Our 5th visit to the Stately Home

[Nabster]

Here we go again.

HDIA - not being flippant about it at all. Really, don't worry about it!

I also wish I was in a comfortable place like the ladies on here. They all appear to have confronted it, dealt with it and had therapy for it.
I'm not in that comfortable place. I really hate my mother, non comittal about my dad, although the DC's really miss him. I'd really understand it more fully, if we'd had a blazing row, but we didn't. She just threw her toys out the pram for something I asked her to do and she didn't like it.

I tried phoning for a few weeks afterwards, but no one answered the phone. They both just ignored me. It's killing my girls inside to not have family.

I know it's not my fault and that SHE did / chose to do this. I placate the feelings a lot of the time and then it explodes every now and again. I just cannot get my head around the fact that I am her last remaining child and she just threw me away like yesterdays news, all for something so damn trivial!!!
Lordy, if my kids ever asked me not to smoke in their homes, I would simply go outside. In fact, I wouldn't even need to ask them. I'd just ask for a key for the back door.
My dads been texting me recently and sending me down money out of the blue...so it's stirred up quite a few horrible feelings. Especially at times like this. (mums birthday today too)

Do you have siblings / DH around you for good support and are they understanding?

hesdoneitagain- No, Im not you. Funny tho. I am full of bravado, and have plenty of insight into 'others'.

Guess that comes with having a narcisstic mother. Im finely tuned to the needs of others to the detriment of my own.

YOUR needs are of 'equal' importance to theirs my dear.

It takes me back into little girl mode when I try and assert my own needs. Im sure that's how you feel too.The guilt the anxiety. It leaves you just wanting to duck for cover, hide under the duvet, brace yourself for the inevitable.

You have to do what is best for you and if a middle of the road option is all you can cope with, then THAT is absolutely what is required. Be kind to yourself.

I was just interested in your thought processes. And 'yes' they are the same as mine.

In my case I Took a deep breath, bought the card and never sent it.(that was last year).
Such a small thing but felt like I'd sent a hand grenade and lobbed it.

It's a deep seated fear that's so hard to shake. Fear of upsetting them. Any of them. Logically you know they cant physically hurt you anymore, but the child inside doesnt want to take any chances.

'I also wish I was in a comfortable place like the ladies on here.'

I dont know that there is ever a comfortable place. I've accepted I will always carry the sadness around with me.
It's just that it has shifted position.

I have done a lot of grieving. It's weird mourning for people who are still alive. It makes it so much harder to accept and harder to get passed.

Before that I spent a lot of time being angry with them. I think in the end I was using the anger to remain enmeshed with them. I didnt want to accept things weren't ever going to change. Not really. Especially that my mother was never going to change. It was all too painful.

At the end of the day, if I got a phonecall or letter from my mother out of the blue tommorrow (like sakura) I'd be a quivering wreck.

Someone mentioned being triggered by their boss tonight?

Im experiencing this too at the moment. I feel like how ever hard I try it's not good enough. I feel like giving up.
Interesting because this is exactly what I did do when I was a kid. I withdrew.

Im too tired to write anymore now, but who-ever it was I hope you could maybe right a bit more about that.

It's so difficult because on one hand I feel like I'm over-reacting (which is how my parents/family would shut me down...by telling me I was over-reacting/being too sensitive). Then on the other I feel/get so angry when I think Im not being seen.

Ive just realised as well that this is now tying in with a colleague who is a guy. He seems to be getting all the focus, attention and kudos while it is me who is doing all the work.

I feel like I'm helping to get him promoted.

This is triggering feelings about my brother I am sure. My dad made me feel like I was worthless when he came along because he was 'the boy'. He would run into the house and say 'where's my boy!' and throw him into the air, while I just looked on.

Later on my brother was the intellectual. The smart one. I was just the 'disappointment'.

It's just how to manage all these feelings in the workplace???

