"But we took you to stately homes" - Part 4

[oneplusone]

Can't beleive we're onto part 4, although i can't see this thread ever dying.

I was just reading through past posts to try and catch up on the months i have missed and something somebody said has triggered something for me. I know my mother didn't bond with me or love me and i think part of the reason why was because she thought i took after my dad whom she hates (although she is too gutless to leave him). I remember when i was young her saying things like my hair was like my dad's but she wouldn't say it an affectionate way, but quite a venomous way and it always made me feel uncomfortable when she said that but i must have been too young to figure out why.

The more i realise about my mother the more i despise and hate her. I remember she used to play hide and seek with me when i was very young, about 3. Only she would 'really' hide in a place i would never be able to find her. I remember crying and feeling completely distressed one time as i thought she had gone and left me alone at home. It was only after i had been crying for some time that she jumped out laughing from her hiding place. What a nasty, cruel, ugly piece of work and she parades around looking as if butter wouldn't melt and she has a lot of people fooled including my 2 sisters. I know my dad can see her for what she is which is why she hates him and i can see her true colours too which is why i hate her.

I know inside she is deeply insecure, lacks intelligence, strength and integrity. I have witnessed her lie, manipulate and cheat to get what she wants and the people to whom she lies and those who she manipulates are us, her own family. I just can't beleive my sisters cannot see through her, they are totally blind and deaf to her true character and have completely fallen for the victim role she has carved out for herself.

Cutting off my parents was the best thing i ever did and i have realised i need to set some boundaries with my sisters, my last remaining friend and even DH. How to do that is another thing, something completely new to me.

She hit you!!!????? Sorry I am in
Is this the norm when she visits??

Anangel NO!

WTF? Why did she do that????????

It was NOT YOUR FAULT.

Are you okay? Are your dc okay? Is dh there?

Angel- Please come back and talk to us!!

sorry I had to go and wash my face and stop shaking. the dc's are ok. dh not here. he will hit the roof when he finds out. i don't want him to, but ds1 will tell him cos he was in the room at the time. I said something to her which she took the wrong way and she said 'you're still not too old for a walloping' I just shook my head and turned my back on her and carried on making the childrens lunch. She came up behind me, swiped me upwards across my back, hit me downwards again on my arm and shoulder and then up again on my hip. if that makes sense!? instead of arguing, i just stood there unreacting and carried on making the kids lunch trying to fight back the tears. I should have thrown her out but I was too gutless. I looked across at ds1 and he said 'my mummy would never lay a finger on me' and walked out. I was geared up then. If she had even taken a step towards him I would have killed her with my bare hands. I swear I would have. But she didn't. Then she sat here and used my internet and asked if I wanted some cake tins she was getting rid of. Like nothing had happened. She was laughing and joking. I just don't get her. really I don't.

Was she pretending it was a joke that she hit you?

She is clearly incredibly disrespectful of you and of your dc's.

Do you feel you get any benefit at all from her visits? You poor thing ((((angel)))). Dont be hard on yourself because even if she was mock hitting you it would have taken you back to the trauma of when you were a child. Of course you would feel that fear all over again. She sounds like a monster not a mother.

Would you consider cutting contact on the basis of what happened today?

if she was it wasnt a very funny joke

i dont get anything from her visits. apart from feeling emotionally drained if that counts.

i can't. my nan is ill and it would be the death of her knowing whats going on and knowing me and 'mother' weren't talking. i am only keeping the peace for nan's sake.

Im not surprised you feel emotionally drained. I used to get that too when Id been around my mother. Would feel like shit for days after. A mama hangover if you like!

But really I am just shocked by her behaviour Angel.

'I can't. my nan is ill and it would be the death of her knowing whats going on and knowing me and 'mother' weren't talking. i am only keeping the peace for nan's sake. '

I understand. Can I ask if your nan is/was aware of any of your mother's behaviour? I just wondered if you could just start putting some boundaries in. Maybe keeping in contact by phone only or similar.
That way there wouldnt be a falling out as such, although your mum may well kick off at first and react to your boundary setting.

If your nan was aware then maybe she would see that it is costing you dearly to 'keep the peace' with your mother?

yes. my nan knows. but she is of the opnion that 'family is family and you don't have another one' We all fell out a few years ago when my nan took my side in an arguement against my mother and it was hell. My nan was so down and upset al the time. At the end of the days its her daughter I suppose.

DH is due home soon. I feel sick. I don't want an arguement.

i have got to go now. DH due home any time. will try and get back on later. if all hell hasnt broken loose that is.

