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

I watched this friend of mine love bomb another vulnerable mum at the school gate the other day. It was a worthy performance. She is absolutely in my eyes a narc and I need to find a way to back off fast. It makes you realise just how they work. They find a way in when you are at your weakest and exploit it. In a way it was good to watch because it resolves you of any blame as a victim. People always say it takes 2, that would never happen to me but yes it could. When you are low, when something sad happens in your life you your brain just isn’t capable of protecting your boundaries so much….and they REALLY good! It was like watching nature at work, the prey and the predator

Not yet. I was standing in the school queue yesterday though and the grandmas were there joking about how put on they are (they’re all so lovely - one of them is disabled and struggles quite a bit but she’s there wind or shine no matter what). And I just thought how lucky their classmates are.

Since dropping the rope almost 6 weeks ago it’s dawned on me just how negligible my parents’ efforts were with my kids. They’re 8 and 6. They’ve never cooked them a meal. Wouldn’t even dream of even making them a sandwich. They’ve furnished a room in their home for my nephew. My children are never invited to stay.

If we had a fire tomorrow, they wouldn’t accommodate us. What a dickhead I was for putting them up when their home purchase was delayed. I wouldn’t be offering again.

@90sbaby123 Seeing as it’s early days for me even realising all this stuff, I would have been one of the people saying how great my family are not long ago! Only because I never needed anything myself. They rallied around my DSis, and still do - babysitting, school pick ups, overnights, meals together all the time, talk on the phone daily.

Like Ladybyrd, my parents have never cooked a meal for mine, never invited them to stay. They haven’t had me round for a meal really since my DDs were born. I had them a couple of times, but my mum complained constantly about how small my house was, and then my dad started an argument for no reason and stormed out. I haven’t invited them since.

I wouldn’t be bothered about telling someone like my hairdresser the truth. I’m more bothered about the idea of running into certain family friends. It would probably seem shocking to them if I told them we don’t see each other.

I’ve been trying to “get over it”, but I’m just really angry now I see it all clearly. I’d probably keep my answers short and vague so that I wouldn’t have to actually get into it all. Maybe that’s not healthy, I don’t know.

You / we usually have to go back again and again and again and get burnt so much we then start a journey to seeing and accepting the truth.

Someone terrorised and abused you all your life and you feel you need to be there for them? It makes no sense logically.

So you / we should really question why the fuck anyone would not tin for the hills and never look back.

It's very scary how alone but you accept and adapt and see more and more how awful contact is with these people.

The more you distancing and cut community and then care for yourself and the awful grief,you see more clearly and that insight will keep you away emotionally. It will make you put you first.

Money is often the last thing keeping people held on, and the hope they'll change or acknowledge their awful behaviour. It won't happen.

"family friends" is such a weird phrase, I don't know when or why society invented it. It kinda feels like gaslighting a bit, to foster a force closeness that isn't actually there. I'd pay not attention to these people eerie, they're not your friends, they're your parents friends, people who you know almost nothing about, just acquaintances really. Don't put any weight onto their opinion, they really don't matter. If speaking your truth makes others feel awkward, that's not you being awkward and their feelings are theirs to deal with, it's them not really living in reality or only having a partial picture of what your parents are like as people or having the same moral code as your parents and seeing nothing wrong in their behaviour. Either way, none of that is your problem. As for the anger, you can't skip past it and go straight to feeling ok, it exists and it has to be dealt with. There's nothing wrong with being angry, it's understandable and justified given the experiences we've all been through. So long as it's not eating you up and turning you bitter and affecting your life forever more, then it's normal.

@Eeriefairy I know how you feel. It took me a long time to realise that my family wasn't the lovely close unit they wanted everyone to think they were. For a long time I excused the fact that my parents didn't prevent GB1/GB2 treating me as they did and persuaded myself that the difference in the way were were treated was, if anything, a compliment (ie. they didn't feel the need to do things for me because I was so capable). I have always been very wary about telling people who know them anything that would go against the 'lovely family' facade. Partly this was because I felt I should not upset my parents by 'outing' them and partly I think because I worried that I would not be believed. If I'd been taken in despite seeing it all, how on earth could I expect anyone else to believe what things were really like?
I still don't go out of my way to tell people what they are like, but I have come to a realisation that what extended family/'family friends' think of me doesn't matter.

I agree with @SamAndAnnie that 'family friends' is an odd concept. In my case, these were mainly people that Mum had befriended because she felt superior to them in some way and she has put a lifetime of effort in to making them think our family is perfect. Mum has encouraged them and us to see them almost as family despite the fact that in reality we hardly know one another and Mum is pretty derogatory about them when they are not around. I think in her mind it feeds in to the idea of us having a big, wonderful family. With hindsight, I think many people would have found her 'friendship' odd (she always wanted to 'fix' them or be around in a crisis, similar to how a pp described one of her acquaintances) and would have distanced themselves, so those that have stuck around for years have clearly accepted their role.