Anyway will try and check in again soon. I must retire for now.xx

write-not right I mean

smithfield I had to comment- your previous post hit so many chords with me- the idea of doing something like not sending a card for a special day would take more bravery than I have at present.

It's interesting, this 'what to write' on cards thing. I potentially have to write a mothers day card and a birthday card for another member of my family who made me miserable and will be dismissive of me this weekend as per. What to write.

I have avoided sending cards on mothers day. I buy her a small spring bulb- you know, the sort you get in supermarkets. I think I have subconsciously avoided writing a mothers day card this way for many many years. I even get DH to buy it when he goes for my MIL's bouquet.

But as you guessed I have not managed to avoid seeing her around the time of mothers day.

But at least I don't have to write a lie.

I have always put my love on cards to my family,but over the last few years it has felt more and more like an empty statement. I do not detect much love or warmth from my family.

re the anxiety.I am so glad I have identified it. I was in a right state today because I was going to get my hair cut. That on top of having a lie in (my baby was up all night the night before woth a temperature). I felt like I had wasted the day, I could not cope with the idea of moving the needs of my DH and my daughters aside so I could get my hair cut.
This particular anxiety has been worse since I had children- because I feel I am putting my own needs above theirs.

DD1 of course had a wonderful time with daddy and DD2 slept next to me in her pram.

Once I knew the panic, flapping, feeling out of breath was anxiety, a result of my toxic upbringing, I did feel more in control.

Though I still needed DH to help me chose where to go, to encourage me to actually do it. It seems like every little thing that most people would take in their stride is a big deal for me.

Obviously, my stress levels are high because I have this family do this weekend.

But it isn't just this do. It's the fact that DH and I have decided that for all our sakes this will be the last such function we will attend. So, it's akin to one of your grenades, smithfield.And I really don't know how I'm going to go about throwing it!

I have a therapy session tomorrow.Just realising after spending the day with my mum last week how emotionally and mentally draining it is for me, even when it's what I would consider a 'good day' makes me feel I need to limit the contact I have with her much more. Last week, my therapist suggested that for now keeping it to once a week was a good idea because it stopped the whole thing building up, but now I'm not so sure. All the latest game playing of my family has made me realise how poisonous it all is.

Would they bother to chase me if I dropped them? I suspect not- it would certainly give them plenty of negative thoughts to bond over, the way they seem to enjoy. The sad fact it, however, that they are actually getting on better these days. It seems that the more they reject me, the stronger they bond together.

I wonder. is it because I am in fact the malignant part of my family? Friends and DH all say not. And they are good people, so I am trying really hard to believe them. But I have strong feelings of self-doubt.

If they were ultimately to get 'rid' of me, the scapegoat- what happens to them? How do they function with out me to blame? Or will they just blame me for not being there, too?

Maybe what I fear most is that they won't even try to contact me if I stop contacting them. It would be the absolute confirmation that they never really loved me. I think this is why I was so upset about being cut out of this gift thing. DB seemed so casual about the way he had cut me out of it- like it meant nothing to him.

Sorry for such a long rambly post.

As you can see, I am not in a comfortable place.

smithfield - how did you get past the place of grieving and shifting the anger?
I totally agree with what yuo said about 'shifting positions'.

I go on through life thinking I'm over it and the feelings have passed - yet it all riles up again like an angry lion waiting to eat me alive.
The feeling of cos they're still alive, that there is no grief and no closure..and it makes me mad they they won't ever see how upset the DCs are about it. I won't back down, there is nothing for me to apologise for. My dad at least has tried to make contact recently which I have ingnored...I shouldn't even be making excuses for him, he took her side, he was just as bad. I also tried in the early days too, now I just gave up.

My mother has done nothing. Absolutely nothing to porove her love for me....and I am in a very dark dark place right now, where most daughters would have motherly support. She just don't give a shit about us.

HDIT

Hi.

Re your question I would personally not send a card if I was in your situation. Being emotionally thick as you describe your parents does in no way excuse their controlling behaviours. I feel that controlling behaviours are abusive behaviours. My parents are also emotionally thick but that does not let them off the hook.

