Our 5th visit to the Stately Home

[Nabster]

Here we go again.

hi AN (do we know each other btw?) I have never thought about my childhood in those terms before, but yes, it wasnt great. I am in weekly psychotherapy. SO many probs tho, its hard to know where to begin, and I wonder if I will ever recover. And right now I am angry with my mother (when I know she was just surviviing) and under the angber is deep sadness

Rose and Pinky, thank you for your reassuring words. I think we all sometimes worry about what we've written - if it is too much, too personal, or might offend someone in some way. I sometimes think I should get everything I've ever posted deleted! I'm not sure what exactly I'm worrying will happen!

naswm, I think I've seen you on other threads, can't remember if I've posted anything to you or not.

I'm glad you are getting some help. Maybe all the stuff you talk to your therapist about will form into some kind of 'order' over time even if it seems jumbled at the moment - probably because it is all interlinked.

Maybe the important thing first is to just say it all to your therapist, in any old order! It all takes time. Just when I think I feel 'cured' and don't need to see my therapist any more I think of a load of new stuff to talk to him about!

My drivelling on, on here helps me get things into more order and when other people respond and say what I've said but in a more concise way or in words I find easier to understand it helps me feel clearer about things.

We are all different though eg my brother hates writing and would rather talk about things whereas I am much better at writing than talking.

Off to bed now and hope I don't wake up snapping at everyone aggressively like I have the last few mornings!

thanks AN. Yes, I do talk to my therapist, but tehre seems to be so mych crap inside me I dont know how it is ever going to all get out

Sleep well

AN I have major paranoia that my mum will find me on here. silly, I know, like she would really be bothered, or even imagines for one second that I may be feeling like this about her.

naswm I think small steps will climb the mountain. A cliche, I know, but sometimes they fit. You are worth it, you are entitled to happiness in your life.

As for your father- you have to decide what you need. Wjat will be good for you, I would not visit just because you will be near and feel obliged.

I agree with AN, too. SometimeS I go to my therapist and blurt out as much as I can get out of my head in the time given. Other times I find it hard to say much of anything. It is all valid, I think.

but atm I think I want to see him - and wtf is that all about? Why do I want to see him? becauwse I know I will become upset afterwards

I don't know. But if it will cause you hurt I would think very carefully about it.

I know I feel I want to see my family, because I still crave love and warmth from them. But I know I won't get it. I always end up giving to them and receiving nothing in return. It could be that you need a holiday more than you need your father and all the baggage his entails right now.

What does your therapist suggest?

I havent asked her
I onlyu realsied the geography tonight
we are due to go on Sat

I am all a mess atm now tho

thanks so much for chatting to me

and sorry for the drunken ramblings

naswm you have made perfect sense to me, not ramblings at all.

But if the thought of visitng him is making you this upset, I would be very wary. You could visit him another time, when you are sure you want to and if it would benefit you.

I don't want to lead you to any decision, I am in no way qualified to do so, I am just trying to think how I would reason it with myself.

take care.

thank you

Is it just me or did anyone else find the EastEnders/Ronnie/Danielle storyline really triggering tonight?

I really miss a mother figuer in my life. It'd be easier to deal with if she was dead.
But she's not.

I get ratty a lot with DH because I feel that he isn't helping me enough with the children. When I look logically at what he does do I can see that this isn't really true. Then I think of all the things he has done for me and I feel really guilty. The thought came into my head "Why don't I trust him to treat me properly and not take me for a mug?". I think it is more to do with me being anxious that he might start 'taking me for a mug than him actually doing it. When he leaves me to do everything for the children eg because he is busy doing work things I feel abandoned even though I'm not really being abandoned. I think I am looking out for signs that I might be being abandoned because it is something I fear. So basically the whole thing is because I don't trust him not to abandon me! This seems kind of logical with my background of being given away by birthmother and then 'abandoned to my fate' (with brother and grandfather) without my parents helping me even when I told my mum. I lost my faith in human nature, like most people on this thread!

I should trust DH not to abandon me as I've treated him like shit in so many different ways since we've been together and he hasn't left me! He has proved that he is 'reliable' but I don't seem to see it a lot of the time.

