Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Our 5th visit to the Stately Home

1000 replies

Nabster · 23/02/2009 10:59

Here we go again.

OP posts:
ActingNormal · 28/04/2009 17:23

FabBaker, I get a feeling reading your posts that you fight all your past feelings and memories down, out of your consciousness, SO HARD. You still don't want to let yourself believe any of it even happened. It is all in you though, destroying you. When you get to a point where you really can't take any more and the way you feel couldn't get any worse, maybe you will take a big plunge into the scaryness and say "What the fuck" and go right into what happened with a counsellor/therapist and really throw everything into processing it. Maybe that time is now!

FabulousBakerGirl · 28/04/2009 19:28

I am in denail perhaps? So don't want to believe that people - including my own mother - can do things to me and let other bad things happen??

PinkyMinxy · 28/04/2009 21:13

I do think I am beginning to work through some things.
Had terrible anxiety today. By the time I was picking DS up from school I had convinced myself that I had upset one of my dearest friends. It was a real struggle to speak to her in the playground. By the time I got home I was on the verge of tears, I had been fighting it all day. SO I decided to text her and ask her if I had upset her and she was lovely about it. I don't want to burden her. I have had such bad experiences with 'emotional vampire' types and I'm terrified of being one.

I also rang DH. He is very good at giving me a clear perspective on situations, and the biggest breakthrough for me is that I can actually believe him now.

BopTheAlien · 28/04/2009 22:14

How to describe how it feels reading all these posts? It's so good on one level, to know it's not just me going through all this, to find my own thoughts and feelings echoed so often; but at the same time it's so incredibly sad that we're all going through such awful, horrible things, feeling so bad about ourselves, struggling so much to come to terms with things, just to believe that what happened, happened. I just want to cry reading a lot of the posts. It's not fair.

AN, thank you for what you said about believing my words - that means an awful lot to me. And I agree of course that Pinky, you are so NOT a waste of space - but just tonight I was in the kitchen, creating pure chaos, going crazy and calling myself a f**ing moron. They really got us coming and going, didn't they? That self hatred, once planted, just keeps on running and running, without them even being there any more.

OPO, thank you too for what you said before about understanding all of my post last week (fri) that too meant a lot to me. And your posts today - could relate so, so much to them. I am REALLY struggling with motherhood at the moment. And it tears my heart out that this is the case. I have the opposite but the same - DS is not in nursery, so I don't have that guilt - but because I never get a break from him (his sleep has been terrible lately, evne in the day and evening, as well as all the night wakings, and I feel like I'm going out of my mind) I end up shouting and just being so horrible to him, not all the time but too often. It's very up and down, we will always have some lovely times in a day, but we have some truly awful ones too. I feel like I'm behaving towards him like my parenst behaved towards me, as if he's a big nuisance - and I know I'm not like them but still, it's horrible, when I love him so much and fought so hard to have him to find myself looking at him with that coldness and anger. It's absolutely killing me.

Just not coping. I know exactly what you mean OPO about not taking anything else on. I crave the time and energy to deal with my "stuff" and I know that's another reason I'm getting horrible with DS, because I dont' have that space for me, for looking after my inner child. My therapist keeps saying she supports me in skipping sessions with her and using the money to pay for childcare in the day so I can do some work on myself (and rest) as the way she works depends a lot on doing homework too and I used to do tons, and now do very little. Am really struggling with that though. Am just struggling with everything. Never enough time to cook proper meals, always jars and ready meals and takeaways - well, a lot of the time, anyway. Never any time to do all those millions of jobs that build up. Just a sense of things all being about to topple over on top of me. And it's rubbing off on DS, he's getting more anxious and needy with me, which I find harder and harder to deal wiht and it's a vicious circle. I thought to myself recently - how can I comfort DS and tell him everything's allright and he's safe, when I still don't feel safe myself? Where am I supposed to find that from?

