Realising my parents are abusive

[Abusiveparents]

Hello all, I’ve been reading threads on mumsnet on similar topics for the last few days but never posted before, so apologies in advance if I am breaking forum etiquette.

Decided I would try posting here as it seems that many posters in the past have had similar issues or come to a similar realisation.

I have recently been struggling with the realisation that I grew up in an emotionally abusive household. Both parents are to blame however it’s definitely predominantly driven by my mother. The realisation came to me after Christmas Day (hosted by my fiancee and I in our home) when frankly, saying that my parents behaviour was a disgrace would be an understatement. Consequently I have been questioning virtually my entire life and our relationship. The level of anger and honestly hatred I feel towards them in this moment is incredible.

I believe their behaviour towards me to be anxiety based and control driven and my mother has an inability to view me as a separate person, rather as an extension of herself. For context, I am almost 30, I have a car, a job, homeowner, been in a long term relationship since 18.

There are countless examples of their behaviour, the more shocking include:

• Opening and going through my post
• Calling my former place of work to check if I had turned up after I had not responded to their messages for a few days
• Turning up at my house whilst I was away (was having a bathroom fitted) in a different city - they cajoled the bathroom fitter into letting them in, they knew I was away
• Mum turning up at my house and trying to forcibly gain entry after I hadn’t responded to her texts for 2 days because ‘for all (she) knew I could’ve been lying dead on the floor for two days’
• Lying that a friend had messaged them on Facebook when I was 18 at university to grass me up for being a smoker so that I’d admit it to them
• Somehow gaining access to my Google account and looking at my search history and questioning me on it

All the above is combined with constant interrogation of my life and emotional guilt tripping. Just this morning I have 3 missed calls and 3 ignored texts all trying to guilt me into calling her this evening. I feel like I am under constant audit. I have reached the conclusion that this behaviour is anxiety driven and they are forcing their anxiety on to me.

At the minute I am ignoring my mum deliberately as I feel the only way to break this level of control over me is to let it spiral to the point that she realises bombarding me with messages and calls does not give her guaranteed access to my life. I originally wanted to call and tell them to leave me alone for good, and that they weren’t welcome in my life anymore, but my partner talked me down for the time being. I am seriously considering NC.

As a result of their parenthood, in adult life I have struggled with truth telling (it was easier to lie growing up to avoid the above), depression, severe anxiety and self harm. I’m also now aggressively independent to the point that it affects relationships and struggle with persistent anger.

Has anyone else had similar problems with their parents and/or have any advice to share?

Thanks for reading, sorry it’s a long one

I should probably also mention that I am my mothers only child, whereas my dad has an older son from a previous relationship, hence why this behaviour is so much more severe in my mother

It sounds like you're mum was ill rather then abusive. As a mum you never stop worrying about your kids and its scary when they vanish for days and don't respond to messages add in an anxiety disorder it becomes an unbearable hell.

You can be both Ill and subsequently abusive. The illness doesn’t make the child’s experience of the abuse any easier.

It is normal to worry about your kids.
It isn’t normal to break into their home, contact their workplace, harass and pester them because they haven’t replied to a text.

Its the parents responsibility to deal with their mental health issues. Not force the assuagement of fear onto their child.

Even if that child has depression and is self harming?

I mean, the mother sounds overbearing for sure but i wonder what her take on this would be. Perhaps her overprotective behaviour is in part driven by fear of losing her daughter.

So if someone you love went of radar for days and ignored your messages what would you do. What if they had an accident, needed help, where dying

Should clarify that my mother has no knowledge of my mental health problems or history of self harm. I don’t tell her this stuff as it would be hell on earth for me and she would never leave me alone again. The depression etc is in part as a result of how they’ve treated me

A lot of people who are abusive are mentally ill. It doesn’t excuse the abusive behaviour.

If your mum struggles to see you as a separate individual, it may reflect unresolved developmental issues from her own life. Sometimes this can show up as narcissistic traits. It could be really helpful to explore this with a therapist, ideally someone who specialises in family dynamics or narcissistic parenting. There are some excellent practitioners in this area.

