MARCH 2026 - Well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

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."
6

Yep my mother made me out to be a problem child and the fact is I have done better than most in the family and I have done it all alone because of her and still somehow nobody ever wants my side of the story all happy enough with her lies. I am very much considering writing a book about it all being honest.

Do you think this is because your success is something they can’t claim was down to them. It can’t look very good on them that you have done well and not the failure they made you out to be. That must feel good. I can’t understand why they choose a child and who they choose. My older child is in a funny stage where she is still a child but also becoming grown up. She pushes me at times and is rude, but that’s all normal. I can imagine they’d hate this part of their kids lives and try to gain control back.

@MustIgoWhenever I have any success with my career my mother comes out with “Well I wouldn’t know anything about that”. I spent £2k having my teeth fixed “Why, were they bad before, I can’t tell?”. I think a lot of it boils down to jealousy and wanting all the attention on them.

She also does this thing where she asks you a question then purposely ignores you when you respond. My dad started calling her out on it recently every time. I’m 48. She’s been doing it since I was a child - it’s just passive aggressive bullshit to make you feel small.

I've been putting a lot of effort in to trying to understand the dysfunctional behaviour of my FOO so that I can hopefully avoid repeating the patterns with my own family. I've realised that a lot of my Mum's behaviour comes from her own upbringing but also rather frighteningly that quite a lot of things that I had assumed we just normal really aren't. One thing that I'd be interested to hear if other people have similar experiences of is the attitude to opinions.

With friends and people they want to think well of them, most of my FOO will try to appear quite 'live and let live'. However, within the family it is openly agreed that there is one acceptable opinion on all matters. Anyone outside the family who disagrees is at best an idiot and at worst a bad person, even if to their faces the FOO pretend to agree to disagree. Anyone inside the family who dares to disagree will be 'educated' (ie moaned at/shouted at etc to try to 'make them see sense'). Opinions treated in this way could be serious political matters or just fairly mundane every day things. There is a definitive right and wrong answer to everything.
It took me a very long time to realise that most people really do accept that there can be many equally valid views and personal choices; they don't just pretend to think that publicly and privately judge anyone who disagrees. I can now see that I spent a lot of time worrying about whether my views/choices would be seen as 'right' by friends etc and feeling I should apologise for having a different view occasionally.

@formalwellies Yes, definitely when I was growing up there were strict right and wrong attitudes about absolutely everything. Yes we’d never tell Auntie Julie she’s doing “the wrong thing”, because that would upset her, but “really” what she’s doing is “wrong”. Double edged sword here because it’s also implying we don’t tell people what we really think if we think it will upset them, like being upset is some kind of terrible thing you would never deliberately do to another person even with the best intentions.

Heaven forbid you voice your concerns, upset someone, hear their side of things and either agree or agree to disagree, but now having more understanding of each others true feelings. No. Never do that. Creep around being dishonest, and then violently explode at anyone who might even accidentally confront you with your own difficult feelings… that’s all fine.

Another thing I think that made this hard to see growing up, is that sometimes my parents would seem to be very open minded and wise - they’re very intelligent people. Until I read the book about emotional immaturity I hadn’t connected that these apparently random times when they would seem so totally closed and unreasonable was because difficult (unwanted) emotions were being triggered by the specific subject in question. I was just confused about the two sides of them that didn’t seem to fit.

There is a famous saying isn’t there that before you argue with someone make sure they grasp the concept of perspective. I had this conversation with a friend the other day whose husband is an arrogant twat. Also my MIL who argued with the fact we like different holiday destinations, her choice was the best. I am glad I’ve learned this lately as before I would enter the arguments to try and get my point of view across. I thought you had to try and convince the other person that your point of view mattered but now I see that healthy people are accepting that we have different opinions and perspectives.

I think this is a thing in dysfunctional families full stop, they put something, anything out there so you have to argue your side and then they paint you as argumentative thus deflecting away from their bad behaviours and baiting tactics.

A couple of the issues my dad has had with my DH are over things like what foods he likes or doesn’t like, and music. How can you not like X?! That’s ridiculous!! Seriously it doesn’t matter. But that’s what he was like growing up all the time.

Oh every time I dared to have an opinion myself I was told I was trying to be controversial/argumentative/emotive etc. My mother cannot bear anyone with a different opinion than hers however she doesnt actually have opinions she just has people she seems to look up to for a time and whatever their opinion is it is then hers. For years she was a 'massive trump supporter' cos her family in boston were. She knew nothing about trump till her first visit to america (we live in Ireland) but nope she apparently had been a supporter for years before she went there. I can tell you hand on heart she never heard his name till she went there.

