Our 5th visit to the Stately Home

[Nabster]

Here we go again.

Some days I wonder what would happen if I said yes to everything and I have a sneaking suspiscion that things would be less fraught.

When I do loads for the kids I worry I may be making them spoilt (DD acts like she is). When I don't do everything they want I worry I am being neglectful (and don't want to be anything like my own parents).

Mine won't help tidy up unless it means tv. I try and get them to do a bit but sometimes it isn't worth the hassel.

AN I feel for your friend. I am a classic 'Scapegoat' for my old family. I can always tell when my M has been bending people's ear about me because of the phrases they come out with, they are very familiar.

But my mum is vile and judgemental about everyone- she plays people off against each other, and is extremly critical of her friends. Everything she does leaves me questioning her motives.But never forget, that if you met her, you would prolly think her perfectly nice and friendly.

Interestingly, one of her oldest friends has been ringing me recently to chat and has invited me to visit, and as far as I can tell my M knows nothing about it.

They way they have observed my parents treat me has given my siblings carte'blanche to treat me the same, and I am so desperate to please that I put up with it, in fact I thought it was my rrole in life, I think. Looking at it now, it seems ridiculous. ALL my life I have fantasized about doing what I want, without having to feel tied to my old family, but I thought I would never have 'permission' to do this. I am beginning to embrace the idea of not needing their permission, or approval, or their company, or the company of my extended family- as the libellous bile will only get worse as I develop my own independnce.

I long to feel confident in my own judgement/decision making. I think the decisions I do make will also be better ones as result, as they will be based on the best thing given the situation, rather thann fear of getting it wrong, or the warped,mean, toxic logic of my old family. AT the moment, mush of this is fancy, but I do believe I am shedding their toxic logic, as I can clearly see now where my B was wrong, and all I did was stick up for myself, and make him expose his lies.

I have been looking a lot into UP as a way of working with my children. I struggle to tell them off and when I do I can sense my mother and father in my head and I hate it. I am trying a different approach in the hope that it frees me from this inner conflict to an extent.

x-posts AN that sounds promising- if nothing else for the fact that you were able to take the call,and not to feel fear. You seem to think you can take his words at face value.

Pinky, the realisation that you don't need your old family's permission, approval or presence to do what you want to do sounds really positive. It sounds like being controlled by them could have become a habit in your way of thinking? Because you weren't always able to fight against it but you are an adult now. (This is the sort of thing Therapist says to me!)

AN yes, my therapist tells me to treat it as a dog bite to the hand- they may well be nasty and try their best to hurt me, but at the end of the day it won't kill me, and they can't actually control me anymore. A lot of it is because I have been conditioned to feel wrong for my feelings- so when they upset me I feel wrong.My family view me as a child for them to control, whose feelinga are invlalid. My DH gets the impression my parents wanted me for them- to keep, do look after them. BUt I escaped, and this really pees them off. But this desire to keep me as some sort of carer does not mean they actually like me or want me around for me- far from it, I appear top be beneath contempt to them.

Part of the problem I have is that I'm quite laid-back by nature, so I find this notion of wanting to control people very hard to grasp.When they say things purely to manipulate me, I make the mistake of taking on board what they are saying.

Now I know my mum has some sort of personality disorder, and most likely my siblings have some traits or issues that are similar, and that my childhood was not the same as theirs,

As regards your brother, I think concentrating on how you felt about what he said, how you dealt with it is important. The way these toxic people can warp your (our) judgement is quite alarming, and I think we do need to develop some form of immunity to it. And I think that is regardless of whether he means what he says or not, do you see what I mean?

Just random bits from therapy yesterday.

She said its not helpful to think of things in terms of good or bad parents or people, but rather that people are fallable, and to try not to thing of right/wrong, evil/good etc. She said it was quite a childlike view of the world. (I must admit I am very black and white).

She said I'd idolised my father as a child and now that all this had happened I had swung the other way and was deginerating him. She said neither viewpoint is helpful to me.

