"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.

Ally- reading about your counsellor made me feel quite as I feel it would have flawed the process for you. The whole point is to have soemone totally 'for you'. They can not be for you and for your parents at the same time.

This would have made you get stuck. As stuck as I am in fact because unless you can 'direct' all the anger at them (your parents) you cant move forward. If that makes sense.

That is exactly why I am stuck and grappling again with depression.
When I began to feel this bad then I ran off to the gp to get 'myself' fixed. A subconcious move perhaps? To make me the one that is flawed.
It is just a deeply entrenched need/training? to not blame them and to cop the blame myself instead. Until I trust in myself that I am 'entitled' to feel anger at them I cannot move forward.

I remember you saying a while back you had trouble with the 'anger' and feeling it. Perhaps this is why, maybe your counsellor stopped you from directing it at your parents subconciously?

yes I agree 'a little contact' would never be enough. And my mother does not 'love' my dcs. I see no evidence of it, she will use them however to get to me. I know this. A grandma that has no photos of her Gc's? That doesnt even hug or cuddle them? Well I have seen her hug middle dbs dc's but never ds. But then middle db 'is' the golden child. But even so and with his dc's her contact and interaction is minimal.

As regards my father, I have infact never said he can not see me or dcs'. 'He' has chosen not to pick up the phone and call. He sent a card when she was born but no contact apart from that.

The core of my anxiety? I dont know but I suspect inabiility to cope, survive without them..As was drummed into me by them. And/ 'Or' as AN said a hangover of feelings from childhood, which would be a fear of and of invoking that anger.
She always threatened abandonment if I would not bend to her will and a precursor to that threat of abandonement would be her rage.

The proof of all of this if I need any is surely the fact that at 30yrs old my sister has only 'just' left home. But still drives a car paid for by my dad and uses a mobile also provided by him and has never worked a job except to work for my dad on a sunday.
She doesnt believe deep down she would survive without them and she also knows if she did leave/ stand on her own she would be abandoned....all support would be withdrawn.
But it is a matter of quid pro quo, for the financial support she must support and nurture them emotionally.
Quite basically both my parents are 'users'.

hi

just making contact

Welcome Youcannotbeserious Feel like posting a summary of your childhood (don't feel it has to be short, its like Pringles, once you pop you can't stop )? Or you could post your present issues with your mother...really does not matter

Smithfield...you just possibly hit a nail on the head there with subconciously redirecting my anger when my councellor didn't stand up for me. I certainly felt I had to defend my position everytime I saw him, then he asked why . You seem to be feeling the same way too (not about councellor ) getting yourself 'fixed' at the drs (although I still feel you did a good thing for yourself) because you have the problem. Your parents are going round seemlingly blissfully unaware of any of your pain from their treatment of you, so it must be you with the issue (ditto with me and my parents). Remember that quite often scapegoating is the redirecting of anger they should be feeling, they cannot handle it so they push it onto us. They must be weak characters (no excuse) to have to do this to their own helpless children. The abandonment thing too...my mother once threatened never to do anything for me again...that felt like abandonment and I immediately stepped back into line again to keep her onside. Despite the fact I don't like her .

Like you summing up yoru parents as 'users' . Quite appropriate.

Okay...therapy question here...where is your anxiety, physically? Where do you feel it...what do you do, physically when you wake up with anxiety? Clench fists? Heart pounding, headache? List all your symptoms and see where that leads. Have you tried drawing your anger? Doing plasticine models? (then take a picture if you want so we can be anaylsists... love interpreting these things...) it might get to the bottom of your feelings.

Don't stop posting...

Hi,

Sorry, haven't read all the threads, so feel a bit like i'm barging in... but here goes.

Parents are Irish catholics. Moved to England because my mum's family (RIch / posh) didn't approve of the marriage to my dad (Not rich / posh!) Mum had two kids, sister and me and has lots of issues. Mostly related to when we were kids and to do with the fact she had to deal with a lot less money than she was used to.

Mum is totally controlling. My sister (nearly 40) still goes round every day, has breakfast in bed with them, Dad packs her packed lunch and mum cooks her evening meal...

Mum has a real chip on her shoulder that I like to have ANYONE else in my life. This has ranged from my friend at college, ex partners, current partner, MIL - anyone who isn't in her circle of trust. As a child, I wasn't allowed friends over, no parties etc., It was us against the world, and we spent all our free time going back to Ireland.

Current issues are because of my DS (born in May) My mother basically wants to control him too and thought she could because DH is away so much. Me standing on my own two isn't going down too well. Her latest edict is that I am a shit mother who is staggering through life and doesn't deserve my son. Nice.

But, I have DS to consider now. I'm not backing down. I want him to have the sort of childhood I dreamed of (AKA One with friends!) Seriously, I never was allowed friends. No-one was ever good enough for us. My mother couldn't get it into her head that she might have been someone in Ireland but in England, we were just the same as everyone else....

Given the slightest chance, she will bang on and on about 'hired help' not realising that it is really quite common these days.

I appreciate my mum was brought up with a lot of help, but she did make a decision when she married my dad and it's not my problem now (and FWIW, my dad has done really well and actually kept my grand mother for the last 10 years until her death)

Well, there you go.

hi all, have skimmed through recent posts, not enough to make sensible comments, will do so once i have more time.