I think coming from a decent human it’s hard to actually understand that people come from such differing places. We would never, could never but others actually do. It’s hard to fathom. It’s hard to imagine what’s in people’s heads. I always thought with a little understanding and a better explanation people would understand but they just don’t do they. We see parents as these special people, people who know everything, wise and full of knowledge, but they are just humans as the end of the day and some aren’t nice. What a horrible situation for a child to have to cut off a parent.

Someone terrorised and abused you all your life and you feel you need to be there for them? It makes no sense logically.

I think the trouble is that they didn’t just terrorise and abuse, they also (in most of our cases here on the stately homes thread) clothed and fed us, paid for educational opportunities or whatever they did that made it harder to call them out. But this literally happens to the victims of kidnappers, who identify with and even end up loving their kidnappers - I’m not saying it’s right and how we should be, it’s just a complex feeling that’s difficult to shift.

@formalwellies and @SamAndAnnie I appreciate your perspectives. I’ve still got some work to do on accepting my own feelings instead of thinking that they (or I) am to blame.

There is a saying that you can’t heal in the same environment that made you sick.

Yes, definitely agree. I see this as part of the reason we / I have stayed. The bad stuff escalated so severely for me I was losing my mind I felt. So that made this a bit of a rapid shift over a year or so and less confusing.

I've explored Stockholm syndrome and I believe that's exactly what we are dealing with.

I only really reflected one part in my post so it's really good you highlighted this bit. 🙏

You've also got the huge part I left out - the brainwashing that has made you question your own instincts and have no faith in yourself and your feelings. That's added to by the entire education system, medical system and on it goes. So we are really up against it, especially as women.

I forgot to add the societal expectations that we care and show love to ageing parents mo matter what. All bullshit brainwashing. We owe nothing.

We are owed a life of autonomy away from this behaviour.

I feel this type of abuse basically erases the person underneath. Instead of growing a voice and a brain you learn to just internalise it all. When you look for external sources of validation about yourself because this is how you are trained and the person standing in front of you is never intending on being decent then you screwed. We are taught from kids that we are a reflection of the mirror we stand in front of. When we behave good we get good results and when we are bad we get bad results. It’s easy to feel we are the problem growing up when actually the mirror was broken. What we internalise is their broken behaviour. I found this a good way to separate feelings. It’s common for people to be broken and blame everyone else, there are a lot of broken unhealed mirrors out there. That’s why therapy is good because a good therapy will replace the broken mirror (although some of them are also faulty).

My MIL is broken. She thinks kids that have healthy bonds with their mums are “needy”. She thinks my little one coming into my bed when she is scared is her being needy and manipulating. She thinks that families who are close, who actually need each other because they close and spend time together and enjoy it are too needy. How sad. If my kids want to spend time with me when they are big and come to me I will be the happiest person alive. Unhealthy parents create distance as much as they create enmeshment.

I think they create enmeshment because it's the only way they have of keeping us physically close and mentally prioritising them. Because they're not capable of forming healthy attachments to people. Everything they do is transactional. So their children end up effectively in a coercively controlling relationship with their parents, because without that psychological abuse preventing them from seeing clearly, the children would run in the opposite direction from them as soon as they could.

Brainwashing is exactly what it feels like Transcend this

It's interesting that you've got someone looking at healthy relationships and literally viewing those as unhealthy and needy, Must. If that's how they all think, then you'd never break the transactional nature of how they conduct relationships, because it's not even like they just don't know how to have a healthy relationship, it's that they can't even recognise a healthy relationship for what it is. It's not a lack of emotional education problem, an ignorance of how to behave problem, it's a personal belief system problem. No wonder these PDs are considered largely untreatable.

I think I'm being hoovered, possibly unconsciously by someone who doesn't realise they're being used as a flying monkey. It could be innocent coincidence. But due to timing and location I won't be that surprised if I discovered it's a hoover. I will give them the benefit of the doubt for now, since all other behaviour from them has been normal and ordinary so far, and hope for the best. It feels a bit like I'm at war, tiptoeing around enemy camps trying to find if I have any allies or not, whilst being careful not to give anything away to the enemy that they could use as ammunition.

@SamAndAnnie it’s trauma and how they have survived it, it’s got to be.They didn’t have the correct bonding to their parents so I think they find it stifling and she is physically uncomfortable. I don’t think she has the capacity to understand needs so just pushes back. She is missing something and she has absolutely no idea what this is. I think maybe it’s they just not attuned because the focus is heavily inwards. I find she unsettles my nervous system, there is just something deeply missing. We’ve had moments where she could say something, something that will put another person at ease, but she misses the point. For example when I have friends/family over I tidy up, I put on a nice spread and I speak to everyone and welcome them. She does not, she doesn’t see people are uneasy, she doesn’t welcome and diffuse any anxiety. She doesn’t sense anything. It’s taken me awhile to adjust to not being welcomed (no one is really).

