May 2025 - 'We took you to STATELY HOMES' thread.

[Pleaseshutthefuckup]

Hope all ok with a new thread here. I've looked and can't find one anywhere past February.

Hello

Hopefully anyone needing support or a sense check will see this!

@VWSC3

I hope this username link works. New thread for us.

I wrote war and peace on the last one.

Having felt emotionally better and calmer having had good boundaries with the mother and NC ( yellow rock when necessary) older brother - I'm now experiencing severe hoovering via mother and it's upsetting me and tbh frightening me so much.

I'm incredibly unwell and vulnerable and I feel in an absolute spin again.

I now know my inner instincts and senses are fantastic on this and I listen every time. I therefore feel so happy that I at least won't ever be guilt tripped. It's the fact I thought it would be over kind of, and it reminded me - it's never ever over with them.

Hi there @Pleaseshutthefuckup and thank you for creating the new thread 🙏
I'm glad to read that, at least mentally you are free: YES to trusting and following your intuition. And this is easier said than done but if we only remembered that the panic we feel when cornered by them is "just" a signal from our intuition, our minds would calm down I think.
Do you have other support for you, healthwise, beside your mother?

And if you all don't mind, I'm going to put here the nicknames I remember from other threads, so they can find this one:
@AttilaTheMeerkat @CheekySnake @flapjackfairy @Happyfarm @TorroFerney

Hey Friendly - thank you for your reply. I kind of get by - just about with all my health struggles. But the fear of how vulnerable I am will never leave. I do worsen alot as time progresses. So that feeds so much. She doesn't physically care for me but helps with a bit of urgent jobs like getting emergency prescriptions for me and helping me when my son visits so I can see him.

She also lives very very close by so I just have to manage it. I don't want the fall out of a NC nightmare either tbh. But the boundary setting is so very hard.

I have a son who doesn't live with me, but lives primarily with his dad and family there. I see him most weekends. She supports that by helping here and there.

The brother of mine - he wants his toy back ( my son) for his own kids and himself. My son was being manipulated and trained to belittle me and treat me appallingly. I was also treated appallingly with awful emotional abuse at the hands of my brother. So I just cut it all off over a year ago. But now the hoovering is recurring via my mum.

I have decided I am going to confront my mum as gently and lovingly as possible when I'm calm. Now I know exactly what she is doing, and I have no doubt, she is hoovering for my brother.

Whether she is driving it or he is, I don't know. I feel he is driving it. He is becoming the more powerful manipulator now in the family cult and I see how much he uses my mum as the flying monkey. She is also sociopathic ( I'm not exaggerating or joking here).

I am going to confront her gently regarding the boundary which is - the multiple obvious efforts over the last few weeks to try manipulate me into re contacting my brother, need to stop.

More:
@wonderingwonderingwondering @Shortbread49 @SamAndAnnie @Meltedcandlewax @Twatalert @Statelyhomes @Spendysis @binkie163

Pleaseshutthefuckup, this sounds very hard for you but I agree that the strategies you are trying are the right ones for this situation. I'm sorry about your son: do you know your brother's motives re manipulating your son? If I'm not mistaken, sociopaths always want something from people. I ask because I believe in this case, the more you know, the more advantage you have for working things to protect you and him...

Part 3 of "importing" nicknames from older thread:
@SlowSloths @netherite76 @SlashingRedRibbons @Popcorn63 @Lyannaa @beachcitygirl @StripyMug @Settodonotdisturb

There are many more. I guess it's a bit stupid what I'm doing anyway because people will obviously search for the thread (as I did) and it will appear 😅 Oh well, I've never been the sharpest tool with these things anyway...

My son is Autistic/ ADHD so he's in some ways easier to manipulate because he's vulnerable. But he's very head strong and I'm so sad to say this, but I feel strongly he's sociopathic or will be by adulthood. I'm in regular Therapy and have been for 15 years. So, my son is the perfect henchman as my brother can both relate to him, probs sees things in common and he's the perfect Achilles heel for me - because he's my child.

I was treated better than my brother growing up. I did however suffer significantly too. My brother also wants my son because he uses to have him stay alot and loved that role. His own two kids who I love and was very close to really enjoyed seeing me and my son. That has ended for over a year because I cut contact.

