February 2025 Well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

A new thread indeed!.

I wonder if the anger is misplaced fear because their behaviour when we were a child created a lot of fear, a lot of energy. Now we are left with the same trigger and the same energy but we subconsciously push it towards anger. I wonder if we need to work on this energy within our bodies? Nothing I guess is the result but it may not be possible so perhaps physically moving, hitting, running etc just to get rid of the chemistry of these triggers.

Hi everyone, I'm glad I've found this thread so placemarking to come back to.
I'm not sure if this is allowed but I'm hoping you guys may be able to give me some advice on my recent thread, it may be very helpful where some PP may have had a similar experience. I could really do with any words of wisdom. TIA x

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5294044-to-be-honest

There's definitely a little bit of that going on. Sibling also has a horrendous incurable chronic illness and has had a similar path - symptoms ignored for years, never taken to the doctor, mother's focus entirely on how it was so stressful for her (b/c sibling was living at home and clearly unwell, but undiagnosed and blamed for symptoms). Major surgery with massive long term impact on health and wellbeing. I am pretty much NC with sibling (nothing nasty, just no relationship there to hang on to) but sometimes the things my mother has said and the way she talks about it makes me wince. There just seems to be no understanding at all. I can only assume that she talks about me in the same way.

Part of me wants to ask her, quite bluntly, why she wants to know, to point out that she didn't care when I was a child, she didn't care when I was a teenager, or when I was viciously bollocked for taking ibuprofen from the cupboard without permission (but she never asked me what I'd needed them for) and I was so ashamed that I just tried to manage without any painkillers after that. She just never asked and I had been trained to never say that I needed help. It was an abysmal failure of parenting. It's hard to believe that she cares now. It's not that she openly says she doesn't care, and in her head I imagine that she probably thinks she does, but there's no evidence of caring in her behaviour.

I was not allowed to be angry when I was a child. I know now that it's part of the narc cycle (coming from my father) that he would behave atrociously and then afterwards, we all had to act like it hadn't happened and play this game of being not just a normal family, but like we were better than other families because we were so happy. And then I was not allowed to be angry or disappointed at my mother either. But I am really angry with her. I'm angry for the childhood, and I'm angry for how she behaved after she ended the marriage, how selfish she was, how she still expected me to centre her needs all the time, how she treated my son, how she made it very clear that the life she wanted wasn't one that included me or my kids in any meaningful way but at the same time, wanted to be allowed to show up when it suited her. And I didn't want to be like him and he was so angry. So I refused to do angry for a long time.

I am trying not to push it away now because I've done that for so long that the anger has got a bit stuck due to never being expressed, and I'm letting myself understand that it's okay to feel angry sometimes.

I take my anger out on the housework, aggressive hoovering oh and singing. My kids are still young and have not really been in this dysfunction enough to be used yet so I don’t have that anger. I feel sorry for my mum mostly now because she knows no better. No contact with ex husband. If he was in my life too much I’d probably be more angry. Life is very much dependent on what we are surrounded by and what our eyes see and what this does to our bodies. Would the anger dissipate quicker if somewhere that made you feel safer. For me I love the forest.

@Happyfarm I think the stage I'm at now, I'm not trying to actively do things to make the anger go away any more. I'm not encouraging it and I much prefer feeling calm and relaxed, but it's like needing to stop trying to go round the anger and accepting that the only way forward is through. It will only go once I've let myself feel it.

It’s only temporary. In a moment something good will happen, someone will do something funny and it will be gone. I thank god for my kids because they do the silliest things and its
enough to brighten the darkest of days. Only this morning I’ve gone upstairs to use the loo and the 2 year old has put all the toothpaste and toothbrushes down the toilet! 😂

Were they tidying up? 😂

Nope the little one hates tooth brushing time! Amongst many other things, being 2 is hard!

In someone physically healthy, using exercise as a way to manage the adrenaline from the fight-or-flight response in people with anxiety, is a recognised coping strategy happyfarm.

I get triggered by any attempt at parenting me now, I wasn't parented when young I don't need it now! With anger I've needed to be angry at things from the past, when I realised as an adult those things were wrong. I wasn't allowed to be angry at them at the time, instead being told/made to feel I was unreasonable. It's something I've had to work through. Alongside the reprogramming of how I've been taught the world/life works, which was all lies, so I've had to relearn how things really are.

My parent let slip during conversation they'd said something deeply personal about my health to their friend group when they'd met up. That was when I first realised I was being gossiped about so I immediately put them on an information diet. I've been experiencing the hassling and responses binkie and cheekysnake mentioned ever since.

Repressing my feelings of fear and anger is what I absolutely know has given me M.E. I don’t actually have the energy anymore to be angry as it makes me feel ill. I have an awful lot of things that can make me very angry if I let it, the rapes by my ex, the way he treated me and spoke to me (still does). But I don’t have the energy anymore. It was in a past that I have to leave in order to have resemblance of a life in the present, which is hard because thoughts have physical actions and I don’t like my memories.

