December 2024 - but we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

New thread

@CheekySnake it's incredible what kids know (assuming your son in is still a child). My niece knew from a young age that there is something off about her grandparents, my parents. She used to say to me 'i don't want to go there, they argue all the time' or 'im sick of grandmas shouting' or 'i talked to grandma normally and calmly and she shouted back at me'. It broke my heart. But her dad, my brother, has no backbone so this continues.

I'm just trying to be the safe person to her. I can't get her out of this or stop it, but I can listen to her without judgement but validation. I hope she doesn't need to abandon herself the way I had to!

My 8 year old took the gift from me and went meh she’s weird mummy put it down and went on her way! lol

@Happyfarm I hope you found a way of validating your child without seeming to bitch about her!

I sometimes wonder when I started to abandon myself and believe much of my parents shit about me and how relationships look like (not!)

I kind of just went yeah she is a bit. I don’t hide it anymore. I tell my kids that it’s what people do that matters. I’ve always had to be on it a bit as her dad is a classic narc. He would be the sort to send the biggest most expensive gift but never turn up to the school events. He even sent the biggest teddy to the hospital after an operation she had but didn’t show up because he fell asleep. She knows because I know! They want you to cover I feel for fear of not being liked or consequences. My kids will absolutely have more worth then I do.

Hoping it is ok if I join in here for the 'festive period'. My mum has lots of narcissistic processes and I am visiting her over Christmas.
She is elderly now and in the early stages of dementia and I actually have some compassion for her but I find it really hard to be around her for any length of time. I feel so claustrophobic.
I am fairly low contact with her (she complains about how little I visit and how short my visits are)
I think I need to practice "taking up my own space" while I am with her.

I am staying Christmas Eve to 27th. My sister and her partner will also be there which is good in some ways. My sister can be a bit narcissistic like my mum and uses the same expressions as her in the same tones which can be triggering. She seems to have improved somewhat. (more respectful of my differences and boundaries) to the extent that I have wondered if she is having therapy!
Anyway it would be good to have an outlet here to use while I'm actually visiting. I hope that it's ok to join in!

@EducatingArti I could have written this - have a similar unease and stress around my mum. She's staying for longer than I feel comfortable and I'm tense already as otherwise would have had a really chilled drama free Christmas

@Twatalert my kids are older now (late teens) and have had v little contact with my family at all. My mother is the only family member they know. I was NC with my father before they were born, his family cut me off at that point, and I've got no extended family on my mother's side. There's a sibling my kids have never met. And then obviously they barely know my mother either.

Son asked if I thought my mother would give them money for Xmas (this is what she usually does. Learned a long time ago that she can't be trusted with anything from their list as she's got form for asking and then not buying what you've asked for). I said yes probably. He then made a comment about how she doesn't give me money but does give sibling money (something my mother has made no attempt to keep private) and it was clear that he found this a bit weird and a bit unfair and didn't understand it. I've done my best over the years to explain my family in an age appropriate way. It's tricky. When they were tiny my mother wanted me to lie and pretend that her second husband was my bio father (and therefore their bio grandfather). I said no. No grubby secrets in this generation, thanks.

@CheekySnake I find they all seem to have secrets. My MiL doesn’t talk to her father’s wife, so her step-mum that he married when she was really young. In my lack of worry I simply asked why and they all looked at me. The step mum is really lovely, lovely to me from the beginning and to my kids. The other brother has the same line as his mum and never takes his kids to visit. There is apparently no reason for this it’s just how it is. Nobody ever questions just toes the line (apart from myself). I even asked my partner why and he just says we do as we are told.

@Happyfarm it's crazy, isn't it? I am of the opinion that these things always get discovered in the end anyway. I had figured out the secret that must not be told in our family by the time I was about 12. But there was a general unspoken rule in our house that there were some things you were not allowed to talk about, in or outside the house. My father's violent behaviour was top of the list.

Oh god yes the secrets. Such a burden to put onto a child.

My mother used to say 'i hope you won't tell anyone xyz' and my father used to say 'this is gonna stay between you and me'.

Christmas cards arrived today from the in-laws who we are LC with (we are NC with my side). MILs card was written to DH and the DC only, my name left off, and one of the SIL misspelled my really easy name. They are so petty. DH put them in the bin.
They blame me for the LC, because of course DH couldn’t possibly have a mind of his own, and it couldn’t possibly because they are nasty and unbearable to be around.
The only positive I take from it is that hopefully there won’t be any unexpected visits from them.
Still anticipating some flying monkeys from my NC side though.
Ive taken on board all of your comments to me at the end of the last thread and we are definitely going to look to move in the New Year, my mental and physical health isn’t going to survive staying here.