I may get that book you're talking about AN, it sounds very sensible. I guess if it takes some of the pressure off that's a good thing. I always think everyone else is coping so much better than I am, and my therapist is always trying to tell me that there's a lot goes on behind closed doors.

Anyway, have to go now, finish clearing up the humungous mess I made before trying to cook a proper meal batch for DS for once, after a particularly atrocious night last night and just being so frayed. And nearly having a big row wiht DH who is under enough pressure at work at the mo without worrying about me and DS too, but fortunately at least we managed to avert that. Night all.

BopTheAlien · 28/04/2009 22:42

PS - OPO, sorry to hear what your DH said to you, must have been very hard to hear. .

PurpleOne · 29/04/2009 00:41

Sorry for not being around much lately.
My alcohol keyworker has referred me for some proper counselling - and I am absolutely shitting myself.

I've lost my job and it's DD1s bday on Saturday. And we have kittens arriving in 3 weeks time.

DD1s urine test came back inconclusive. She onyl got discharged from GOSH 2 years ago. I've been for blood tests as doc thinks I'm showing signs of diabetes.

Still drinking to numb the feelings of isolation and crushing loneliness.

I might not be posting, but I'm still reading.

Much love and hugs to all of you x

ActingNormal · 29/04/2009 14:44

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

PurpleOne · 29/04/2009 20:59

Oh, help

It's my DD1s bday on Saturday and mum and dad have sent her a card this year.
Out fell a photo of my dad, his brother (my uncle) and my dear old nanny who I haven;t seen in 20 years.

Why did they send that photo? In my midst of pissed up paranoia, they want to rub my face in it...but why send a 14 yr old kid a pic of people she is never likely to meet?
They all look so happy in the photo, and I've been feeling really close to the edge the past few days.
Really isolated and lonely.

And it hurts.

PinkyMinxy · 29/04/2009 22:33

PO I'm sorry you are feeling sad.

It is good news about the counselling, yes?

PurpleOne · 29/04/2009 23:12

Yeah I think so PM. I'm just really really scared.

The counsellor can drag so much stuff up, as can my keyworker...

And I'm just left to deal with it on my own.

There is no RL support.

It's just me and the kids.
I went to see a mate at the weekend, but he just plied me with more booze and Ecstasy.

I can't be dealing with this anymore. I really can't. I can use mumsnet to offload, but it's really not the same as a loving friendly hug, a cup of coffee and a sandwich with a friend.
All DD1 and DD2 mates come over here and treat the place like a hotel....but theres no one here for me.

I can't even cry in bloody peace, what with DD! kicking off about her bday. I promised her stuff and I've lost my bloody job. She doesn't get that at all.

Exh (kids dad) is just a pointless wanker. Says he's skint, yet he's off to New York next week. Been to Maldives, Egypt and Spain since the summer...and he only pays £16 a week for his kids.

The veil of darkness (loneliness) keeps calling.
I dont know how isolating that feels for any of you?

PinkyMinxy · 29/04/2009 23:47

PO I can only think that you need to make it clear to whoever you are referred to that you have to be able to look after your DC.
The guy I see is on the whole pretty understanding of this (not withstanding the porblems I had with him changing my day) He gives me practical advice on coping which really helps. No matter how upset and raw I feel during the session, the things he says seem to give me a more positive spin on my life, so by the time I have walked home I have regained myself.
My anxiety is a bay again after my session today.

I am only just managing to trust one friend enough to believe she really wants to know how I'm feeling. To everyone else I am 'fine'. It is very hard for me to trust people, to take them at face value, and this makes me very lonely.

please accept a virtual hug and cup of tea, i know it's not the same, but even so.

