Our 5th visit to the Stately Home

[Nabster]

Here we go again.

AN - big hugs to you.

A lot of your posts ring true with me. I would love to cut off my parents completely but always have that niggling guilt and doubt about my validity to do such a thing. Did they really abuse me? Was it that bad? Is it in my head? I find myself reliving bad memories from childhood just to justify myself. I have distanced myself from them but maintain some contact (more so with my adoptive mother). I also want revenge. I don't want my DS to like or love them as revenge for what I believe they did to me. I am meeting my grnadfather for the first time in September partly because I know they would not want this.

You hit the nail on the head though when you said the main reason for not having much contact is because it is hard for you.

Ultimately I believe that a relationship with parents should not feel poisonous or damaging to oneself. As Susan Forward says a meeting with parents should not produce intense negative feelings all the time. If this is the case you are justified in reducing contact or even cutting all contact if it is that damaging.

We have to protect ourselves for our own children's sake.

Our parents have not got away with anything. they have ruined a relationship with the one person who should be so precious to them.

We are not overeacting just reacting and that is healthy.

Finally don't let anyone tell you that you are lazy for being kind to yourself.

PM- Your sister sounds very damaged. But that is not your fault nor is it your responsibility.
I think you are absolutely doing the right thing in the way you have dealt with her. You are not responsible for her moods or emotions.
You have been a dumping ground for your entire family far too long.
You need to take care of yourself and your immediate family and that is what you are doing. How could that be wrong.
Something Ally used to do which I found useful is to apply the situation to another person when in doubt. So, for example if a 'good' friend of yours told you that her sister behaved as you have described what would you say to her?
It does feel like she wants you to mother her (not your job) but has adopted your mothers same 'punishing' approach when you are not available to her.
I empathise as my mother behaves like this as well. She hates me not being available to her. I remember once being on the way to hopsital with ds who had a raging temperature and she demanded DH put me on the phone despite him explaining why it wasnt a good time for me to talk.

AN- I wanted to send you a hug too. ((((hug)))
How are you feeling today?
Your feelings are 'your' feelings and therefore they are valid.
Repeat after me! Gosh Im being bossy now arent I

I thought a lot about your post last night (sorry too tired to reply). I thought about what you said about your self esteem being on a knifes edge, or at least feeling as though it is.
I identify with that myself. Have struggled with it my entire life.
Ive always felt that I am struggling and striving to impress people but nobody notices and if they 'don't' notice that hurts me.
I remember back in the eraly days of posting on here that I downloaded in one post about how we had a new bathroom (DH had done it himself so felt very proud) and on the one and only time my sister had ever visited my house I proudly showed her, but got an entirely different reaction from the one I wanted or needed.
I wanted her to approve I guess, but instead she picked out all the faults.
I felt so hurt and angry at her. It was Pages who asked me why I needed my family's approval. I couldnt answer the question, and Im not sure I know the answer now either.
What I thought about last night though was could it be because we still feel responsible for other peoples beahviour?
I think as a child I felt responsible for everything that happened to me because I had made it happen or so I believed. If my mums screamed at me and called me a selfish bitch it was because I was. If my dad implied I was thick it was because I was. If my mum came at me out of the blue and slapped me with a look of venom in her face I must have caused that look and triggered that reaction from her.
Its a double whammy because firstly I have the power to make people behave badly (even though as an adult rationally I know I dont have that power), and secondly I invoke a 'bad' or negative' reaction 'most' of the time because in fact I am bad.
Then I think there is the part of me that hopes I can find evidence to the contrary and so I wait like a panting dog for a scrap of praise, because then I can start to hope maybe Im not so bad after all.
The problem is when something negative is done or said this still has more impact on me than the positive because at my core I believe that I am bad. That has become my bottom line. I am bad therefore I am trated badly.
Im sure this is all a complete muddle and so not sure if any of it makes sense to you at all. Or helps you in any way.
I guess the answer for me anyway, is changing my mindset little by little. The only way I can begin to do this is by telling myself every time someone says or behaves badly that firstly, it is not my repsonsibility. I cant 'make' someone behave that way. It turns out Im just not that powerful after all.
I think it is even more difficult when the person behaving badly represents someone else to us emotionally. So it is even more heart wrenching when it is a PIL. I think it is inevitable that we see them not for who they are but as our own parents, even if on an emotional level.
The other day MIL curtseyed to me . I said, nicely... 'why are you doing that? Do you think I am being bossy because if you do, then you just need to tell me?' She then looked really sheepish and I think she felt a bit silly.
I did feel upset at first because immediately I felt did I make her react like that because I AM being bossy? I dont want to be thought of as bossy.
Even if I was though there was no need for her to respond the way she did, and her response was her responsibility not mine.
Her reacting like a child was her decision, so why should that make 'me' feel bad.
I think Im going to resolve to not allow others to dump their negative feelings on me anymore.