Its quite weird actually because I do idolise my father. I always thought he was this big strong man who'd kill anyone that hurt me. This is why them inviting me ExH to lunch that day really upset me, I thought my dad should be waiting for him with a baseball bat not a platter of f^%$&*g sandwiches. This also brought back to me the hurt I felt when my ExH first left. If I ever say in front of my parents 'When ExH left...' they always correct me, 'No, you threw him out.' I did indeed. Because he threw something at my head in front of my FIL. Anyway, point I was getting to was that when that happened, although they were helpful my Dad spoke to my FIL and then relayed the conversation to me, along the lines of him saying 'silly children we should bang their heads together'. We had a massive row over this as ExH had been violent, brought STD home, ran up £60k debt etc etc. I again felt like my dad wasn't 'sticking up for me or protecting me' like I thought he would.

Bizarrely, when I told the therapist this she said 'But you knew he wouldn't, after he didn't all during your childhood'. And I suddenly thought 'Oh my GOd, that's so true why have I never thought of that before??'

I've spent years 'idealising' my dad who'd do anything for me, when in actual fact its never been real. It was a really strange moment for me to think I'd spent years of my life thinking these things which are totally untrue.

So, left counsellor feeling totally strange. Still trying to work it out now.

AN - I don't feel I can comment on your brother because I'm not qualified. I really don't know what to say. I think you were very brave to send the letter you did and to take the phone call. Coming from the position of someone who was dateraped at 16 I would personally be saying 'run as fast as you can in the opposite direction' but I know its not that easy and I'm sorry I can't be more helpful

PM - what's UP? X

UP is unconditional parenting.

Bopthealien, yes its not PC at all to suggest that the chemical causes of depression are simply a by-product of the root cause i.e the childhood abuse, neglect, abandonment, but I secretly believe this.

I believe the science behind ADs of course, that the brain doesn't produce enough serotonin and ADs can help to restore this balance. I also believe that people produce too much cortisol (the stress hormone) in their brains and drugs can help with this. But simple studies have shown that leaving a tiny baby to cry for a long period of time can increase the cortisol in its brain and if done frequently then the brain itself can change. So imagine what an entire childhood of abuse will do to a brain. Of course it will change the structure of it and create chemical imbalances. These imbalances can be masked by drugs indefinitely.
But thankfully there have been studies to show that the brain can actually heal and create new neuro-pathways (?) can be rebuilt even if they were damaged previously. This means if a person finds a happy loving safe environment, their earlier learned responses to the world can be altered. (THis was found in a study about adopted children).
So I think that if a person conquers the real reason for their depression, the root source, then they won't need to use ADs anymore.
THe fact that I used to take to my bed for days in a depressed, gibbering state that I used to think was normal and that now my mother is out of my life this rarely happens (and if it does, I can identify the trigger and also recover more quickly) tells me that changing your life circumstances has a huge effect on the brain.
Also, in my case, I think I have serious SAD syndrome, which is probably due to being a highly sensitive person anyway. In Japan the sun is starting to shine and I feel like a different person. I had a lingering depression over the winter and this was the first time I really noticed the difference in my mood when I woke up and saw it was a sunny day. I always knew weather affected my mood but this winter I've really noticed it. This can help me a lot for next winter because I'll be much more aware of it and much easier on myself regarding not being able to get out of bed etc. I think a lot of times I couldn't get out of bed it was honestly because of the cold, but I thought I was slipping back into a black hole again. I'm going to prepare myself for next winter with lots of nice slippers, cups of hot chocolate and I'm going to save up to have a nice coal fire fitted withing the next couple of years(DH would love one too) and in the future some double-glazing. Sounds silly, but I think if we really analyze why we suffer low points (and work through them, of course) we don't have to rely on ADs forever. (Although I completely understand how ADs are essential for some people in the short term regarding how they help people to carrying out work and childcare responsibilities.)

"When we trust another person we see this person as having the power to keep us safe. It is not just a kind of safety that protects us from predators. It is the safety of keeping the world the way we see it as being. When the person we trust betrays us we feel the ground beneath our feet dissolve into nothingness. All that was solid and secure in our world vanishes or crumbles at our touch. So terrifying is this situation that many people refuse to believe that they have been betrayed "

I had to quote this from the Dorothy Rowe website. I think this is why so many of us didn't actually realise we'd been abused as children. I thought I'd had a happy childhood until I was about 23. Yes there were gaps in my memory, but if asked I would have told people that my childhood was okay, on the whole.
When in fact it had been an entire 18 years of physcial and phsycological abuse, without much respite at all. Happy memories I have do exist but there are not many of them, and I blew the happy times up way out of proportion and I minimized the cruelty and abuse.
SOme people never ever admit what their childhoods were like or that their parents couldn't love them because it truly feels like the ground has been ripped from under you when you realise this. For some people, denial forever is a much better option.