But talking about anger, i had complete meltdown this morning. Was angry, upset, crying nonstop without really knowing why. I think it's partly the holidays, DH now has 2 weeks off and subconciously i take that as meaning I get some help with the DC's. But of course it doesn't work out like that and i still have total responsibility for them.

I think i was feeling totally and completely overwhelmed by the responsibility that goes with having DC's. I have so much control and influence over how they turn out and I know so acutely how me messing things up could affect them adversely for the rest of their lives. It feels too much to put on one person's shoulders. Plus I have the guilt of knowing that my DH has in so many ways also become a victim of my parents by virtue of being married to me and all my baggage. Plus the guilt of knowing that my DH has had to support me morally and practically and emotionally for the last few years whilst i haven't been able to support him at all due to my emotional state and my health which is like having a disability. I feel i have let down my DC's as even though i am 'sorting myself out' whilst i'm doing it they do not have the mother they deserve and sometimes bear the brunt of my anger/upset/frustration. Because i have cut off my parents i am without a mother to help and guide me in bringing up my DC's and as we all know the DC's don't come with an instruction manual and normally the knowledge of how to bring them up is passed down from generation to generation. I know it would have been useless for my actual mother to guide me as she clearly didn't have a clue to bring me up, but it just means i am beating a path through a foreign jungle all alone and with no help or support from any angle. It is just sooo hard and relentless and at the same time I lack confidence in myself and always doubt whether i am doing the right thing.

My DH seems to cope with things so well, he never seems to get overwhelmed and i know this is because he has an innate self confidence and high self esteem. He has faith in himself as an adult because his parents loved him unconditionally as a child and had faith in him. If a child knows he is loved, valued and respected by the people who are the most important people in the world to him, his parents, he wil grow up with self respect, self confidence and self esteem and these things will enable him to cope with whatever life throws at him as an adult.

I have always been denigrated, mocked humiliated, rejected and neglected by my parents so no wonder i lack self confidence and self esteem. I have come a long way in the past 2 years but that is nothing compared to 18 years of the 'good stuff' that my DH has been lucky enough to have had.

Sometimes i wish i could just pass all my responsibilities to someone else, go to Ibiza, lay around all day sleeping, eating and reading and go out all night, drinking, dancing and flirting..........even though i never actually did that when i could have in my young free and single days. Just goes to show how you always regret the things you never did as opposed to the things you do do.

Sorry for the slightly off topic ramble, just needed to offload.

Can I join? I really feel I need help.
I have a bad relationship with my mother and I think it has really screwed me up. I have had depression more or less for almost 5 years. At one time it was diagnosed, then I thought it had got better but it came back soon after and now I can?t go to a doctor for treatment or counselling (I moved and neither are available where I live). I think my mum?s behaviour to me for most of my life is at the bottom of it and I can?t remember a time when I was at peace with her since I was 12 or 13. I am scared to write too much in case I am identified.
The rest of my family thinks she?s a pain, a nag, a little sour, but basically ok and they all have found a way to get on with her. She only communicates with me via email though and then its only one line her month and it reads like a business email. She pushes my children away too, barely remembers their birthdays and couldn?t be bothered calling either of my sons for their birthdays this year (actually she hasn?t called for at least a year).
She used to hit me a lot and it kept going until I was in my late 20s and one day I snapped and pushed her away. She was shocked and immediately became the victim and my brother grabbed me and screamed at me for touching her, even though she had been slapping me hard one minute before.
Most of my life its as though she thought that I was a part or her, not a separate person so whenever I did anything she wouldn?t do, she just couldn?t understand it and treated me like I was a faulty part of her body. Even down to things like if I used a word she didn?t know or wouldn?t normally use (like ?improve? instead of ?make better?), she would accuse me of using the word to estrange myself from her. In the end I had to talk to her in simple words and deliberately filter out the words she wouldn?t use herself to try to reduce the arguments.
I always feel sorry for her though. She had an emotionally brutal childhood and she is always unhappy too. She has almost no friends and her life today is financially comfortable but not good any other way. I am scared that she will die before we can resolve it. I loved her so much when I was a little girl, but I don?t know why she turned against me. Maybe she was always against me but I was easier to manipulate when I was little? She was always authoritarian and would hit me hard often.
I want to talk to her but I know it would just be another major row and she will deny things that happened that no one could really forget and she?ll say I am just trying to cause trouble and upset her. Then she will be the victim again.
I?m really fed up feeling depressed and I want rid of the depression so I can be a good wife and mother that my family deserves. I love my children so much but they are only little and I am terrified that I will turn against them as she did against me when they reach their teens.
Sometimes I think to just forget her, but what if she dies? Then I think to try to resolve it with her, but how can I when she just wants to prove that I am at fault?
She always made such a show of being on the other persons side whenever I had an issue with one of my brothers down the years, sometimes she has even talked like they are her children and I am not, so that I have wondered if I?m not really hers. But then I look exactly like her so I must be hers. Its not a boy preference either because she is always trying to get closer to my sister who holds her at arms length.
I?m sorry this is such a ramble. Its as clear as I can get it because it is such a mess in my head. Every one thinks I am together, on top of things, reliable etc, but its just something I do to cover up the person beneath. My mother knows the real me though and it infuriates her that people think I am worthwhile and confident.