Angel, I'm so sorry to hear what happened today . Your mother thinks she can still intimidate you like she did when you were a child . I hate the way some people talk as though you ought to show respect and act subordinate to them when they haven't done anything to earn your respect! And she had no right to hit you as a child, and no right to hit you as an adult, why does anyone think they have this right? And then to act like nothing has happened AAAARGH! , I can't stand that! Who the hell does she think she is! I'm sorry if this is unhelpful, but it has made me very angry.

If your DH gets angry about it, it is because he loves you and wants to protect you. I can see that he is probably trying to tell you to cut contact (sorry if I'm getting this wrong), but you get angry with him for saying it because you feel you can't because of your Nan.

Could you find a gentle way to explain to your Nan why you want to cut off/reduce contact with your mum? Would she understand why you want to do this if you explain what happened today? If she wants you to put up with that sort of treatment to keep the peace I think your Nan is also wrong and undervaluing your feelings.

I know how hard it is to find the courage to stand up to them though. I am visiting my parents this Sunday when I REALLY don't want to, to avoid causing a 'scene' with my parents or with my DH who thinks I should stay in contact with them. I am being weak and I admit it. I am not ready to behave 'stronger' yet. I hate this feeling.

OnePlusOne, Don't worry about my reaction to your post, it is helpful for me to think about things! It scares me because I have a constant deep down feeling of needing to escape and an irrational fear of being returned to the past. When I think I haven't escaped because similar things will come back to me in the present, even if they are less bad things eg DH could be similar to parents, I get scared.

Hi angel, i'm so sorry to hear what you went through today. You know you don't deserve to be treated in that way don't you? Would you ever treat any of your DC's like that? Of course not. I'm going to risk saying something that you may not like, but do you think there is any possibility that your mother and your nan have a similar relationship to you and your mother? Because i'm sure you know this kind of behaviour is passed down unless somebody stops the cycle by becoming aware of their 'role' in their family 'drama'. Your nan i'm sure has been very loving towards you, but she may not have been that way with your mother. It's the same in my family, before i cut off contact my parents were lovely towards my DD and were clearly besotted with her. But of course as you know they were not in the least besotted with me. Just something for you to think about, although it doesn't do much to help solve your current dilemma. I think you could try and talk to your nan but it may be difficult for her to hear you as it may cause her to confront painful memories/feelings of her own that she has kept buried.

Ultimately you must do what is best for you as you have your DC's to consider, they will inevitably be affected if your mother is making you unhappy.

Smithfield, i'm glad if i have helped you understand 'The Drama' a bit better. It is so interesting that you describe how you feel like you've been kept in a prison by your parents as one of Alice Miller's books is called 'Prisoners of Childhood'. I haven't read it all, just parts of it, but I know it talks about exactly what you have described. Perhaps you might be able to relate to that book more than the Drama.

Ally, your mum is weird like you say. If i were you i would make no contact at all, but easier said than done i know. It's a bit easier for me as we live at least an hour's drive from my parents so there is no chance of me ever bumping into them here which feels so good. I would hate it if every knock on the door could possibly be my parents. Have you ever considered moving? I think in my case the physical distance is so important and is partly what helps me maintain the no contact situation.

I've thought about the letter my mother sent me today. Still haven't read it. I know she'll just be saying sorry (too little too late) and only wants me back in the family in my old role as scapegoat, so she can avoid facing up to what she's done and how badly she has treated me. If i went back she could just carry on as if nothing had happened and leave the past where she'd prefer it to be, dead and buried and a taboo subject. My cutting her off means she has to face up to the reasons why i've done this and of course that's the last thing she wants to do. She just wants to carry on deluding herself that she was a fantastic mother and dumping all her rubbish onto me. There is just no way i am going back to that, ever.

Went to my aunt's today with ds.

I really shouldn't have.

Dog bit ds(3yo) and ds was basically told off.

Lots of comments, ds treated really harshly over lots of stuff. Dogs are superior, ds should bow down to them on most counts. I failed to stand up for him enough.

Dp (and me tbh) not wanting ds to go there again. But have no idea how to face this one.

Aunt is mum's sister. Is as bad if not worse.

Not sure how to face it when asked to go there again (they won't visit us). Ds adores her, but cannot trust dogs - or more acurately their behaviour and lack of control over the dogs.

Cannot face being constantly criticised again.

Hate this today.

I ordered "The Drama" the other day and it might come tomorrow! I'm excited. Is it wise to read it before I visit parents on Sunday though?