'But my mum is vile and judgemental about everyone- she plays people off against each other, and is extremly critical of her friends. Everything she does leaves me questioning her motives.But never forget, that if you met her, you would prolly think her perfectly nice and friendly.'

Crikey PinxyMinxy - is your mum also my mum??!

Sakura I totally and absolutely agree with every single word of your 2 most recent posts. I also think that the root cause of depression is childhood abuse/neglect. Have you read the book by Sue Gerhardt "Why Love Matters - How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain"? She says exactly what you have with research to back her views. I agree that a baby's and young child's brain can be affected in the long term by unhealthy treatment by it's parents. But there is a lot of new research that shows that the brain retains it's ability to change and create new pathways, even into adulthood. ie it retains it's plasticity and therefore the damage caused in childhood can be healed.

In my case i think there is a big connection between my childhood abuse and my eczema. I think as a child the normal, healthy route to me of processing my emotions was blocked. I needed my mother to 'offload' my emotions onto and release them from my body. She was unavailable for this and so i quickly learnt to instantaneously 'not feel' my painful emotions and to suppress them. I did this for years and years and years and i was still doing it as an adult without realising it. Then i fell pregnant and something 'triggered' in my brain. These long suppressed emotions were unlocked but there was no way out for them as the pathways in my brain for processing emotions had shut down a long time ago. And so my emotions tried to find an alternative way out through my skin hence the eczema. I don't think it ia a coincidence that since i have learnt to notice, capture and feel my emotions, particularly the painful ones from my childhood, my eczema is clearing up.

Even DH is a bit of a skeptic about these sorts of things believes my 'theory'. I have not used any medication for my skin for about a year but it is improving every single day. It is not a miracle! It is because the damaged parts of my brain are healing and repairing, the previously blocked/shutdown pathways are re-opening and my emotions are being processed in the 'normal' way by my brain instead of being trapped inside and trying to find a way out through my skin.

I know this is all about my particular situation, but according to Alice Miller, in whom I totally believe, all sorts of illnesses have their roots in childhood.

I also totally agree with you say about SAD. I could have written your post about that. Now that the weather is better and the mornings are lighter i feel it is much easier to wake up and get out of bed. During the depths of winter I too just wanted to sleep and i was also worried that i was slipping back into some sort of depression. I am also going to be prepared for next winter. I want to buy a 'light box' as it is due to lack of full spectrum light that the symptoms of SAD are caused. I also want to get a nice warm cosy dressing gown so i can get up even if it's cold and we will learn how to set the timer on our central heating so we can set it to come on automatically in the morning in winter.

That quote from the Dorothy Rowe website rings so true as well. I think, as i have already said, the dream i had where DS died actually represents for me the day my dad abused me in the most horrific and terrifying way. On that day my dad, as i knew him, died, in my eyes, the eyes of me as a 10 year old girl, and that situation was so terrifying that i suppressed the connected emotions for years and only felt them recently during my dream about DS.

electra and pinkyminky, that woman you describe is my MIL.

pinkyminky, i can so relate to your feeling of not being a part of your family, an outsider. That is how i have felt all my life. I never felt i belonged with them. I remember i used to look around at me, at my family, and be amazed that i was so closely biologically connected to them as felt so completely seperate and different to them all. There was no commonality, no sense of closeness or togetherness or bond with any of them.

I think the rest of them ie parents and my 2 sisters kind of felt fairly close, but i think even they were deluding themselves as from i could see there was nothing below the surface even for them. It was entirely superficial, every relationship within the family.

I said quite a while ago on one of the previous threads that now i have cut off my parents and have an 'arm's length' relationship with my sisters, the external picture of my family now matches the internal picture i have always had in my head. There is no longer any discrepancy between how i feel about them and the sort of relationship i have with them, the two finally match and perhaps that is why i feel so much more at peace, the tension caused by the previous internal/external reality mismatch is gone.