Sorry for my terrible spelling by the way- no time to edit.

Sakura- I wanted to answer your post. You were saying about learning to knit and the thought that came into your head at that time.
When I read that it occurred to me that perhaps for you being 'the best' at soemthing was for you crucial because it represents survival?
The reason I say this is because I know you have mentioned before that your mother did feel proud of your achievments (even though she took them as her own). It still may have felt like a reprieve for you somehow from her sbuse? To gain her approval and satisfaction even if only intermitently instead of feeling her disaproval and rage.
I think being the best at something would therefore be an absolute necessity for you in this sense, because it formed part of some primeval need to survive your mother.
I think may be the converse is true for me. I must not be better than my mother. I think that if I was or had been in any way shape or form her rage and disatisfaction would have intensified. I knew this deep in my conciousness.
It was also interesting what you said about being a buffer between your DH and his mother.
I think I serve a similar purpose for my DH. On a differnt tack however, my DH is not allowed to experience or express negative emotions. He suppresses anything negative.
I think this is as a result of his own family dynamic. Everything is ok in his family as long as you paint a smile on your face.
MIL says to ds 'only a happy face at nannas house'.
My mission is to enable my children to experience, feel, own ALL of their emotions not just the 'positive'ones.
Back to DH. I think I am the opposite end of the scale. I was not allowed to feel or display happiness for fear of my mother who needed me to be as miserable and unhappy as she was/is.
So I think in effect dh and I, feed off each other. He is drawn to my ability to show negative (or what society percieves as) 'negative' emotions...sadness, anger, jelousy. I am drawn to his ability to display the psoitive ones.
I find this whole concept interesting and wondered if anyone else feels they may have been drawn to their partners for similar reasons?

Oh jeez my spelling- sorry guys.

Thought Id write something about me . But as always I feel stumped. Its like there is part of me that holds back completely. Im able to do it when I am answering posts to others but not when I set myself up to write a post about me.
To me that feels a bit like standing naked in the wind. (what a thought!)
I guess it all stems back to what I was saying in my post to sakura. For me survival was all about 'not' being noticed (so relate to you AN).
I was trying hard to not let my mother notice me, but at the same time trying to work out how I could get close to her. I think the only way I could get close to her was to mother her or nurture her.
So maybe that is what happens when I post. I feel I have to nurture first and then tentatively try and get my own needs met.
Accept with my mother it never worked. She point blank refused to mother me at all.
Actually that is not true. i think the closest I got to her nurturing me or 'feeling' nurtured by her was when I let her feel like she was 'fixing' me. So that gave her a sense of power and control. And of 'superiority' of course.
I think that is why I put myself down in front of others. Part of me believes that if I dont then I will be rejected. I mustnt be better than others.
I often try so hard to remember a time when my mother held me.
She never did hold me, I am sure. Or I just dont remember. Surely I would have a memory of this if it existed.
This is a point where I relate to what Nabster was saying about not believing she 'was' that little girl, because if someone told me that there was a little girl that grew up and was 'never' hugged. I would feel horrified. I dont feel this same empathy for myself. As if that didnt really happen to me or I cant 'feel' the same empathy for myself as I feel for others. Does that make any sense?
I even feel empathy and sadness at the thought of my mother being a little girl who never felt the warmth of a mothers hug. I know this because she told me how she would climb on my nans lap and my nan would take her off and put her back down again. She said it quite matter of factly though. There was no recognition for her of what that might have meant to her at the time. No flicker of emotion. I guess if there had have been then the door would have been open for her to feel empathy toward me.
But the door is firmly closed.
So I can feel this deep sadness for my mother, but not for myself.

I also realise that my whole life has been about winning my fathers approval.
And so to date, I have been partly living a lie. I have never been able to persue my own happiness, because of this fact.

Sorry about the length of my post and lack of spacing between paragraphs!

