SEPTEMBER 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."

She has caused drama by writing to your DD. This was all done deliberately on your mother's part by using your DC here as a means of getting back at you. She is also trying to cause a rift between your son and daughter in front of your very eyes.

Now your daughter and you carry this secrecy that your mother created. Time to bust that secrecy wide open and to come clean with your son stating that your mother wrote to his sister.

Regardless of why she is the ways she is (the likelihood is that she has some form of untreated and untreatable personality disorder rather than a form of depression) its not your fault.

You would not tolerate this from a friend so stop tolerating this from either parent. Your dad is probably her enabler/secondary abuser and will therefore back her to the hilt. He could well say something along the lines of, "do not criticise my wife, she is only trying to help etc". He could well throw you under the bus out of self preservation and want of a quiet life; he cannot be relied upon.

I would not accept any present from your mother for your DC as they are all loaded with their own heap of obligation. You all need to stay well away from her.

Could she be autistic. It sounds very familiar when you say she blames others for her own feeling, my 9 year old does this. She has no idea that her feeling is hers and thinking people deliberately make her mad/jealous/left out. She then punished the perceived perpetrator of her feeling. She can’t get to grips at all that everyone feels jealous at times but that’s just because we would like something that someone has and not the other person deliberately flaunting something

@Strawberrypjs I don't think so, but you never know. Her brother probably is (he's literally a rocket scientist) and his DD is at least I think so!

@AttilaTheMeerkat she hasn't done it to create drama - she's just ploughing on doing what she wants (to buy DD a present) without any thought that it would have any effect on anyone else, dramatic or otherwise. It's like her plans for people - she decides that we will all go and do something without asking anyone not because she wants us all to react but because she wants it to happen therefore it will.

Could be a possibility then that’s there’s an underlying Neurodivergence. My daughter is very similar and she’s too young for any personality disorder. She to thinks things
should go the way she thinks with no consideration of the feelings of anyone else. People exist to fulfill what she wants, she is having to be taught about her feelings and those of the people around her. I do wonder if many of these personality disorders are born of undiagnosed neurodivergence. It doesn’t make the consequence of it any better, self centred is self centred.

Regardless of why your mother is the ways she is it is still not acceptable behaviour for she to ignore your son whilst favouring your daughter.

Personality disorders and neurodivergence are two very different things strawberry. ASD for instance is not a MH condition nor a personality disorder. There is enough rubbish written about ASD on other threads on MN as it is so I would like it kept out of this thread!.

Yeah sorry I just meant that they can coexist to form a perfect storm but it doesn’t make it right, there may be some neurology involved. There are no excuses though because the behaviour isn’t nice or acceptable.

@Strawberrypjs I am starting to wonder why you are actually on this thread at all. I havent time to read back but have you been the victim of a narcissist? Your recent posts are coming across as very negative against ND people and as someone with Audhd I have to say your posts rile me up because honestly autistic people are nothing like you say. We are all about justice and we do understand all feelings and emotions. I have no idea but your posts are very strange to me.

@drspouse she actually HAS done it to create a divide. This is what narcs do they divide and conquer. Google triangulation. She is pitting your kids against each other and by allowing the secret shes getting you on side against your own son. Everything they do or say is either to bring the limelight back to them or destroy what they believe is some kind of competition. They thrive on chaos and drama and choose it over everything else.

Yes I have suffered narcissistic abuse at the hands of my ex husband for 12 years and also with a family member. I am also neurodiverse myself and my
oldest has ADHD. All people are capable of having a disorder including ND people. I was just adding an opinion to the poster who said that they don’t think the person is a narc because they don’t want attention or drama. Perhaps something else could have been at play, that is all I was trying to say. I have some amazing ND friends but I’ve also meant really crap ones, just like you do NT. I won’t mention it again, but I’m entitled to be on a thread just as much as anyone, if what I added doesn’t fit then that’s ok, was just a thought.

Children do need to be taught about feelings by mirroring. They aren't born to know their feelings and those of others.

Children who don't receive this, like one of a narcissist for example, grow up disconnected from themselves. They are emotionally immature, even though the typical scapegoat does not resemble disordered personality like the narcissist. Both have in common that they live very externally and 'outside the emotional experience of the body' or 'in their head'. The narcissist will never become emotionally mature, but the scapegoat can. Children aren't supposed to be emotionally mature. They are learning to become, ideally.

That person could easily be a covert narcissist. They don't do it for attention. But they are playing the victim forever and ever and to them everything is personal. Or maybe this person isn't a narcissist, but shows very distinct narcissistic traits. Also possible.

The never ending link to ND on any MN thread gets tiring. Whatever someone says someone will be along and say 'have you considered ND'.