Is this all too screwed up for MN?

I know people probably won't have anything to say to this post but I just want to clarify my thoughts by typing them.

A friend said some things today that seemed to make me feel better:

My parents' and brother's feelings when they read my letters etc are their own responsibility. It is not my responsibility to make them feel better. I know I've said this before but it felt good to be reminded. They never seemed to think my feelings were their responsibility when they did things against me (or failed to do things for me).

In order to cope with visits I could just see it as something I do a few times per year and it is quickly over, and don't think about those people for the rest of the year. She thinks that if I can cope with this amount of contact and feel in control (not let it upset me) and that it is on my terms then I am strong not weak like I think I am. (I'm not sure, maybe it could work).

I say to myself that I am doing it for DCs' and DH's sake but a lot of it is I'm just too scared to cut off. I wonder if deep down I do have some feelings for them, despite everything that happened and despite Therapist thinking I shouldn't (well I think that is what he thinks). I am so fucking confused! I am going round in circles. I just don't want to think about those people anymore (which is why my friend said only think of them on the few times I visit).

Sorry if this is confusing/annoying for people who want to cut off completely.

Pg 200 of AM's 'The body never lies';

"Cheif among the emotions suppressed (or repressed or disassociated) in our childhood but stored in the cells of our bodies is fear. A child who has been beaten must constantly fear new blows, but it cannot live with the knowledge that it has been cruelly treated. Similarly a neglected child cannot conciously experience its own pain, let alone express it, for fear of being abandoned entirely...........
....In adulthood these suppressed emotions are sometimes triggered by quite ordinairy events. But the adult cannot relate to them: 'Me? Afraid of my mother? Why? She's absolutely harmless; she's nice to me and does her best. How van I be afraid of her?' Or 'My mother is awful.But Im aware of that fact, so I've broken offf relations with her, and I'm completely independant of her'.....it may also be true that there is still a small unintegrated child living within, whose panic and fear have never been admitted and thus direct themselves at others. These fears can suddenly assail us without apparent reason and cause us to panic. Unconcious fear of one's father and mother can last for decades if it has not been consciously experienced......"

Read this last night and thought it applied to me.

Ally- I feel the anxiety in my stomach, washing machine, sledghammer effect. It normally effects my breathing and I want to go back to sleep, curl up in a ball to make it go away.

It hits me first thing in the morning and so for the first time today I thought, is it because I know DH is about to leave? Is it triggering feelings of abandonment?

I would have felt abandonment throughout my early years. My mother didnt hold me for a whole week after I was born as she says she was too ill to get out of bed and so I remained in the baby unit in an incubator.

My mother was always cold toward me and rejecting and TBH I barely have any memories of her at all before my dad left.
I only ever remember standing at a distance from her and asking her a question and never understanding the answer and being anxious about asking again.

My dad left suddenly when I was three.
My nan said I ran after him screaming 'No daddy no!' and he just drove off.

We went to live with my auntie after that down in London, and I began wetting the bed. I had to share a bed at the time with two cousins Id never met. My mother shamed me for the bed wetting. She didnt need to I already felt the shame of it myself.
I remember having dreams around that time that I could fly.

My mother never comforted or consolled me during that time. I barely remember her at all in fact...she was like a shadow, who would step forward now and again to punish me for some wrongdoing.
Once she smacked me because I went missing. I had gone inside one of the neighbours flats. I remember this woman clearly, she had a little boy and she was very kind and talked to me, and fed me some of her little boys dinner. I clearly had no boundaries as I was so desperate for some love and affection. How can I remember the kindness of a stranger but not of my own mother. Not one memory.

I had been close to my maternal GPs, but just before my dad left my Gd died. Apparently I kept asking where he was and my nan said he had gone in a big oven? .
I kept looking in ovens after that. My mother told me this as a 'funny' story.
After my dad left my mum fell out with my nan. My nan had been my primary carer for 3 years and then she was cut off from me for two years. I dont think my mother gave a stuff about the impact that might have on me. Another loss at an early age.

I always thought of my nan as my mum when she was alive I guess because she was the one who took after my needs and my mother never did.

When my mum and dad got back together and after my db was born I was very ill and had to go to hospital for two weeks. I was six. I had a tantrum because I didnt want my mum to leave one day. And so she left, leaving me there on the ward sobbing. She said it was because the other mum told her to, as I was just playing her.

Throughout my life my mother threatened abandonment. 'that's it Im finished with you!' was common to hear, or occasionally 'we will drop you off at a childrens home'. So the threat of abandonment was often weilded.

My father would leave frequently. It would always be grandiose, smash house up first, scream he was 'finished with the lot of us!' and disapear for days. So the threat of abandonment was always close by, and the rising panic of it all.

By the way I dont expect you all to read through this....but Im finding it cathartic!

As I got older the threat of abandonment became like a self fulfilling prophesy with relationships. I would choose particularly cold men who would then 'leave me'.
My mother continued to let me down at crucial moments in my life until I cut her off. She has never 'really' been there for me. Ever!