Sakura · 30/04/2009 07:32

oneplusone,
Just want to say i relate to everything you wrote about needing any spare time you've got to work on yourself and your issues. But I don't know if its because its spring now or because I've been working on my shit for so long now but the past month the days have become easier. I'm a SAHM but I would put DD in nursery two mornings a week just to have time to myself. I felt guilty for using family finances for this because I don't really work (2 hours a week teaching English, a bit of translation, and then my writing).
But the past two weeks I've found I only needed to put her in one day a week which is a huge step for me. I may regress again, but right at this moment I'm not finding it so hard to make it through the days. DD has just woken from her nap and is craving my attention but I'm just ignoring her while I write this. I haven't done a scrap of cleaning for days, but the house seems okay- not really messy. Dunno, maybe its a milestone, maybe not. But I think if you keep at it and keep working on yourself you are bound to see results at some point. You might not even notice you've improved, you'll just look back one day and realise that you're not as bad as you used to be.

And remember, our parents never did a tiny bit of analyzing in their entire lives. My parents have a daughter who doesn't speak to them and a granchild they don't see and I'm 100% sure they haven't even reflected on themselves and their behaviour for even five minutes. Whereas we are doing it all the time, all day, sometimes nearly every second. And its very tiring. But I think the results will out themselves slowly.

PinkyMinxy · 30/04/2009 10:48

OPO
I think you are doing the right thing. I would put dd1 in nursery for a day if we could afford it. I tried to get her in a playgroup when I started to realise things were really not right with me, but I had left it too late and the waiting lists are too long. Fortunately because of the way DH's hours work he can take them out a couple of mornings a week for me to have a break. He also helps me with the housework. I think it is a good thing you are making space for yourself. I feel guilty sometimes for having the at home with me when I am feeling so rubbish. I don't think there is a solution that we will be happy with- as AN has said, our anxiety demands of us to be the ultimate parent, as the consequences of getting it wrong seem so terrifying to us. I try to persuade myself that all parents make small mistakes, and this is not the same as receiving a lifetime of emotional abuse. But it is hard.

Last night I had a bad night, with DD2 waking up a lot, then DS coming in and waking me up.

But the worst was the fact that in my head I had convinced myself that I am the one with the problems- it's me, not my old family. I do not know how many times I am going to feel this way. A lot, I think. Why? Is it purely becasue that is what myfamily have told me all these years, oris it because at the end of the day I love my mother, and I want to take this for her.Or I take it on myself so I can keep the idea that I have a good mother who loves me. Why did my mother not love me? I have too mny questions and they are all so painful, and I have no answers.

ActingNormal · 30/04/2009 14:43

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

roseability · 30/04/2009 15:02

Hi everyone

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I am pretty tired and a bit brain dead at 34 weeks pregnant. I am however reading your posts and gaining so much comfort from them. I am thinking of you all. Will try and post something useful soon

PurpleOne · 30/04/2009 15:34

I was so down last night and ended up ringing the Samaritans.

She told me to make peace with my parents!

PinkyMinxy · 30/04/2009 15:44

oh Dear, PO. That's a bit laughable. I could try that but since my mother is so bonkers she thinks she's the best mum in world, she wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about!

I hope you are feeling a bit better today.xx

PinkyMinxy · 30/04/2009 21:03

Po I hope that didn't come across as flippant, it wasn't meant that way.

I find it hard to explain to people just what is going on with me and my family. I have not told many people at all, but I know some say oh yes my mum's a bit like that etc. or describing anxiety, they say they feel that way, but I don't think they really get it.

The best friend I have to confide in about all this has has PND and baby psychosis, and thankfully is well again now- but she is one of the few people I have met who have real insight into how I'm feeling. It is strange, because obviously there were years and years where she was fine, and then she got ill, and is now better (thank goodness), but i have felt like this al my life and I'm only just beginning to put my head above the water. My therapist yesterday was lovley. He said he wants me to be able to enjoy my life, my art, my family- he wants me to be at the point where I can have a happy and fulfilled life. It seems so far off right now, but it is a goal, I guess.

My friend suggested to me writing some of the positive things down and keeping them with me to dispell bad thuoghts when they surface- I think she got it from her CBT therapist.