It’s untreatable because there is nothing wrong with them. Nothing to treat. You either follow their rules or you out. Both their kids have control issues, one a very external oriented life (dead behind the eyes, a boastful arrogant person who no one likes) and the other OCD and hoarding with decision paralysis. Both don’t really understand others, one is in full control and considers no one, the other a decent guy but can’t say no to anything and it’s annoying. One has no emotional connection to anything or anyone, the other can’t throw away a piece of garbage because it means so much. They have no sense of internal safety in my opinion. One can’t stop working, literally 7 days a week and the other anxious about objects. They’ve been left to fend for themselves emotionally and within their nervous systems.

We’re now on week 6 of silence since I dropped the rope. Week 6! It’s obviously all my fault for walking out. The fact that one of them didn’t even bother turning up for an organised visit with their grandchildren is neither here nor there!

So they’ll be sitting there saying what a terrible daughter I am not letting them have access to their grandchildren when what that access actually entails is everyone having to sit there while they continue to centre my nephew and pretend it’s normal, healthy behaviour.

I think it’s one of those things where once you’ve seen it, there’s no going back to how it was. They seem absolutely batshit to me now but there we are.

Be like a sunflower and face the sun! I’ve told this to this friend of mine to no avail, she faces chaos, life will never change. Choose peace, life is so short. Fill your life from now on with so much joy! I only ever realised lately that happiness is a choice. I thought it was something to aspire to but you can be happy whenever you choose.

I agree. Brainwashing, learning to override your internal feelings or impulses about how things should be - it all leads to confusion and difficulty seeing this stuff objectively.

@Ladybyrd I’m in a similar position. After an argument where my parents made it clear that I am not worth supporting, I massively pulled back. I have had a couple of text messages in the last few months. Knowing my sister is in daily contact. I feel a bit sad about it, but I’m angry more than anything. I don’t know what the answers are for processing it - I’ve been looking back through my whole life realising it’s always been this way without me having seen it. I think I’m still in a bit of shock to be honest.

I know lots of people say going NC is liberating and your life becomes more peaceful, but I think this first initial stage is going to be painful - because you’re fully facing the fact that they don’t care and there’s a little bit of expectation that they’ll get in touch and more pain the longer it goes on that they don’t. I had a huge falling out with my family last year and that’s how I felt then too. We ended up talking again, but since then there have been more arguments and now here I am. But I just wanted to offer some support anyway.

No contact also is precisely that. No contact. It to me is also you finally giving up all residual hope for an apology or a sea change in the other person’s behaviour. It’s a form of grief: you need to grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got.

I think there is a reason people hold onto hope as the truth is going to be very painful and the mind tries to avoid this pain. I think it’s important to sit with the pain for a bit as you do when you loose a person who has died. Loosing hope is sad.

Thank you. I wake up in the morning, every morning, feel sad, a sense of panic, then let it go because what can you do? The terms are unacceptable and I can’t do anything about the terms 🤷‍♀️ At least I’m not wasting all day worrying about it anymore.

That’s it in a nutshell really. Incidents happening every few months - it gets to be point where you’re having to protect your children from their own grandparents. And once you’ve seen the behaviour patterns you just can’t go back to before. It’s fucking shocking to realise how little they value the relationship, but actually, looking back, the signs were there all along.

Yes. I’ve started to shift from “but surely they’ll realise you can’t do that” to “Oh, those are the terms - we behave shittily, and you absorb it”. Yes there were moments when they could be nice, but on the whole most interractions lately have left a bad taste in my mouth. So yes - missing the notion of having loving parents/grandparents - absolutely- but all it was was a lot of disruption and emotional abuse anyway.

Yes this is what I was thinking. The grieving has to come first before the peace can take its place. It’s not just flip a switch and feel better. We have to face the loss of what we were hoping for, which is painful, and then life might be more peaceful down the road.

I think that’s why I went back last year. Because it had been so painful during the time we weren’t talking and feeling like they didn’t care. Going back definitely hasn’t solved the problem but I do think I needed to have that confirmation of what I now know for a fact, that before was only a vague feeling (and that I used to think was my fault) - that they aren’t really loving or supportive. If I hadn’t gone back then, I might not have actually had the answers I have now.

I told said friend about some CBT, some brain training. I think it takes a lot of effort to train a brain away from something. Especially something it can’t understand and wants to fix. I don’t think brains like things left unfinished. I try in my life to train my brains manager to be stronger than my emotions. I lost my mum a long time ago from illness and it likes to go down the “why her” and why have a met a man with a crap family. It takes a conscious effort to move away from something. But life is short and who knows how long we have left and there is like you said absolutely nothing you can do, we are not in control of this, they are, but we are in control of what we do with our life.