It was the best thing I did even though incredibly painful and difficult.

My brother abused every female in his life. It's just what he does. He has no partner as she left after a while and anyone new never lasts.

I have always been the empathetic, compassion, people pleaser one in the family. I have also allowed them all to walk over me,manipulate me. Now I've stopped that it's a huge shift in behaviour that they're just not used to. It's been over a year and they're like a bloody virus that won't bugger off.

I yellow rock my brother when I have to. It's rare I will contact but I have to some times ( birthday well wishes for example) just to stay safe.

Thanks for letting me vent. I feel better and know what I need to do ❤️

@Pleaseshutthefuckup what about your son's father? Does he know the situation? Could he deal with your son while you protect yourself?
As for your post in the other thread, where you talk about your mum parading your brother's "achievements" and you wanting to stop this without getting riled up: what has worked for me with my parents (riling me up was the glue of their relationship) is reacting cheerfully, as if I was positively interested; in other occasions I've reacted with polite indifference. With the help of my counsellor I've been doing this for quite some time and in my case it works every time. It's actually fun to see: when they see that what they do doesn't affect me the way they wanted, they get bored and stop.
Do you think you'd be able to do some variation of this? Obviously adapted to the gravity of your situation? The point is, rather than putting the boundary explicitly, you make her get bored of trying to rile you up.

Thank you for the new thread @Pleaseshutthefuckup !
Felt a bit lost for a few days without a thread, I’m not going to write anything for now, just “good” knowing we are all in the same boat.

Thanks for the new thread

Thanks for your really helpful words.

Would you believe my brother also managed to manipulate my son's father against me. All this happened whilst I was incredibly unwell recovering from sepsis and 6 months in hospital. My mum also manipulated him too. It's a lost cause. My sons father sees some of what I said ref my son. He knows. I realise my sons father is also a high masking Autistic guy ( I never realised until I sought my son's diagnosis) so I struggle sometimes communicating with him. I just can't tell what is his different Neurotype or whether he is another narcissistic type personality. Luckily he kind of sees all the dangerous and questionable behaviour of my brother. He's not very good at hiding parts of it - which is good in many ways.

The last few weeks, that's exactly how I reacted to my mother's baiting. It was really positive and short and sweet positivity. I actually genuinely do want my brother to be ok. That therefore makes it easy not to react as strongly.

What I realised hurt me and riles me so much was my body telling me - she's up to something again. And me not knowing exactly what - but feeling really unsafe knowing that at my weakest and most afraid ( with my illnesses) she's doing that. She won't have a clue I'm riled. I rapidly changed the subject and get up and pretend to be busy every time. But I'm weak and this shit hurts and scares me because of that.

I have had some really productive processing today. I managed to get out and drive about in the country. I listened to great music and shouted you psycho c**ts to myself in the car ( windows closed of course ).

I know it's vulgar but my god it helps me so much 🤦🤣.

The strength in knowing other people ' get it' and understand and don't question you is profound.

Even just thinking of you all on a thread like this gives me so much psychological strength.

A lifetime in a cult like family run by gaslighting, manipulation, lying, coersion, abuse, isolation etc etc - it's just soul destroying. And people never believe you - unless they have experienced it. That's what I love about this thread.

Thank you for setting up a new stately homes thread.

I usually set up new threads as the previous one fills but am on holiday for now so am not on mumsnet very often.

Thank you for the new thread!

im feeling stressed this morning as my mum’s manipulative games have increased over the weekend and as usual she’s the victim and I’m the Baddie. She’s now drawn other family members into this mess and bad mouthing me… and she’s playing it up for the people are believing her, and turning on the people who defend me.

It’s exhausting!

She’s 65 for God’s sake!

At the base of it all I know she’s a very unhappy and lonely person but I’m just so tired of walking on egg shells around her.

Hello.

LondonLady1980
I totally hear you about the walking on eggshells! I am now in my late 60s and my mother long since departed, but it's only now I'm seeing how her narcissistic behaviour has affected my life and most of the (bad) decisions I made. I was completely and totally controlled by her until I left home at 18.

She made decisions for me, chose my clothes, made me into her scapegoat so that I was always nervous and anxious, never knowing when she would explode in rage over the slightest thing. She also expected me to "make her happy" which of course was impossible, so I grew up feeling inadequate as well as everything else.

