February 2025 Well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

A new thread indeed!.

Maybe that's what is triggering me, actually: realising that, until not so long ago, I was exactly like that...

Serious question: I’m adopted. Things that make me question normality. No hugs. When I was maybe 8? We were with family friends and it was late. Friend got into her mums lap for a cuddle. Thought that was odd and got on to my mums lap. Reluctant cardboard cuddle. Later in life. Got pregnant. Aged 16. Never told parents. Private abortion. Few years later was told they had found out and was told to get out of their sight.

@IndigoBabble I am also adopted was adopted from birth by dm. I am sorry for what you experienced growing up no that wasn't normal behaviour from your parents not what i experienced anyway

My circumstances are very different only started recently and down to my dsis dm biological child greed and manipulation of dm mainly although I have to accept dm part in it. I do often think why adopt a child when you aren't going to treat them equally I have thought about looking for my biological dm partly due to having over the last few years having a lot of sudden deaths my age I am 47 now bio dm was 16 when she had me but then I question if I would be doing it for the wrong reasons having been cut out of dsis and dm life like I am trying to fill that gap. And if I am strong enough to go through with it and potentially face another rejection

A friend of mine when I was 15 (who was also 15) said to me 'just stop it! It's ridiculous! I know you don't even like so and so!' so I did. Isn't that weird?

Dogaredabomb if someone whose opinion I trusted had told me to leave my ex, that he was abusive, I'd have given it serious consideration. Nobody did though. I was only ever asked if I loved him, whether I wanted kids, what was I going to do, or told they couldn't put up with that. Since I'd been brought up to do whatever anyone else wanted and have no boundaries, it didn't occur to me that if someone else wouldn't put up with XYZ then I shouldn't either! I wasn't them, I couldn't just do whatever I wanted, I didn't matter. I'm glad you had someone to talk sense to you and not shuffle around the subject without really saying anything.

Goodness! I can't believe the amount of sexual deviant parents, maybe part of the general situation with these types? Mine were too. Between the situations they set up, things we were exposed to, the things done and said which amounted to grooming TBH, I definitely think it counts as sexual abuse.

StatelyHomes don't try to come back from it. Grab the opportunity to exit with both hands and run. I wish I had, when mine did something completely and utterly unforgivable. It would have made it easier for those I hope to keep contact with to understand why I'd gone NC, even if they didn't agree with my decision. As it is, I put up with the escalation of bad behaviour, as usual, so the moment passed and if I told people that was the tipping point now, they'd think I was mad. It was so long ago and by sticking around I've no doubt been seen as having accepted it and moved on.

when I was 11 someone broke into our hotel room and assaulted me (parents were in the bar) when I saw the figure at the bottom of my bed and they started to get in bed with me i honestly thought it was my mum, I felt so ashamed for thinking that but it’s actually not that much of a surprise is it!

I'd have thought the same Torro. "Oh this is a bit weird, wonder why (s)he wants to sleep in my bed tonight?". Weird behaviour and never asking permission because no personal boundaries were allowed, was totally normal in my family.

The thing that drives me rabid is people saying that their parents had rotten childhoods as an excuse for the abuse or neglect.

Unless they are severely genuinely retarded then they can learn. I got a million books out of the library when I was pregnant with number 1. And I watched other mothers and families constantly thinking that's good I'll do that, that's bad I won't do that.

I'm no brighter than average so there's just no excuse. Those of us with children are mostly petrified of repeating any mistakes and very thoughtful and intentional parents.

They could have done the same! No excuse except pure self centredness. I've been reading about aspd the clinical name for sociopathy. They don't learn, they lack the cause and effect linking mechanism, I think.

Then there are basic personality structures, I do think people are largely born rather than made. My dc are polar opposites to each other and require completely different approaches to each other, I find that tiring having to attune.

Snap. It does rather derail you when it happens. I was totally enmeshed with mine. I remember thinking, and this was as an adult, what will I do when she dies I’ll not be able to cope. Oh the different thoughts I have now about that since I realised!

I was definitely enmeshed with my mother too. Looking back to was so obviously an unhealthy dynamic. Multiple phone calls a day. She had an opinion on absolutely everything I did, and I can see now that a lot of her opinions were really strange and unhelpful. I held off doing things I wanted to do because she wouldn't approve. And there's another weird thing in it too, which is that I feel like she wanted to keep me ugly. I don't know how else to describe it. The clothes she approved of were always frumpy. It's not something I've ever spoken about but it was like it was important to her that she was more attractive than me, that any available male attention went to her.