I tried it a bit yeterday. I was upset kept coming home and instead of 'bullying' myself out of it, I kept saying it was not my fault and it was their loss if they couldn't see me for who I am. It was hard, because I was feeling very sad and I usually have to deny myself those feelings to get past them, but I think it worked, to soem extent.

I don't know if any of that is any help.

walkinthewoods · 30/04/2009 21:32

I have dipped in and out of this thread but never posted. It's amazing really but you don't realise that your feelings changer over hte years.

Basically my Dad was a bully and my Mum was a mouse. Our childhood was not particuarly happy but not really abusive (or maybe it was?). I have spoken to both my ds and db since on various occassions and they had much more of a raw deal than me (I was my Dad's fav )

My db recently admitted to me that he wouldn't care if df died, this was after I told him I wouldn't care if I never saw him again. Only once he admitted that point, I told him that I felt the same and have done so for years.

Oh there's so much to tell, I'm afraid of boring you.

I remember when I was 14 or 15 (not long after my sister told me that my df was having an affair with her best friends mother..at the time I didn't believe her) my df saying to me 'You're going to marry someone like me aren;t you?' My immediate response was 'No way' Then recovered thro fear and fear or hurting 'I'm never going to marry'

Brings me onto another point. I will be getting married soonish (no date) but do not really want df to come but will not exclude him. And I point out that my darling brilliant dp is the polar opposite to df. And in fact I feel more respect and fondness for my fil than I do for my own df.

walkinthewoods · 30/04/2009 21:39

Oh and BTW we were never taken to stately homes! We were taken no-where...go out and play somewhere....laters!

So much I can blurt out......

BopTheAlien · 30/04/2009 22:52

Hi PO and Rose, good to hear from you both. And hello walkinthewoods.

Am feeling really crap still. Not too bad this eve, getting a break kind of, but still really struggling with the same issues many are talking about, having (or not having) space to deal with my stuff. Leaving DS with babysitter seemed to bring up a lot of abandonment in him and his sleep has been very, very bad lately, so that's counter-productive. But if I don't get any time to myself, I feel like I'm going postal. I feel like I'm just in so much pain I want to curl up and howl like an animal but I can't, I've got to keep going, and that makes me cut off from him and it's not fair on him or on me. But I can't see any short term solution.

AN, I so relate to the agonies you go through about your relationship with your parents, and the kind of contact you have with them. Although I have taken a different road. I did try the shallow relationship thing a few years back but it really didn't work for me, I just got more and more affected by it all, but I sometimes still wish it could work like that and I can totally understand those feelings you have of wanting some contact with them in your life, and you really have to do what you feel is right, somehow, although it's so hard to know what that is sometimes.

Today I had a moment where the pain of it all just hit me again - the fact they can just keep going without me and my DS in their lives, the fact it's not enough to pull them up, make them stop and reconsider anything. Sakura, you said about this too that they don't even reflect. My parents are so hugely un self aware. But they think they're so f**ing great and sorted. Why aren't THEY in so much pain that they can't function? why am i still the one carrying it? Why am I so unimportant to them that they can still carry on going to dinner parties and going on holiday and going to big family dos with big smiles plastered across their faces, even though they have no contact with me or DS or DH at all? They had one daughter who died, wouldn't you think they'd move heaven and earth to look after and safeguard the one they had that didn't die? but to my mum, as long as I'm not actually dead too, then I'm ok. she never cared about my quality of life, just as long as I was actually alive, then that was enough. For her.