As Smithfield rightly pointed out the pros of sending a card were about your feelings, the cons theirs. To paraphrase the genius Harry Hill, "Who is more important here - you or them?". Personally speaking again I'd choose you over their perceived feelings.

Am I sending a card to my Mum - well no actually. She does not like Mothers Day (make of that what you will though she has commented previously that it is too commercialised) so that does make it a lot easier. Even if she did like Mothers Day I still would not send her one; I'd feel too uncomfortable. Infact I never have sent her a card from late adolescence. God alone knows also what I'd write in such a thing.

Wish I could persuade my DH to not send his own toxic mother a card but never mind eh.

With best wishes

Attila x

Purpleone I think I understand how you feel. I no longer aplogise to my mum for her faults. It's really hard not to, but I am fed up of the game. The problem is that if you made any kind of contact, they would read it as capitulation- I know my parents would. You need some way of closing the situation.

I find it hard to understand why they are so cruel- I am still struggling with it. Early days for me.

I'm sorry you are in this situation.

Atilla you sound so clear in your thinking, thuogh the hurt still shows.

My mum loves getting things. She is very into receiving.

It has taken me years to get to where I am now and I am happy most of the time. My main beef these days is with my dysfunctional outlaws and their dysfunctional and NPD son aka my BIL. I don't consider to have a BIL any more, you cannot have a relationship with a narcissist anyway.

Have arrived at a "stuff them" attitude with regards to my crappy parents who still run around after my childfree and full time worker of a younger brother (Mum still cleans his house for him). I was "trusted", well actually left by mis parentes, to get on with it from late adolescence. It does have the power to hurt even now.

Again, there is so much that I can only start to reply to a few things that really strike a chord with me - it doesn't mean that I am ignoring all the other posts, just that I can't add to all the other good advice that is already here.

Sakura Dorothy Rowe says something like this in the book I read, and I found it fantastically helpful. The fear of annihilation is so great that, as a child, one really cannot contemplate it and stay sane. So we all tell lies to ourselves (If you'd asked me at the age of 21, I would have said my upbringing was fine; it took me until 34 to discover the holes in my memory).

Smithfield It was me talking about work and acting out family stuff there. But I'm still right in it now, so don't know if I can help that much. Firstly though, if that is going on at work it probably means that your work isn't that well managed. My work was, until recently, run by a couple, who treated it quite literally like a 'family business', which mean that everyone was acting out their family issues in the office (boss and one of the directors literally didn't speak for three months, it was insane, esp in an open plan office). Boss and wife are now separated, so it is just insane in a different way.

What's going on for me right now is an acting out of my parents' divorce, when I was displaced from being my father's favourite by my stepmother. When I am not being histrionic about it, I am trying to think of it as a way of understanding and accessing those emotions, and putting them back onto the right people - i.e. my father and stepmother. That does help. But basically I am taking it as a wakeup call to get out of that unhealthy office and do what I really want to do (which doesn't pay half as well...).

hesdoneitagain. I have my own mother's day dilemma - my father nags me, in his continual rewriting of history, to send one to my stepmother. If I say, but she is not my mother, he sticks his fingers in his ears and goes lalala (pretty much). So, having polled MN after a row last year, I am going to get a card and write it to Granny on Mothers Day from my two year old. She is a good granny to her, so it's not a lie, and I don't have to say what I don't believe. Might something like that work for you?

I haven't done mother's day cards for some years now. Giving up my parents is a bit like giving up smoking - it's really, really hard; the cravings can seem unbearable; and part of me whispers that maybe it would actually do me good to be in contact with them. But, just like giving up smoking, the longer I manage to go without them, the easier it gets and the bigger the payoffs in my life get. And like smoking, just one form of contact with them is enough to set me back months again. So I just say no, these days.