I still remember the time my youngest was about to get in the bath and put his dirty clothes in the toilet instead of the laundry basket. Which was funny enough, but then he did it again the next day 😂

@SamAndAnnie I recognise so much in what you've said. The anger now is not the same anger from then, it's anger at being told my totally reasonable and justified childhood anger was inappropriate. I also had to reprogramme my understanding of the world. So much stuff that they had taught me was just wrong. Still figuring some of it out, because as I get older and reach different life stages, new stuff pops up.

It's very strange isn't it when you get to quite a late age and realise something that you thought was a given that everyone experienced is extremely rare.

My parents used to drive away and leave one of us for a joke. You'd run to catch up with the car and they'd start driving again.

I was recounting this hilarious joke to someone who looked at me in horror and I thought 'oh, so that was weird?'

Mum used to do 'hilarious' devil voices that I hated. No wonder I remember not liking her from age 3. Because I'm sane.

The strange thing is, I'm not very bothered that they used to do the car driving away nonsense etc. I just didn't know any different, I don't think I'm angry. Just delighted they're dead 🤣🤣🤣

@Dogaredabomb I've got similar stories 😑 I look back now and just think what an unbelievably cruel and bizarre thing to do to a child. Like, WTF would need to be wrong with you for you to think that was funny.

@SamAndAnnie
I get triggered by any attempt at parenting me now, I wasn't parented when young I don't need it now!
Arrrrrrrgh yes.

I wouldn't mind but my parents were fucking useless at everything because they were always drunk!! They couldn't manage money, food shopping, themselves never mind us kids. I have never been that useless since I was 6 years old.

On the good side my white terrier rolled in fox poop this afternoon, absolutely covered. I just love washing fox poop off 🤢 you have to laugh but my parents would have beaten me as a kid for getting dirty.

cheekysnake does a tiny bit of you think it's funny? I can see how it could seem funny, like jumping out and shouting boo can seem funny. Is it because it was the 70s?

Binkie have you heard that ketchup neutralises fox poo? I've never tried it. The worst thing my white terrier rolled in was human poo, I was at my limit with that 💩🤢

No, I don't think it is funny, but in my case he used to drive me to a place near where we lived, an old victorian house, and threaten to leave me there. I was utterly, utterly terrified of it. I can see in hindsight that he got a kick out of his ability to cause that level of fright. I mean sobbing and begging not to be left levels of fright. He said the people living there would lock me in a room and burn me. He'd have been in his mid thirties at the time. Which now I think about it, makes me realise that I've seen blokes in that age bracket bullying their children in public and laughing at their distress.

It's not very effective and Betsy was pink for several weeks as it stains 😂😂 we have fox, bull, hedgehog, feral cat, donkey poop and a particular nasty one pheasant poop, she just loves poop. She will roll while I am yelling darling please don't 😂😂😂 then looks at me straight and says 'roll, me, no, why do you ask!'

Strangely my parents nagging are the voices I use for all the animals Mr fox ' what's this shit I had shepherd's pie last night' the ferals sit on window ledge bitching about how much longer they have to wait for food. I apologise to the garden birds for disturbing them. All the animals here are very belligerent....hmmm I have childhood issues.

Jesus H Christ he was a psycho.
My mum was the same, she would put a few clothes in a bag and tell me go and live somewhere else, I was terrified, I slept on benches a few times, at friends or in our shed. It is my biggest insecurity (still) being homeless. I brought my first home age 20.

No, I don't find it funny, just checking it wasn't a 'it was the 70s' thing.

I replied to my mother's message and put the boundary in place that I wanted to, so pat on the back for myself. Being ok with the fact that that other people might not like your response but it's ok that they don't like it is a big deal after growing up with a narcissist parent.

I posted a few months back that my DM, with whom I had been NC for quite a few years, was ill and passed away. I didn’t fly to see her - partly because I wasn’t sure I wanted to, but also because I simply couldn’t afford to (she lived long-haul distance away). She was emotionally abusive but she was very selective about how she behaved with other people around so almost no one knew.

I am really struggling with everything- grief, the flying monkeys (aka aunts), questioning my decision not to see her, and other people’s judgement of me. I have had zero support from any friends (and I’ve not said much, but when I do it’s just ‘oh’ and that’s it), no family on either side understand my decision and judge me/cut me off.

My SIL however sent me a text which summed it up - it was words to the effect “I’m so sorry to hear of your DM’s passing away. I know you both didn’t have an easy relationship and you may be having mixed feelings, but I’m always here if you would like someone to talk to.”

We aren’t remotely close or even friends, but get along fine, but I just wish I had similar sentiment from one or two friends. btw I’m not going to take SIL up on her offer to talk for a few reasons, but she has been the only person who bothered to try and understand my perspective. A good friend text me last week and I replied to say (amongst other things) sorry I haven’t been in touch since January but I’ve been struggling with how I feel about my DM passing, and I’ve had no reply. That was 3 days ago.

I just feel so alone and I don’t know where to turn. I had 8 counselling sessions but they finished last November and I feel myself spiralling. Nobody tells you that being NC means that when the other person dies people think you are disgusting/ don’t bother with you anymore. It’s hell going through this alone.