Oh absolutely, smithfield. Thats exactly why I had such irrational feelings. And I know my own mother had them with me. She never taught me to cook a damn thing, but I think that that probably had more for her need for control rather than needing to be better than me at cooking. She didn't want me to be autonomus, and she needed me to depend on her, when it suited her of course.
But going back to me needing to be the best. That is one of the ways my childhood has affected me- and some people think this is a good thing because you get drive and ambition out it, but in fact its terrifying. First of all, I am very reluctant to make an effort to do things just for fun or pleasure. Also, if there is a prospect that I will fail at something I have really worked hard for (like my writing) I am flung into a depression for weeks until I can overcome the feelings of failure. Its an awful way to live. There is literally no sense of self worth beyond what I can achieve. RAtionally I know I achieve things on a daily basis i.e caring for DD as a SAHM, making the house nice, being nice to people etc but for me my worth needs to be measured from the outside and even though I've healed a lot and am a long way into this journey, this aspect of me doesn't seem to be altering.

Roseability I read "The ARtist's way" by Julia Cameron and she really unlocked some doors in my phsyche for me. HOw was the creative writing course?
Also, for those who are adopted, I just read a fascinating book called "THe Mistress"s Daughter" by A.M.Holmes. Its an autobiography and she talks about being adopted and then the first contact she had with her birth mother. I wasn't adopted but it was still very relevant and interesting.

ActingNOrmal, yes its a really messed up way for our parents to think, isn't it- THat they faults belong to the child, but the successes belong to them. by the way, I think what your FIL said to you was atrocious about needing excercise. THat shows he has zero respect towards you and no boundaries. You don't even say that to your own daughter if you have any sense. Everything you describe about your in-laws regarding control, I felt myself. All I can say is that when I stood up to them and put down some ground rules it felt like a huge weight had lifted off my shoulders. I like to think this makes me a better mother towards DD because I am more free to be myself.

I want to respond to ecveryone's posts, but I have to tell you about today. I have not heard any more from my sis- guess she is sleeping it off. Got a weepy phoencall from mother, saying she was changing her plans and coming over. I said but we are on our way out for the day. SHe says I am coming over, what time will you be back. But I said no, stick to her original plans, we are going out for the day now, and we can arrange something when she gets back from her weekend.

I DID IT. I said 'no' to my mother!! I can't believe it. It is horrible to watch them behave in this way- they are clearly dependant upon me for some reason - I suppose that weirdly the scapegoat is actually quite important to them, because without me they have nowhere for their negative feelings to go.

I feel like I am pulling myself out of a web.

My parents are going to my brothers for the weekend tomorrow. No doubt I will be roundly blamed for and accused of all manner of mean and nasty things. THe usual is that I am cold and unfeeling, selfish etc. etc. but now I think I realise thaT I am none if those things. I am just relatively normal in comparison to them.

I am expecting a bit of a ramping up of the emotional blackmail after this week. I am sure my mother will try to draw everyone she can into it. But it's all crazy- because nothing has happened, has it? All I have done is missed a few phonecalls.

I am beginning to realise it's not all in my head, it's in their heads.

Sakura so much of what you have written rings ture for me. I haven't time now, but will posts later.

PinkyMinxy, Congratulations on saying no! I know this is a big milestone! I think you are very brave. It is definitely 'them not you'. She expects you to change your plans and inconvenience your own family at the last minute because she is too drippy to sort her own emotional problems out and she calls you selfish! You missed a few phonecalls because you have your own busy life looking after your own children and DH - this is your job, not looking after her. She needs to get a grip!

AN thank you . I have felt quite calm all day, as well. It's really strange. I think I felt a bit 'safe' doing it becuase a) we were already driving to our day out, and b) she is going to be away for the weekend from today, so hopefully that will deflecct her a bit, though she may get my brother into the act- he's a bit of a shocker - chip off the old block my therapist calls him.

That thing you said about imagining I was a friend who was telling me about this is so true. Last night I was talking to DH and we both said it reminded us of someone we both knew- she was a ex-girlfriend of a friend of ours, and she had major issues- would ring us up when drunk and paranoid and go on and on for ages. ANd it is just what my sis is like. I would be in meetings with work and she would expecct me to listen to her going on and on- sometimes she rings me three or four times a day for hour long 'chats'.

