Our 5th visit to the Stately Home

[Nabster]

Here we go again.

Hello again everyone.

Quick update - after seeing therapist all feelings came out re my 'bad' childhood and I lost it the one day and confronted my parents. Felt had made progress, cried for hours. Next day nothing was mentioned by my parents at all.

I brought it up again. My D has now said 'we need to move forwards, how do we fix this?', typical man. I told him I would speak to therapist when next saw them. Saw therapist and D phoned me up straight after to ask how we could move things forward. I explained that therapist had said its not such a quick fix as that etc etc. My D said 'ok well let us know when you know what you want to do about it and until then we won't talk about it again'

Feelings wise I'm all over the place. Since first starting the therapy I have just gone really down hill, feel v depressed all the time, sleep all weekend (DP has to look after DD )don't want to speak to people, don't want to turn up for work (I have a stressful 4 day a week job and I spend half my time lying in bed rather than working from home) don't feel I can get through a day without crying. I just feel totally lost and drained. I feel like I'm having a breakdown but as Ive never had one before Im really not sure.

Thing is even though Ive spoken to my parents and aired everything they still say things like 'you're so sensitive' and 'well you always were weird' and 'you live in your own reality' and 'you're so hard to get on with' 'you were so confrontational as a child' (I remember being a meek mouse).

So now, sorry for the ramble, I don't know who the hell I am anymore, think I'm going mad. I want to scream at the world I AM NOT THIS WEIRD FREAK WHO NO-ONE CAN GET ALONG WITH, WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP SAYING I AM??????

I have a beautiful DD, a lovely DP, a very good job, my own house, a fab education. Sorry Im trying to justify myself now in terms they'd approve of. Am I happy? No. My friends love me and I love them but are they secretly thinking I'm mad? or hard to get on with?

Sorry, think I am losing my mind. Who the hell am I and why don't I know suddenly?

Hesdoneitagain - when I read the first part of your post I thought "well, that is positive that your father is asking you what can he do to help fix this?"

Is there any way to see his trying to fix it in a positive light? Obviously I don't know him or the whole background (so please excuse me) but I think if someone is 'asking' you what they can do, then that can be an opportunity for you to say "I need this/that?". I dunno, I just sensed some sort of feeling of the other party wanting it to be better and maybe, just maybe that can be a start, eve a tiny little start? If not, then what do you want him to ask you or what do you want him to be like?

By the way, the way you are feeling WILL pass. Honestly, it sounds like you don't know where you are at the moment and time will show you your direction, these feelings will pass, be assured

Hi HG.

Yes he definitely wants to try to put things right, he's said that and that is a good thing, far better than the parents that don't care. But at the same time he says 'We've apologised I dont know what else we can do, cover ourselves in ashes?'

And there's a lot of denial still going on 'you were a difficult child' etc.

But the real problem is I don't know what to ask them to do. What can make up for me having a crap ten years of my childhood that I feel has scarred me for life?

Any suggestions from anyone very welcome. Have no idea what I need from them or what will make it right?

I hope you're right HG that these horrible feelings will pass soon. I don't feel suicidal exactly, I just want to go to bed and put the covers over my head. Usually my DD and job obviously don't allow this but recently I'm not caring and am going back to bed on my day off and putting dvd on for DD . Does anyone know whether this could be a breakdown? I'm already on 60mg of Citalopram a day from doctor.

Hesdoneitagain, firstly, brave you confronting your parents, even if you did it in a moment of recklessness. I can still not answer the phone to my mum in case I have to stand up to her about anything, so you've got guts, girl.
And at least your D did not flatley deny all, or refuse to address things. That is maybe a positive outcome from your bold move?

Sorry if I'm getting it all wrong- this is very new to me.

I am starting to feel so much less fogged in the way I want to be with my children, and how I 'see' them. It's like having a really baaad hangover and fnally sensing the alcohol is leaving your system. We have a family event thing later this month, but I just don't want to see my family at all. Ever again. Is this bad, heartless? Or is it sensible? Or am I just being a coward?

Listen to me.

Yo WILL get over this come hell or high water. Believe me, I have been there. Whether you make it up and get over it together as a family or whether you never see each other again or anything in between, you will get thru it.