Some days I feel so good about the fact i'm managing to "give them up", because it feels like the only power I've got - for years and years and years i had to take their crap and no matter how much I tried to talk to them and brother about it all, they never listened (because they're not those type of people, becuase if they were, they wouldn't have treated me the way they did in the first place). So i had the choice: stay in a relationship with them and go along with the family line, that there may have been some issues but we were basically a loving, happy family and they were loving, good parents, and my brother just "teased" me a bit - and the consequent implication that all the crap I've been through in my life is basically because I'm just like that, just rubbish, flaky, sub-standard, unhinged - or just inexplicable bad luck... Or - to stand up for my truth and say no, there was something deeply wrong at the heart of our family and YOU are the ones with a serious problem, and if you won't acknowledge it then I can't be in contact with you. My terms or nothing. I don't suppose I really thought they would leave me with nothing. My brother has never even sent a card for DS, not even when he was born. I want to phone my mum and say "I'm NOT a bad person" but I know it would be completely self destructive. I have to stand up for myself because no one else in my family ever has or will. I still think it was the right decision, because my life, for all the crap now, is still a world away from how utterly barren it was as long as I kept colluding with the bullshit, but god, I don't think I knew how hard it was going to still bite once I got here.

I could go on and on. How many of us live at bursting point? there are days now when I don't feel like that but at the moment it's almost uncontainable. Am thinking of you all.

Sakura · 01/05/2009 00:36

AN, I think you see your parents as cute and not that bad because you are a kind person with empathy. All my life I was trained to look after my parents' needs, be a councellor for them (and all the while they were abusing me terribly) while I never had anyone to talk to about anything I was going through. NOw I truly, from the bottom of my heart, pity my father. His life is a piece of shit and he is a woman-hater. And I feel so sorry for him. WHen I meet him (about once a year) he puts on these puppy dog eyes and plays the victim and its only very recently that I stopped using the human sympathy and empathy that I have inside me to see him as a victim, like he does. The way I managed to stop seeing him in the way he sees himself is because I remembed that not ONCE, not EVER has he EVER "felt sorry for me" in the way I always feel sorry for him! When my mother was trying to destroy my wedding i.e. my chance of happiness, he wholeheartedly took her side. I called him for support and he screamed at me down the phone for being selfish and not doing it their way. So all the empathy and sympathy he demands from me, he has never once managed to show it towards me. And the laughable irony is that I am the child, not him. So in reality, I am the one who by rights is allowed to be a little selfish regarding our relationship- considering THEY were the ones who chose to have me. ANd it IS a choice. It is ALWAYs a choice to have children. They owe us nothing.
My parents clearly felt a child's role was to fill the gaping holes in their lives. They had five kids! There is something not right there when people who were so crap at raising children just kept on having kids. I think thats why my mother hates me so much. Not only am I not able to become her mother and meet her childish needs, but on top of that I had needs of myself (being a baby and all!!) SHe has never forgiven me for not fulfilling a role as her mother. It tried my hardest, I really did. But now I have DD I realise I can only be a mother to my own children and any energy I pour into the bottomless pit of my mother and father is energy I am taking away from my own daughter. And I will not do that to my DD.

walkinthewoods · 01/05/2009 06:14

Sakura
I do also pity my Dad and his shallow life. He is so BIG on GRAND gestures but basically he has NO backbone, I am ashamed to have him as a Dad. I know that would cut him to pieces and I'd never say it to him.
I also understand your point of 'why did my parents have us?' I had this convo very recently with db. he reakons it was just expected back then and they were young and immature.
ds up now....

oneplusone · 01/05/2009 11:21

Hello all.

Walkinthewoods, your post could have been written by me. My mother was/is a mouse and my dad is a bully. I have written about how my mother used me to deflect my dad's rage away from her. She learnt to keep quiet when he started on her and as he wasn't getting the satisfaction of a huge blazing row that he was looking for from her he started attacking me instead (I was 10 when it started). And because I didn't keep quiet like my mum, because I stood up for myself, he got the 'kick' he was looking for from me and so he kept coming back for more and more. And not only would my mother keep quiet when he was attacking her, she would also keep quiet when he was attacking me; she never stood up for me and tried to deflect his rage away from me onto herself. She allowed my dad to attack me because it meant she escaped his wrath.