Does anyone have any ideas on what approach to have in my head for the visit. Apart from focussing on it being a day out for the children. The children normally like it.

I don't care about trying to 'help' them anymore like I used to go on about in my posts. Is that a good thing?

I'm not wanting to improve our relationship, I have no interest in it.

I need to take my mind off their house/them bringing back memories of when I used to live there.

I don't know if I can look interested and jolly while they go on about nothingness or in my dad's case a load of pointless detail about things like what the building down the road used to be. Maybe I'm not intelligent enough to find it interesting, but I just don't, I switch off.

I don't know if I can not feel disgust about the fact that they still act 'jolly' like nothing bad happened. I don't actually want to talk about it with them - I wrote all I wanted to say in my long letter - but it still hurts me that they don't care enough to try to say anything to make me feel better.

And I'm dreading that thing where they will think they have to kiss us when we walk in. I would rather puke. I don't see how I can get out of it though. I know I don't have it in me to refuse.

I'm sorry if this makes people angry because you think if it's that hard then DON'T GO. But I'm not strong enough to not do it, not this time, not yet. And part of me wants to see if it will be as bad as I think and prove to myself how I feel about it by seeing what it is like. I've been visiting them for years but now, since the long letter, it feels really really worse. Why would this be?

one thing that stuck out for me in your post angel was your ds1 saying 'my mummy would never hit me'.

You have been conditioned over years (as we all have) to see your mother;s behaviour as acceptable.

Your son does not see it like that - you cannot be repeating her behaviour because he sees her behaviour as unreasonable. If you were repeating it, he wouldn't be able to see anything wrong in how she treats you.

How do they react to her normally? Do they enjoy her visiting?

woke up again with shocking anxiety Dh took ds to nursery and ds is back to getting really upset about going. Crying and saying he wants to go home. I find it so stressful to think of him being so upset but when I ring they say he is fine. Why is he having seperation anxiety at 3.5? Is it soemthing Im doing to make him insecure?

Im just so fed up with feeling like this. I basically feel like shit from the inside out. I dont want to see or talk to anyone (although I force myself to most of the time) I just want to curl up into a ball and hide.

How do I seperate out my feelings? How do I know how much of this is PND and feeling overwhelmed by motherhood and how much is related to my seperating from my mother and father if at all?

I spend half my time these days feeling so anxious I feel sick and the other half feeling an intense dislike for myself. I know I shouldnt and Im sure its either habitual or its serving some purpose for me? Some resistance against soemthing perhaps?? but I dont know what, and I cant get to it? Im scared I never will, because I cant bare going through the rest of my life feeling as I do.
I want to like myself...why is that so hard for me to do it?

oneplusone-could I ask where that list of questions for therapists you mentioned came from. Im sure you said before, but I cant remember.

Think I finally get what turning the anger inwards means. Further to my earlier post, Ive been thinking and thinking about how cruel I am to myself. About my self hatred and how it creates my depression and how this is a pattern for me. I break away from my parents, physically or emotionally and Im doing well for myself, living my life and feeling my independence then BANG I drop into a cavern of depression.
It is this that ties me to my parents in some way, my way of preventing detachment from them, a complete detachment that is.
I have internalised my mother (and perhaps my father too) in order to stay tied to them. This is where the resistance lies.
I have to let go. But how? And do I really wnat to do it this time?

They no longer hold the key to the prison. I do!

Sm/ithfield, you sound like you are in turmoil and distress . I'm glad you are thinking about going back to therapy as I think it will really help.

It hurts to disconnect from your parents because it is instinctive to want parents. Disconnecting means accepting that they don't love you the way you want and you don't love them the way you want to. This is very hard to accept and is a loss which you will grieve over. Is it not being able to face this grief which makes you keep going back to them? Or do you feel there is still hope that you can improve the relationship? Do you feel pressured into not forgiving/forgiving them? You have to work out somehow what you really want. This is the difficult bit, especially if you feel differently on different days.

You must be very angry, the way you turn it in on yourself so much. Have you really done anything so wrong for you to hate yourself? We can all see that you love your DCs (is it two or one?) and care about the way you bring them up. You might make mistakes but we all do. When you make a mistake you think about what you have done. That is a lot more than what lots of parents do. Would it help to write down each day what you are feeling angry about? Don't think too hard, just write it randomly without censoring yourself and see what comes out. You might see that it isn't really yourself you are angry with.

