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 think my father was capable of rational reasoning. In his own head he was a victim of all those around him. Nothing was ever his fault. I honestly don't think he could have coped with shouldering the blame for any of it. He blamed me when my mother left him (literally said to me this is your fault) and decades later disinherited me when he died. He actually had that put in his will. He didn't just leave me out, he had a specific paragraph added which said he wanted me to have nothing.

I do think my mother has struggled to face the part she played and the fact that she enabled him for years and didn't protect me from it (which she convinced herself didn't matter because it had no effect on me). What I don't think she does get is that it's not really that which has destroyed our relationship, it's actually things that she's done herself independent of it; the weird nasty comments, the sabotage attempts, the need to always bring me down a peg.

I have to say, though, I keep away from people and I've cut off plenty. I know it's not the best way to deal with things and I'm working on it.

I agree crazysnakes I have also left people behind and cut people off. I was looking back recently and thinking that I haven't kept any friends from school, university, workplaces.

I'm so so different though to how I used to be. I used to be 'FUN' but I'm not now, I'm very low key. Maybe they are too now. In a way though I had to go on this journey of change and I needed to travel light.

Thinking about the enabler of the parent pair, in comparison to the narc they look good or at least the better option.

You've been able to get a good look at your mum without the confusion and shielding of your much more dramatic and overt father and she doesn't look too good.

I wonder if that's why the enablers pick lunatics? To look semi ok in comparison?

If so, I'm shocked at what is going on on an instinctive level. Cos you can bet your bottom dollar that no deep psychology went on in the choosing.

So many of these pairs have a weird narc/enabler dance going on. I think each one of the pair is pathologically selfish and they will together or singly throw anyone under the bus for anything.

Dad used to encourage me to steal office equipment from work to save himself coppers that he didn't need. He didn't give a fuck that I could have been sacked or even prosecuted.

If one of my kids did that I'd explain that it may seem small but it's not worth it and can have big consequences. Can you imagine asking for your kid to steal for YOU.

@Dogaredabomb my father used to steal stuff too, little petty bits of shoplifting. He thought it was funny. He also used to pressure my mother to 'get one from work' i.e. steal it. I wonder if it's a thing.

I don't think enablers form relationships with narcs because they are consciously thinking this person is awful and makes me look better - I think they pair up because narcs respond to enabling and normal healthy people are turned off by it. The same way that codependents respond to love bombing but healthy people don't. That's why people who grow up with a narc parent are more likely to form a relationship with a narc in adulthood. They've been trained into codependent ways of thinking and behaving, which makes them vulnerable to people with narcissism, as their two personality types easily bond together.

There's a personality disorder called dependent personality disorder which research has shown makes people more vulnerable to narc abuse. I came across it when I was reading something about Sally Challen and there was a really interesting bit of research with comments about children growing up with parents locked in this pattern but I can't find it - will keep looking!

They say when you become healthy the people in your circle loose their attraction and they no longer work for you. I thought this wouldn't happen to me because 'what should be wrong with my people anyway' but I think it's happening. I realise that we are on such different pages that any boundary would be a drop in the ocean. Not that they don't respect them (some do sometimes others not so much), they'd need a complete overhaul like I am having. I would need some to change their ways and that's not reasonable to expect to happen. It's like the more I am able to connect with myself the further away I move from them.

I don't know how to handle this. I only have one friend who seems emotionally mature but she has a big family and I dont think I will be to her what she might be for me. I'm going to be even more lonely but I don't want to do life alone.

@Twatalert hugs. xx.

The thing to remember is that it's not unhealthy relationships or nothing. It's not the relationship with a narc or nothing. That's often a thought pattern that narcs train people into - no-one will have you but me and you'll never cope on your own - because the fear of being alone helps to lock the other person in. It's a faulty thought.

It will take time and effort to build a new social circle but you can do it.

This is one of the most challenging stages I feel, having recovered to such an extent you are able to start ‘seeing’ that many of your relationships have indeed followed a dysfunctional pattern. It might help to know some might step up and surprise you by stepping up fully and others will let you down dreadfully and painfully.

If it helps the ones that let you down are only in this relationship with you for their own ends. They are not invested in your well being, and they don’t actually deserve a place at your table.

Your circle might shrink, but whoever is left will be the real deal. Then you can work on making new friends and follow your own agenda for once, and only have those that respect and truly care for you.

Your friendship circle will grow again in time with a much more balanced, more loving and more comfortable relationships available to you now. You are becoming healthy and whole. It is worth losing the fake friends, to have genuine connections in your life from now on.

Thank you. Unfortunately I still believe this. That I can't possibly be an interesting enough person to anyone.

@Soulfulunfurling thank you. You seem to speak from experience. I feel light years away from all that. I wish it was happening the other way around. Being able to find a new circle (I can't bring myself to it) and then loosing old connections. I also have had lots of physical and emotional abandonment in childhood so I can never find comfort in the idea that I might be ok on my own just for a while. The abandonments still regularly haunt me.

It is a habitual thought pattern trained by an unhealthy relationship. It isn't a fact, and it isn't true. And (if you can access it) there is therapy that will challenge and help change the thought process, you aren't stuck with it forever.

Your brain is making the thought, but it isn't a reflection of reality.

(I was trained into some really, really bonkers beliefs about myself by my mid teens so I understand what this is like, how it feels, and how compelling the thoughts are).

Yes I know it in my head but my nervous system doesn't. I'm very lucky to be able to afford therapy and have a wonderful therapist. I just feel so stupid. I remember telling her I'm glad I have my friends and that I want to keep them when she probably knew all along this would happen.

