August 2026 - Well we took you to Stately Homes

[AttilaTheMeerkat]

I have started a new thread as the other one is now full.

And because of above I also start feeling so very very angry as my family and horrible exs gave me this. Then I also start feeling really ashamed that I can’t just cope with it and be ok.

Have you looked into being ND? Me hitting early menopause at 40 spiked my anxiety so badly and the hyperactive thoughts and terrible emotional regulation. My HRT stopped it but the last few months my heart is back to racing and I have physical signs of anxiety without actually worrying. I lay in bed with my heart over 120 beats a minute for no bloody reason and it’s doing my head in. I do suffer c.f.s and I’ve wondered if it’s POTS. I just try and let it pass and try to look at it without adding shame or judgment or worry. Sometimes our bodies just do their own silly things. I really REALLY try and not add thoughts into this mix. Like the part where you say that others have given it to you or you worry about agoraphobia etc. I find that this makes me worse. You have to really stop your brain from joining dots and making patterns. Sometime I sit in the car waiting to pick up kids and my brain will focus on an internal shift inside myself and I can feel the panic and I don’t want to get out the car. But I find I tell myself I’m going out regardless and put my brain in its place….if that makes sense.

@OneNewEaglei am sorry your not good like @MustIgomy anxiety spiked during menopause I have been on hrt a few years so not sure if it needs to be reviewed

I am not having a good weekend dd has needed a lot of counselling from me as she’s got a new job and is handing in her notice tomorrow she’s giving them the notice period in her contract
then ds has been a bit of a dick he went out last night I woke up after a really vivid dream I never dream that he had come home gone to bed and left random mates sat on my sofa this was at 1.30 am he hadn’t he wasn’t even home so I ended up texting when will he be home as he started work at 8.15 am so I didn’t really go back to sleep heard his alarm go off at 7 am then banging think the neighbours were knocking on the wall it had only just gone off?? But he has form for sleeping through alarms. He goes off to work so I thought I would get some sleep no the builders opposite started working at 8 am

dd then starts texting me stressing again and is threatening to call me tonight if she’s struggling great

I have my first EDMR session tomorrow and I am tempted to cancel I don’t feel up to it but forced my self to accept and pay I am stressing as it’s over teams and last time I had a problem I accepted but it stuck on waiting for host so I am stressing over that I use teams every day at work but that’s my work account on my work laptop this is on my phone and I’ve had no reason to use it on my phone since at it’s at 8.30 am before work

still not heard anything about the court of protection and dsis is acting like nothing is going on carrying on the renovations at dm having recently had the porch knocked down

it has been in our local paper someone has got 2 years in prison for helping theirselves to an elderly relative’s money so that was triggering and it’s no where near the amount and all the other shit dsis has done

I am just tired of it all and incredibly tired today thanks to ds oh to be 21 again

My upbringing and violent exs and being raped as a teenager did give me all of this .I coped until my late 40s then I couldn’t anymore.

i had treatment for agoraphobia, PTSD, anxiety and depression and the therapy led to me being told this stems from an emotionally neglectful childhood. I didn’t know until I had a massive nervous breakdown that I wasn’t doing ok.

and yes as far as I’m aware I’m also ND which adds to me not coping well with standard things others are ok with.

my agoraphobia and anxiety due to extreme worrying about threats was terrible before so I don’t want to to back to that after all these years of hard work to manage the symptoms. I can’t just tell myself to just get out of the car for example as that’s not how agoraphobia works at all sadly, being harsh with myself will make it far worse. Kindness towards myself, grounding, mindfulness, routine no stress all help in small ways.

it’s all a big vicious circle.

Sorry that was an incredibly long rant

You definitely don’t want to be shaming yourself then for not always being able to cope. We aren’t like everyone else out there. We are allowed to struggle, we absolutely should struggle and need support. Please don’t shame yourself for the actions of terrible humans.

google says this “They do not form healthy emotional attachments because they bond with how a person makes them feel about themselves, rather than who that person is.”

So to have a relationship with one you have to make them feel good all the time…and then they will be good to you? You are responsible for how they feel about themselves all the time? Do they not think they have to make you feel good about yourself?

You have described my dm in a nutshell! It is soul destroying growing up this way.

It is slowly soul destroying being part of this family. It’s extremely confusing because I wasn’t raised this way. I mean my upbringing wasn’t healthy due to mums sickness but I had to make her feel good because she was
weak. She did not manipulate this out of me. The golden children I guess are those that make the parent feel good about themselves. I did not realise this was what I was supposed to be doing. I thought being the new one into an established family they would make the effort to make me feel welcome. Also given my history you’d think people would be empathetic. MIL should be making us feel good, showing up for grandkids and making them feel good about themselves.

@mustgothat makes sense to me regarding dm and dsis both who have jealous traits and were critical of other peoples faults or put them down to make themselves feel and look better. No idea if its a hereditary thing as I am not blood related to either of them but until adulthood me and dsis were treated equally and I am not like that the good old psychology nature nurture debate or it is their own personal experiences that lead to their own insecurities dm was widowed young with 2 young children and was a bit bitter anti men she lost a husband we a children grew up without a dad dsis was overweight through out her teenage years then morbidity obese all her friends getting married having children and it didn’t happen for her and i know she wanted that

Happy anniversary to you both 🎇
You really should block them all on SM so you don't have to see it. At this point you're winding yourself up by looking. You know you're never going to see anything good there.

