July 2025 - Well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

I have now set up a new thread as the previous one is now full.

This long runnning thread has become a safe haven for Adult children of abusive families.

The title refers to an original poster's family who claimed they could not have been abusive as they had taken her to plenty of Stately Homes during her childhood!

One thing you will never hear on this thread is that your abuse or experience was not that bad. You will never have your feelings minimised the way they were when you were a child, or now that you are an adult. To coin the phrase of a much respected past poster Ally90;

'Nobody can judge how sad your childhood made you, even if you wrote a novel on it, only you know that. I can well imagine any of us saying some of the seemingly trivial things our parents/ siblings did to us to many of our real life acquaintances and them not understanding why we were upset/ angry/ hurt etc. And that is why this thread is here. It's a safe place to vent our true feelings, validate our childhood/ lifetime experiences of being hurt/ angry etc by our parents behaviour and to get support for dealing with family in the here and now.'

Most new posters generally start off their posts by saying; but it wasn't that bad for me or my experience wasn't as awful as x,y or z's.
Some on here have been emotionally abused and/ or physically abused. Some are not sure what category (there doesn't have to be any) they fall into.
NONE of that matters. What matters is how 'YOU' felt growing up, how 'YOU' feel now and a chance to talk about how and why those childhood experiences and/ or current parental contact, has left you feeling damaged, falling apart from the inside out and stumbling around trying to find your sense of self-worth.
You might also find the following links and information useful, if you have come this far and are still not sure whether you belong here or not.
'Toxic Parents' by Susan Forward.
I started with this book and found it really useful.
Here are some excerpts:
"Once you get going, most toxic parents will counterattack. After all, if they had the capacity to listen, to hear, to be reasonable, to respect your feelings, and to promote your independence, they wouldn't be toxic parents. They will probably perceive your words as treacherous personal assaults. They will tend to fall back on the same tactics and defences that they have always used, only more so.
Remember, the important thing is not their reaction but your response. If you can stand fast in the face of your parents' fury, accusations, threats and guilt-peddling, you will experience your finest hour.
Here are some typical parental reactions to confrontation:
"It never happened". Parents who have used denial to avoid their own feelings of inadequacy or anxiety, will undoubtedly use it during confrontation, to promote their version of reality. They'll insist that your allegations never happened, or that you're exaggerating. They won't remember, or they will accuse you of lying.
YOUR RESPONSE: Just because you don't remember, doesn't mean it didn't happen".
"It was your fault." Toxic parents are almost never willing to accept responsibility for their destructive behaviour. Instead, they will blame you. They will say that you were bad, or that you were difficult. They will claim that they did the best that they could but that you always created problems for them. They will say that you drove them crazy. They will offer as proof, the fact that everybody in the family knew what a problem you were. They will offer up a laundry list of your alleged offences against them.
YOUR RESPONSE: "You can keep trying to make this my fault, but I'm not going to accept the responsibility for what you did to me, when I was a child".
"I said I was sorry what more do you want?" Some parents may acknowledge a few of the things that you say but be unwilling to do anything about it.
YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate your apology, but that is just a beginning. If you're truly sorry, you'll work through this with me, to make a better relationship."
"We did the best we could." Some parents will remind you of how tough they had it while you were growing up and how hard they struggled. They will say such things as "You'll never understand what I was going through," or "I did the best I could". This particular style of response will often stir up a lot of sympathy and compassion for your parents. This is understandable, but it makes it difficult for you to remain focused on what you need to say in your confrontation. The temptation is for you once again to put their needs ahead of your own. It is important that you be able to acknowledge their difficulties, without invalidating your own.
YOUR RESPONSE: "I understand that you had a hard time, and I'm sure that you didn't hurt me on purpose, but I need you to understand that the way you dealt with your problems really did hurt me"
"Look what we did for you." Many parents will attempt to counter your assertions by recalling the wonderful times you had as a child and the loving moments you and they shared. By focusing on the good things, they can avoid looking at the darker side of their behaviour. Parents will typically remind you of gifts they gave you, places they took you, sacrifices they made for you, and thoughtful things they did. They will say things like, "this is the thanks we get" or "nothing was ever enough for you."
YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate those things very much, but they didn't make up for ...."
"How can you do this to me?" Some parents act like martyrs. They'll collapse into tears, wring their hands, and express shock and disbelief at your "cruelty". They will act as if your confrontation has victimized them. They will accuse you of hurting them, or disappointing them. They will complain that they don't need this, they have enough problems. They will tell you that they are not strong enough or healthy enough to take this, that the heartache will kill them. Some of their sadness will, of course, be genuine. It is sad for parents to face their own shortcomings, to realise that they have caused their children significant pain. But their sadness can also be manipulative and controlling. It is their way of using guilt to try to make you back down from the confrontation.
YOUR RESPONSE: "I'm sorry you're upset. I'm sorry you're hurt. But I'm not willing to give up on this. I've been hurting for a long time, too."