Some people are just arseholes.

Not everyone is a narc though and there are other possibilities if someone doesn’t feel like it fits. It’s just an exploration.

Fairness is not necessarily a thing to base things on as everyone’s perception of fairness differs. I have a friend with a son with ASD and if you take his pencil by mistake he thinks it’s fair to scream in your face or punch you because you deliberately took it.

We are all just a group of people exploring with no credentials to diagnose or any real life experience with each other. It wasn’t meant to offend just explore a possibility but it’s wrong.

I also think there are multiple possible reasons why a parent can't be what a child needs them to be and I'm not willing or able to diagnose my mum.

If it is a qualification to be on this thread that you have a parent with NPD I'll bob off.

None of us know or can diagnose the driving force behind our parents and loved ones behaviour on here. We take what we can @drspouse and fit together bits of the puzzle that fit and discard the rest. You don’t need to label your mum, just see if some of the puzzle bits fit for you and life going forward and if they help you.

What the hell are you on about now with fairness?

What the hell? This thread isn't about puzzling together anyone's parents. It's easier than that. I think each poster should focus on their experience and what they want to make of it. It's helpful to point out that some behaviours are abusive. Nobody needs to know if their parent is disordered. It's helpful to point out the possibility, but in the end it's about deciding if you are going to put up with it and what you are going to do about it for yourself.

We can each do what we want with the thread. For me it’s puzzling together my experience into something that I can comprehend, I did not say puzzle together our parents. It doesn’t have to be that for you or anyone else. I think we can all understand that we aren’t all looking for the same things.

I think maybe because some of us have been on these threads for years we have an understanding that we know what are parents are and we know what they have done to us and we just are trying to work out how we can go about our lives without them in it and without their abuse having affected us.

she decides that we will all go and do something without asking anyone not because she wants us all to react but because she wants it to happen therefore it will.

This is part of what I was dealing with. It's because narcs don't see you as a separate person, but as an extension of themselves like a 5th limb or an object they own. Basically they think they control you and believe that's how it should be, so why would they consider what you actually want? In their minds you are them/theirs so what they want is all that matters and it doesn't occur to them that you maybe have a different opinion. If you express a different opinion it causes trouble, because in doing so you've just challenged their belief that they own you and think for you and have final control over you.

Mine doesn't want people to react either, just wants what they want. Because I don't go along with it, that makes me the problem in their eyes and them the victim of my "nastiness", because of course if they're upset at not being able to get their own way that must be because I deliberately set out to upset them and I'm nasty for not doing what they want. Zero thought is given to how their demands and expectations may upset me or whether I maybe have different plans than the ones they want to happen. I'm not an autonomous person, in their eyes, so how dare I want a life of my own!

What you're viewing as a sort of benign thoughtlessness may be something more. If someone was genuinely "just" thoughtless (it's not really an acceptable trait that a grown adult should have and causes problems) they'd recognise they're in the wrong and apologise when you pointed it out that they're being thoughtless and explained why. I'm somehow thinking your mum doesn't apologise drspouse and also never changes her ways because she sees nothing wrong with favouring one child over another (another hallmark of a narcissist).

Most narcissistic people aren't going to be diagnosed with NPD because they're never going to go to a therapist or doctor about anything being potentially wrong with them. In their minds everyone else is the problem. So most people on this thread who are convinced they have narcissist family members won't know for sure because those people don't have a diagnosis. You don't have to have diagnosed relatives to be here.

FWIW I wouldn't allow access by your mother to your children because it's toxic to put a child in a position of having to either keep a secret or hurt their sibling by being honest. It's also toxic to put the child in a position of being complicit in having a part in escalating a secret by accepting a secret gift rather than just knowing one was offered. I don't like being in toxic situations so I wouldn't want my child exposed to it either. Regardless of whether someone is a narcissist or not, stay away from all toxicity and keep DC away from it too, is what I recommend.

A poster said asd people are all about justice, sorry I meant to use the word justice not fairness although it’s linked. Justice is also perceived, it doesn’t mean that all asd people perceive and use this fairly. All I wanted to say was that being ND doesn’t make you immune to being an arsehole.

A long way back in the thread I talked about my mum being ASD and she had trouble connecting to us as children, she couldn’t cope with change of routine, she struggles with so had no friends, she just struggled an awful lot with depression and anxiety due to this so she was often quite lost. So I was giving a suggestion based on my experience as we all are. Asd did effect mine and my brothers relationship. He left very young as she was controlling. I was micromanaged and any change of routine and she went into a spiral of anxiety.

It is not decent to reply to each other with such words. We are all struggling through a life. It says a lot to deal with a different perspective in such a hostile way. We are all struggling due to the nature of the thread so even when we disagree it’s kinder to agree respectfully. We’ve all had a lifetime of hostility.