I probably should not be here because you all seem so far down the path of naming the problem and dealing with it, but is it fair to say that everyone is trying to rid themselves of the pain caused by their childhoods and that even though we are all grown ups who function normally otherwise we just can't get over it? If anyone treated me in adulthood as my mother treated me in adolescence I would deal with it and move on, and I would only remember the other person in terms of "they" had a problem (but nothing to do with me). With my mother though, it feels like i have a problem. Why can't I just deal with it as an adult and basically get over it?

AN-I'm just too scared to cut off. I wonder if deep down I do have some feelings for them, despite everything that happened and despite Therapist thinking I shouldn't '

You cant 'just' not have those feelings because your therapist says you shouldnt. It doesnt work like that.

I think you feel confused because you have to remember there is much complexity in our emotions and it is never that clear cut. The adult part of you if you like knows rationally you should not love your parents, that they have wronged you and you should cut them off entirely for ignoring your basic needs and refusing to acknowledge those needs were in fact ignored.
However there is still the child part of you that wants their love, and is 'angry' and ambivilent at why you can not get it from them.
This will make you feel pulled this way one minuite and that way the next.

Emma- No definately not too screwed up for this thread at least .
Your childhood sounds very traumatic indeed. If your mother acted as though you were one person then you would have grown up finding it difficult to connect to any of your own feelings and emotions. which will leave you feeling very 'well' disconnected IYSWIM.
Its interesting that you say you are one person to everyone else and another to your mother. Which do you think you are?
Your mother has allocated you a role by the sounds of it, and you may well be/have been her scapegoat, that's why it infuriates her for others to see you otherwise. She needs you to have that role in order to function. After all if she were to admit, all she did to you growing up was wrong, 'her fault' and nothing to do with you or your behaviour then she would be admitting that she was a bad mother. SO she is protecting herself at your expense.
As for your siblings they have grown up seeing you treated this way and so it is normal for them. You are the scapegoat to them too, but it is also part of their survival instinct. If you take the brunt of mums bad feelings they get off scot free.
Hope this makes sense. Ive gone on a bit. Please come back and write some more soon. x

Oneplusone- do you think these feelings have been triggered by the letter?

Do you feel like DH is abandoning you with the children? (maybe this just applies to me) but I understand the feeling of being overwhelmed and flooded by their needs when your own can not be/have never been fullfilled. Do you ever get time away from the dc's?, time for yourself?

If you fancied a night away there is no reason you shouldnt have it is there?

I know I find it difficult doing this myself (in fact never do it) But I think this does go back to us being forced to feel guilt for having our own needs as children. We had to put our parents needs first and so maybe you are feeling your own 'inner childs' frustration and anger at not getting your own need to be nurtured met whilst being afraid to actually ask for them to be met?

Ally- I wanted to respond to your question about wether to tell you parents about bean.
My gut is to not tell them.
If they are hounding you now (every so often) then how will it be when they know?
My instinct is to put yourself and bean and dd first in this. They do not 'need' to know. You can choose 'not' to tell them.
Do not feel any guilt over this. This isnt about their needs anymore. It is about yours and your little family.
I would tell them after the baby is born, and then only if you feel that is what you want.
If you tell uncles/aunts/cousins,(after the birth??) you are not putting them in the middle. You are merely given them information. It is then up to them what they do with that information.

Emma - just x-posted- hope you find what I wrote useful. No we are not all further down the path. we are all struggling along the same one together .
I understand totally what you are saying. Reading has helped me a lot and so has this thread and therapy.
Got to go...been on here far too long.....keep writing emma (((((((emma))))

Hi all. I've been reading occaisionally and with interest and would like to join.

Emma - I've often thought about the issue of not being able to get over our own family experience and I think a lot of the problem as adults is that it isn't actually over. The problem just goes on and on but perhpas in a slightly different form.

Now that my aparents are dead I am sad to admit that I am much calmer and a lot less bitter and resentful. OTOH I am riddled with guilt and regret - how much was my fault? Could it have been better if I had done XPQ? Probably, but I didn't and there it is. We were all at fault.

Smithfield - loss and abandonment in childhood does seem to dominate my life. Horrible to read about you chasing your daddy's car. How could that not scar you?

Bparents have been visiting and I'm too drained to go through the whole story. I'm maily struggling with how to parent my dd so that we can have a good relationship and she will feel secure and happy. But is it something in me that is destined to be repeated?

Sometimes I make a negative remark about my parents and people often seem shocked and feel moved to counter. Is it so shocking and why would they counter when they don't know anything about it? It seems that negativity about one's parents (and perhaps especially one's adoptive parents) is bad form.

I try not to think about my family between visits but visits are so overwheming - my whole life seems to gring to a halt while I wallow in it. Until now I haven't wanted to post on this thread because, frankly, I just don't want to think about it. But how can you not, when you become a parent yourself?

We all seem kind of confused at the moment! Lets be confused together, brainstorm together and get ideas from each other's posts. It seems to me that although the details of our situations are all different, the emotions we are struggling with are very similar and everybody who feels a need to be on this thread has a right to an equal amount of support.

I hardly slept last night. Partly because I drank too much caffeine yesterday. But I was thinking and thinking and some things seemed clearer.