Helpful Websites
Alice Miller
Personality Disorders definition
Daughters of narcissistic mothers
Out of the FOG
You carry the cure in your own heart
Help for adult children of child abuse
Pete Walker
The Echo Society
There are also one or two less public offshoots of Stately Homes, PM AttilaTheMeerkat for details.

Some books:
Toxic Parents by Susan Forward
Homecoming by John Bradshaw
Will I ever be good enough? by Karyl McBride
If you had controlling parents by Dan Neuharth
When you and your mother can't be friends by Victoria Segunda
Children of the self-absorbed by Nina Brown - check reviews on this, I didn't find it useful myself.
Recovery of your inner child by Lucia Capacchione
Childhood Disrupted by Donna Jackson Nazakawa
This final quote is from smithfield posting as therealsmithfield:
"I'm sure the other posters will be along shortly to add anything they feel I have left out. I personally don't claim to be sorted but I will say my head has become a helluva lot straighter since I started posting here. You will receive a lot of wisdom but above all else the insights and advice given will 'always' be delivered with warmth and support."

I don’t mind it when it has people on it who actually engage with me and visa versa. People who can have a laugh and not take it too seriously. The problem isn’t FB it’s my ridiculous stupid family. I need to get rid of them. What is the point of having what is supposed to be close family on it who never engage but then have to witness the same family all over others. I feel like people want to watch you in the background.

I dont need to see them. I believe you that it's OTT. You see the behaviour and we have some understanding of narcissism or other personality disorders but there's no way to know the whole inner workings of another person. We don't even know our own all of the time. You can see it as bragging, but it's not about them anymore.

You are also here posting many times a day day in day out. Much about the people around you and your realisations. It's also a form of media. Most aren't sharing at this rate. They nip in and out or just read. It could be interpreted any kind of way depending on each persons baggage or view of the world.

If anyone is interested, look up Tristan Harris - he worked for Facebook (I think) and has talked a lot about how it was designed to be addictive and make people feel bad, because negative emotions drive engagement far more than positive ones.

I also pretty much stopped using it years ago too because it feels like the narcissistic nice/mean cycle.

I have one private account that I use to look at posts on a particular hobby, and that's it.

I have an empty fb account that I use to see local information only, I never post and have no friends on the account.

However! 🤣 There's a man who i had a very very serious crush on for a few years when we were both teenagers.

We went out together unsuccessfully as young teenagers do and skirted around each other for years. I snoop at him and his wife on FB and make myself miserable!

They've been happily married for several decades. Occasionally he or she posts a video in which I can see him talking and it does reconfirm what I knew even as a kid, we are absolutely not suited. It's so idiotic 🤣

In fact, all joking aside, I do think that my feelings about seeing him and his wife on fb are quite important and indicative of something in me.

I don't really know him, and probably never really did. I don't know her, I don't know anything really. I wish them well, in the abstract but I feel like a failure.

They're not rich or successful career wise AT ALL (I don't value that anyway, just saying). But they love each other, they have family, they live in the same village that generations of their family are from.

They belong, they're rooted, they have love. I don't have that. I'm jealous as hell.

I'm coming to come back to something we all know here.

What they show publicly is not all there is.

Take my family - outside of the home, my father presented himself as an intelligent, educated, talented, caring individual. Always had time for his students (he was a lecturer). Nothing was too much trouble. Behind our front door he bashed his wife, terrorised his children, didn't produce a single piece of the creative work he claimed to be brilliant at, stole from various people, and had issues with drugs and alcohol.

Social media triggers negative feelings - it makes you feel bad. That's what it was designed to do, because all their research showed that negative feelings keep people on the site for longer. So you could argue it is doing what it was designed to do. But why are you looking for that feeling?