My DD (5) still cries when she goes to holiday club and school quite often. Within minutes of me leaving, they say she is fine and she always has a good time. DH says it is because she loves me so much she doesn't want to leave me! DS hardly ever cries going to nursery. They are just different personalities and it isn't necessarily to do with parenting! It is a natural stage a lot of children go through and your DS will learn from it eventually. It does make you feel awful, I know, especially if you are depressed already!

Do you need to separate your feelings? Could it be that you feel awful because there are so many different feelings with different causes all at the same time? Having children is really hard even without other problems!

I didnt realise Ive been resisting it. Acceptance that is, that my parents were abusive, and that I must accept this and start healing the little girl who did nothing wrong.
My anger, was false anger all this time, my tears and sorrow all false too. I just didnt realise. I just read an open letter by AM on her website and I finally see, what I couldnt see before.
I dont want to accept it was their fault so I turn the anger on myself.
I started calling myself a stupid, useless Fucking idiot this morning...all because I spent ages trying to organise some pureed carrots and fucked it up. Then I made myself stop and ask 'why?' why would I be like this toward myself.
It's because if I am flawed then i can go on letting them off the hook cant I. I can then carry on trying to fix myself. I can control that but have no control over them.
My mum always said I was a stubborn child, maybe that is a true part of me that remains. Its the stubborness which refuses to give up on them. But if I dont It will always be at the expense of myself!

(((((Smithfield)))))

I relate to what your saying again.

I was fine when I was pg and separated from her...even with the hormones...slept at night (had not done that since we were thinking of trying to concieve). When I went and had dd...all fine, I was only home for about an hour before I had a call from my dad to ask if dd had been born. I remember feeling guilty that I had not pushed dh to ring him. I heard my mother howling down the stairs (over phone) when I was telling my dad my mother could not come. That blacked things for me. Then we go to visit pil and just as me and dd are in car, my dad is suddenly there...so I show dd to him, then my mother is suddenly there too...managed to stop her seeing dd. She pleaded to see dd then dh came out (thank god) and listened to her plead and rant at him. Dd is crying, I don't know what to do so I chat away to her to calm her/me down...then mum and dad go, they go same way as us, then turn off down a lane (took me a year or more to walk down it again). After that the greyness descended. I felt that I was doing an evil bad wicked thing depriving my mother of a gd, I felt real anxiety about depriving dd of a grandmother, I felt a bad bad bad person. I wondered so often if I had just exagerated everything. If I had done it to get back at mum. If I was doing the right thing. Even though I was exhausted by feeding dd day and night I still could not sleep for thinking about it all. I used to sit in my rocking chair bfing dd all day, never smiling at her or enjoying her because my mind was just constantly on my mum and how bad I had been to her.

Those words 'bad' 'wicked' 'evil'...all very strong aren't they? A bit childish the first, the other one's against a therapists principals as they condemn the whole person, not allowing any chance to change or to be a good enough person. Just total condemnation for who you are.

It took me a year or so to shake all this. I don't know what triggered the change. I know bfing more seemed to make it worse (hormones?) I kept thinking of all the things she was missing each time dd did something new. My mother totally dominated me in that first year of dd's life and I never even saw her, though did get postcards and letters. My therapist was not supportive of breaking contact, he wanted me to keep the door open for discussions. My dad clearly disagreed with me too. 3 peers in my life condeming my actions. Enough to make anyone test their reasoning. But at the end of the day this is not about reason. This is about feelings. Smithfield, if you felt unhappy about your childhood, that is valid, if you feel unhappy around your mother that is valid. I wonder too about 'a little contact'. For my mother that would never be enough. I guess the same for yours as she is controlling too. We're going against the core principle of our life, don't upset mum. How did if feel when you did go against her? Your mother has led you to believe that you cannot cope without her, that you will always come home. Do you have a deep fear that you will go back to her? And then she will punish you for leaving her and you will be dragged back into her control again? (Fear of mine I admit). Where is this anxiety coming from? What is the core too it? When you find it, usually for me, finding the reason lifts the fear/anxiety. Keep writing, brainstorm it. And I can also empathise with the not really feeling it all...wishing I could feel something other than occasionaly bursts of anger towards them. Feel I am flawed without feeling something 'real'. Maybe depression, or constant mild depression dulls feelings?

Sorry much of that is about me...I hope some of it is helpful. I just remember what it was like being in that horrid greyness where everything is bad and wrong...mostly me.

Re sons anxiety at being left at playgroup...I suspect that is normal. Perhaps post/search in parenting?

Take care of yourself xx