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."

Not everyone, no, because there are very few things that actually happen to everyone apart from growing in a female body, being born, and dying. Oh and taxes.

But I don't think it's that uncommon, because dysfunctional/abusive families aren't that uncommon. There are degrees of abuse, obviously - most of us aren't growing up with fred and rose west as our parents, for example. We just don't meet the other people quietly going about life with a small social circle, because we're all too busy avoiding other people.

Yeah those people are so fortunate. I guess I can start now. I imagine if I wasn’t too busy surving I would have been more myself. Instead all the people I’ve met I’ve been someone else, people pleasing I suppose. I think perhaps it’s an ND thing a lot more as we’ve masked the real us to try and fit with the wrong people. The friendship pool is a little smaller.

It's never too late, and friendships/acquaintances don't have to be all or nothing in order to add value. It can be someone you chat to at gym class or bump in to regularly at the library, someone who always goes to costa at the same time as you, but who you wouldn't see elsewhere. Just a low pressure, easy thing, a slow burn friendship. One thing I often did when I was younger was to rush into friendships at a million miles an hour, and they'd become very intense very quickly and then fall apart just as quickly, often because I would people please in the friendship, being quite codependent and controlling, I suppose, and then I would feel taken for granted and used. I also often ended up in friendships with the sort of person who is spiteful to/about their friends, and I was very sensitive to that behaviour and it would kill a friendship for me. I don't want or need the drama of that now. I like my own company and time to myself, I like doing things by myself, and I'm very protective of that time because I know I start to struggle mentally without it. I worry that I would let other people take more than I can give because I find setting boundaries very difficult. And I hate having to explain myself, especially because I'm ill a lot. I don't want to have to say to people I can't because I spent most of yesterday crying on the toilet, I can't eat there, I can't go out for that long because I'll be in too much pain the next day, I need to leave suddenly because I urgently need a toilet. Bleugh.

But no-one can have everything, can they, and I have a lot more than I thought I would have when I was younger.

Yes I am mindful that I know I’m missing connections in my life that friends can’t fulfil. I just kind of do like people. I find them interesting, learning about how they different etc. I do well on my camping when I go with groups of people. I’ve made lots of little connections but they aren’t close enough to be present much. But I love to watch and listen. I think I have to really remember I can’t get back the connection I’ve missed out of from family.

Sometimes I almost feel like I have some disability because of what was done to me and I think I must be the only person within a 5 mile radius that is so damaged. Like Dr Ramani said: the narcissist hijacked my soul and took away my safety. Except I never knew safety.

Then other times I feel so incredibly lucky to have been able to reach this level of awareness and work towards a better life. Then I think that most of the population is damaged and emotionally healthy people are extemely rare.

I feel the same about a lack of family connection, too. I realised looking back that I always felt like I was on my own in my childhood home, growing up. I spent an enormous amount of time in my bedroom on my own, and not just as a teen, but from being v small. I've talked before about not being connected to family nearby. I was an only child until I was quite old (and honestly, even with siblings now, I still feel like one). No cousins, no aunts or uncles, and I only saw one grandparent and that was on a semi regular basis and the relationship was often difficult. In hindsight I can see that she must have known what was happening inside my family home. She knew and did nothing. There's no family safety net, no-one with shared history.

Dear god, no wonder I've got trust issues.

I’ve got a lot of love to give. I suppose prime meat for a narc. But I’ve got no one to give it too. Obviously I smoother my kids in it. I just want to give my love to people I actually WANT to give it to. There is no one I can actually stand in front of and say I love you and mean it, so I don’t say it and I really want a life of love. I’ve only said I love you to my kids. My ex used to get pissed off and hurt me but I couldn’t say it because it wasn’t truthful and I can only be true. Another ND part of me, I don’t lie or say things I don’t mean.

I haven't said it to my mother in years. I can't make myself make the words. I can't even write it in a card. But when I was a kid, it was demanded of me, and I said it when I didn't want to and didn't mean it.

It's the strangest thing, isn't it, that it feels like hardest and most personally damaging lie to tell.

I think because it’s what has been abused. It’s my most precious gift to give (and it’s free) and I don’t give it willingly. Other people say it and don’t mean it. If I do then you know it’s real. I teach this to my children.

Narcs are so desperate to be loved but they just aren’t lovable people. When we reflect this back to them we are only reflecting what they already feel about themselves. My ex, despite all the things he bought me, he was not lovable.

It was taken for granted, that's how I feel about it. Children must love their parents, this is the natural order of things, and there's something wrong with you if you don't.