Sounds like insecurity and you were the prefect person for your dsis to take it out on. She probably saw a way in maybe through the fact you weren’t blood related. If you were all the things she wished she was, maybe healthy weight and kids then made it worse. Insecurity seems to be a right bitch, even when you have everything you’ve ever wanted or you surrounded by people/friends/family some people don’t seem to shake it. I personally do suffer with rejection sensitivity, I can’t decide if that’s the ADHd part of my AUDHD or if its
from a lifetime of always being in on the outside. I am aware of this thought and I try extremely hard to not let it cloud me. If anything it makes me hold back and just stay at home rather than go about being mean to people.

My Mum and brother also always criticised other people, even those they were supposedly close to. They always seemed happiest if friends and other family members were having a hard time and would make a big thing of 'being there for them'. Whenever people were happy and things were going well, although they made the right noises to their faces they would criticise behind their backs and compare them with our family. Common themes were saying that the person is not as clever as GB1/GB2, 'thinks they're something', 'doesn't live in the real world', claims that they must have had a lot of help to achieve what they have, belittling the achievement and claims that it will be short-lived. They'd even do this with people that were supposed to be really good friends. I can remember even as a teen wondering why they spend so much time with these people, and do so much to help them, when they clearly don't think they're very nice people.

As an adult I can see that helping when things are difficult made them feel superior, they other people to see how nice they were and to some extent they felt it meant that the friends owed them something. When friends were happy and achieved something it threatened their status and made them jealous.

This is why I am coming to realise I’m quite happy on the outside really. I have never fully understood all the social aspects of an NT world let alone a narc world. So many people aren’t happy or insecure. Talking about others seems to me a waste of time because it doesn’t actually change your situation.

Insecure parents must just raise insecure children. There must be something in the model or the teaching of the daily words they hear that just passes this on. I know my teenage nieces already compare themselves and talk unfavourably about other girls. They do this from the top looking down. I always teach my girls from the same playing field. We don’t judge, we don’t compare we are all different. You won’t catch me talking and laughing about others with my kids. I don’t really have any interest in this, I’m more hobby or task based. Got my head in craft project most of the time.

My eldest daughter who I share with me ex (who I’ve diagnosed as narc…something definitely wasn’t right) just came to me and said “when I’m at daddies house I’m not allowed to speak to anyone I don’t know”. I thought she meant like strangers as that’s common to teach. She said no, when we go on holiday or days out or to the park I’m not allowed to talk or play with other kids because they are strangers and dad says I’m not allowed. I know he was always paranoid, I always thought he was just trying to be protective but this doesn’t sound normal?? As long as you are around and supervised I can’t see the issue. Soon she will be off out with friends and you can’t stop that.

Can I join please? I have fallen out with my mum almost two weeks ago and even though it is she that's in the wrong, I am the one being punished.
We fell out talking about something normal but she disagreed with me and it ended up in her raising her voice and shouting at me. When I asked her why she was talking to me like that she again raises her voice, snarled her face up and pointing at me talking and so I said I was leaving and the way she was speaking to me was "toxic". At this point my dad came in asking why I was shouting! At that point my voice may have risen when I said was leaving and not being spoken to like that but only because she was already shouting at me. So since then she has not spoken to me and I also had to attend their house as there was a party for my grans 90th.
She didn't speak or look at me.
Since then I was away on holiday I messaged her to say we had arrived safely and how my kids were. She gave a "thumbs up" in messenger. No contact since and also I was meant to go to a show with her tonight and I messaged asking if it was tonight and how was she and she read the messages days ago and hasn't responded. She is basically wanting an apology from me (I think) but I don't want to. They both treat me like a child. If I don't accept their advice in life then I am wrong. Basically our relationship is ok if I tow the line but a step out of place I am ignored.
The problem I have is for the last few years things were not too bad, they were doing childcare for the kids.
They are meant to be looking after the kids for two days and I'm dreading picking them up and it's all so hostile.
This is the top of the iceberg there has been A LOT of other stuff. I offload to my brother who understands completely but he tells me if I want contact with them I have to accept they are like this. He doesn't really have contact with them /visits are brief etc but he has no kids to keep up a relationship with. My issue now is my kids have a relationship with them so I'm torn how to move forward.
I feel anxious all the time about it

And when I spoke to my brother about it he sent me a response from AI that he had asked and it was bang on with everything

Well I was right when I said my dsis wouldn’t tell me when dm passes. I have just found out she passed away a week ago. I rang the care home as dd had said she might want to visit her and they have just told me. Know idea what happens with the court of protection case now

Im so sorry for your loss. Take some time to look after yourself really well 💐

I don’t have any useful knowledge. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. It’s not nice to find out like that.

So sorry to hear that @Spendysis that’s awful of your sister not to have told you.

@Spendysis I'm so sorry this has happened to you. When I've ready your posts I've felt your experiences are similar to mine in many ways, but you were further down the line. Even though you have got used to not having contact, it must be awful for you and your DD to not even have been told when she passed.

Thanks everyone i dont thinks its sunk in but not the nicest way to find out going to ring the funeral director tomorrow to find out the date of the funeral and then we can decide if we are going to go no intention of going to the wake

I hope you find some peace after this ending (I hope it ends after this) and recognise that you have changed the trajectory of this trauma despite all of this.

I had always thought once mum dies I would get closure and peace. I have informed the court of protection and opg. The court have responded that their case is now closed which i expected as there is no longer lpa to revoke. I haven’t heard back from opg so don’t know if they will continue with their investigation as mums death doesn’t change the fact dsis abused her position as poa and benefited herself financially using mums money. I hope they continue with the investigation so at the moment I don’t feel the closure and peace I was expecting but it is very early days

I have contacted the local funeral director and they will be dealing with mums funeral but no date as of yet as they are waiting on the doctor to issue the death certificate so will call back in a few days