We have a way of accepting whatever is thrown at us and that time will come for you, but the essential word is 'time' and you need lots of it. You might need to compromise or you might need to change your expectations or you may need to walk away when no one meets your expectations. No matter what happens, there is always an answer and a point where you will just accept that this is the way that things are and that you 'might' not be able to change it. For me, as I've said before on here, acceptance is the hardest part. When you have tried everything else and there are no other options except for you to have a break down - you HAVE to put yourself first. You cannot let these people win. You will be the winner when you eventually work thru this and have your happy life that you have always wanted with or without them

In the meantime, there is nothing wrong with wallowing under the duvet. That doesn't mean life is over. If you need to step away and distance yourself from everything then that is fine and don't let anyone else tell you different.

You don't need to think about your next step straight away. Take your time and just let it come to you. Sometimes only time can do this, you can't rush yourself or push yourself. If you do that then you might agree to an unsatisfactory resolution where everyone else is happy that it is solved and you are left feeling empty because you tried to think on your feet. Take the pressure off yourself for a while, warm up the DVD player and just take the time for yourself.

Honestly, don't try to please everyone and think what is best for everyone else. Be a bit selfish and just do what you need to do for the moment/day/week. Anyone who is dependent on you will reap the rewards later on when you are thinking more clearly so don't worry about that. Right now, time is what you need. Pressure is what you don't need so don't succumb to it.

Pinkyminxy - You are not being selfish that's for sure. I'd rather clean a strangers bathroom with my tongue than go to a 'family' do and I mean that sincerely. Totally know where you're coming from on that one.

HG yup you've got the measure of it. The really difficulty is that the 'do' will be in honour of someone who has behaved abominably towards me my whole life, remorselessly so. And I am supposed to go through the 'he's such a great guy' routine again. I just don't think I can stomach it.

He'sdoneitagain - hope you don't mind me barging in everyone but what you say reminds me a lot of my situation. I too have had a degree of apparent effort on my parents' part to try and restore our relationship, and I really thought we were getting somewhere, but while things changed a bit on the surface, the underlying patterns and dynamics stayed the same and that was the problem. What you're talking about - saying "we want to fix it" but then still blaming you, saying "you were a difficult child" etc, is a classic case of mixed messages.

Sometimes I think mixed messages are even more difficult to deal with than 100% nastiness. If parents are totally unloving, it can (I'm not saying it always is, or that that's a desirable scenario, btw!!) be easier to see what's going on and to make the break. But when there's this mix of "we love you and we want to help" and/but "it's your fault we were horrible to you", it's a real head . The good part of the message gives you hope, and that's the killer - because you start hoping again for all the love you ever wanted from them, but never got. But then that makes you vulnerable again, and if/when they don't come through, it breaks your heart all over again, and you end up paralysed. Which sounds a bit like where you are now, IMHO.

My parents actually went to a few counselling sessions themselves last year, and afterwards wrote to me in what they saw as an attempt to put things right. Sounds amazing, doesn't it? And they had moved a little bit. But the absolute core of their denial hadn't shifted at all; in amongst the concessions and acknowledgements of some of the stuff that happened, there was still the essence of "but we were loving parents and it was all your fault really". One sentence went: "we found it really frustrating that we had to shout at you so much to get you to do as we wanted." So the verbal and emotional abuse that they heaped on me because they had uncontrollable rage permanently simmering inside them from way before I was even born (which my mother at least has admitted on another occasion), was not something which made MY life unbearable, then and for many years afterwards, but "frustrating" for them!! The trouble is, they really believe it, and I suspect your father does too. They believe their denial, otherwise it wouldn't be denial!

It seems to me that the question for you is what you can cope with at the moment. Can you cope with their continuing denial and mixed messages, say to yourself, well, that's just them, they can't do any more because they're limited in that way, but the relationship I have with them gives me enough to compensate for that? Or is coping with it taking energy you haven't got and need for other things?

I had to choose to cut my parents out of my life, for the time being at least. They were pushing me to the edge of my sanity with their mixed messages, because I still haven't recovered enough from my childhood and the subsequent nightmare adult life that I was trapped in for many years. I am still fighting the denial inside me and so I am not strong enough to counter it in them. Maybe one day I will be. But for now I need my energy and my sanity for my DS and DH. And me.