Sakura and Vonsudenfed, I too agree with the Dorothy Rowe quote. It is just too much to cope with. You couldn't feel all that pain and survive. I have realised that you have to have a great deal of inner safety to really get what happened. Paradoxically, the happier and healthier I become in my life now, the darker my past appears. It's like there's always a new level of pain ready to emerge, once I'm strong enough to cope with it. But since cutting out my parents, that trajectory of my life getting better and better has been very, very clear, which makes me sad in that I would have loved nothing more than a genuinely good relationship with them and that looks more and more impossible, ever; but it totally validates the decision I made.

Like you, Sakura, I first became aware that all was not as I had thought round the age of 23/24. It wasn't that there were holes in my memory, as such, it was more starting to see the things I'd always seen from a completely different perspective. Faint glimmers, back then, which I actually tried to discuss with them at the time, I was so far from understanding that they were actually the baddies - I told them over a meal that I was starting to think my childhood hadn't actually been that happy, and they both jumped on me (verbally!) and said don't be so ridiculous, you were perfectly happy, we were there, we know better than you, and now shut up. And I did. The irony is that at that time, thoughts of blaming them hadn't entered my head; I was still convinced that they loved me dearly and would be eager to listen and talk and find out what had really been going on for me, eager to know me better. Because that's what they'd brought me up to believe - that they were liberal and caring and that what I had to say mattered to them. But they weren't and it didn't. And that disparity has caused me a massive amount of heartache.

Oneplusone, you talked I think about the situation with your family in your life now finally fitting with the one in your head. The vision I had of my family in my head - and still have, albeit to a much lesser degree, as I haven't got through all the protective walls of denial yet - was so very, very, very far from the truth, it made it almost impossible for me to function in life. I couldn't actually be in touch with reality as it jarred so much with the version of events I'd had to buy into, so I was perpetually distanced from my own life, unable to make the connection that it was my life and it was real, because there were so many lies and they went so deep.

To return to the mother's day theme - I reached a point in my life where I had to say "no more bullshit". I literally couldn't live with the lies any more. Someone had to take a stand for the truth, to stand up for the child I had been who had been so badly betrayed, and no one else would do it - I'd never had anyone really on my side in my whole life till I met my now therapist - so it had to be me. If I won't stand up for myself then I'm betraying myself too; we do betray ourselves out of that fear of annihilation, we do it to survive, but once I reached a point where I felt I could survive without them and their lies, I had to make that stand. And yes, the risk of finding out that I didn't matter all that much to them - conclusively - was a big one, and the pain of learning that it's true has been awful at times. But worth it in exchange for what I've got now. So, the only mother's day cards from now on are the ones for me, not from me.

Attila, totally agree with you about the "who's more important here" question.

Good to know you're not sending a card either!

Had a strange day today.

Going through that thing again, where I feel like I have been talking about someone else's life.

I am so detached from things.

My head keeps going numb.

THerapist asked me if I felt ready to talk about any of the things from my childhood. I felt myself close up again- in my head anmd my feelings.
He was talking to me about some of the things I had described in a previous session but I had already detached myself from those experiences again.

Like that was the 'other me' and now I am the (sorry to steal the name) 'acting normal' me again- it's like flicking a switch.

I feel as though there are things buried-sealed in somewhere. And this is where the feelings thatt I am a bad person come from.

BOpthealien Yes, that is interesting and so true about our minds only revealng what we are able to cope with at a given time. Which of course is why as children we simply could not believe that our parents didn't have our best interests at heart and that they were actively out to destroy us i.e annihilation.