I think it's certainly true that we are born primed to have a certain nervous system response to our parents, to actively seek attachment with them, and that the word we use for this is 'love.' But I also think that we lie about what love is, we misuse the word, we apply it in situations where it simply isn't there. If you are treating someone badly, you don't love them. If you love someone, you cannot treat them badly. You can tell yourself that you do, but you're wrong. Someone who loves you cannot treat you badly in return. Again, you can tell yourself you do, but you're wrong.

But I also know how easily parents can abuse this connection, and to me, that's inherently wicked, to take advantage of a child's nature and innocence. To abuse them and at the same time tell them that they owe you love. I knew I didn't love my father by the age of about 10, and my love for my mother died when I had my own children. I can remember feeling it happen. There's a massive stigma around not loving your parents, though, isn't there? I so often see posts where people describe terrible abuse by their parents, and they will almost always bookend it with 'I love them' and I think do you? Really? Why?

It is wicked in how it feels to us on the receiving end. But it’s just them surviving. I have a degree of empathy for the child they were. The child that was never attached to their caregiver for whatever reason. I know this could have been me and I’m aware I have narc tendencies ( which I understand why they’ve come about). Without love they are nothing. My ex used to self harm, he must have felt so desperately unlovable that he needs love now as much as he needs food. If pushed you’d eat someone or something to survive. But he doesn’t understand that it’s not love he’s truly missing. He is abusing people’s love to survive himself. We are nothing to them but life support, food. But we can’t love what we just don’t and we can sense when this love is being manipulated eventually. We are all just collateral damage in another persons war with themself. And if we don’t heal we become this ourself.

Both of my parents came from abusive homes, and were less than optimally parented. My father more so. There were stories about how his mother would encourage his father to abuse the children because it meant that he left her alone. I mean really horrible, should have gone to prison level stuff. My mother didn't have a great time either, though I'm not sure how consciously aware she is of it. Her father was awful to her, effectively cut her out of his life, but she couldn't seem to get her head around it, and she persisted in trying to get his attention even though her attempts always failed. So you take a man who absolutely hates women, and you give him a woman who was rejected by her father and who is desperate for attention, and it doesn't take a genius to predict what the outcome will be.

I just want it ended. I want to be normal, and raise normal kids with the skills to cope well in the world. I don't want the legacy to be poverty and drug use and violence any more. It has to be different. It has to.

Well we are the first stepping stone removing our little family from dysfunction. It starts with us but it won’t end with is, it’s a family journey. But how great that we are trying. Just look how others just repeat….why because what we are doing is bloody painful and it’s the easier choice to conform. We are actively choosing pain so that hopefully when our kids are older they have less pain. They might not be pain free as we are only human. But hopefully a lot less then we have carried. We can’t fix this in one generation but we sew good seeds of awareness, re-attachment.

Oooo that’s quite an analogy. We
choose detachment from dysfunction in order to re-attach. That’s quite something!

In therapy at the moment.
I'm trying to work on being a people pleaser and also too forgiving. People mistreat me badly and I see them as pitiful, like I see them with all their reasons to be like that from their own traumas. And I'm so understanding and forgiving. Friends think I should be more furious, cut out those who have wronged me, but I just feel this sadness and pity. It keeps me in contact, reminded of the past.

joy I'd say get a plan. You don't want to NC your own child, ok I get that, it must be the hardest thing to do. Nevertheless, there's going to come a point where this child is a fully grown adult and if he is still abusive, what then? So that's the initial part of the plan. Deciding at what point do you look at this person and say ok this is just another abusive adult in my life and they need to go. Teenagers can be horrible, so I get you sticking with it while he might grow out of it, but so you don't sleepwalk into another abusive relationship that lasts forever, I'd be deciding now where the cut off point lies that you say enough, what is the line in the sand that if he crosses as an adult you'll go NC.

Part two of the plan, your job is parent. So he's like the awkward customer or annoying colleague you have to deal with. You can't quit your job just yet until its complete, but you can find ways to deal with the toxicity so it minimises impact on your health.

Like blocking your ex. The kid is a teenager, unless he's in a coma he can text you and tell you even if he's in hospital and if he is in a coma you being there or not won't make any difference. So block your ex from contacting you at all, about anything. Your son is old enough how that your ex can be completely out of your life. Teen can make arrangements with each of you himself about when he's moving between your house and ex's. It's called growing up and taking responsibility for himself and is not unreasonable to expect.

You're allowed to have boundaries, even with your own child. I'd be enforcing that. No coming into my home and being rude to me, slagging me off or telling me nasty things others have said about me. That's basic polite behaviour and is part of your job to instill it. So sanctions for bad behaviour of that nature. If reasoning doesn't work then stop wasting your time with it. Does your boss care whether you enjoy being at work? Nope. They just want you to get the job done and remain professional. You can take the same attitude with your son.