I have decided to give myself a break for being weak about not cutting off totally from parents. My brother taught me to despise myself for any weakness and I don't need to listen to him anymore. I've looked at how I've been strong as well as weak.

I was strong enough to find a therapist, tell him what happened, write to parents and brother about what they did to me and how I felt/feel, protect my children and husband from brother by telling him he won't have contact with them when he gets out, decide on boundaries for reduced contact with parents which I've started to implement already by telling them I am coming for one half a day rather than a whole weekend which they would prefer, talked to DH about it even though he gets angry with me (like you said Acinonyx, people generally seem really shocked at the thought of being negative/rejecting towards ones parents).

Everyone has some weakness and if I am not strong about everything then I will forgive myself. I can learn to become stronger where I am weak in my own time. I tend to think about everything as all or nothing but in this case I don't think I should.

I will look at some positive aspects of visiting my parents and their house. I will look at the house and them and remind myself how much I survived through, how strong I was to survive it and how strong I have become. I will congratulate myself. I will not be ashamed of anything that happened to me because I have learned so much from it and have knowledge of the world and of people that other people may not have. I know that none of it was my fault and I will not let them tell me different.

I will look my parents in the face and prove to myself that I am no longer scared of them or of how they could make me feel because I have stopped caring how they think/feel about me and have what I need from other people. I will show them that despite their crap parenting and negative influence I am ok on my own and am doing well and don't need them.

I will show them by example how they should have parented and show them that I am not carrying on their crap ways. If they do or say anything I don't agree with to my children I will show them how I will protect my children (like they did not protect me). I will stand up for my children and myself and if they do anything I feel is harmful to my children they will just have given me the excuse I need to cut off without guilt. They can't lay any guilt on me as it is because they are lucky I am still in any contact after all that happened.

I will decide not to think about them between visits and just see it as something I do 3 or 4 times per year for a few hours which are soon over. They aren't important enough to deserve more of my thoughts than this. I will not have to struggle with guilt which would make me think about them because I haven't cut off totally and they can't say anything against me.

I will remember that I am responsible for my feelings now as an adult and if I need to express them but this means they get hurt then how they react is their responsibility. It is not my responsibility to make them feel better. It should have been their responsibility to make me feel better during childhood and they failed to take this responsibility. I'm not going to take on extra responsibility that I don't have to now by trying to help them.

The visits are going to remind me of how much I have survived and achieved despite my family.

Lets see if all this works and makes me feel ok on/after Sunday!

I have never written about my mother before, mainly because I feel so much guilt if I do. On the whole she is a loving mum, generous and helpful and great with my DS. She is also a big extrovert and a strong personality. I on the other hand am shy and rather placid, if you want to put it that way.

I also had a great childhood, however when I was a teenager my mother had a mental breakdown. She had been severly abused as a child and it was kind of all hitting the fan at that time. During this time she left my father and I - my older brother and sister had left home by this time - and when she visited was constantly crying and saying things like "If it wasn't for you I would have driven over a cliff yesterday". Surprisingly this actually made me feel worse. My father then became severly depressed and basically gave up on everything, sitting on the couch and just staring at the TV. I in the mean time did everything to please everyone, neglecting myself just to make sure everybody was happy. Sometimes I grieve over the teenage years that are lost to me.

Anyway my parents slowly clawed their way back, my father got help and my mother seemed to get back on track, and announced when I was 19 that she was a lesbian and had a partner.

Now I am 30 and although I try my best, whenever I am around her I shrink away, I hide my true feelings and pretend I am happy. She can also be very emotionally blackmailing, she has spent years being a counsellor and knows exactly the buttons to push. She doesn't like my DH - and men in general - and subtely undermines him.

She also apologises to me time and time again about what happened, and although I understand, I still don't want a close relationship with her. I feel my life bleeds away when I am around her. I am now living in another country and feel like I have got some of myself back, I am happier here than I could ever be in my home country and that is sad. Whenever I am around her I get a bit of the feelings I had when she left - abandonement, sadness, anger, hurt.

I honestly don't mind if nobody reads this, it has been 14 years since I said it out loud, but just to say it to cyberspace has been like letting off steam.

Just3 - some things that resonate. My bmum told me early on that 'it would be better for me if you had died'. Now i know that was meant to make me understand her suffering but it really did nothing for my overall impression that basically 4 people would had much better lives if I didn't exist. You just wonder what is going through someone's mind when they come out with this stuff. I have NEVER said stuff like this to a parent, no matter how bad things have got (and I have been prety far out to lunch in my time). I don't get it really. I don't get how someone really doesn't know the impact of what they are saying when clearly they can't cope with hearing similar.

Interesting that she's been a counsellor too. My bfather is a psychologist (has specialised in child psychology even which just boggles my mind). That is just so weird isn't it? Makes you wonder how many shrinks and so forth are really apalling to their own families and what it would be like to be a client of our parents'.

I totally agree that you can understand what has happened but that doesn't necessarily leave you with any desire to have a relationship, basically: I understand, I forgive (maybe...) now just leave me alone.