Sorry to have gone on so long, but it's quite complex, I think. Our circumstances are different - my parents made me totally dysfunctional for many, many years and I am only now starting to have a normal life, and it doesn't sound as if the same is true for you, so your way of handling the situation may be very different from mine; but I think it's important to be aware of what they can and can't offer and what you do and don't need. Do you need them to say "yes, we were wrong, and we really get just how deeply we wounded you, and we will do anything at all in our power to make it right, and we won't give up till we get there"? (That's what I want from my fantasy parents!!) Or can you live with "we've apologised and that's the best we can do; we care as much as we can but we can't change on any fundamental level"?

I found your post very helpful, seeing you in a similar position to mine, and I hope this has been of some use to you.

Pinky - In your case, I wouldn't go thru with it. That's just me tho and I am a stubborn bugger. Saying that, I've had the bulsh*t for too many years now for anyone to even expect me to make such effort. I guess I am truly selfish nowadays. I make the effort for the people who do it for me, for the people who make me happy, make me smile and for those who have my best interests at heart. Everyone else can beat it as far as I'm concerned. I'm past the point where I feel like I have to make any concessions.

Although in saying that I suppose I'd reconsider my position if it was an occasion where the person/host is really important to me and me being there was really important to them despite my misgivings. It'd take a hell of a lot of thinking about it on my part tho and a big discussion with the person/host. Just as an example, I don't have contact with my mother and if there was an occasion where my mother was going to be there, I'd say to the host "well, maybe I can take you out on another night to a really nice restaurant and we can have an extra celebration and you can bring your photos and tell me all about the 'official' one at the same time", whilst diplomatically explaining my difficulty with going to the original one. If however, my mother was 'holding' the celebration, there is no way on this earth I'd be going. I've just got to the point of not placating people anymore. I'm not hard nosed, just had enough of it to last a lifetime

Disclaimer: my way is not everyone's way, we all deal with it differently!!

smithfield The appointment was to see the mental health assessment team but when I got there for the time stated on the letter I was told it was an admin error and could I come back in 4 hours. I couldn't so had to leave. I was already booked to see my GP today and hopefully he will sort it out for me.

ActingNormal You are so right about being normal. For us to have a real normal life is a true achievement in itself. Although I want to do something "extraordinary", I also realise how fantastic it is that I have a achieved a boring, humdrum, middle class life. NO drama. NO addiction to alcohol or drugs. Minimal depression (which wavers, but is getting better bit by bit, I feel). Being normal is a true achievement. Its just so sad that we had to go about it the hard way. BEing normal comes natural to most people but others have to ACT . I think we are getting closer to stopping the act...

vonsudenfed fighting the invisibility is exactly the reason I write. No one can touch that world that you create. And no-one can discount it or invalidate it, because it is you. I felt when DD was born that my MIL had invaded me. I felt like she wanted so much control over DD and me that she was oozing out of my pours. She would turn up whenever she felt like it, invade my privacy, laugh at me, belittle me... It was when DD was 5 months old that I started writing, perhaps in order to purge myself of my MIL and replace her with ME. Writing helped me to do this. Now I feel "wholler" than I did before.
Also, I have a rich inner life and writing expresses this. I'm not just the "wife" or the "mad daughter" or the "unreasonable DIL" or whatever lable the people closest to me in my life want to put on me. There is more to me than what they see.

And I did rather well in that writing competition, by the way- results came out today .

Bopthealien

"So the verbal and emotional abuse that they heaped on me because they had uncontrollable rage permanently simmering inside them from way before I was even born (which my mother at least has admitted on another occasion), was not something which made MY life unbearable, then and for many years afterwards, but "frustrating" for them!!"