Part of the routine my mother and my sis go through is trying to make me upset. They used to do it with verbal assaults, or acts of physical cruelty when I was little, along with mind games etc. but the thing my sis has done since adulthood is to make up horrible stories- saying she has been raped etc.- really horrible, and all fabrication. I used to think it was simple attention-seeking, but actually it is more than that- she likes to make me cry, be upset,then she tells me I can't tell anyone about it- so I have this 'thing' to carry around by myself, and guilt of betrayal if I confide in DH about it.

I think the term emotional vampire fits them very well. I wonder how either of them will cope without their 'fix', now I am beginning to step out of the role?

I have found I have more energy today- I think it is because I have not had the emotional drain of a visit from my mother, or had to listen to my sister. IT is really giving me hope that things are going to get better for me.

Sorry to go on about myself.

PM - so glad you made a major breakthrough today and said no to your mother.

It is so liberating when you realise that you can say no. I used to be scared of my parents in a little girl sort of way. I didn't say no to them when DS was born and it caused a lot of stress for myself and my family.

Now however I always ask myself 'what is the worst that will happen if I say no?'. It does help. However I understand there is always that child within us that daren't contradict our parents.

PinkyMinxy, I am flabbergasted and disgusted that your sister would make it up that she had been raped to upset you on purpose and get attention! Surely she has a mental disorder! You must know that this is so SO not normal! I don't know how you cope with having a family like this!

Rosability the 'little girl' thing is spot on- I feel like a little girl- or should I say I used to feel like a little girl. It's weird but after the phonecall I felt really calm, and grown up- it was exactly like I was the parent and she was the child- so strangge.

AN I know it's utterly disgusting, isn't it? I don't know if it's just the drink that makes her do it. She takes a lot of prescription drugs and drinks a lot.

I have mourned for her so many times.

I have wanted to make her better. I have wanted to show her love, that I love her and she doesn't need to do these things to get my attention, but I cannot help her.

SHe has also, conversely, always been very rejecting and dismissive of me, and used to try to get others to put me down and poke fun at me.

I have often felt more like a pet than a person in her company. It is hard to explain. I do know that I have searched for sister figures in friends a lot of the time. ANd when I am out with people who seem 'cool', beautiful, or confident I often feel very much like that little girl, like some sort of 'mascot' or toy, and it stems from the way I feel when I am with my sister. I don't know if that makes any sense.

AN - another thing you said struck a chord. About ILs being replacement parents. I put so much trust and hope in my ILs to be the parents I never had, that sometimes I am too harsh on them. Some of the ILs some of you describe on here sound truly toxic, however mine are genuinely non toxic, loving parents and have treated me like a daughter.

However they are not perfect (as no parent is, including myself) but I pick up on every little imperfection and take it personally. It takes a lot to completely trust them, that they like and love me for who I am.

Children definately do take responsibility for family problems and internalise attitudes and behaviours. It is an interesting point that this is less damaging than believing parents abuse us because they want to.

I always blamed myself for my father's anger and rage against me. For his disappointment in me. For my mother's loneliness and regret about her life. After all if she hadn't adopted me, she could have achieved some of the things she wanted to? I believe she tries to claim my successes as down to her, so that she feels she has achieved something in life.

PM - when we come across people in life that remind us of toxic family members, we can soon revert to the way we behave around said family members.

I once worked with a charge nurse at work who was basically a bully. She immediately sensed my vulnerability. I let her bully me and became a little girl in her presence.

The next time I worked with her, I stood up for myself a bit more. I do believe I haven't got as far in my career as I should because I don't believe in myself enough and project a confident image. It is ironic that my parents harp on about my lack of belief in myself when it is them that has damaged it!

However I take comfort in the fact that whilst I may not be over confident, I am sensitive to other people and would never bully anyone.

A major issue I have at the moment is calling my mother 'mum' in the first place. She is not my mother. She is my grandmother who brought me up.

She claims that I chose to call her mum as it made things easier for me at school and a friend once told me that she understood this as a child needs someone to call mum.

However I sense that she and my adoptive father manipulated this to some extent for their own ends. I feel uncomfortable with it, even after all these years. It is because when I look at my son, I could not bear him calling anyone else mum.

This is selfish I know. If I could not take care of him, I would want my MIL and FIL to rasie him, but I would not want him to call them mum and dad. Even my MIL said she would not feel comfortable with that.

So why did my mother do it? Take that away from my birth mother (who is sadlt dead now)? I believe my adoptive father manipulated this. After all he is not genetically related to me at all, so what would I have called him?