I was also overseas for most of a decade. I needed the space and the house on Mars wasn't ready...

justthe3ofus- Have read it with interest. My first reaction is wow...your relationship with your mother is so highly complex its difficult to break it down. There's the mum you had prior to the breakdown, the one during and the one afterwards.
You say your relationship became strained when you were a teenager and that afterwards...as in now...she is very manipulative. Do you think she was like this before? When you were little and maybe you didnt realise?
BTW your not in oz are you? You dont have to answer that, but I tend to think that's where all the daughters with toxic mums run to . Me included!

hi all, just wanted to pop in and say hi. Am too tired to post much, have been up since 6am and on my feet all day with DC's.

But one thing that stuck me is how so many of you think you are being weak for not cutting off your parents completely. I actually think you are being strong for continuing to see them despite how much they have hurt you and how much their visits affect you negatively. I have cut off my parents and for me it was the easier option as opposed to continuing to see them. The thought of seeing them makes me feel physically sick, i know if i ever saw them again it would bring back so many floods and floods of bad and painful memories, i honestly don't think I could survive it.

So you may not feel strong, but from my perspective, you are being far stronger than me.

Do people recover from bad childhoods, ever or is it something you learn to cope with like a disability? I really hope the answer is that there is a cure because I don?t want to live with this for the rest of my life.

And how do you keep it away from your children? My mother had an awful childhood and so treated me badly. When my first baby was born, I remember holding him in hospital and feeling so aggressively determined that the abuse was going to stop with me and not be passed on through another generation. I really do my best to carry that promise through, but sometimes I think I am too controlling (like my mother) and other times I think I am spoiling them by not setting enough limits (I want them to be comfortable with themselves). Luckily I have my DH. I think one of the things that first attracted me to him was that he likes himself. For me that is difficult. Does anyone else experience these things?

Smithfield ? thank you very much for what you wrote. I?ve never told anyone how I feel (apart from my DH who I pester endlessly about it) and I really appreciate you taking time out to reply. In answer to your question I do not know who I really am, or I am both. The good person who people rely on and the tearful wreck. Today I made the mistake of because I?ve thinking about my mother at work and so was both people at the same time (and dashed to the loo to try to splash water on my face before anyone could see me crying).

Two years ago I stood up to my mother after several days of pointed remarks from her and asked her politely to stop criticising the way I bring up my children and by extension my children (she objected to the two year olds behaviour). She denied it, so I repeated to her what she had said 10 seconds earlier by way of example. She denied that too. Then she lost her temper with me and walked out. She was staying with me that week, so she came back an hour later, but refused to speak to me again, apart from a few words to show that she was the victim but she wouldn?t fight (because in her mind that?s what I would want and she is too much of a saint to give in). Then she left and since then she?s basically not spoken to me more than a handful of times. So I am being punished. I think of trying to make it up with her, but I am honestly scared of what will happen if I do try to speak with her and make amends.

I've namechanged for this thread - sorry RL friends use this site and I'm still quite ashamed.

My parents actually have never taken me to a stately home, so perhaps I don't belong on here. They were a disaster though, they should never have had a child.

My father was an alcoholic; a genuine three-shifts-a-day boozer until it killed him 20 years ago. I didn't really exist for him at all.

My mother was a depressive, a severely depressed anxious and deeply unhappy person. The thing about depression is that it is very selfish. It doesn't allow the depressive to see beyond themselves. Despite much treatment, a life-long dependence upon drugs and psychiatric help, my mother has not improved. She is still unbalanced, self-centred and controlling.

We lived in extreme poverty. I say we lived, as though we lived together, but for a year I lived on a mattress on the floor at my aunt's house.

When my parents finally were able to cope with my living at home, I went back. I had no toys, no clothes, no books, nothing. I wondered what I had done wrong to be sent away. I am crying now because I only ever wanted to please them but they were so entangled with their own demons that they had no time for me.

I was a good little girl and did well at school. I wasn't ever allowed to have friends at home or anything though. I thought it might be a lot nicer to live in care - someone at school lived in care and it sounded okay. So I asked my parents if they'd let me. They were worried about what the family would think.

I'm in my early forties now and I just can't forgive them for the way they treated me. I honestly can't. It was dreadful. I mean I never went hungry, but I was so neglected.

Oh God Unresolvedissues I am so sorry. Your sentence about being a good little girl says more than anything. No one can give you the hugs now that you missed out on but its not your fault and you know that don't you? They would have been the same with any child - it wasn't you that was the problem. It was them.

Hi Smithfield - I am actually in the UK and originally I come from NZ, so the other way around! Yes I think my mother has been like this all her life - very manipulative and able to control you because she either says the right/wrong thing or she just gets emotional. And I feel so guilty about that that I do whatever she wants. I guess this comes from my time as a teenager when she was quite unstable so I did whatever it was to keep her stable - I have psychoanalysed myself quite nicely I think .

It's not that I don't want a relationship with her - it's just that - how can I describe it - I don't want to let her close to me. I want it to be just superficial, just with my DS and asking me how my day was etc. I am scared that if I let her close to me she will start to control me again, in a big way like what she has done with my sister.

And unresolvedissues - when you said you were a good little girl it almost made me cry - that's it isn't it? You try and try to be good and do the right thing just to try and make people happy, to make them see you again and show you the love you deserve, but it never comes. I think that is the worst, the neglect.