I've mentioned it before on previous threads but I'll mention it here when the moment came that I actually realised that my mother was out to destroy me. I was arranging my wedding to DH and my mother was furious that I refused her financial help. I knew it would create obligations but I wasn't really aware of how symbolic it was in turning her down. She became absolutely insane, but I stuck to my guns, rationalising that it was perfectly normal for a couple to want to pay for their own wedding. She then tried every trick in the book to try to put the breaks on the wedding, to just STOP it so it couldn't go ahead. SHe contacted extended family, got my father (who she was divorcing at the time) on her side, wrote evil, despicable letters to me and basically made my life a living hell while I was trying to prepare the wedding. Thats the point where I knew that if I was pregnant, I would have lost the baby. My nerves were shredded. I'd spend hours staring at the wall and tearing up little bits of paper. And then something underneath it all whispered a little secret to me that I'd always knowns: that she didn't love me. THat the only thing she cared about was control. SHe was furious that she couldn't stop me getting married and that her control was slipping.
NOrmally, out of fear of annihilation, I would have pandered to her, put off the wedding and told her we would be happy to get married at a time and place convenient to her and that she was welcome to pay for the wedding. But I think the getting married made me finally see myself as an adult and realise that other brides didn't have to put up with this. A moment came then that I realised I would be better off if she were dead. Truly. Then I could get married in peace and when my in-laws asked why my mother wasn't at the reception I would have had a good reason. Instead I had to tell them she was sick (the truth!) But I would have prefered to tell them she was't there because she was dead.
After that the flashbacks of the abuse I'd suffered came at night, the nightmares, the shakes etc....

I think they use the onion layer analogy to describe it: that once you peel back a particular part of denial and allow a certain level of pain in, there is another, deeper level waiting underneath the surface of that one.

And its very true that the happier you become in your present life, the more you realise how wrong your childhood was.

And then, after that, sorry, I have to add this,

I gave the stupid women a million second chances because I still hadn't reached the point where I was ready to cut her out of my life .
I had DD and came back to the UK for a visit and offered to meet up with her at a coffee shop. (where I knew she couldn'T get violent)

I received a letter back saying that no, she would not be happy to meet me at a coffee shop. I would meet her at her house or not at all. The last time I went to stay at her house she created an argument and threw me out onto the street late at night in a dodgy area outside LIverpool that I don't know anything about (I grew up somewhere else)
SO no, I said, I would not be going there to her place with a baby!!!
THen the crazies started again. About hOw I was stopping her from seeing her grandchild.
I went to the UK and stayed briefly at my maternal grandmother's (who gave me a roof over my head but was trying "not to take sides")
My breastmilk nearly dried up while I was there because my mother would call and scream down the phone. THen I got a letter saying that she was going to take me to court and claim her grandparents rights to my baby. I feel so sad that she would rather use the courts to get something she wants than to sit down and discuss anything with me.
I haven't seen her. Her need for control was more important than her desire to see her grandchild (or her daughter).

Hi all, haven't been able to post for a while. Have just read the recent posts. I am in tears at the pain and sadness we all felt as children. I think I am a bit emotional today anyway, I finally have a day to myself without DH or DC's. I think I bottle everything up during the week until I get some time to myself to let things out. Had a tiny argument with DH this morning and it has left me in pieces. I feel so dependent on him, I feel he is all I have in the world (apart from DC's of course) and if we fall out, even in the tiniest way, it feels to me as if my whole world has caved in. I feel totally alone. I don't want to be so dependent on him, or feel so vulnerable, but that could only happen if I had no feelings for him and vice versa which is also not what i want.

Anyway, there are so many things people have said which have made me think and realise things about myself. Re mother's day, I haven't sent a card to my mother for about 4 years now. The first time i didn't send one was before i actually cut off my parents. But like many of you have said, i just couldn't send a card and sign it "love" from me and pretend i meant the sentiments contained within it. I just couldn't bring myself to do it so i didn't. The same year i also didn't send my mother a birthday card (her birthday is shortly before mother's day) and i have felt so much better for not sending cards to her. I doubt if she even misses my cards as she still has her 2 other adoring daughters to make a fuss over her at these times and like somebody said above, i think my family have bonded in a way they had never bonded before, since i cut them off. They have all stuck together, or perhaps clung together, since i said i no longer wanted to be a part of them. I'm sure, knowing my mother, she pretends to be deeply upset at the lack of cards etc from me, so she gets even more sympathy from my 2 sisters. Like somebody said above, she is very into 'receiving' my mother, or perhaps that should be 'taking'. I don't think she has any idea how to 'give'.

