Our 5th visit to the Stately Home

[Nabster]

Here we go again.

oneplusone the anxiety is me. I chickened out of going to the wine shop on my own today. There is too much choice and I don't know what to get that would be ok for visitors. Sounds trivial, but you would not believe the amount of anxiety and thinking I expend on things like this.

DH went for me in the end. He decided that having to speak to my M today about tomorrows visit was enough for me to deal with in one day.

I am worrying now because someone is coming over tomorrow evening.

And after they have visited I worry about whether I behaved well, whether they had a good time.

I haved tempered the prospect of seeing m tomorrow by taking DD1 somwhere she loves, and M will have to meet us when she can be bothered. I am trying really hard to assertt myself with her. AM dreading the family do. Have managed to avoid seeing my D for quite some time now. He couldn't give a fig about me or my family. I am essentially the scapegoat, barely even a person, to my 'old' family. I always thought of myself as a spare part in a family of four.
My sis excuses my parent's behaviour by citing that they had 3 young children to deal with. I have 3 young children at home and they are an absolute joy. Hard work, but a JOY. My mum used to pride herself on how well behaved we were in public. At the same time she used to say it was ok not to actually like your children. I wish it felt ok not to actually like my mum. at all.

Therapist asked me today if I could bring to mind any truly happy memory from being with my mum. I have some happy childhood memories, but they are not about being with my parents.
He thinks he can't help me with the bigger issues of my childhood, but he is helping me with setting some boundaries with my old family, and he may be able to help with my self-esteem. I may just have to see if I need more help when I get a slot with NHS therapist, but what I am getting is helping at the mo.

I am not really looking forward to remembering lots of things, if they are worse than the things I remember now.

I can truly relate to the simmering rage thing. My dad seems consumed by it, mainly towards me, it feels.

Yes, I have also only just realised I have anxiety. It has been such a relief to put a label on this. I panick in the morning as soon as I open my eyes. I've only just realised how frightened of everything, even making phone calls or answering the phone (less now that I know its not going to be my mother on the line screaming like a banshee.) I can step on a plane and travel to any country but I can't do so many simple daily things without this constant fear. SO many little things throw me, especially having people round to my home too. If you put a label on it it helps you get some perspective and be easier on yourself, I've found.

Only time for a quick post. My eczema flared up a bit again on monday. It has been steadily improving for ages so the flare up surprised me. I have been puzzling over what might have caused it, it is usually some buried feelings/memories coming to the surface normally. And i have been getting better at 'spotting' when i have feelings that are about to come into my consciousness and try to 'grasp' them and hold onto them.

But this time I seem to have been caught unawares, hence the flare up. This morning though a flood of memories have come back to me. Many incidents i can remember clearly now which i thought i had forgotten, all involving me being upset/teased/hurt in various ways. The memories date from before the day i have always thought of as the start of the abuse. They relate to the time before my dad started abusing me, but when my mother was neglectful/had abandoned me. Essentially i feel she abandoned me from birth, not by leaving me on a doorstep, but by just not 'seeing' me and being attuned to my needs.

I have also been wondering whether my trigger for becoming aware of all my issues was not the birth of DD, but started even before then, when i first fell pregnant. I remember when i found out i was expecting DD, i was in shock, numb and i never seemed to recover from that all through the pregnancy. I always put this shock down to the fact that DD was 'slightly' unplanned in the sense that i fell pregnant immediately we started ttc, and i had been convinced in my mind it would take at least 6 months to conceive. So i was in shock at the speed at which it happened. Also around halfway through the pregnancy i developed terrible insomnia which continued to the end of the pregnancy. Again i put this down to other factors, like DH being unemployed for most of the pregnancy, but now i wonder whether the insomnia was somehow also part of the process of memories being recovered from the earliest days after i was born. I say that because last night i felt 'wired', i just couldn't sleep and it felt just like the insomnia i had when i was pregnant. And this morning i had that 'flood' of memeories. I wonder whether the insomnia during my pregnancy was somehow my brain trying to find some long buried memories. At that time my brain didn't access any memories, but this morning it did.