PurpleOne, I felt for Danielle and her feeling of not being wanted/accepted by Ronnie and I could feel Danielle's anger - this bit wasn't so bad for me - as the bit when after Ronnie found out Danielle was speaking the truth and she went to find her and she was really emotionally expressive with her and told her she had wanted this moment (of meeting) for her whole life etc, and she held her and touched her etc. It is good that Ronnie did those things but I felt sad and jealous and angry that it wasn't like that when I met my birthmother, the whole thing was quite cold. I didn't feel that she felt for me the way Ronnie felt for Danielle and the way it often seems portrayed on TV dramas. Is this a bit similar to how you felt PurpleOne, in the sense that you would like a mother who expressed such feeling towards you but never had it?

Naswm, I agree with Pinky about visiting your father - probably the reason you want to is because you so want a parent figure in your life and a connection with someone in your family - a natural thing that everyone wants. Like Pinky said though, if it is unlikely that you will ever get this from him then you will be disappointed and hurt time and time again if you keep trying. Is it dreading this disappointment that makes you feel so messed up about the thought of if you do visit him? Do you think he could ever give you any of what you want from him? If there is a possibility of this I can see why you aren't giving up on him but if he really can't change then it could be a relief for you to stop trying and accept that he can never be what you want him to be? I felt a real sense of relief when I gave up on trying to get what I wanted from my parents and accepted that they are just not capable of it. I look for what I wanted from family in other people in my life instead. This can't fulfil all of it but it can fulfil a lot of it.

Sorry don't watch eastenders. I don't watch much telly really, but it sounds very interesting. Is it just me or are all the families on these soaps dysfunctional?

AN I am so with you regarding DH. I have pushed him and pushed him over the years- almost daring him to abandon me, to get what I subconsciously see as the inevitable over with. But he's still here! Bless him. He is very good to me. But I ahte it when we row. We sort of trigger each other. He can be defensive, because he was bullied a lot by his brother as a child.

AN, just wanted to say thank you for all your posts about your thoughts and feelings about DH. I can relate to so much of what you're saying. I do think I look to DH far too much to give me all the things I have been missing so long and it is just not possible for him to be mother/father/sisters and my husband. Like your DH, he does loads as my husband, absolutely loads but i still want more! And when i have time to think rationally and logically like now i know that what i am expecting from him is impossible, but in the heat of the emotional moment my brain is not really calling the shots, it's my heart/emotions/inner child.

I have been feeling 'something' the last few days but i don't know what. I am realising that the tiniest things are triggering me but that also after being triggered a split second later my mind moves onto something else so I don't work out what has been triggered and why/how etc, but the emotions that were triggered do not go away even though i am thinking about the next thing and those emotions need an outlet and they come bursting out as soon as DH/DC's do the slightest thing to annoy/upset/irritate me. If there has been nothing to trigger me, in the same scenario, DH/DC's could do the same things and I wouldn't get annoyed/upset/irritated, it is only when there are unacknowledged triggered emotions lurking inside me that i go ott.

And it literally is the tiniest of things. My next door neighbour is a common one. Poor lady, she is perfectly pleasant and has no idea of the effect she has on me! But because i know she has a big family, lots of siblings, and they all seem to get on and are close, every time i see that her car is not on her driveway and it's obvious they are gone for the weekend, i get upset because it makes me feel alone and just emphasises that i have no family to go and visit at weekends. But i hardly realise this is happening, i may just walk past her house, note they are out, keep on walking thinking about something else. But inside a load of emotions have been triggered, lonliness, isolation, exclusion and i haven't even realised and it affects me the whole weekend, my energy feels sapped and my mood is down/irritable.

Am sorry to ramble on so much, i didn't intend to really post much right now, i was just reading and catching up on recent posts.

Just been on another thread about horrible mothers. Made me realise just how much my mother used me for her own ends but never gave me anything that i needed, emotionally that is. She is also using my 2 sisters for her own ends, and is perhaps giving them a little of what they need, but definately not enough from what i can see.

Am sure she was totally emotionally deprived as a child herself, was the youngest in a large family, probably got ignored/forgotten a lot of the time. She never talked about her mother, but seemed quite fond of her dad (both passed away a long time ago, i never met them).