A couple of days ago a friend innocently asked me what we, as in me, DH, DC's were doing for mother's day. She was just making conversation but i got irrationally upset and annoyed by her question. I have worked out that it is because i have a fear that my own DC's will end up feeling the same way about me as i do about my own mother. Perhaps whilst they are young they will 'toe the line' as i did and send all the usual cards etc. But when they get older and start thinking for themselves they will realise i have not been a good mother, that i have let them down and will not feel they love me. DD will remember all the times i have shouted and got angry at her when it wasn't her but my own issues that i was taking out on her and i have been cold towards her. Before i developed the insight i have now i was unconsciously repeating the pattern of behaviour my mother had with me. I seem to have a deep fear that my children will grow up and realise they don't love me, just as i have done with my mother.

I am also scared of being disappointed on mother's day and i suppose my birthday. I know this originates from when i was a child (in relation to birthdays only of course) when i remember so looking forward to birthdays and christmas and ALWAYS being disappointed. Apart from once or twice when my parents seemed to make an effort and make a special day of my birthday, more often than not it seems they had forgotten it was my birthday. I remember many a time on the morning of my birthday receiving a card from the stash of generic cards they kept at home for times when they needed a card and hadn't had time to buy one, with a bit of money inside. Completely impersonal and thoughtless, and last minute. Even as a child i could see that no thought had gone into it, my parents never gave a moment's thought about what i would like etc. I was always upset and disappointed on birthdays and at christmas, even when they did get me a present, it was so thoughtless, it was never something that i really wanted or would like. I suppose as i got older i gave up having expectations for my birthday and told myself it wasn't a big deal and i didn't want anything or a fuss being made over me. And i believed myself for years. But now i realise that i do want a fuss being made over me, i do want a bit of thought being put into a present, however small and inexpensive. In short i suppose i do want somebody to think of me, to think i am special and make me feel special, just for one day. And i think the reason i got upset at my friend asking about mother's day was because i am scared again of feeling disappointed like when i was a child, that DH will not bother with anything (he will have to do the present/card buying as the DC's of course are too young). And rationally i know it is a bit silly really if DH does all the present/card buying on behalf of the DC's, i know i really should wait until the DC's are older and can do things for themselves. But i can't help it, i know it is the child in me who is feeling anxious and scared of the disappointment and upset she is likely to feel at not being thought of as special, even just for one day. And as i said earlier, i am scared that even when the DC's are older and can 'do' mother's day themselves they will not want to do anything for me because i have not been a good mother. I have sometimes been cold and angry towards the DC's, more often than i care to remember, particularly in DD's earliest years.

Am sorry for such a long convoluted ramble, i have a lot of jumbled thoughts in my head right now.

"Maybe what I fear most is that they won't even try to contact me if I stop contacting them. It would be the absolute confirmation that they never really loved me." Pinkyminky this is actually my experience. After i cut off my parents they didn't even try to contact me. Apart from one attempt to phone on DD's birthday, so that wasn't about me at all. They have said via my sisters that they didn't contact me because i had told them not to in a letter i sent them telling them why i had cut them off. (I wrote it at a time when i was very angry and did say i wanted nothing more to do with them.) But i keep thinking that if i was ever in a situation where say, DD, wanted never to see me again, NOTHING, in this world would stop me from contacting her to tell her I loved her and was ready and willing to listen to anything she wanted to say to me at any time. I certainly wouldn't not contact DD if she had asked me not to, I would have to make sure she knew i loved her with all my heart and would always be willing to listen to her with an open heart and mind.

So, my parents have not made any real attempt to contact me, they have certainly not said they love me and want to talk/listen to me. I have no intention of ever contacting them again. And the only form of contact from them that could possibly change the way i feel about them, would be a sincere and unreserved acknowledgement from them of all the wrong they have done to me, of how much they hurt, abused, neglected and exploited me when i was a child for their own ends. And even after that i would want them to 'prove' they had changed and no longer saw me as the scapegoat, that they had realised they had issues from their own childhoods they needed to address. None of the above is ever going to happen though and so i can never see a time when i will ever again have any sort of relationship with my parents.