A lot of my thinking is influenced by Alice Miller's 'The Body Never Lies', has anyone read it?

Sorry to post and run, i only have a few minutes right now.

oneplusone - I believe my memories were found when I fell pregnant with DS. Like you I thought we would take a while to conceive, as I have PCOS, but we fell first month. Whilst I was delighted and have always wanted children, I was also shocked and my anxiety was triggered. I knew that I didn't really want my parents in my life around this time, but I didn't have the confidence or maturity to distance myself. Thus I allowed them to upset me and it pretty much ruined what should have been a special time.

It is at this time that I began to really remember my childhood and their treatment of me and when DS was born it all became clear.

I will never forget dragging myself out of bed after birth, with a catheter and drip in tow (I had a forceps delivery) and phoning my mother. Not one ounce of joy or happiness for me was expressed in her voice. She was cold, nasty and unconcerned about the fact that I had been through a traumatic birth. All she cared about was that she hadn't been kept well informed about what was going on. I understand that parents must be on tenderhooks when their child is giving birth but this wasn't concern for me, it was concern for herself. We had phoned them as soon as DS was born, but apparently this wasn't good enough.

I will never forgive for that, ever.

I truly believe that being a mother is all I have ever really wanted and the reason I found it so difficult when DS was first born (PND, anxiety and anger) was not because this wasn't true anymore, but because it set me on a painful journey of discovery about my childhood and distancing myself from them.

I am pregnant currently and I know it will be different this time. I tried to live up to my parents wishes last time. Now I have the strength to do things on my terms. If I don't feel up to them visiting, then they won't be coming until I am ready.

Sorry to ramble but your post really struck a chord oneplusone. My DH is out tonight so i can mumsnet in peace!

I remember going to a 'family do' with my mother when I was about 8. Everyone was drunk, but my mother was wasted. Too drunk to be responsible for me. After watching her flirt outrageously with her BIL and fall into bushes on the way home, she spent the night violently throwing up in the room next to where I was sleeping. I was distraught and crying out. I didn't want to go to her as I was scared. I remember going downstairs to tell someone that she was ill but I got brushed off and ignored. She will deny this happened of course but it is a traumatic memory for me. One of many. Now I have been pretty drunk on occasions but never when my DS has been around and I am responsible for him.

Oh and the simmering rage rings a bell. I once had a part time job cleaning where my father worked when I was at school. He would get so worked up about how well I had done the cleaning. All about appearances you see. One night my boss told me not to clean a certain section as it was to be used that night and she would do it first thing the next morning. My father came home from work raging. Went to hit me but for once my mother made a half hearted attempt to calm him (to be fair she did try to stop him hitting me but would never step in and defend me against the verbal abuse). Why? Because I hadn't cleaned the section I was told not too and it would look bad. He said some vile things.

Did any of your parents read your diary? Both mine used to. I had no privacy.

roseability, what you said in your very last line struck a very loud chord with me. I didn't really keep a diary but i had written some letters to a friend about a boy i liked when i was a teenager. The letters were tucked away, not left lying about. Well my dad must have intentionally gone rifling through my things and he read the letter. I knew he had done so because he mocked me about it later, mocked my feelings about the boy i liked and basically embarressed and humiliated me.

Sorry, have to rush off again. Hopefully be back soon.

Hi everyone, thanks for all your messages, and actually thanks to everyone for posting in general as reading everyone's posts really makes you think and make sense of everything.

Anxiety is a massive thing for me, I have OCD. A lot of it comes out in worrying what people think of me, dreading people coming to the house, going over conversations multiple times in my head to check I haven't said anything that might have offended anyone. I hate going to nursery because I always think all the other parents must hate me (I have no idea why!), hate going to any sort of gathering and wouldn't leave the house if I didn't have to!

Just thought I'd share that, anyway I have another update to write which I will start typing now....