I see my sisters run around after her, feeling sorry for her and treating her like a queen. All the time they are probably hoping for something from her, the emotional nourishment we all need, but the more i think about it, the more i realise that she was incapable of giving any of us what we needed. I have always thought she was a much better mother to my sisters, almost as if she was perfect. But i realise now that it is just relative. Compared to how she was with me, she was a bit better with my sisters, a bit more emotionally available and giving, but still nowhere near to what they needed. Realising this makes me feel better, as i have felt so hurt all this time feeling that my mother only deprived me emotionally and gave my sisters everything. But the truth is she didn't, only my sisters don't even know what it is they have missed out on. My youngest sister seems to have made up the loss a bit with her family in law, middle sister doesn't have a big family in law to plug the gap. I am sure that once their children start growing older they will start noticing how much we all suffered and missed out on. Whether they will ever gain much self awareness and insight remains to be seen, but today at least i feel a bit better about it all. I feel a little less singled out and different from my sisters.

oneplusone
I used to feel like this, too. My brother was 'golden boy', my sisiter the clever, beautiful one. Both have had far more of everything all their lives, but my parents are still using them. They too treat my parents as rolyalty- who must be appeased and fawned over. But they are also trying to do this to gain love and approval. They are so obsessed with wealth and privellidge and power that they are not really 'normal'people. And it all stems from trying to gain the approval of our parents, because this was the only way of feeling any 'love'. Love was so conditional in our home it beggers belief. Of course the rules changed constantly ahead of me so I never actually got the approval/love bit- it was made sure to be just out of my grasp. I don't know which is worse. But I do know that I am glad I care about other people and not just myself and how much money I have. But yes- I would not be jealous because you sisters had the 'love', because it was toxic, poisonous love that has not done anyone any good.

A quick post of offer my aplogies for my shameful drunken posts last night. I am shattered tonight so am not going to sit in front of my all night again.

Love and luck to all

Nx

heartfelt thanks for all the responses to my last post, really hit the spot as usual everybody. Sakura, so good to know someone else does wall-staring! It's one of life's underrated pleasures, I think.... I don't think I'll be going to the family do, it is a case of too little too late, and I would have to deal with all my family which I don't want to do at the moment. AN, you hit on something - I think the fact my aunt made that comment all those years ago triggered the "maybe there is hope that one day my family will understand me" wish in me, and that false hope is one of the most painful and most crazy-making aspects of my particular situation. I've had a lot of it, because my parents are so not out and out obviously evil and have actually sometimes repsonded to things I've said with what seems like understanding and a real willingness to change. And that's the killer - the fact is, they can't change, there is something really fundamentally wrong with them - emotionally - but they will never ever be able to grasp that, because their whole lives hang on the semblance of normality and to admit they're not normal would kill them. So they're stuck being the way they are and the only time I've made real progress in my life is when I've started to accept that. But the fantasy that they are actually good reasonable people who can be moved by logic and truth, and that the whole nightmare was all just a misunderstanding, is a very persistent one, and it rears its head again and again, and this invitation got me spinning again, and it's been a really tough couple of days - DH away with work and DS now full of cold so waking even more than usual because he can't breathe properly, so just full on and all this stuff in my head with no space for it... but I am determined to get through this, like I've got through everything else so far.

naswm, we've never "spoken" but I hope you could find a way to believe me when I say there is NOTHING shameful about your posts at all. Nothing at all. What is shameful is what was done to you. But I know how hard it is to believe that when, as a victim, one carries the shame inside that the abusers should feel.

Want to post more about other topics people have been talking about, but exhausted, so will have to come back when I can. Thoughts with you all.

ps, Sakura, MIL's - right with you on that one....

PinkyMinxy-Thanks for the line:

"But yes- I would not be jealous because you sisters had the 'love', because it was toxic, poisonous love that has not done anyone any good."

I guess I was feeling jealous-is that the right word? sad at being left out; certainly a little angry about Middle Sister being the Golden Child, and getting all of Mom's attention. But I see that it made her have a Superiority Complex if not full Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

I also appreciate the recent discussions about the toxic mothers not bonding with their babies/children. Something Middle Sister said to me while I was pg with my last baby relates to it. Very pleasantly, referring to the baby she said: "It'll be really good to have a new project to keep (me) busy." I replied-in the moment for once!!-"The baby will be a person-not a project." That little back and forth rings constantly in my ears because it is how my mother treated me, I believe. Like an inanimate project, not as a person. And then add Dr. Spock's (BAD Dr. SPOCK! BAD! BAD! BAD!) instruction manual to leave me to cry it out. No bonding there, not even fake bonding.

That comment also gives me clarity and validity to understand the truth about Middle Sister's view of me, which will never change.