And it makes me feel like a failure because I can't do what they have done. And they married as teenagers, how did they do that? Successfully!

Sometimes I have a fantasy about having loads of plastic surgery and hiring a roll royce and a male model for the weekend and going to the village and pretending I'm going to buy the village or something.

Walk around wearing a diamond tiara or him throwing over his wife and hunting me down to declare he can no longer live a lie.

But in reality it's sadness that I can't turn the clock back. I can't be 19 and happily marry the love of my life and be together with him for the next 60 years because there's something wrong with me.

That does make sense about creating negative feelings at times. I feel like families have become a brand and they have promoters etc. It’s just another tool for narcs, I can see that. I post a lot of information about autism etc and like to have discussions with people and learn stuff etc. With funny family pictures of them doing silly unstaged stuff for a laugh.

But 'unstaged' photos are just as carefully curated as staged ones. You've made a conscious decision to take those photos and post them. And they will annoy the shit out of some of your friends/followers, just as what you perceive to be staged photos annoy you.

But 'unstaged' photos are just as carefully curated as staged ones. You've made a conscious decision to take those photos and post them. And they will annoy the shit out of some of your friends/followers, just as what you perceive to be staged photos annoy you.

I was at work the other day and the subject of no contact came up
One lad said 'people go nc for barely any reason these days'
Oh how I envied him-he has an amazing mother (not so much his father) and he has no idea

I went nc because she didn't want me-i wasn't the child she could mold
I saw through her from a very young age and she knew it
She dumped me off onto my amazing grandad to bring up and when he died,she just gave up on me-i once said to (then) teen dd that I could do what I wanted,when I wanted
Nobody cared where I was,what I was doing,if I was dead or alive
I was the only child at school who had to buy their own uniform and books
Anything I needed (from clothes to sanpro) was for me to buy-she refused to provide the basics-I had to work very long hours on top of school
Guilt trips,lies and a total 'I don't give a fuck about you' ran through my life,but I didn't stop trying to gain her love
I wasn't allowed driving lessons,college or a roof over my head-she threw me out at 18 when the child benefit ran out (leading to a spell of being homeless at one point)
(My brothers got full support through college,driving lessons,a car each and always welcome home)
She went mental at me for being homeless-not because she would offer me a sofa,just 'what will my friends think?' (I want to add she has a 5 bed house with spare rooms)
She played me against my own children and friends while refusing to support me in anyway (skint single parent and she'd come around to brag what she'd spent while knowing I had no food in and was struggling)
My ex left me in debt (8.5k) and she did pay it off but I had to pay her back at £150 a week for 15 years
My bro ran up 6k of debt-never paid her a penny back (I think I paid it)

Finally,she pushed me too far and I walked away
She didn't notice until a (fake) friend told her and she went scorched earth
If you didn't know me but listened to her,I walked away after conning her out of 10k,I'll sleep with anything that moves,I'm a (unpaid) sex worker,I take drugs,I'm dirty,I steal,I'm a hard hearted bitch and I lie as easily as breathing (none of this is true)
She claims she doesn't understand why I walked,but she knows but she can't look inwards-she's tried so hard to destroy my life but has failed
I've never met the woman dB married but she hates me (I don't really care) but it's not nice knowing what's been said and I can't defend myself

My father enables all this in fear she'll turn on him and the rest of the family follow his lead-it's never been about money,it's more complicated than that

So no,'people don't walk away too easily'
We walk away for our own self worth

(I've now met dp and he's amazing but doesn't get it,his mum is amazing but thinks I'm a bit strange and can't understand why I don't speak to them)

Sorry for rambling

Probably, I just post what is real life, it’s messy. With me what you see is what you get. I don’t stage or filter. I think that’s the one thing I love about my partner, he is truthful to the core. My black and white thinking probably effecting me here. Because I know in this case what you see is not what is happening behind the scenes and to me it’s lying. But then black and white ND brain. If they were anyone else I’d just remove them because I only want real friends because this false advertising I don’t like. But then I’ll have them all in my face. It’s too narc for me and it triggers me having false narratives in my life.