And my dad used to single me out to pick on which also contributed to my feeling of being the outsider.

I'm feeling really annoyed at my youngest sister. I feel she prioritises her SIL's and BIL's over me and my middle sister in terms of staying in touch and visiting etc. Middle sister just seems to accept being treated as 'second best' but I cannot. I don't expect youngest sister to be calling all the time but i do expect a bit of effort on her part but it seems she just can't be bothered, but she will make all sorts of efforts for her SIL's and BIL.

I know i can't make her feel something she doesn't, if I'm not that important to her then so be it. I would just like her to be honest about she feels so i can stop wasting my time contacting her and then having her tell me she is always too busy to call me back.

Don't really know what to do. I am not bothered if we lose contact, i just don't want to waste time and energy on someone who doesn't appreciate it.

oneplusone I woulod let it go, if you can. If you are not bothered, I would just take things as they come. My family only really get in touch with me when they have fallen out with each other, and I know now I can't believe much of what they say, so I am trying to think of them more as distant relatives, as you said about matching up the emotional feedback I get from them with the emotional investment I make in them.

But our family is a bit odd. Because I have this narcissitic mother in the middle, I have been left feeling it is rather furile for me to get in touch with members of my family independent of her. If I do, she finds out, finds out everything we talked about and makes sure I know- it just ends up being another invasion of my privacy on her part. And now I know I cannot take anything any of them say at face value, it all has to be trivial and superficial. Which is probably for the best.

However, if you feel you gain something from your relationship with your younger sister, maybe you could say to her that you would like to hear from her more often, that you value her friendship?

Personally I have exposed myself in this way too often with my family and got hurt, so I won't be doing it again.

I have a gut feeling that my mum casts me to my family as the troublemaker (ironic as she is clearly the devisive person here). I think the threat is because I try to be open and easy going and this does not fit with her desire to keep everything under her control. I don't really know. I gues I could drive myself mad trying to work out her motives.

I remember my sis once saying that she thought mum was intimidated by me because of my artistic talent. Personally, I would term it as envy- and very destructive envy at that.
The idea that I could potentially be more successful in the field she had always wanted to work in clearly was too much for her.

I think I may have to treat this do on saturday as going to see soem people I don't know very well. In truth, I don't know them that well- I have never been able to understand them, why they behave inn the twisted ways that they do or why the wish to escew happinesss for this bitter, negative life.

My old family is a kind of vortex, a black hole- one that I really don't want to get sucked into again.

Another thing from therapist, which your posts of feeling 'different' and 'outside' your families just reminded me of is the Myers-Briggs personality test.

I don't know if any of you know this but its used widely in business. I come up as an INTJ type, which apparently only 4% of the population are. Therapist was saying that she thinks my parents are probably totally different types and therefore we would find it difficult to interact.

I wonder what everyones 'type' is on here? I bet there are more INTJs than in the general population...

The Myers Briggs thing also shows you how your 'type' relates best to others and also how to 'handle' other types. Might be worth a look...

I just took the test online on www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes3.asp

and came out as ISTJ as well. Not sure what it means?

Sorry, you are an INTJ. Here is some stuff from Wikipedia:

"INTJs apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion "Does it work?" to everything from their own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. This in turn produces an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake... INTJs are known as the "Systems Builders" of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability. Whatever system an INTJ happens to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause to an INFJ; both perfectionism and disregard for authority may come into play... Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel... This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals... Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense.[

According to Myers-Briggs,[6] ISTJs thrive on organization. They keep their lives and environments well-regulated. They bring painstaking attention to detail in their work and will not rest until satisfied with a job well done. ISTJs are faithful, logical, organized, sensible, and earnest traditionalists. They earn success by thoroughness and dependability. Shutting out distractions, they take a practical, logical approach to their endeavors. Realistic and responsible, they work steadily toward their goals. They enjoy creating order in both their professional and personal lives. Centered on their inside world, ISTJs are persons of thoughts and (sometimes) emotions. They prefer dealing with the present and factual, using various options to make decisions. They are also keen observers of life, well prepared for most eventualities, and have a good understanding of most situations. They believe in practical objectives and they value traditions and loyalty"

I've done that before on education trainiing courses. I came up as INFJ, but I find these things difficult to do- too many decisions!