At some point I realised she would never, ever be satisfied, and whatever I did to try and make her life better was a waste of time.

And yet, and yet....like you, I sensed the frightened lonely child inside and was sorry for her. So eventually I decided I wouldn't cut contact but promised myself I would do only what was necessary as a "dutiful child".

If people believe her when she badmouths you, just know that most narcissists can be utterly charming and convincing when they want something, so you won't be able to put your side of the story. They are brilliant at looking after number one. It sounds as though you have friends and people on your side that know the truth so be thankful for that.

Maybe it's time to start thinking about gently but firmly laying down boundaries? I know the first time I said I wasn't going to listen to whatever tirade was going on and left, my heart was pumping and I was terrified. But the world didn't end.

Once you do it once, it gets easier. I think my mother started to respect me a bit and got a bit better. They do project a lot, so you, as a rational compassionate person, probably seems to her as a walkover because that's not how SHE would behave.

Remember narcissists don't see the people around them as sentient beings. Rather as lifeless mannequins with no feelings, there to service their needs. To her you are simply not a person as we would relate to another person, because she simply doesn't relate to anyone as we would understand it.

You don't undo a lifetime of abuse, either as the abuser or the victim, but if you can make her think you really don't care and are prepared to walk away, it might help.

Thank you for all that advice @gloriousrhino.

It’s actually been over a month since I last spoke to my mom after she was quite nasty to me. Normally I go chasing after her with apologises, even though she’s in the wrong, but this time I haven’t hence why she’s bad mouthing me.

It’s the longest we’ve ever not spoken and up until this weekend I was feeling quite calm about it and had started seeing a counsellor to talk it all through with and it really helped. But yesterday, she pulled another stunt and now she’s right back in my mind again and I feel really stressed.

I don’t understand why some parents just don’t care about the effect their behaviour has on their child.

So pleased you are starting to put your foot down! Obviously she won't like it, so there will be bumps in the road. Don't be surprised if she becomes "ill" at some point to reel you back in as well as a myriad other things. They are very manipulative and know exactly how to push people's buttons. After all, she's known you all your life! Yes so sad they don't have a clue how they affect their children but bearing in mind the fact that other people are just extras in their lives, it's not surprising.

Hi all, i dip in and out of these threads and I just need to get this off my chest. Brief summary, NC for over a year with entire family, sister has sided with physically and emotionally abusive parents. Parents/NM has a habit of stalking/turning up at places where I’ll be. Anyway, this hasn’t happened in a while until yesterday I was walking along a path that leads to a nature walk but also happens to be where my son does his sport training. To my horror both of my parents were coming towards me as I was going for a walk in this area, I couldn’t avoid them so I had no choice but to go on. I frantically had to decide what to say/if anything, I settle on a brief nod. My father spoke in a disturbingly sweet voice, “how are things Junebug”, his tone of voice did not suit the situation, given we don’t speak. I know I shouldn’t have responded but I said, “what are you doing here?”, my NM angrily responds, “what did you say? Did you say we arent allowed to be here? We are entitled to be here”, I said, “that’s not what I said, I’m doing this, I’m leaving.” As I turned to leave she loudly/ frantically said, “we will not be BULLIED”, I just kept going. I felt my heart pounding and hands shake. In that moment I was 15 again, it’s awful that after 5 years of therapy, reading, breathwork etc and I still react like that. A horrible mixture of guilt, shame and fear. We have a special event for me son coming up at the weekend which I now suspect she will turn up at. Sorry, I just needed to let that out.

@LondonLady1980 my mum is late 60s. I think they can intensify as they get older because their purpose is gone. Since retirement for example mine is worse and worsening each week. I now think she is bordering on insane.

I had a different mum about 4 weeks ago ( relatively normal and felt kind of genuine) - and we now have had a huge shift and it's the other horrible mask with this overwhelming manipulation. I stop and think - what changed? What is this absolute psycho doing now.

Like you say, I have a change then in my wellbeing. It is horrific.

How often do you see your nutty mum? The best thing is having friends/ contacts who are totally separate to them to give strength, people who will not buy into the smearing.

@junebugalice very immature of me, but I want to slap your mum on your behalf after reading that.

I'm curious what your son knows/:thinks. That side of things makes this really difficult.