THis is a fantastic breakdown of the crux of everything. This, for me, is a sentence that could sum up what happened in my childhood and many peoples' childhood on here. This is why we have to break the cycle. We have that same rage simmering inside us-lets take it out on the people who deserve it i.e the people who mistreated and abused us, and not take it out on the little angels we have been gifted with. Our idiot parents couldn't make the distinction and thought it was their little children who were giving them the RAGE.

oneplusone I too confuse DH with my father. My mother is the main abuser in my life, but my dad was most definitely an abuser too. I always thought he was the good guy because I so desparately needed to believe there was somebody out there on my side. NOw I see my dad was only ever out for himself and thought nothing of physically attacking the small children in his care.
My Dh and father definitely share traits. One BIG one is the lack of affection and I have had a problem with this since I married DH. Japan is a country where people do not express affection. Mothers don't really express it towards their children even in public- there's no running towards their kids at the school gates and hte kids don't run to them. THere's just a little greeting. I think most British women would find this unbearable in a husband but I was well trained from an early age . But my exes were all very tactile and affectionate so I don't know why I ended up choosing someone who finds it so difficult to express affection. There are other areas where my husband's and father's personalities cross. But then in other ways they are so different. I have no idea if the things that upset me in DH are actually him or my father. NO idea at all. ANd I don't know where to start. If it is all my projection, then poor DH, he must be living a miserable life with my insecurities. But then part of me thinks its time I trusted my own judgement to a certain extent and there are things about DH's behaviour that upset me and that I am right to get upset about.
Just how do you know which is which? How do you know which things are in your mind, and which aspects are reality?

Hesdoneitagain - I identify with what you say about confusion over your identity and being told you're this, you're that and feeling you're going mad because you don't know how others truly perceive you. I still have no idea who I am. I have a very unstable self-image. One psychiatrist I had thought I have borderline personality disorder because of the way that I have been parented, as appose to manic depression. He said that I have grown into an adult who doesn't have the tools to cope with life because I haven't been given them and that I also completely lack direction as a result.

My mother even told me things about my physical appearance that are apparently rubbish. As a teenager she told me I looked 'heavy on the hips' and needed to lose weight. I don't think that was ever really true, but I have grown into a person who is obsessed with calorie counting - so much so that I cannot even eat properly when I'm pregnant. I am disappointed in myself that I can't even put the issue aside for the sake of my unborn child. Ironically, my mother now despises this aspect of me and talks about it with contempt. She even accuses me of secretly worrying that my 7 and 5 year old daughters are overweight which is a total load of rubbish!

I know it doesn't help, but I am spending a lot of time getting upset about how my parents seem to want to destroy me. I know it's their problem, not mine and I know I need to let it go.

dittany I have read your post and went off to have a think but I am aware I may say the wrong thing so I apologise in advance.

I understand exactly where you are coming from as I have numerous questions I want to ask my mother and don't know whether too.

What is worse at the moment - not having the answers or asking and either getting no response or she lies iyo?

My DH doesn't think I should ask my mother anything.

He doesn't want me to ask as he thinks she is in denial about what her choices have done to me and it won't achieve anything.

Could you write to your mother with the things you want to ask her, and try and couch it in a non accusatery way? That would give her time to consider her response and you will say to her in writing what you want to say.

This thread has moved on so much since I last logged on, less than 24 hours ago. And it is so good to see so many new posters, that means even more shared experience, insight and support for all of us.

Nabster, how are you today? I agree with what the others have said to you. If you can, please post as much as you can, all your deepest, darkest, fears, thoughts, memories and feelings. Get them all out. It's almost like when they are in the dark recesses of your mind they are very scary, but if you can get them out into the open, throw some light on them, break them down, analyse them, then somehow the 'danger' melts away. Regarding the pain, I have learnt through my own experience there is no way around, under, over or past the pain. The only way to move on from it is to go through it. To feel it. It is hard. I have cried buckets. I have felt deep deep anguish, felt heartbroken at times, but I have survived and i honestly feel now that I am starting to 'live' again rather than just survive. Like I said, we are all here to support you and like smithfield said, this thread has saved my life on more than one occasion.

Hesdoneitagain, i can so relate to how you are feeling. It is how i felt about 12-18 months ago. It was as if i had opened my own pandora's box and all my emotions had come flooding out and i couldn't make head or tail of them. I too wanted to sleep a lot, it was undoubtedly hard on DH. In fact as i have said in recent posts, i have basically neglected DH for the past couple of years. He has had to take up the slack in so many ways as i simply have not been capable of coping with my 'stuff' and everyday domestic life with 2 DC's.