@MustIgo I've never heard that about making sure people grasp the concept of perspective, but it is very true.
@Eeriefairy My family all like to consider themselves intelligent and educated and take pride in having political 'debates' within the family. But it's never actually a debate, they all just repeat the same arguments to 'prove' their shared opinion and agree how stupid/awful anyone who disagrees must be. Any attempt to introduce any aspect of actual debate is shut down. Publicly they appear to be laid back and will rarely argue with anyone outside the family but will go away and privately agree that people are stupid/wrong etc.
The same always applied with things that I now recognise most people would have said were just personal preference. For example, in my teens I really wanted to have my ears pierced. Family friend's DD of the same age had hers done and publicly Mum made a big fuss about how lovely she looked, how cool all the lovely earrings she had were etc (way more than just polite comments). She even went out of her way to go shopping for some really trendy earrings for her birthday and made a fuss about how much she liked them and how much fun she'd had picking them out. Privately I was told that I could absolutely not have mine pierced because it's highly inappropriate and a sign of being 'that sort' of girl, so hardly a surprise that Friend had allowed her DD to do it since everyone knew her reputation etc. Other seemingly innocent things that my parents (privately) talked about people for included eating out regularly ('What a waste of money, they must be too lazy to cook'), taking small children on holidays overseas (basically child abuse, and clearly just because the parents feel like lazing about on a beach with no thought for the poor child. Grandparents of such children are also judged for not 'putting a stop to it'), women who shave their legs, overseas honeymoons (should be spending that money on a home and children), owning a cat and loads more.
I now realise that normal people have their own preferences but accept that others are different and that's fine, or if they really feel strongly they don't pretend to think the other person's way is 'cool'. I can see that this upbringing made be expect that other people would be judging everything I do and I struggle to know whether people are being honest with me which I am sure has lead to me overthinking and usually trying to blend in/disappear.
Confusingly, when my brothers actions were what should clearly have been seen as 'wrong' by my parents they were excused and someone else was blamed. Whereas even when I tried really hard to do what they would think was 'right' I was told how wrong I was. The only explanation I can think of is that Plan A was for it to appear that our parents were laid back and we were free to live as we children were free to live as we liked but chose the 'right' way. Plan B was to strongly imply that we really wanted to do X (which is clearly right) but Someone Else pushed us to do Y.

Found this quote.

i often think people are mature because they are adult, but age really doesn’t seem to matter. Older people are supposed to become more wise with age. Respect your elders blah blah.

Pathological narcissism is fundamentally a rigid, hyper-vigilant system of self-protection. At their core, narcissistic individuals operate in a perpetual state of psychological survival. This prevents them from accessing emotional maturity, genuine vulnerability, or authentic connection. AI wrote this.

I find this very interesting and to be very true. I know my MIL had significant childhood trauma. I know my friend had significant childhood trauma. They are both in self protection mode. I can see how this would disconnect a family. The narc teaches self protection and the ME instead of WE mentally. This goes against the core values of a family and fundamentally re writes all the core values and rules. I can see how everything goes off at tangent form self protection. Therapy or support needed to happen to help take that child out of self preservation but it didn’t happen. All the people in the narcs life are part of the self preservation system. They are supposed to be the preservation system for their child but they can’t, you need to be part of theirs. They can’t give others because they need it themselves.

@formalwellies yes I definitely feel I hold back a little in (especially new) social situations because of a fear of constant judgement!

@MustIgo I’m not sure it’s as simple as that honestly. My MiL is extremely toxic. It’s not just selfish. It’s unhinged. I don’t know, maybe there are other narcissists who are just vulnerable, trying to protect themselves. But I thought the point of narcissism is that it’s named after the guy who fell in love with himself. There’s a fundamental feeling that they are better and deserve more than others. My MiL prostituted her children. If she thought she could sell my children (or anyone’s) for money and get away with it, she would do so and she would not care about the children or the people who care about them. This is not because she needs to protect herself. It’s because she wants things and it might be the easiest way of getting the money. Like I said, maybe others are different. She certainly tried to claim that her unacceptable behaviour stemmed from a need to protect herself when called out on it in therapy but the whole family just thought this was an excuse she was making so she could claim to be a victim somehow - maybe other narcissists have done this to their therapists!

I would think there are many types of narcs as they all different personalities. Your MIL sounds like a very unwell person. That sounds more like a psychopath or sociopath!

The narcs in my life are like living in bubbles. Nothing gets in and nothing gets out. I wouldn’t say they were nasty or abusive, you as a 4D person doesn’t exist. I don’t think any of the ones I know inflict harm intentionally for joy, they just unintentionally neglect as they don’t see you. They are still trying to survive but the war stopped a long time ago. They could step out of the bubble and be like wow
look at all you lovely people I should actually consider but they can’t.

Yes, at the time they all went through this family therapy thing and she was diagnosed, they explained to my DH and his siblings that NPD is one of the new terms that they use now for these types of people that would formerly have been called psychopathy/sociopathy. Nobody now would be diagnosed a psychopath. You’d be diagnosed with, for example, anti-social personality disorder. NPD is one of those types. It’s antisocial because they don’t give a s* about anyone else, and in NPD there are extra traits specific to narcissism. She is unwell, but I don’t see it as an excuse.

I would have thought to be honest when you that far fucked up it goes beyond excuse, you should be put away because you’ve lost the plot.

If she admitted in court to half of what she has done she would go straight to prison. My DH and siblings have mixed feelings as they know what she did was wrong, but still love her. Anyway, someone else I know who has not been diagnosed but I am sure she is a narcissist as well, she’s never done anything you could put her away for but she is the same inside if that makes sense. She doesn’t care about anyone. You can tell. She’ll probably never kill anyone, but if she did she wouldn’t care at all. I forget the statistic they used to say about psychopaths, but most of them never kill. They might never break a law, but they don’t care about people.

Getting arrested would not look very good and I would have thought that image is one thing they need to protect. In my experience they are all whiter than white!

https://montarebehavioralhealth.com/blog/8-types-of-narcissism/

I just have to get away from him. I need to move so that he can’t find me, he doesn’t even think he is abusive and if I say he is he gets abusive until you have to agree with him that he’s such a good person (he is not) this situation is horrific and I’m physically very unwell at the moment.

@Ceriane have you contacted women’s aid?

@Genuineweddingone that’s an interesting breakdown. It seems that what unites them all is similar to Attila’s list eg entitlement, lacking empathy etc. They just don’t see people the same way they see themselves, like you said @MustIgo it doesn’t factor into their awareness.