Does anyone else thinks enmeshment is really controlling?

thank you for this . It put into words how I feel (minus the apology bit and in my case it is my sister).
I struggle with endless ruminating on it all as well and it takes over my life.
Meanwhile she is out there living life and totally oblivious because she is only able to think of her own needs and is incapable of doing anything that isn't of benefit to her. People are just pawns to be picked up when they are of use to her and then discarded again until the next time.
She was a dreadful mother and has been disowned by one child and is v low contact with the other who struggles to overcome the damage done. My sister doesnt get this as she thinks she was mother of the year.
It has always been the same and I know this . I have more or less gone NC but here's the rub...I still love her and feel so sad because she is really such a v damaged person. It hurts me to think of how her life has turned out even though I know she has made no effort to.improve anything . So my question is just how do you.let go of the emotional.ties which keep you trapped?

@TorroFerney I've definitely had the thought about how will I cope when she dies too, a long time ago.

I think it doesn’t help when we project onto people what we would or wouldn’t do or should or shouldn’t do. Some people just aren’t good parents. Or they go too far another way. Parents were people before being parents and they weren’t great then either, we just happen to be born from them. What matters is that we disconnect ourselves from who they are because they are who they are long before us. There is going to be shit parents till the end of time, perhaps again in my family line even after me.

@flapjackfairy I think that's the million dollar question and the one we are all wrestling with.
I guess for me the focus is on building a good life for myself and being a good mother for my kids as much as I am able. I am also doing a lot of work on retraining my emotional responses and separating doing the right thing for me and doing the thing that allows me to avoid uncomfortable feelings. I've done CBT, EMDR, and relaxation techniques/breathwork for my hair trigger anxiety.

I still find it hard to manage my feelings towards my mother. So much rage. We are v LC. I don't love my mother. I made peace with that a long time ago.

Funnily enough, I had a convo w my DH last night about it, when I told him what she'd said, and he just shrugged and said she's not a good mother. It's as simple and ordinary as that, and it's ok.

cheekysnake "separating doing the right thing for me and doing the thing that allows me to avoid uncomfortable feelings" that's an interesting differential. I think I'm stuck in that stage and I'm not sure it had occurred to me.

Yeah it definitely is simple but he also doesn’t have to live with the physical and mental consequences of it so it is easy to say. I just meant that getting stuck on the fact that we wouldn’t behave like it and why they didn’t leave and protect us etc is a path that has no end because the fact is they just did. They were who they were before us not because of us. Your mum wasn’t a whole healthy person long before you and long after you and forever and eternity. She reaps what she sows as we all will, I wouldn’t help carry any of this for her.

My mother also wanted to keep me ugly and she controlled what I ate which was a lot of homemade chips and cake so I was obese as a child, I had to wear old lady nylon skirts with elastic waists from the kays catalogue for school. Chose my clothes and barely bought me any and they were always the most unflattering , chose ugly glasses for me. She did not want me to look nice when I reached 13 and lost weight and chose more of my own clothes she hated it and told me I looked stupid and my outfit did not suit me. Not one positive comment about me has ever passed her lips even in my 40s I get comments like Look at your boots aren’t they ugly !

How nasty. I hope you reply with “what like your soul”!

No I ignored her I don’t want to stoop to her level she doesn’t talk to me anymore now as I stood up to her aged 50

And it’s a relief I get occasional texts that inform me about her and don’t ask about me

As always, so much food for thought here 🙏💚 I am very slow articulating my thoughts, because I still haven't quite mastered the ability to identify what is that I'm feeling or even sensing in my body (which is always the first step). But I'll get there and then I'll craft a new post 😅

Speaking of posts: if I'm not mistaken, we're almost reaching the limit of the thread, aren't we? Time for a new one! 😉

thank you for replying.
I have tried to do all those things with varying degrees of success and they do help. I think once my mother is gone ( another v complex relationship) I will be able to walk.away . Maybe that will be the final step.that leads to.real.freedom from the mental exhaustion of it all.

I think what he meant was, we spend so much time and energy trying to figure it out. Trying to understand why the relationship makes us so anxious, why we actively avoid our parents but at the same time feel guilty and responsible for them, why parts of adult life that are straightforward for other people are so difficult for us, why we're still struggling with things that happened 30 years ago and can't move on from them. We keep digging for an answer as if finding the answer will suddenly make everything clear and the pain will stop. I do it all the time, even though I know better than to try. But sometimes I can't seem to help myself. I already lost my childhood to these people. I don't want to lose any more time. I'm busy, I've got things to do, happy things, positive relationships to enjoy.

We're looking for complex answers in a simple situation - these people are just bad at parenting. So if you can accept the simple explanation, you can stop wasting your life looking for the complex one. It doesn't mean that I don't need to put effort into healing myself, I do, but at least that won't be a futile endeavour.

yes . You put it all so clearly and succinctly !
Thank you.

Yep they aren’t the right parents for us. Just like my ex husband. This was set before we entered their lives. They were always going to be terrible parents and partners. Like my in-laws and all the other selfish, non empathetic people out there. It is what it is, there’s loads of them but there’s also really lovely people too. We have to keep moving forward, it takes great strength to create positive change. It feels like a full time job at times. People from healthy families have no idea what it takes to come from this and turn it around.

This is a great post, thank you! I feel the same 👏