t see how I can with them still behaving as they are - my mum still thinks she can say whatever she likes to us, and my dad will still offer us up to her to make things ‘easier’.

Excellent insight.
You can't heal with them behaving like this - and they will NEVER change. You have to remove them from your life - NC.
Let them go bother someone else and enjoy - peace , sanity and bliss.

I wish I had a supportive family. I can’t bear the thought of her near me.

Your instinct is correct- she shouldn't be anywhere near you.
Your intuition is telling you how to make your life better- follow it.
Once out the picture (your biological family) you will find new people - and start to form a new family

I have a new best friend (replaces sister)

Ex childminder is the 'grandmother' kids never had.

Remember- you can't pick your family, but you can pick your friends.

Once the drama of your family is out your life, new , healthy relationships will gravitate to you.

I think I’m just brain dumping, I’m sorry. I’ll take all of this to my counsellor next week.

I hope your counsellor is a good one.
But maybe work on your self esteem.
Each night write down anything positive anyone has said about you.
With good self esteem you won't put up with anyone's carp.

Also I know someone who tell people her daughter barely talk to her. Ha - not true. Her daughter works tirelessly behind the scenes (lc) to protect her and make sure she's ok.

But the said mother has cause her dd so much stress it made her ill and suicidal.

Don't let that be you.
People will know what your parents are like and have much sympathy for you.

I too have delayed feelings as I was stifled as a child and told I had no right to feel any emotion as my life wasn’t about me it was all about my parents. That they were cheating on each other, had drink problems and used me as a pawn to score points at each other or to cause a row was not a problem in their eyes it was all down to me because I apparently caused every trouble in their relationship.
I was the scape goat, the one they went to to turn me against the other and tell me things I was too young to hear. They played mind games with my love and I grew up suspicious that love fucked you up. I never trusted myself or my reality for many many years.
They eventually split up but my mum instead of a calmer life took to being an alcoholic and drugs so home life was more chaotic and the men were awful. She wanted me to be her saviour and I ran as it meant life would be just about her and I had so many conflicting emotions when she died young.!

Sorry OP I don’t know where that outpouring of emotion came from,?I read your post and it transported me back and I had to get it off my chest. X

Please don’t apologise @Jamjaris 🙏🏼 I’m so sorry that that happened to you. I can totally empathise with that feeling of all the emotions of it overcoming you and just needing to get it out.

Huge thanks to everyone for your really wise and thoughtful posts, I really appreciate them all. I’ll re-read them again and reply properly later on but just wanted to say thank you so, so much, it really means a lot to read your supportive posts. In real life it can be so lonely because many people (very fortunately) don’t really understand what it’s like to grow up this way. Thank you again x

@meepthebeep you've had some excellent advice on here so I won't add much, just to say that I find low contact with my (similar) mother easier than no contact...so might that work for you?

A PPs advice to take control of the contact rather than hide from it is spot on, and LC doesn't give your family the excuse for drama that NC does, if you withdraw quietly over time they may not even notice it's happening until it's done; the challenge is then not to get lured back in.

All the very best and I'm so sorry for your loss, I hope there are easier and happier times ahead for you soon xx

Thank you all so much for your replies. I’m re-reading them now.

I agree that LC will be slightly easier to implement than complete NC, and I need to take control of it rather than hiding. NC would give both my parents ‘evidence’ that I’m horrible, I think, so they’d use it to prove to themselves and other people that I’m the problem.

I also totally agree that, because of the timing with the miscarriage, it goes deeper than just feeling uncomfortable about DM suddenly being ‘caring’, or at least wanting to be seen as caring. I’m realising how much work I have to do in order to be emotionally healthy and mature for my own DC (we’re hoping to start TTC again soon).

I feel it’s unfair of her to have behaved how she did towards us for years/decades and now decide that we owe her that mother-daughter closeness.

I missed out on time with my lovely granny (paternal side) because of DM’s behaviour - I couldn’t go and see her without DM being furious that I hadn’t also seen her, so I didn’t go. I was early-mid 20s at the time and scared of her. Then it was covid and then my granny passed away. DM was there with us when granny passed and managed to make herself the focus of granny’s actual death - as in, making a scene running to get nurses as granny drew her last breaths, despite my dad asking her not to.

Then afterwards, my dad said that he didn’t want me to feel bad about not seeing granny much in the years before her death. I was absolutely beside myself with grief for the one woman who was truly a mother-figure to me, and again he blamed me and couldn’t see my mother had driven me away.

Thank you again for your really really kind posts, it means so much 🙏🏼

I am no contact with my relatives. In the end I did it to save my physical and mental health and to be able to build my own life away from them.

They were grown adults with choices. I have no sympathy for parents who chose to abuse their kids whether it is physically or mentally.

Your dad will never acknowledge any wrong doing your mum does, he has to live a delusional life so he can along side her deny your truth and memories. He is on a leash and can’t be close to anyone but her as it is a threat to your mum if he does. It is a role he chose so he can live life pretending all is good with his wife.
You live your life in truth although it hurts and that takes guts as it would be easier to stick your head in the sand as you’ve been coerced throughout your childhood. You should be proud you survived all that mind fuckery OP x

Your granny would’ve known your mum of old and understood your mum would stand in your way of visiting her OP as your mum can’t stand you having any close relationships to anyone but her. She always looked out for you as a child and loved the woman you became

I am just so sorry for all that has happened to you. I would go no contact. You are an adult and you have a mother and father who have invested a lifetime in doing this to you. They won't stop so you must for your own mental health.