Ah ok, that does change it. Although the behaviour does seem more overbearing and annoying than abusive but i recognise that people use the word abusive quite differently these days.

my DH has very involved parents, it’s cultural in his case. He’s dealt with it very maturely by managing expectations. So they know they get an hours call once a week at a set time but that any other contact he won’t respond to to as he’s too busy with work (that’s the excuse anyway).

i think ignoring them entirely or erratic contact will have the opposite impact because it will fuck with their heads so they will get more clingy. best option is to firmly but kindly manage expectations and be consistent. They’ll eventually accept it but may take a while!

My MIL was exactly like this, she was emotionally abusive to DH when he was young guilt tripping him into all sorts. He wasn't allowed his own opinions, only hers and wasn't allowed to like things she didn't like. When we were together if she couldn't get hold of us she would take a taxi to where we were to check up on us. It was horrible and i couldn't stand her.

Saying she was mentally unwell doesn't make it ok to abuse someone, you have no idea how damaging this all is if you haven't lived with it or seen the results.

It sounds like your mother has overstepped on several occasions, but idk that going NC would achieve your aims. Seems more like a punishment than anything. Have you tried firmly setting out expectations? E.g. Explaining that you will call them once a week, text them twice a week etc and reassuring that your partner has their contact details and would call in case of an emergency?

Re this part - As a result of their parenthood, in adult life I have struggled with truth telling (it was easier to lie growing up to avoid the above), depression, severe anxiety and self harm. I’m also now aggressively independent to the point that it affects relationships and struggle with persistent anger.

Sorry to be blunt, but you're 30. At a certain point you have to stop blaming your parents for your problems and work on sorting them instead.

Honestly this sounds overbearing and very intrusive but to me it doesn't seem to be that abusive. It sounds like your mother is overly anxious and protective of you even though I agree that constant monitoring and seeking to control you could be abusive in some circumstances. I think you are sensible to reduce contact / place some big boundaries but I'm not sure framing it as abuse is helpful. Wishing you the best.

People behaving in ways you don’t like is not “abuse” unless the behaviour is actually abusive. Your mother’s behaviour is not abusive, she just has no boundaries. As you are an adult with your own independent life, you can enforce your own boundaries (sounds like you already do).

All of this 🙌

Monitoring an adult’s correspondence and internet activity against their wishes is abusive and a literal crime…

“Somehow gaining access to my Google account” in a family context is likely to be as straightforward as “my mum passed by my laptop while I’d left it open, and had a look”.

My mum used to read my diaries. Was that an invasion of privacy? Yes. Was it “abuse”? No.

People need to grow up a bit.

And giving someone the silent treatment especially when its used to punish the person is abusive. Her mum wouldn't do these things if op just replied to msg saying she was ok

Not replying to texts isn’t the silent treatment. It’s choosing not to text someone. Don’t be obtuse.

I assumed that the OP meant they checked her Google activity when she was already an adult. Which I think is abusive as it’s reading another adults private data. If it was when she was a child that is different but this would need to be clarified by OP.

have you got any better examples of actual abuse as it sounds like your mother is overly anxious about you

if you have gone awol a few times this will have made her worse

She might benefit from counselling herself as she is sabotaging her relationship with you and needs to respect your independence and boundaries better

When you have your own family and they grow into teenagers you might understand the difficulties that need to be navigated and feel a little kinder towards her

The Google account stuff happened when I was 27 or 28. To this day I have no idea how she got access to it

“When you have your own family and they grow into teenagers you might understand the difficulties that need to be navigated and feel a little kinder towards her”

I’m 30 years old this year and she still behaves this way. If anything she’s gotten worse in recent years

You can message someone to say can't talk right now will call you in a few days. Especially when you know how anxious the person is.

No you can’t. Not with my mum at least. I get hounded. “Why can’t you talk?” “What’s wrong?” “Why don’t you want to talk to us?” “When will you be phoning?” “When will I be seeing you?” followed by persistent phonecalls. Hence why I ignore her.

Perhaps I haven’t done a very good job of explaining the dynamic on this thread but she is utterly relentless.

As I said I don’t think she sees me as a separate person and from there any expectation of privacy doesn’t register in her mind, she believes she has a right to access me at all times.

in any event, I shouldn’t have to jump through these ridiculous hoops, her anxiety isn’t my problem frankly and going forward it certainly won’t be

So this is where you need to start placing boundaries and sticking to them. But be very specific i will call you on this date at this time. And use that phone call to explain to her that its to much so going forward I will call you every friday at 6. Making her think you've died is not helpful and its actually cruel.