I think it is a common part of toxic parenting, to read personal letters/diaries. It is a form of control and manipulation. Your father should never have mocked your feelings, let alone gone through your things. Your thoughts on how your pregnancy triggered memories struck a chord. I truly believe having children of your own sets you on this journey and whilst it is painful, it ultimately gives you insight and allows you to parent better and break the cycle. It is painful but it will be worth it.

Did you repress a lot of this previously? pretend everything was okay? I know I did.

Hesdoneitagain - I definately go over converstaions multiple times and worry that I have said something wrong/offensive

So, update.

I've been trundling along, very depressed etc as I posted a while back. My parents and I weren't discussing 'things' as they wanted to wait till I knew what I wanted them to do to 'fix it' as I posted above.

Anyway. They have my DD on a Wednesday night and Thursday daytime so they can see her and I can work. This week we'd also asked if they could have her Fri night as its my DP's birthday (this is unusual we don't usually ask for babysitting apart from the wed night/ thurs day).

I spoke to my mum on the phone this am and (yet again) world war 3 broke out. She was making various snide comments about 'why don't you just pack dd a suitcase and she can live her full time' etc (this is a usual theme with her, my dad adores seeing his DGD and offers all the time to have her but my mom always moans in the background (like I'm deaf) about 'oh again ' and 'why doesnt she just move in')
and then the conversation went over old ground. 3 odd weeks ago my ExH (who was emotionally and physically aggressive to me and left me circa £60k in debt) came up for the day to see our DD (very unusual in itself) and picked her up from my parents. I'd told them the night before about how much I hated him for all he'd done to me and our DD. They knew this anyway.

So, when he came up they invited him for lunch. I was very very angry and this is what kicked the whole thing off originally. Anyway, talking to my mum today she said how angry she was that she was getting blamed over something anyone would have done ie invited my exH for lunch. I tried to explain if it was my DDs partner and he'd been abusive I'd have been waiting for him too, not with lunch but with a baseball bat! She explained to me it wasn't lunch it was a sandwich (at lunchtime)

Conversation went seriously downhill after that. I said I was fed up of their abusive behaviour in the past. She went mad at the word 'abusive'. I told her she was in denial. She said I shouldn't be speaking about private personal things to people (my therapist!!) I don't pay £120 an hour to talk about the bloody news!

So I eventually put the phone down after much screaming on my part. I have emailed them to tell them I want no contact at the moment and for at least the next 6 weeks. I have booked DD into nursery on a Thursday and cancelled DPs night out Friday obviously!

I feel weirdly calm now. Far less stressed. Very strange. Any thoughts?

Blimey, there's a lot to think about here, and I can't even begin to get my head round it all. So apologies if I miss anyone or anything out.

The anxiety thing is really interesting; it seems to be quite a common thread here, when I'd always thought it was just me (although if anyone were to meet me, they'd never guess I suspect). I don't know what it is that worries me. I think sometimes it comes at times of personal change, so I am worried about a new unknown future; sometimes I worry about writing (which is a kind of self-exposure), and sometimes I worry about death and dying, which is just being human I suppose. Has anyone here read Dorothy Rowe? She's quite interesting on the child's fear of being annihilated, which is very relevant for me, and I think behind a lot of my fears and my childhood, where I was unseen for a lot of the time.
oneplusone - I have eczema too, and it definitely flares up when I am stressed. And I think for a long time it was to do with repressed anger too (which is just what it looks like!). Right now my skin is just really dry, and my fingers split open which is quite painful, but it almost amuses me because I am quite literally 'cracking up'. The subconscious does love a good pun, that's one thing (amongst many) that therapy taught me.