I forgot to add, thanks for all of the support at the end of the last thread X

@VWSC3 fantastic decision on the move. If doubts creep in again remember that anxiety and panic distort reality.

Glad your husband put the cards in the bin. It was another attempt to divide and conquer and scapegoat you.

Now I'm a parent I look back and think WTF. It's such a manipulative thing to do.

'Don't tell your mother, but I'm going to leave her and you'll want to live with me, won't you?'
(The only acceptable answer was yes so I would have to say it, when the reality was that I was terrified of and hated him and used to hope on a daily basis that he would die because I couldn't see any other way out).

'This is blah blah illegal drug, but it's my right to use it. But if I got caught I could lose my job or go to prison so you can't tell anyone'

He used to take me with him to buy it and tell me to stay in the car and 'look out for the police'

I did approach her (the kids step-great nanny) and told her I was struggling with the mum. She simply said good luck as her and the mums dad have been ostracised for 40 years. Her advice to me was to drift away and create a life for us as in her words “the 2 sons are way too involved with their mum, they need to develop an identity”. Basically grow up!

@CheekySnake I only realised now, literally today, how fucked up this is. It keeps people at a distance from one another and always between chairs.

Those are pretty big things you weren't supposed to tell. Mine were silly things. 'dont tell I bought you ice cream' I wonder what was the point. The biggest was probably my dad giving me money once. You are the first ones I tell this secret to lol

I don’t think they want people to have relationships with each other within the family. I don’t know why…control maybe?

I was maybe 5 and my mum bought a roasted chicken from the market for her and myself to have for lunch. I wasn't supposed to tell my brother, but he came home from school early and caught us in the act lol. My mother was furious because she now had to share the chicken with one more person. Yes, that's my mother.

Would we have disposed of the bones straight away and got the chicken smell out of our home like on some netflix TV drama thriller. I have no idea. Why lie about a chicken. I don't get it.

That's bonkers

@CheekySnake I had no idea until today. She kept bringing it up for years. It must have been awful for my brother getting reminded over and over again that my mother was hoping not having to share a chicken with him.

I now wonder what they kept from me.

Food was a means of controlling others in our house.

@Twatalert the only thing my mum couldn’t control was her temper and her emotions. I’m sure she is undiagnosed ND, as I and my daughter is. But I have much more control. If I was late back from college my dinner would go in the bin in a rage in front of me. It didn’t teach me to be on time, I was a teenager and sometimes the buses and classes were late (other times I would chat to friends for a bit). What it did achieve was that I was shit scared of my mums temper and of everyone’s and on high alert all the time for everything.

@Happyfarm not even in front of others outside the home? Mine managed pretty well there.

No but I don’t suspect my mum is a narcissist. I think she was definitely a wounded child and struggled with relationships but it was never intentional or pre-meditated. It doesn’t exactly make the consequences any different because I still entered a narc marriage and it messed my life up the same. I think that’s why I always respond on threads to people who say well it’s wasn’t intentional that it really makes very little difference.

@Happyfarm yes agree. It makes no real difference if intentional or not. I think narcs have a way of operating that shows a lack of empathy and consideration of others. They don't plan evil all the time. They are just destructive the way they are.

I think they all share the same scored earth mentality. Do and say things that cannot be taken back but when they have calmed down cant understand why we are upset/angry/dont want to talk to them, which makes us the problem/over sensitive. They are batshit. Got to say how much lighter my life has been since NC and after my mum died. I can actually look back and laugh at most of it now.
Talking of secrets, I will never forget bunking off school, getting the train to London to see my nan in hospital, at 15 I was already a force of nature. Big last man standing fight/ argument, finger in matrons face as she had my nan mixed with someone else with a different name, nan trying to get me to shut up but I was yelling they could be giving her this other womans medication, amputate her leg or any other fecking thing as they had the wrong medical records on her bed 😂Bit of a shock to find out my nan was a bigamist and my poor non bio grandad who I loved was called by another mans name all his life. I was never allowed to talk about it after...seriously who the feck cared, we loved him whoever he was, he was gdad to us, he was the only adult in my childhood I did love and feel safe with until my mum who was for the 600th time going to move her latest fuck buddy in and throw my dad out of his own house, I was told every time she would keep my younger sister, my G. parents wanted my brother but not me, I would have to live on the street with my alcoholic dad.....yep happy days.