Maybe slow down and allow some of the friendships to continue but maybe with more gentle boundaries and strategies. Ease into it.
You don’t need to build Rome in a day.
Build up slowly and safely.
Ease out of the comfort zone and start doing the odd thing alone.

Go for lunch with a book, watch a film, have a spa day. Start spending time with you. The relationship that needs the most development is the one you are having with yourself, and the most important one in your life.

Once you start trusting yourself, you will find the emotional dependency fades. How would it feel to do that?

It's a tricky thing, therapy, isn't it? I found that my therapist v slowly would steer me round and I would find myself looking at things that I'd previously either ignored or hadn't been able to see and some of it was really painful. (what she got me to look at was my mother's behaviour and the fact that although I felt guilty for withdrawing and thought it was all me, it wasn't - my mother had also made choices which removed me from her life).

FWIW I saw something from a therapist I follow on instagram just yesterday saying that understanding something consciously doesn't mean it's fixed at the nervous system level, the work for that is different.

I believe the killer phrase was 'she doesn't behave like she wants a close relationship with you.'

It gets better. It’s a transition. I think of it as a butterfly emerging from the cocoon. You can’t do it quickly and painlessly. It’s part of the process. 🦋

I't s a good idea to slow down and I have thought of that, but I feel I'd be dishonest and use my friends. You made a lot of assumptions about me which are not accurate. I spend a lot of time alone and do things alone; it's not about that. I also don't depend on anyone emotionally. It's quite the opposite. I realise that I cannot be emotionally available with these friends as I would like or that it doesn't work both ways. They still follow a script like my family. It's a different one, but it's a script. They have an idea of me based on their own baggage. I don't feel seen or heard. There is nothing I can say or do that changes that. They need to stick to some narrative.

@Twatalert do you think a lot of emotional availability is always necessary in a friendship? Or wise, even? Can a friendship still be valuable without it?

I think we all have our own narrative and understanding of ourselves and others, coloured by our own experiences. It's impossible not to. It's not necessarily a bad thing.

It think it is, yes. Otherwise you are just acquaintances continuing an old cycle. My neighbour or the postman doesn't have to be emptionally available to me. We can still have a conversation and know each other. But a friend I would want to be present when with me.

I end up feeling lesser in most of my friendships. I need to own that feeling, but I also don't imagine it. I don't know how, but I end up with people who give a lot of advice about anything, also very basic things, and they can't hear me when I say that I already know that or that I am quite familiar with the topic. They just don't hear it because they follow a script. They aren't present. I also end up with people who dump on me. Again, they can't see or hear me when they do it and they do it often. I have a friend who lives overseas and when she came to visit she started re-arranging stuff in my apartment 'for my own benefit'. I'm just being patronised a lot.

I think TBH that it's quite common to find yourself in a friendship where you realise that the role you are playing/service you are providing doesn't work for you any more, though it's very uncomfortable when it happens. Sometimes it's just that you have outgrown it, or something has happened which has made you realise that you don't want to provide that service any more (or opened your eyes to the fact that that's your purpose in the friendship).

Feeling 'less' isn't inevitable but I wondered if you thought you might be bringing old patterns into the friendships (and this influencing the friendships that you do and don't end up forming). That's a habit that can be broken. You made these friends, which means you can make new ones.

Is 'friendship' the right word to use to describe these relationships

You see that is the point. Friends would start explaining stuff to me, even therapy 101, but they wouldn't be able to actually be a support or live by their own advice. Of course I am bringing old patterns into it. I have had years of therapy. I know about patterns. I didn't enter the thread just yesterday either. I'm feeling very snarky. It's not a good day.

OK. Can you be clear about what support you want? Sometimes people just don't know.

FWIW moving stuff around in your flat is rude and weird and not 'helpful'

I have come to the realisation that most people just want to be seen and heard and the best way to do that is to let sink in whatever they are sharing and remain curious. It's actually much more difficult than trailblazing ahead and explain and problem solve in ones own head for them, but it's rarely useful. Because it does not serve the other person or the situation. It serves the listener who perhaps can't bear silence or their own feelings that may come up. It keeps us disconnected from others. But I also find it freeing not having to say something clever but to just be able to listen and ask. Like really ask as opposed to 'I have an idea what the issue is and I am going to ask like I am your therapist to help you get there'.

so are you saying that you feel you offer 'listening' to your friends, but they don't offer that in return, they rush in with advice instead and don't see that you don't want advice?

You just want someone to listen, which isn't really a big ask, is it

It's a bizzare dynamic. It's not that I go to them with issues. I just tell about my life or what I have been up to and they'd be dishing out advice. One couldn't stop advising about cats when she never had cats herself and the advice was very basic. Anyone who had a cat for three months would know. Another explains the most trivial things to me. Just recently she explained where a train station is in a town we both live in. We also discussed benefits and PIP and she explained to me what PIP stands for. It's fucking endless. We went glasses shopping a while back, we both needed a new pair. I asked the sales assistant something and my friend had to butt in and answer. She was wrong of course. It's endless. Lots of small things but all the time. Which is also why I don't know how to take it up with her because it's not ONE issue ONCE and bringing up a couple of examples will seem trivial just like in one of those dysfunctional families. I cannot say to her 'that one thing you did hurt me' and can we talk about it.

To an outsider it all sounds like bad comedy, but it must be so infuriating and upsetting to be on the receiving end.

why would you be a cat expert when you haven't got a cat 😶

It's controlling behaviour.