Hello, please may I join in with the thread? I have read through many posts and have found it very helpful. Sorry if this is horrendously long.

I?m not coping well at the moment, probably triggered by seeing my mother again after 2 years (first time since I had my son).

I had a horrible childhood ? the full works, absent father, violent, drunk abusive mother. The beatings weren?t pleasant, but it?s the emotional stuff that I keeps coming back to haunt me. Lots of therapy has resolved lots of things for me, but I?m running on empty now and I can?t afford to go back. I?m listening to all the negative head chatter that she put in there and I can?t shut it up ? I?m stupid, ugly, selfish, evil, nobody could ever like or love me, etc.etc.

This latest estrangement was triggered because she told me in the course of a 30 minute conversation when my newborn was was about 2 weeks old that I was ?useless?, that I should stop bfeeding, I couldn?t do it and ?that baby needs a bottle?. That she couldn?t see how I could look after a child as I could barely look after myself and that I should leave the baby with her and I could ?visit?. I was so upset that I didn?t phone her, and as it is always up to me to initiate contact, we just stopped speaking.

I don?t why I went to see her again ? it?s just misplaced guilt and it has left me with a nasty hangover. I thought I had learnt to stop seeking her approval ? which is a pointless exercise. Is it possible to slip back into bad patterns of behaviour? I suppose it is. Writing it down helps. It?s just noise - I can choose not to listen to it and I can see that it is not my voice. Thanks for letting me rant.

HI Sassymuse, it sounds like your mother was saying those things to herself, if that makes sense. I am sure you are great with your son/daugher. It is her feeling all those things about herself (stupid, ugly, selfish, evil and that nobody could ever love her) and them taking them out on you.

It is definately possible to slip back in to the pattern. I have myself had some pretty horrible few weeks, all because of an email my little sister sent me saying that she has changed her email address so that it now reads her first name@family surname.com.

This is something that my big sister (whom I have no contact with either) has set up so that the whole family can have "identical" email addresses.

I just get the distinct feeling that my big sister and/or my dad can then read all the emails, which my it husband has confirmed.

I am trying to piece together an email to my little sister to explain to her why I am no longer writing to her.

For what it is worth, I don't think we can always choose whether we want to listen to that "ingrained" voice that our parents have "put in to us". If that was the case I think we would all be fine as soon as we realised what our parents are like and came to the conclusion that we don't want to be like them because it is just so wrong the way they behave. This whole email business made me realise this. I thought I could just read the email and carry on as usual, go on a campingtrip and enjoy it. I was in a foul mood, and it ruined the whole trip, but did not quiet realise why.

'And how do you keep it away from your children?'

I read something on another thread where a poster said they felt they were the best person to look after thier dc. And I realised that I have never felt that. I am actually relieved that dd has a CM - one who is cheerful and energetic - two things I struggle with. I am relieved that there is another positive adult influence in her life that can hopefully counter act any of the poison that may come through me from my family.

My amother was a depressive with a violent temper. She could also be very loving and I know she wanted us to get along better. But she was like Jekyl and Hyde - and the fear got in the way. The endless negativity - which now dh picks me up on. but the guilt of somehow not being able to make it 'work' is hard to bear.

One last visit to my bparents tomorrow before we go on holiday and they go back overseas. I feel an emotional wreck - visits are like a tidal wave washing through my life. I hope the holiday won't be like your camping trip, more. Dh has heard it all, he sympathises, he tries to help in practical ways like taking time off to help with their visit - but he doesn't know what to say to me.

sassy - I hope you are able to keep away from your mother and not let her upset you like this. It is such a struggle to keep your head above the water when that negative chatter is pulling you down all the time.

I want to maintain some contact with my bfamily but I hate the way I go to pieces and I can't concentrate on anything.

This thread moves so fast, i just can't keep up, there are so many things said recently that strike such a chord with me.

Smithfield : "My mother never comforted or consolled me during that time. I barely remember her at all in fact...she was like a shadow.............How can I remember the kindness of a stranger but not of my own mother. Not one memory." Ditto. My mother has NEVER even once been there for me when i needed her for whatever reason. NOT once. She only surfaced in my life when she wanted something from me ie access to her grandchildren. Whenever i have needed her she has literally every single time, turned her back on me. She was always focussed on my 2 younger sisters and didn't even know i existed. I still haven't read the letter from her. Still don't know if i will ever open it.

Re DH and the children, he is the only person i can ask to look after the DC's so I can get a break. He just doesn't understand how overwhelming and neverending the responsibility for them is and just how draining it is. So i look to him to take over whenever he is around, but he sees the DC's as my responsibility even when he's at home as well. I guess it's a very common situation in many households. I feel it more acutely though perhaps as before i cut them off my parents were always happy to babysit and did help out a lot with the DC's, and this is one area where i do miss them. (Though not enough to resume contact). I hate having to rely totally on DH to be willing if i need a break/help with the children. I wish i had someone else i could ask but i don't. I suppose it's the lack of control over my life that is very hard to deal with, not even sure if this is strictly due to my childhood either.