BoptheAlien-you are right about the not changing. It is hard to believe, to accept, to let go of the wisper of hope that maybe one day they will have an epithany and "get it". The most I've seen from Middle Sister is superficial lip service in a new rendention of a power play a la archangel martyr. It is when she 'sacrifices' her position of superiority (just this special once) and then lets everyone know about it. How magnanimous of her.

naswm-drunk or not-don't stop writing. It often happens that a problem can be worked out from writing-a different perspective considered that wasn't thought of before. If you don't want to post then write on paper (and even shred it later if wanted). I didn't have any issue with your posts.

Hi oneplusone, Sakura-hope you are feeling well.
AN-I printed out your last several posts to read at my leisure. Very good points. I know my dh puts up with a lot from me-rather a lack of output (housework ). But then I said, and it was the truth: I blame my sister for degrading me so much, but you do your fair share. Just the little petty stuff of chauvanistic flavor, but it is there none the less. He has stopped since I said it. He is still an excellent man and I know I am lucky to have him for my dh.

Bop I am with you on the little bits of 'normal' from my parents. My mother- prime NPD candidate- is very good at displaying normal when required- such as when someone else is around. I know it is safe to call her if she has someone visisting, because she will be in 'normal person' mode. I think that's what she did after I saw the psych when I was a child- it obviously made her realsie that her treatment of me was getting a bit obvious to the outside world, so she started to put a bit of effort in- just enough to make things appear ok on the surface. It could be that it was enough to get me through, or maybe I would have been better if I had run away for good. There was a bit about runaways on the jeremy Vine yesterday, was listening in the car. Reminded me of how I used to bolt.

MY DH can be a bit of a sod at times. Mostly he's lovely but he seems to lose patience with the DC a bit too easily for my liking and goes on and on with himself sometimes. But mostly he's a good man.

yes, SamVaknin says some interesting things about the narcissist's ability to behave normally in front of other people. He says that he used to look up and think "I want to take that person home!!"
My mother was VERY adept at this. A prime example was when she threw me out of the house on a rainy winters day when I was 10 and I was only wearing some shorts. I dissappeared into the mountains behind my house and stayed up there for ages (there were caves and stuff there so I was okay) Anyway, my mother and father had meanwhile called the police. When I plucked up the courage to go home (thinking that my mother's rage must have calmed down enough by that point) there were two police officers in my living room. My mother got up and threw her arms about me in a big hug and squeezed me to her. "Oh, where have you been, we were so worried," she said. THe (idiot) police officers gave me a talking to and told me I was a silly little girl for wasting police time. I basically got a big telling off from the policemen. I was just struck dumb. I literally couldn't open my mouth in disbelief at what was going on. My mother had shut me up completely with her acting. That is how NPD parents work, you see. They are more powerful for the simple fact that they 1) are physically bigger 2) they are adults and are taken seriously, whereas a child is never taken seriously.
But times do change. One reason I still get overwhelming rushes of fear when I think about my mother is because my mind still believes she's as omnipotent as she once was. But she's ageing now. She's weakening. She likes her drink too much. In society's eyes, I am becoming the more powerful of the two of us and I have to start believing and accepting this change and shift in power balance. She can't hurt me anymore. If she was to take me to court to get access to my daughter (as she once threatened), it would be me who would come accross as the normal, sane, believable one, not her. It is still very difficult to shift my way of thinking though. I still sometimes feel she is omnipotent and all powerful like she used to be in my childhood.

roseability, lets get through this pregnancy together we'll be okay.

bop, yes, nice to hear someone else enjoys wall-staring...

Sakura, that is a sad story, but I can relate. I was often sent out without shoes etc. SHe would put on this oh it's so awful, poor me thing. I would get blamed for allsorts when dad came home.

One of my mothers recent ones was pretending to be looking after me after my last c-section. Usually she just sits around complaining about everybody and how tired she is and how she won't be running around after me and she can't stay long etc. And I would be makingnher cups of tea and lunch etc. Sometimes she wouls be on her way over and phone to say she has taken herself shoe shopping instead.

You should have seen her when she came over with herr friend. My goodness. Meals for the freezer, washing done, drinks made,etc. etc. Excellent performance. Needless to say, she never behaved like that again.

My mother is only small, but very fat,and she puts clothes on that make her look a little butch at times. I think she actually tries to make herself look bigger to intimidate me.

I feel like I am in a dark, deep hole and I have no idea how or if I will ever get out of it.

I have realised I should not have had children as I can not give them what they need. I am happier on my own and just feel like the kids are always in my face. I love them so much but they need more than that.

I want to run away from my life and I know my husband feels very stressed about how I am and what is happening.

I am cooking our dinner with a glass of wine and just hoping for ever lasting sleep.