Yeah I get that, some people haven’t and are in different places. I didn’t mean to offend. The poster talked about the fact her mum says everyone hates her, it just triggered my thoughts as my ADHD daughter says this. She does have rejection sensitivity and feels rejection deeply despite the fact it’s not happening. She doesn’t understand that she offends people by the way she talks as she often doesn’t take people’s feelings into account. She doesn’t mean to but people tend to tell her she hurt them then the PDA steps in and it’s a mess at times. I thought perhaps someone who’s done this for a lifetime could become quite like the posters mum if left unguided. I only mentioned this as she and mentioned that she isn’t sure about it being narcissism so gave another suggestion based on what I’m going through.

@Strawberrypjs I wonder whether my DM is ND too, most likely ADHD, as she is so scatterbrained and can never relax. I think I might well be too. (My DB has been diagnosed with autism, though I suspect that he has complex PTSD like I do.)

I don’t think my DM is narcissistic, though my F was most probably, he gaslighted all of us to keep his abuse of my DSis and me secret. I guess you could say she was his enabler, though unwitting as she didn’t know what was going on. She did smack us a lot, which she accepts was wrong but minimises it, focusing the subject on my F, who smacked us ‘too hard’ and says she objected (though I don’t remember this).

She gets very emotional whenever the subject comes up about our childhood and I end up comforting her.

Like your mum, she micromanages constantly and is very controlling. She’s very keen to tell me what I should be doing albeit calling it making a ‘suggestion’.

She also tries hard to push for contact between me and my DB, who joined in with the abuse (mostly of my DSis), though he was also a victim and is now a very vulnerable adult. It was tricky, as I didn’t want him to have contact with my DDs, and I’m also triggered by being around him. I’ve seen him a couple of times during the last few years. My DSis won’t have anything to do with him at all; she lives a long way from us so that’s easy to do for her.

I’m basically finding my DM very hard to be around though I persevere because I do care about her and I believe she means well even if she gets things wrong. My DH finds her difficult and my adopted DDs (16 and 13) can’t stand her, sadly. (That’s a very long story, I’ve spoken about them a lot on MN before.Suffice it to say that our relationship with DD2 broke down completely and we’re working hard to make things right.) I suspect that’s why I don’t feel I should judge my DM for the things she’s done wrong. I just find her very difficult to cope with.

My DM has had a very difficult life, she was orphaned at 10 and then sexually abused by the uncle who became her guardian. (Her aunt didn’t know at all.)

I’m not even sure this is the right place for me, as my DM isn’t to blame for my issues. My childhood was toxic obviously but that was because of my F and he’s dead.

Honestly I don’t think there’s a right place for anyone as we all have such different stories and it’s often more complicated than just saying they are a nasty narc. I don’t have a monstrous narcissistic mum either but I can relate to a lot of the outcomes. Never feeling enough, always on eggshells, not being able to view my world through my eyes….etc etc. I do have a narc MIL and ex husband who act deliberately but still the feelings of not being seen are the same. It is really irrelevant what drives these parents but I found that once I understood more the hatred for my mum dissipated and I felt better. Carrying hate and anger long term doesn’t feel nice. I may be wrong but I’m not sure the thread is solely for narc families but for families that haven’t been able to meet their children’s needs. It’s hard when you have empathy for your parent because they aren’t a deliberate monster but at the same time they can’t give you what you need.

Thank you so much @Strawberrypjs , you’re so right. I think another thing is that my DM is also very kind and has tried hard to help us with our DDs, although she often makes things worse not better. (And my F was also capable of being kind, which made the memories of his abuse so confusing.)

I’m also aware that there’s a child inside me who is blaming my DM for not keeping my DSis and me safe, whereas as an adult I know that it wasn’t her fault as she didn’t knows. I also can’t say that to her, as it would hurt her too much.

We aren’t suppose to protect our parents and it’s supposed to be the other way around. It’s sad but I do feel that also, I don’t want to hurt anyone. But as an adult myself now it won’t help telling my mum something that she isn’t mature enough to understand. We have grown beyond them and that is something to be very proud of. They are to blame, it was on them to have sorted themselves out, learnt, grown like we have. Honestly it’s something to be so proud of that we are doing something to change this pattern. It’s all you can do as you can’t change the past. We have to work on what the past did to our minds and bodies.

Once again you’re right. I’ve recently thought that there might be part of my DM that didn’t grow up properly after her parents died. That was a massive thing to go through at 10, to be followed by CSA by her uncle. She should have therapy herself, but she’s never thought she needed it and she isn’t likely to change her mind at 86.