February 2025 Well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

A new thread indeed!.

I remember a few adults being nice to me when I was a child and it made a huge difference (but it was upsetting). It also put me in danger though in case the mentals found out.

There's a photo of me with a packed kiddie suitcase when I was 4, I was pleading to go to boarding school. Back then some kids did go at 5 and I lived in hope 😂

@Dogaredabomb how did it make a difference for you?

I came across nice people but didn't have them in my life as such. For example, one of my mothers co-worker was particularly nice to me. But I knew my mother's gossip about her so ended up confused. As a child I couldn't imagine that my mother made stuff up, exaggerated, forgot to tell her role in the story etc. so I thought this coworker probably wasn't that nice. It was much later when she gossipped about people in situations I had been with her and realised she lied about stuff.

One of my aunts seemed nice. I once stayed with her and she was somewhat caring. But as an adult I know she wasn't a safe person for me as she bought into the negative narrative about me.

I had a godparent, to this day she holds a very special place in my heart, she does not know this. I stayed with her now and again and they to this day are some of my best childhood memories. She let me choose what to do and what to wear and I felt so safe with her. You never know they effect you can have on someone if you can bare the rest of it.

They stay in contact because you serve a purpose - someone they can scapegoat and feel superior to. If they ditch you they'll need to find someone else to provide that service.

I also think that although we talk about NC and see it as an option, not everyone does, especially if they're afraid of being judged and found wanting if they do it. It doesn't occur to them as they see it as cruel and negative and they think they're decent people who would never behave that way (and they don't perceive their actual behaviour as problematic). The problem isn't that they were late, it's that you freaked out over them just being a bit late in a way that wasn't even really late and didn't matter. IYSWIM.

When scapegoats NC it's taken as proof that it was correct to scapegoat them in the first place.

Do these kind of people stay away from happy successes people? Can they have relationships with people without having to be better?

@Happyfarm from what I remember of my father, he could always, and I mean always find something to criticize in every single person he met.

Boring, dull, dumpy, badly groomed, didn't dress well, liked something that only a fool with no taste would like, didn't understand the world as well as him, ignorant, not as clever as him, didn't understand food as well as he did, didn't realise that everyone had been secretly laughing at them all night, had political beliefs that only an idiot would have. There were more but you get the picture.

It's not like he was a catch in any sense of the word.

I think decent people twigged he was rotten pretty quickly and avoided him TBH.

This made me tear up. What a wonderful memory for you to have. How come she doesn't know how you feel about her?

I want to say she was a gem but really, she was probably just normal and treated you how anyone should have treated you.

I fully agree. I didn't just freak out about them being late once. It was the pattern, the complete disregard for me, the not trying and I felt trapped too. Because I knew there was no way for me to speak to them about it like adults as they would ignore, deflect and spin a story that I am too sensitive. I knew this was coming and it upset me and the child I once was.

But I didn't want to keep it in either. Once I got I all out I felt better. Before therapy there was no way I could return to my normal regulated baseline anytime soon.

Their worlds are quite small. I know mine was and still is. They find a way to put a lot of emotional distance between them and anyone else. They have a narrative in their heads they repeat over and over again to feel superior. They will only surround themselves with people who allow them to keep up their narrative.

We don’t express feelings in my family. I literally cannot tell her how I feel because my mouth won’t say it. She is aging tho and in her 80’s.

I get that! I wonder how she feels about today and what she thinks.

I only recently started saying to me niece I love her. She's 11. I feel awkward and wonder if it's just me or I am actually awkward when I say it. She says it back too. But I can't give her a kiss on the cheek for example. It's like my body wouldn't move there when we hug goodbye for example. Who cares. I know I give her a lot of things in other ways by having an interest in her life and her as a person. She vents to me too when she has problems with her parents or her friends. I just hope she feels she can contact me when things get really ugly once she's a teenager which they will.

Yes to the small world. I used to want this, but now I see it as a prison. I wanted a small close knit family until I realised that they literally are building a cult. To the unexpected it feels like something good. I feel sorry for my SIL really, she has a lovely big house, never has to work but the house is a prison that no one visits. It’s a narrative that she is unexpectedly passing on to her kids. Inside the house it’s safe and everything outside is unsafe. So they sit there looking down on everyone below who makes mistakes but they the ones living. I am trying my best (despite being scared) to show my kids that the outside world is amazing, there are many amazing people and there is nothing to be scared of. Which involves as PP said taking control back of my emotions and not letting them dictate my life.

Can FOG be used to enact a form of financial abuse by narcissistic parents? I’ve looked up the definition of financial abuse and it assumes that people are directly controlling access to money etc or actively taking out debts in other peoples names. But what about when Narc parents expect and persuade their kids to take on their debts in their own names or to make personal sacrifices so the parents don’t have to? E.g. kids balance transferring debts into own names, expecting kids (who have all moved out) to contribute to expensive essential items for parents use (similar to a lawnmower or a new Dyson). Expecting kids to stay in rented homes so they can buy a house for the parents to live in (and avoid renting).