I'm interested in all your memory rushes too. I don't have that at all. One of the things which got me into therapy was that I suddenly realised that I had a huge gap in my memories at about 7 or 8 - which was when my parents divorced [My mother was useless, so I attached myself to my father, which probably saved me, although he's by no means perfect. But when he remarried, he pretty much ignored me for 4 or 5 years in favour of my stepmother, so it was a fairly grim time. He never really came back.]
I can remember so much of my life before that, but then I have three or four memories for about two years, perhaps more. I have 'recreated' some of my memories - not what happened perhaps, but the feelings - in writing, but I don't think they'll come back properly.

roseability I really hope that it is all much better for you this time. I think a first child is really hard, because not only does it bring you face to face with emotions (and strange dark emotions that are well out of the reach of words) from your own childhood, but also with so many unspoken expectations from your parents - and from your family about what they will be like as grandparents etc etc. It's a foreign and frightening country. At least this time you have not only a map, but also company, because you're your own family now.

And I have a shameful secret to admit to, hopefully no one will hate me for this as I know how wrong it is but...

I'm getting a horrid weird satisfaction out of the fact that by me stopping contact with me it stops contact with their DGD who is the light of my father's life.

I know this is sick and it will affect my DD too as she's used to seeing them every week (shes 4).

I think its a power thing, I had no power as a child and suddenly now I feel very powerful. I think its gone to my head. But it feels weird its like - you WILL listen to me this time else you'll never see your DGD again. Now that's sick me using my child as a weapon

I think you have done right to distance yourself for a while. I have had many of these confrontational conversations with my mother on the phone and in my experience they just cause more hurt as toxic/abusive parents rarely admit they have been abusive. My mother told me she thought counselling was a load of old crap!

Can you keep distance while you are having therapy? Just peace and quite to work this through on your own.

I think you're right to distance yourself, as roseability says, and you are also being very honest about your feelings and the power play that is going on right now. But do you want - and more importantly do you want your DD - to be involved in this?

Would you think about letting your DH take her, just sometimes, so that she isn't hurt by the sudden separation.

That's a good idea. I think that would work well actually if DP took DD to theirs.

I think my emotions are all over the place at the moment and I'm desperately hoping that when I calm down I'll stop using DD. I know its totally wrong im just in a strange place at the moment.

I think I'm so desperate for them to GET IT, why I'm angry etc that I'm thinking of using anything to force them to understand.

I think though as someone pointed out earlier, I have to come to terms with the fact that they probably won't ever get it and an apology is not going to give me back 10 years of my life.

I also think that because they've been such 'good' parents in some ways, rather than out and out evil buggers, its so hard because you have the hate but you have the love to with an additional topping of guilt. ARGH. Rant over. As you were.

No, I'm with you on that - my parents aren't out and out evil either just desperately misguided (my father) and too damaged herself to love a child (my mother). I'll tell the story of my mother's childhood one day, it's the stuff of Victorian novels... But mixed messages - as someone said further up - are almost more damaging, because it's impossible to interpret what the hell is going on.

But I think you're right, they won't ever get it. But that's a hard truth to accept. It took me years. And the other awful truth is just as you say, that whatever they do now won't make a difference to what actually happened.

Vonsudenfed - you're a genius. I just had an email two mins ago from my dad, saying 6 weeks is too long and can we all get round a table (me, mom and dad) to discuss things, maybe with my therapist? Ive replied just to say its too soon for me at moment.

However, and this is where your utter genius comes in, he asked me if they could see DD in the meantime and I said yes, DP is more than willing to take her over.

So thank you, I feel better now I'm not acting like a bitch and also now I'm not using DD as a weapon. It was a very good suggestion of yours to do it like that.

I'm glad you are coming to find ways of dealing with your parents that suit you, hesdoneitagain.

RE diaries etc. My mother used to go through all my stuff. SHe still does a bit when she comes to my house- any correspondence etc is rifled through- I have to hide things.
My mother forced me to tell her a lot of things- personal, emotional, and sexual things that I did not want to tell her. She has no concept of boundaries.

MY brother used to read mky stuff, too and he would taunt me about what he had read. I had no privacy at home at all.

RE the family 'do' found out today from my mum that my old family have beeen discussing how we will get there etc.(dh can't drive at present due to op, and I haven't leanred yet) It is all arranged, apparently! No need for any input from us, then?? Big worry now as we could have no control over how long we have to stay or who we travel with. Jeez I can't believe I used to go along with all this CRAP.They also want to come for lunch near us the next day. Please God no. DH says no way.