Sorry I’ve been triggered like a fool. I’ve got to get this person off my social media. It sends me right back to the holiday where the sister in law said that naughty children just haven’t been loved enough and then pointed to her 2 kids and said look at how much mine are loved and how well behaved they are. At that point I was dealing with my ND child. When I had my little one and I was tired because she cried all day with her undiagnosed milk allergy the mum took my baby and handed it to DIL and said she knows what she is doing. She is being promoted as being the most amazing mum and it’s non stop.

But can't you see that even that is just your perception based on who you currently are and what you currently know? It's holier than thou. Other people may still not see what you think you are portraying. And if you say you are mindful that you show your life a certain way, what you call 'real', you are quite frankly also playing the social media game. Everyone wants to be seen and heard. They just want different things to be seen.

Have you thought about writing your thoughts into a diary or something?

It sounds like a private account with no friends at all would help. You can use first name and middle name and then join those groups of value to you. Befriend no one. It's only tormenting for most.

You don't have to explain anything or announce. You are getting pulled in alot to the emotion associated with your family on FB. You can easily cut that out.

To be fair to @Strawberrypjs her family probably are winding her up, and are bragging. That's a side issue and I doubt their only intention. It is after all the design of it to display so people of course will.

Strawberry, how many times are you going to put your head in the toilet and flush it? I know we all do this in our situation to an extent with our trauma bond. The SM part however, it is an added layer of misery and torment just seeing their name for you. Why are you doing it. They'll never genuinely care about your family or pictures. No one really does on FB tbh. It's a performance for all of us.

Look at my suggestion above re creating a new account.

A journal sounds great for you. Music is amazing. I've been in a trance for days with headphones and the ghouls of my life move out my thoughts.

You have to start looking somewhere else- not online at their communication. These people are not changing.

That's fair enough. I'm just amazed by the social media topic and how OTT people there are when I feel exactly the same is happening on this thread. I feel a little exhausted by it day in day out for months on end. It's probably time for me to step back.

Everyone is right really on this. You're totally spot on in that if you're in a bad place you're going to project all over the place. I do it all the time. I'd explode right now personally because of me; all my struggles.

Your words and wisdom are incredibly valuable to most on here i would say, including me 😘.

What do you mean Twatalert? I like seeing you here (if that helps). Crazysnake that's a very very good question, why am I making myself feel 'less than' regarding someone I no longer genuinely know. I'll give that some thought. I think it's something to do with the power of snooping, not good. I'll add it to bad habits I've kicked. It also tells me that I'm lonely and not participating enough in socialising, even of the lite societal kind.

In my most recent counselling conversation we used words relating to our concept of something.

So my ghoul like mother was referred to as a spectre. And it's becoming clear that our whole entire world is actually our mind.

So when in your mind something becomes what your mind says- well that's as good as happening viscerally to you.

Frame of reference

You and I can look at the same person and I might think what a lovely elderly lady with kind eyes, and you might think she is a ghoulish spectre. It’s how CBT works by reframing rather than changing what is there.

It's confusing because my mother is actually a ghoul 😆 and dangerous to me. She's covert.

But my reality will never ever be anyone else's because she reserves that ghoul part especially for me atm. Although anyone could be the focus and that's where I need to move my thoughts away from the spectre and the belief I'm the constant target.

It's the most destabilising realisation all this. Horrible. I know I can be unliked, unlikeable, I know I'm not a ghoul however and I don't relish or desire hurt to other people. My family are very special in a dark way and I've attracted a few similar. Removal helps reframe so the threat is significantly lessened.

I recognise so much here. My narc sister reserves all of her anger hate and hurt for me. My mother never liked me : I strongly suspect I'm autistic, and as a young woman couldn't understand why no else could see the real her behind the smiling face. Instead, I was told over and over I was too sensitive, an overthinker, it was all in my head, despite the evidence of their actions where it was only me as the target, the one excluded from family meet ups, belittled for my ambitions, humiliated for trying to fit in.

JoyDivision79 You've just reminded me of an incident where my mother released her inner ghoul and did something to my nephew that she used to do to me as a child. My brother phoned me upset because his son was having nightmares, and I reminded him that I had warned him about Mum doing that specific thing when she was babysitting.
Instead of working out how to protect his son, he went all vague then changed the subject! That was the moment I realised that it didn't matter how much 'proof' I had, it would never be enough and nothing was going to change. My brother never said anything and continued to let her babysit, and the whole incident was written off with 'that's just how she is' as if terrifying kids is an odd quirk.