Acinonyx :"Sometimes I make a negative remark about my parents and people often seem shocked and feel moved to counter. Is it so shocking and why would they counter when they don't know anything about it? It seems that negativity about one's parents (and perhaps especially one's adoptive parents) is bad form" Again ditto. When i first cut off my parents i would talk to anyone about it and got a very negative and confused reaction. I slowly learnt that it is very difficult for people with genuinely loving parents to understand us and so i stopped talking to people but then felt i would burst as i was so desperate to let all this stuff out. I remember feeling so absolutely happy and relieved when i found this thread (about a year ago i think) as i knew i would be 'talking' to people who understood. I now seem to have developed
some sort of 'radar' for people in RL who may also have some understanding and do talk to people in RL about it as well.

Justthe3ofus:"whenever I am around her I shrink away, I hide my true feelings and pretend I am happy" That is EXACTLY what i have done around my parents for what feels like my whole life. That is why it has been such a relief for me to not be around them anymore. I no longer have to pretend, i can just be myself and it feels so good.

Emma 789: I do think people can recover from bad childhoods, but it can take a long time and involve a lot of hard work and be emotionally painful. I know i have come such a long way since i started my recovery or 'detox' process and i can see the changes for myself in all my relationships. It is a learning process and you have to take it step by step, with a lot of wobbles and stumbles along the way.

unresolvedissues : "My parents actually have never taken me to a stately home, so perhaps I don't belong on here. They were a disaster though, they should never have had a child." Ditto again! My parents never took me to a stately home (although they did take me to Butlins!) but i do think all the time they should never have had children. They are both walking disaster areas with individual mental problems which when you put them together.....well, it doesn't bear thinking about except i have to think about it as i lived with them for too many years. I think i have already mentioned, my dad was actually thinking they should get divorced at around the time i was conceived...i can just imagine the resentment and hatred and anger between the 2 of them and instead of splitting up they were forced to stay together as they had a baby on the way. Their background meant that divorce was never really an option anyway so they were stuck together even though they were totally incompatible apart from in one way. I truly think that subconsciously my parents got together because my dad is a bully and my mum is a coward and so they were a good 'fit' in a very warped and twisted kind of way. And then 3 innocent children were thrown into the mix, we were sitting targets really now that i think about it. So easy for my dad to bully us and of course with a coward for a mother we were never protected or had anyone to stand up for us. I say us but it was mainly me, i bore the brunt of it all, my 2 sisters seemed to escape a lot of it and were a lot closer to my mother than I was. I was like a little boat floating all alone in a vast sea with nobody to help me find my way or help me in a storm whilst my family were floating in the same sea, but far away from me, with no ropes tying all of us together.

I was also a good little girl, i never got into trouble at school, always did my best and was always very quiet and undemanding. Invisible just like they wanted me to be. And yet i got singled out by my dad and used to vent his anger on about other things that were going on in his life, nothing to do with me, and my mum just stood by and did nothing. And i also got picked on and tormented by my sisters and again my mum did nothing. And yet i still always tried to be nice to them all, i was generous with any money i had, buying lovely presents for my sisters for birthdays and christmas and all i got in return from them were stabs in the back. And i used to blame myself, i thought i was a horrible person because my dad always told me i was, he always compared me to my sisters and told me they were so much nicer than me. He would do this within earshot of my sisters and turned them against me as well. And the whole time my mother would be there, watching and listenng but saying and doing nothing to help me, protect me, stand up for me.

The only mistake i have made was having the misfortune of being born into my family and for not leaving them all behind me far sooner than i did. That again was due to them. Like someone else on here said, my family made me feel so useless, like i couldn't possibly survive on my own without them, that i couldn't look after myself and that is what kept me part of the family unit for so long. I realise now they only wanted me to be part of the family so they could use me as their scapegoat, use me to dump all their rubbish on, to vent their angry feelings on, their insecurities, basically all their negativity. I took it all on. And now i have cut them off i am sure they are in turmoil as they no longer have anywhere to put their rubbish which is why i am sure they keep writing to me to try and persuade me to resume our relationship.

I did do some 'bad' things when i was younger, things about which i have felt ashamed all my life. But now i realise that i was just crying out for help, for love, for attention from my parents. I once told a teacher in my primary school that we (as in the whole class) hated her. It was over an incident where i felt she had treated one of my friends unfairly. She burst into tears when i told her and of course i was punished at school by not being able to go on a school trip later that term. I have felt so awful all these years about what i did. But i realise now that that incident took place at around the same time my dad started abusing me whilst my mum just watched. I'm sure now i was transferring my feelings towards my parents onto the teacher by telling her that the whole class hated her.

Another time, when i was a bit older, and friend and i got into the habit of shoplifting, just small things like stationary etc and of course one day we got caught. The shop manager said we had to tell our parents. But when i told mine, i didn't even get into trouble, i didn't get told off, punished in any way, nothing. I am sure i was shoplifting to get my parents' attention. Just like a younger child is sometimes naughty to get attention, because to a child any attention from it's parents, even a telling off, is better than no attention. I must have been subconsciously thinking the same, but it didn't work..i still got no attention. At least a telling off would have proved to me that they cared about me, had some feelings for me, the complete non-reaction proved that they just didn't care about me or what i did.