This may sound hard to hear, but i would say to you give up any hope of your parents ever being able to 'fix things'. They cannot. The past cannot be changed. You cannot have your childhood back. All you can do is in the here and now. You can take steps to mend, heal and repair the damage done to you as a child. In order to do that you need time and space. To think, to reflect, to read the many books out there which will help you, to post on here, to see your therapist (if you don't think he is right for you, look for somebody else, the right therapist is crucial).

If you don't feel able to cut off your parents then of course it is your decision. But imvho, even a temporary 'seperation' will give you the space and perspective you need to come to grips with your feelings.

Bopthealien, i agree wholeheartedly with your post yesterday.

Especially about the 'simmering rage' on the part of our parents. That describes my dad perfectly. He was always 'simmering' away and would often 'boil over' and I would more than often be the person who got burnt. And i am sure my dad, should rightfully have been directing his rage towards his parents instead of me. But I am sure he honestly believed the person he actually hated was me. As like i have said many a time on here, i have grown up always with a feeling of being hated by my dad. And that of course made me feel there was something wrong with me, that i was a hateful, unlikeable person. And my sisters basically 'copied' my dad's attitude towards me (as children naturally copy their parents in everything) and they hated me too.

And during all this time my mother never once stepped in to protect me, to tell my dad I was not deserving of all his hate and rage. In fact i think my mother used me as a sort of 'shield' for herself. As long as my dad directed his rage towards me, she would not be in the firing line.

Sorry i went off at a tangent there. But i totally agree with what you said about our parents 'apologising' but being unable to change at a fundamental level. That is my parents. They have 'apologised' because i told them i thought they should, it certainly wasn't done spontaneously or voluntarily and the apologies were full of mixed messages like you have described. Luckily by the time i got their apologies, about 2 years after i cut them off (too little too late also springs to mind) i was no longer under any illusions that i could ever have any sort of relationship with them and so i just binned their letters without replying.

My therapist always says that the only way my parents are likely to change fundamentally is if they address the issues that they were left with by their parents. But my therapist says that the longer one leaves it the harder it is to address one's issues. My parents are in their 60's and it is basically too late for them to change. They are firmly and deeply entrenched in their position, and it will truly take a miracle for them to change and give me the acknowledgement, acceptance and apology that i want. That is why i know that i will never see them for the rest of my life. There is simply nothing there between us. They destroyed the love i had for them over 30 years ago.

I am trying to separate my feelings of depression that were already there and my feelings for my first love who came back into my life a few months ago. We have stopped contact lots of times but then start again and both of us are messed up as we want to be together but not as we don't want to leave our wife/husband.

He represents a happier, easier time and I am trying to just accept that and move on but I miss him.

but i am more in love with my dh than ever so no idea why i cna't stop thinking about someone else. I do think it is because I find life so hard.

BTW The GP was fuming at the hospital cock up yesterday and I have phoned today and got an appointment for this Friday (13th!!)

I wanted to say that I also suffer from anxiety although i think i have only just realised this. Some of your posts have triggered this realisation for me.

I can't find the post now but someone posted about getting anxious if people are coming over to your house. That is me and i have only just realised it. I also get anxious if i have to go somewhere where i will be in a group of people. Even if it's somewhere i want to go and i know the group of people. I think the only time i don't get anxious is if i'm going to meet friends that i have known for a very long time (ie over 20 years). At any other sort of social gathering i always feel anxious before and during and relieved afterwards. But i have only just realised this is what is happening to me. I think i know which part of my childhood this sort of anxiety comes from, will have to go away and ponder it for a while.

Nabster, glad you have sorted out another appointment. My thoughts, fwiw, on your wanting to be with your ex, is exactly as you have described it yourself, you want to go back to a happier, more carefree time. I suppose i feel like that sometimes, i was happy (or so i thought) when i was oblivious to all that i had buried inside me. I sometimes do think i would have preferred to stay in that state of oblivion, ignorance is bliss and all that, but it was not to be. Events took place which propelled me on this journey and the same is happening to you. You know you can't go back, you can only live in the here and now. If you take steps, as you are doing, to deal with the damage done to you as a child, you will be happy once again, i am sure.

Thak you oneplusone. The crazy thing is it was up and down, on and off and I spent a lot of time crying over him back then and have done the same recently.