But it is exactly like as somebody above described, like giving up alcohol/cigarettes/drugs. My parents are bad for me and i know i have to give them up for my own good, and yet i still have a craving for, not my particular parents, but a set of parents who are able and willing to give me what i needed as a child and still need, the emotional nourishment that has been lacking all these years. Many of us have suffered a double whammy i feel as not only were we deprived of what we needed emotionally as children, we were also abused again when we were, as children, at our most defenceless and vulnerable. To be emotionally deprived is one thing, and is bad enough, but to also be horribly emotionally abused worsens the situation exponentially, for me at least.

I really am sorry to be going on so much, i really only have limited times to log on so i have to get everything out while i can or i will explode.

I have also worked out why i was feeling so disproportionately upset about my sister preferring her in laws over me. I think it is because she is triggering feelings in me from childhood from when i felt, on many occasions, that my mother preferred being with my 2 sisters over and above me. And that my sisters were more important to my mother than i was. There are lots of instances i can remember when i felt this way, when my mother didn't even bother to hide the fact that i wasn't 'good enough' for her. Eg once we were all on holiday years ago, i asked my mother if she wanted to go for a walk along the beach with me. My sisters were around but doing something else at the time. But my mother couldn't bear to go on a walk with just me, she had to ask my sisters along as well, and they were doing something else and asked us to wait. I didn't want to wait, i wanted my mother to say that she and i would go alone but she just couldn't do that. I was not good enough for her, my sisters had to come along too and she was more than happy to make me wait for them rather than put me first and go for the walk with me even if my sisters weren't ready. I know i haven't explained that very well, but there are so many occasions when my mother would be concerned about my sisters but never about me. I know i wasn't as important or precious to her as my sisters were and i am sure that the current situation with my youngest sister has reminded me of how i used to feel as a child, never as important as my sisters, never a priority, always an afterthought, if that.

I absolutely agree with the onion analogy people have used. And how once you have processed one level of feelings another, deeper level underneath is revealed, perhaps as you get stronger your body knows you will be able to cope with the next level.

I think that's why a while ago i had a flood of memories from the period when i was about age 5 to age 10. Until now i have been very focussed on events beginning from age 10/11 when my dad started abusing me. I have hardly given much thought to the years before that and have thought of them as mostly happy. Mainly because my dad was not abusive until i was about 10/11. But it seems my memory is not quite accurate. Before the age of 10/11 there was no real abuse but there was certainly a huge amount of emotional neglect/deprivation by my mother. Although i do remember my dad was actually quite warm and loving during this time, i spent the vast majority of my time with my mother and i have horrible memories of her. I do not have one single happy memory with her at all. I just remember her always being irritated, annoyed and cross with me...........just the way i feel i am far too often with my DC's.

I realise now that from the ages of around 3 til 10 i was pretty much completely deprived of any sort of love, warmth, closeness with my mother. I know now she probably had PND after i was born and failed to bond with me as a baby and remained distant all my life, but that knowledge was not available to me as a child, all i knew was that my mother always seemed cross with me, didn't seem to like me very much but i didn't know why, never seemed to want to spend time with me alone, and then once my sisters were born, was besotted with them and completely uninterested in me at all.

I am kind of amazed now that i thought of the years before i was 10/11 as 'happy' when they were not. I did have a lot of happy times at school and with friends, but not with the most important person in my life, my mother. As I write i feel a dread that my DC's will look back on their early years and feel the same way. For the last year to 18 months, i have made a real effort with the DC's and have definately felt less cross with them and have started to enjoy having them around me, but before that i hate to admit that i was very much like my mother was with me at the same age. I just felt irritated a lot of the time with my DC's, simply at their presence, not even at anything they were doing/saying, i most certainly did not enjoy playing with them or doing things with them.....exactly like i remember my mother was with me.