It annoys me that my mother says things like 'who wouldn't want their mother there (when you have just had a baby' and 'there was a time when the mother of the bride was the most important person at the wedding'. I want to scream YOU ARE NOT MY MOTHER! I believe such statements are disrespectful to my missed birth mother and insensitive. I have never been able to grieve for her as a mother until the counselling.

I really sense it was a control thing for my adoptive mother/grandmother. I have sworn that when she dies, I will tell people that my grandmother died and start referring to my birth mother as 'mum'

So sorry to rant on about my own issue. Just evry therapeutic to get this off my chest even if I am worng for feeling this way

I could maybe come to terms with it, if she had been a loving mother. But she has been too damaged herself and stood back and let my adoptive father emotionally abuse me

PM - I can't believe how cruelly your mother and sister have treated you. You would be well within your rights to cut them off completely. Keep saying no when necessary

Roseability I think you talk a lot of sense.

My BIL is a step-parent, and a very good one. His daughters call him Dad- not on his insistence, but because they wanted to, becuase he has earned it. I have taken to refering to my parents as my mother and father, instead of mum and dad- as that seems too informal, and implies affection which is not there. These things amy sound petty, but I think they are subtle coping stratergies- I know I need to try to feel less emotionally attached to my parents, and some of these little things help.

When my sister threatened never to call me again last night, I did feel a fleeting sense of relief, which is a terrible thing to say. But my therapist refers to my old family as my enemies, and I think I am beginning to see what he means.

Hi all,

have been a bit snowed under recently as DS was under par for a few days and then very sick last night (fine today tho thankfully) and hasn't been sleeping well, either in the evenings or lunchtimes, then DH got sick today and has been in bed all eve so have had no help and basically not much "free" time since last posting. Am reading posts when I can and wishing I had time/energy to respond but not happening at the mo; hoping for better luck tomorrow lunchtime! But as OPO said recently, I read every word and take it in, and it is always inspiring and comforting to read other people's thoughts and experiences.

OPO, thanks also for your comments re my mother's letter, that really helped as I was worried that even on here people might think I was being harsh not accepting her offer, but there's so much history to what was in that letter that it's hard to give a clear picture of it.

PM, well done for standing up to your mother. I am having to really keep my distance from mine as any contact at all always ends up in craziness, and today i was thinking that in some strange way, this policy of total separation from her is actually more loving towards her as well as to myself and my own family, as if I wasn't holding fast to this we would be getting dragged back down into the same old circular arguments and rows and conflict as always, which just increases the hatred on my part and makes any kind of eventual resolution of any kind ever less likely. If I do have the space to genuinely heal to the point where her madness and denial of the truth just wash over me, then it may one day be possible to reconcile in some superficial way. I know it is very hard to get to the point of saying No to them, Sakura, I think you said you kept trying and trying again before you eventually gave up, and I know I tried umpteen times; you can only do it when you really have "critical mass" to let them not be in your life.

I do feel a great sadness for the great void that is in my life where my family (old family) should be. That has intensified recently as it looks like even my relationship with my niece and nephew, which I have worked immnemsely hard at protecting and preserving, is maybe collapsing under the strain of the estrangement. I had thought my niece might be some kind of surrogate DD to me in later life - statistically me and DH would have to be very lucky indeed to have another DC so reaslistically DS might well be our one and only, and the thought that I had such a strong bond with her was some comfort in that respect, as I have always hoped for a DD of my own. It really makes me very sad to see that the bond is maybe not strong enough after all. But there is a strange kind of peace in feeling this sadness, and not pushing it away and trying to do everything to avoid it. I have no family of origin - and I can survive, in fact I thrive without them in a way I never could with them in my life. Sad, but that is the way it is.

Sorry I haven't been able to respond more directly to other posts, it feels rather rude. Hope you understand.

Just a quick one! I was reading web pages about the long term effects of adoption yesterday and so many of the 'symptoms' fitted in with me and my brother. This made me feel better somehow, to know that there are reasons and it is common to other people in the same situation and we aren't just being stupid!

One that stood out for me was - hates being controlled and sees the merest suggestion from partners as an attempt to control them! and taking small disappointments from partners as betrayals and feeling like giving up on the relationship! Because I was waiting to be saved (and thought DH would be everything my parents should have been) my expectations were so high and he was bound to disappoint me - because I don't believe anyone can love you unconditionally like a parent can.