In a parent/child relationship you're the one with the power, so exert it. He doesn't have to like it or agree with you, he just has to behave. He can feel however he feels, but if it's toxic or negative you don't want to know about it, unless he wants to sit and have an adult conversation about his feelings with you that doesn't descend into a slanging match. The basic principle, as old as time itself, of - if you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all. That's all.

Or he faces sanctions of some kind (you'll have to work out what's fair, reasonable and effective). If the sanctions mean be chooses not to come see you, that's not you cutting contact, that's him doing it and you should respect his decision IMO and not chase after him, laying down in front of him so he can step all over you, just to keep the relationship going. Because that would be you saying you want him in your life so badly that it's ok if he abuses you. Now you could say that, it's your life and you're free to live it however you like, but there's really no point giving someone permission to abuse you then complaining that you're being abused, is there.

Part three of your plan, get support. I don't have all the answers, you should ask all sources you can think of, both professional and lay people. But off the top of my head I can think of people I've known coping with difficult situations they can't escape - some take antidepressants to moderate their emotional responses to the situation, even though they're not actually depressed they just have a shit life. Some have ongoing regular therapy to process and deal with whatever emotions have come up that week so things don't build up, the mental equivalent of taking out a full bucket of crap and chucking it down the sewer regularly. Some throw themselves into a time/thought consuming sport or hobby regularly, such that they can totally forget their daily situation for a few hours a week and allow their mind to reset, before they return to daily life refreshed. Some constantly book holidays every few months, literally as soon as they've returned from the previous one, so there's always something to look forward to and a regular complete break from normality for a week or so every few months. There may be other solutions I'm unaware of. Those are the big things. Then there's the small things like meditation, journalling, spending time in nature, candlelight baths etc that can be done daily.

Maybe your focus outside of the job of parenting needs to be your health, outsourcing all other things like house chores to someone else, simplifying your schedule, possessions and routine to allow for all this extra self care needed. I appreciate a lot of this needs money and if you don't have it you're going to have to be creative and come up with a DIY version of all this that's cheap or free.

That is something that can be really difficult to balance with an ND child especially one with demand avoidance. It’s a struggle in my own home to assert any control. But bare minimum we don’t abuse people verbally and we don’t place our hands on people. If you are mad then I’ll help you but don’t use me as a punching bag to offload your emotions onto. I have a friend with an autistic daughter and she is so incredibly rude to her mum and she just accepts it. I feel that like you @JoyDivision79 that there is a very real possibility that in the future my daughter could become someone hurtful if she isn’t guided into the feelings of others and her own.

Our narc ex’s are really a massive problem. They undermine our parenting by being the easy going, no rules no boundaries parent which just reinforces we are the bad parent, especially with ND children. They are setting up our children to fail in their future relationships and worse then that be potentially abusive themselves.

Yes, the PDA element of Autism causes problem for me and there's behaviour crossing most certainly into narc territory. I really struggle with the combination. I then have 3 adults who too are incredibly different to me, abusive, narcs, some ND, who influence my child. So I'm alien in the soup so to speak.

I'm seen now as the scapegoat by my teenager. He's witnessed people speak to me appallingly and he would call me the problem. Any insult to me would be ' I thought you'd over react or get really angry about that'. So he repeats and continually uses this narrative. It's appalling tbh. I'm done with it now after this week.

@SamAndAnnie your words are so wise and insightful. The vast majority and societal expectation is to take anything at any cost from your child when you're a mum. I agree with your mindset that a point comes where it's no bloody way. People generally find that concept horrifying. I don't.

My health is so awful I can't eat solid food, I don't sleep, I'm on multiple strong meds include chemotherapy drugs. No fucking more.

My approach is now - a warning. One warning, and if the insidious behaviour continue I will put you in a taxi out of here. Make sure there's a key for you at your dad's.

I cannot stomach any contact or thought of my ex and need huge detachment from this too.

I understand this will sound horrifying for some reading this. Come live my life I say and you'd last a week from the hell of all the people I have to contend with as I crawl about trying to survive another day like an animated corpse skeleton. ( I don't mean you guys here btw)

@JoyDivision79 Im so sorry. I just hate narcs, they don’t care what they are doing as long as they come out on top. I read an article a while ago which explained what happened to children in relationships like ours. It’s was horrifying.

I know it’s not much @JoyDivision79 but you’ve helped me and that has helped my 2 little girls. We don’t always make a difference the way we expect to who we expect but you have made a difference to us.

You are such a love strawberries 😘.

I can't attribute it all to others to be fair. I played a significant part in my role as people pleaser and over compensating so much for my own childhood in my parenting.

This all fires the already loaded gun imo.

@SamAndAnnie thankyou to you again for such incredibly supportive guidance. Which always resonates.

No you didn’t, you can’t be responsible for the programming you were given, that’s all on them. We are responsible for what we do with it once we are aware.