I have very little if no memories from the age of 2 and under, but perhaps that is another layer yet to be revealed.

I think I have known for ages that I had/have what is termed as an 'insecure attachment' to my mother most likely due to her lack of bonding when i was born which in turn was due to PND. And there is plenty of information/books about this out there. But i have been way too scared to read any of this material because i suppose i have been too scared to face up to the pain i must have felt as a child who was desperate for a loving, available mother but who instead had a distant, uninterested, uninvolved mother.

I have ordered a book called "The Emotionally Abused and Neglected Child" by Dorota Iwaniec. Has anybody read it? There are very few books on emotional neglect, i suppose because it can be so subtle, it must be very hard to detect and identify. I know i probably came across as perfectly happy, nobody would have known how i was feeling inside. The only outward signs i realise now were the stealing when i was about 7/8 and possibly my obsessive reading/escapism when i was at home. I realise i would take every opportunity i could to get out of being at home, from a very young age i would always go to friend's houses after school/at weekends, rarely if ever would i bring friends back home.

Also re anxiety, I feel huge anxiety when we have any sort of family day out planned. I get really stressed out beforehand and on the day of the outing i am so stressed that i cannot relax and enjoy the day out, i am sure i spoil it for everyone involved, i get tense, cross, stroppy.....why? Why am i like this? And on top of that i want us to go out as a family and do day trips so much, and yet i am the one who can't seem to cope with such a simple thing. I know i have put DH off doing days out as a family because of my behaviour. I can't really think of what days out as a family were like when i was a child, but i do seem to remember my dad getting stressed and stroppy in the same way i am doing now.

I really am fed up at the sheer amount of cr*p my parents have left me with, i wish there was some quick, once and for all, way of getting rid of it all. This process seems just endless and the layers of my onion seem never ending. Has anyone out there got to the core of their onion?

And, like many of you have described, whenever i tried to talk about my childhood and how i treated, my dad would accuse me of always dragging up the past and that i should just forget about it and leave it all under the carpet where it belonged.

But my parents would also always be saying things like we should never bottle up our feelings and we should talk about things that were bothering us.

oneplusone, I could have written all your last three posts myself, word for word.

I'm also sick of the endless processing, thinking, being tired, depressed and tearful. But I think it will always be hard while our children are growing up; they are such an alive connection to our own childhoods, that it is hard not to remember.

Agree with you also on the subtlety of emotional neglect, it's so hard to explain. Do let me know how you find the book and if it's good. I was also an obsessive reader, and also an obsessive day-dreamer, creating whole other, far more satisfactory, worlds in my head.

I think one of the reasons I had any happiness was because the world inside my head was there. Unfortunately I think my mother exploited my vivd imagination, because she always brought it up whenever I tried to talk about an event that upset me.

My mother was always irritated by me. SHe left me on my own most of the time. If I did talk to her I was told off for beinbg to happy or she would just make hmm yes noises that told me very clearly she wasn't listening. She takes pride inn telling me she never played with me, made things with me etc. The latter is very hurtful because I am a sculptor, and spent a lot of time as a child making things. Clearly for her to take an active interest in my favourite passtime would have meant a lot to meas a child. I was always just told to clear up my mess.

When I did things with my dad I was always scared of upsetting him, making him angry. He always called me cack-handed.

You know I was saying about my mum feeding DD with her fingers. DH pointed out to me last night that I have always said how much my mother's hands repulsed me. They are quite normal hands, but I find them very disturbing, I hate the way she touches things, it makes them feeel dirty. I don't know what that is about, but it bothers me.

I nearly mentioned it to my therapist yesterday, but I just couldn't. It's just a feeling I get, and I feel a bit silly mentioning it. But I wondred if anyone else had something similar.

I have written this and deleted it several times

Friends from my childhood recal my mum as being very scary. That in itself doesn't fill me with confidence about my early years.