I think you are fortunate that you can talk to your db brother about it all and admit to your true feelings. I will also be glad and relieved when my parents die but I could never reveal this to my 2 sisters. They would simply be unable to process this information I suspect. My mother was ill recently and both my sisters seemed to think this would somehow make me come running back to the 'family'. They were both distraught at the fact our mother was ill; I couldn't care less if she died; me and my sisters are poles apart in a fundamental way. I wish I could tell my sisters the truth about how I feel about our parents......maybe one of these days I will.

Bop, thank you for your post yesterday evening. You have described how I feel so well, far better than I could. Particularly here "Today I had a moment where the pain of it all just hit me again - the fact they can just keep going without me and my DS in their lives, the fact it's not enough to pull them up, make them stop and reconsider anything........Why am I so unimportant to them that they can still carry on going to dinner parties and going on holiday and going to big family dos with big smiles plastered across their faces, even though they have no contact with me"

That is exactly how i have been feeling but I have been unable to identify and articulate my feeling until I read your post. For me the sense of being unimportant to my parents is something I realise I have felt all my life. Because they never made me feel like I was important to them. There are so many little 'clues' about how unimportant I have always been to them. Once on a holiday when i was about 8, soon after we arrived at our accomodation I disappeared by myself because i had spotted something I wanted to investigate. I was gone for quite a while and when I got back I thought my parents would be angry that i gone off without telling anyone, worried where I was, etc etc, but no, when I got back, they hadn't even noticed I had gone anywhere. And i was just able to join in whatever everyone was doing at the time as if i hadn't been gone at all. I remember, even then at the age of 8 or 9, thinking it was strange that there was no reaction to my 'disappearance' and 'return' on the part of my parents. But I can see now that for them, I just did not exist apart from as a mouth to feed and a body to clothe. As long as that was all I needed it was ok, but if i ever demanded any more than that, any attention, any one to one interaction, any effort from my parents, it was clear that then I became a burden, a problem, a person who was only tolerable as long as i kept quite and didn't ask for anything.

Thank you so much to everyone who responded about my issue regarding leaving DS at nursery. It is so comforting to know I am not alone in how I feel. I didn't take DS to nursery on wednesday and thursday and by yesterday evening I was ready to explode. Luckily DH was home early from work and I left him with the kids and managed to let off some steam by writing in my newly started journal. But the experience was good for me to realise how important it is all round that DS does go to nursery to enable me to have the space I need to sort my head out. I suppose I feel guilt also because DD never went to any sort of childcare until she started nursery when she was 3 whereas DS has been going to nursery for increasing amounts of time since he was around 20 months. I think my guilt will only really stop when he starts school in september 2010. He starts nursery in september this year (currently he is at daycare) as he is 3 soon, but again I feel guilty because I have put him down to do extended days instead of the 2.5 hours per day that is his basic free entitlement. I know a few other mums with children at the nursery and their children only do the 2.5 hours per day and it's only if the mother is working that a child will ususally do extended hours. So this is where the guilt comes in as of course I am not working and yet DS is going to be doing extended hours at the nursery he will be going to in september. He will be doing similar hours to what he is doing now ie 2 short days (ie school hours) and 2 afternoons. And I am sorry for going into so much boring detail about DS's nursery, but I realise now it has been a big thing for me in that it stresses me out, plays on my mind a lot and of course the incredible guilt I feel about it. Being able to talk about it on here is good and thank to everyone for reading and responding to me, I am really grateful.

PinkyMinxy · 01/05/2009 14:23

I don't have alot of time now, but opo my DS is in nursery school full time - 9-3.10. he lovees it. the places at his school nursery are full time. i could have him home more if i wanted, but he loves it and i have DD1 who is 2.5 and DD2 whom is 6 months at home and really it just makes life easier all round. i miss him, though.

Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is not accepting new messages.
Swipe left for the next trending thread