Oh wow that’s terrible. They shouldn’t be expecting that of their children, they should have sorted their own finances. Children aren’t responsible for parents it’s the other way around. Sounds very entitled and yes very abusive.

@Settodonotdisturb to me this definition sounds like it's only describing the physical aspect of financial abuse. What you describe is probably emotional abuse that extends to finances. Narcs love the money game. You don't have to decide what kind of abuse it is. All you have to do is listen to your gut (not your head because these things don't follow logic. You will never find the 100pc answer weighing up all the facts. That's because your emotions won't allow a black and white scenario). Then decide if it sits right with you or not. You don't have to do right by anyone but yourself.

Your emotions and your nervous system don't lie to you.

Thanks @Happyfarm I started to see it for what it is a couple of years ago but there are always new bits of info that come out and I end up revisiting the whole thing in my head. My parents lived a very comfortable but unaffordable life and made no plans for their old age. There is a very very strong expectation that this is our responsibility. I still feel guilty doing things for myself and my kids like holidays and cars.

No loving parent would want to put this responsibility on their child’s shoulders when they are trying to create their own life. You prepare or you downsize and you allow your children to flourish. If they choose to help then that’s their choice not an expectation. I wonder if they consider how this feels, it’s an enormous worry on your young people.

I had this too. Growing up one of the things I hated most was the suffocating pressure to be someone who I wasn’t. It’s very distressing being forced into two different personalities at a young age when you don’t understand. My Mum completely tried to force my sister and I into being people we weren’t. (My mum was an embarrassing social climber with fake airs and graces, wanting us girls to become perfect upper class wives who would perfectly perform). Whereas in reality we were lower middle class at best, I valued things like books, history, wildlife, and care nothing for superficial status symbols and am happily introverted. As I got more freedom I rebelled as a teenager by becoming a Goth much to her absolute horror!

However, bizarrely even later on in life, she’d often lie or invent things that my sister and I had supposedly said, all to make us fit her ideal image of who we should be. So airing her views, but putting us as the mouthpiece. It was like a clumsy attempt yet again to try and stamp this fake self onto us. Reality is my sister and I are both lefty leaning new age hippy types much to my mum’s utter disappointment, but she’d make out we’d said things that Donald Trump would be proud of. It was so totally untrue it was disturbing and caused my mum much bile & hate if we contradicted her by saying we’d never said that.

I have to say one of the absolute joys of being NC is just being myself now and not having this fake identity pushed down my throat. It’s also made me very determined to respect who my daughter is and see the absolute value in that. No one should ever feel forced to be someone they’re not. We all have value.

Thankfully neither my sister or myself ever became the materialist, judgemental, competitive & racist upper class type of wife my mum was trying to breed! Looking back I think she was trying to make us into cheap copies of how she perceived herself. She almost wanted us to be her inferior clones so we would forever feel the competition and disappointment at her outshining us. It really is totally insane.

My husband’s abusive Dad has this trait. Luckily my husband sees it and has gone very low contact or hardly engages with him anymore. His father blew all their money on gadgets, drinking, cigarettes and gambling growing up and now only has his state pension to survive on, so whenever he sees my husband there are barbed comments from his Dad saying ‘you could spend some of your big salary on that for me’. Yes, luckily my husband does have a very well paid job & career despite ending up in a women’s refuge with his mum as a child due to his dad’s domestic abuse. Many of these Narcissists have no shame and don’t realise what they put in, they get out, which in this case is nothing.

I’m going away next weekend with a group of 30+families for a hobby group I’ve joined, with the kids. I’m trying to model a life where I’m not scared of people and doing things I like. I mentioned I was nervous and my biggest girl said to me “don’t worry mummy we can be scared together”. I cried. How did she get more mature than me! I don’t do group emotions, I hide away when I am scared. It’s not healthy and I’ve never known why I don’t feel comfort in people when I’m scared or nervous. She is right though, together we can do it more healthily. It is crazy how unhealthy we become and how self sufficient to our detriment.

@Happyfarm that's wonderful you are putting yourself out there. I think it's important what you are trying to teach your daughter..that the world isn't scary and good people are out there. It's also good to replace the lack of healthy relatives with relationships outside the family. Just one piece of advice, if I may: be mindful that you don't go on this trip as friends but as mum and daughter. It's your job to handle your own feelings of being scared and comfort her during feeling scared.

I hope you will have a wonderful time!

Yeah don’t worry I will be there for her. Both my kids are feral lol and they much better at socialising than I ever was. I won’t see the biggest, she’ll be off following all the dogs trying to take them on walks.

I'm just thinking about how hard it was to have a conversation with my brother and SiL during their visit. There was no real conversation. Just short statements and then their attention went to their phones. It was bizarre. I hadn't seen them in over a year and don't have much to do with them. My conversations with friends or work are so different. There could be any topic of interest to discuss or something personal to share.

Growing up I was made out to be the weird one that never shares anything or even talks. With hindsight it is clear my family just never took an interest in anything and I was shamed so much I ended up scared to say the wrong thing or anything at all.

Write a letter

Very likely, my parents wouldn't have hesitated to do this. Always putting themselves first and fuck the kids.