Mum not overtly horrid today, as arranged to meet her in public place. But she just talks over me the whole time. Every time I went to say something to one of my children she would take over- answer for them, in a dismissive way, or just talk loudly over me.

She insists on feeding my 2 year old by pushing bits of food into her mouth with her fat fingers, despite the fact I have asked her repeatedly not to.

Also quite comical scenario where she kept grabbing the buggy and trying to walk me into the road to get control of the pram. SO I'm walking down the road pushing my DD along and this crazy person has one hand on the handle and is trying to push me out of the way. Can't imagine how it must have looked to people passing by. Tried to tell her to let go, but she kept doing it. The lady really is mad. I can't believe I ever thought she was normal.

There is a lady at DS's school who is very domineering towards me as well, I really struggle with this. I feel I have a sign on me, like a dog whistle- only visible to strange controlloing women. I uesd to attract them in the workplace, too.

I feel shattered after today. It is just exhausting trying to maintain any sort of boundaries with her (mum). I feel I have tried really hard today. But there is clearly a long way to go.

Under the surface I feel there is a lot of bad stuff. My overwhelming feelings of my childhood are of feeling scared, confused, lonely, and very ashamed.

I am, however, enjoying my children, especially my daughter, so much at the moment. She is very funny. They really are the light of my life.

I am seeing my present life in new ways, much more clearly. I am starting, tentatively, to see that it is not in my head, that the bad stuff is not all my own fault. Still cannot cope with people saying nice things about me.I just can't cope with hearing people tell me I am a nice person.

Had contact from my mother. She sent a letter to my old address and it turned up at my new house today. It said "I think its time we put our differences aside. I know we love each other very much"

I threw it in the bin.

Our differences:
She is a child abuser. I am not.
This is the main difference that springs to mind.

Regarding the "we love each other sentence" I didn't realise why it disturbed me but now I do. Its because she is presuming to know what is inside my mind and head. She is presuming that she has rights over my emotions and feelings.
There have been two hard parts to this journey. THe first was realising that my mother will never ever change. And the second was realising that she doesn't really love me. NOt really. Not like a mother should.
I took to bed after reading the letter. I was shaking. I had dropped DD's dinner on the floor. DH came and gave me a hug, so that was good.
I felt my blood pressure soar and I feel my blood pressure is still sky high this morning. THis is not good because I am pregnant at the moment and I know I already have anxiety issues. I don't want to be admitted to hospital to give birth because there is no epidural option in Japan. I really want to give birth at a midwife clinic. But if my blood pressure is too high I might have to be admitted.
This is all from one tiny piece of contact with her.
WHen I was getting married she fucked me up so much and put me through so much hell that if I had been pregnant I would have certainly lost the baby.
Cheers mum, but that is the kind of "love" I can do without.

onepluseone. I have heard of "THE Body never lies" but never read it. WHen I cut my mother out of my life, the digestive problems I'd had throughout my teens cleared up straight away.

vonsudenfend, that book by Dorothy Rowe sounds interesting. Could you give the title? I think thats how I felt yesterday when my mother wrote that lie about she and I loving each other. I felt annihilated. Last night I felt frightened. Of what? Death. BEcause as I child I was so reliant on her and she would beat me until I associate her (even now) with death. How can I child be sure that their life is safe when the person who is supposed to be protecting them from bad things is actually the one who is perpetrating the bad things?
And even though I'm not a child anymore, those feelings of mortality arise when I am in contact with her because she was so effective in making me fear her when I was a child.

Hello all.

I just want to say that whilst i probably won't post as often as some of you do, i read every post and its strangely comforting to know that im not alone in the feelings i have towards my parents.

I'm not having a very good time at the moment and i really wish i could move house. My parents still know where i live and this week i received a letter from them. I feel sick to be honest and scared, i had hoped (maybe naively)that i wouldnt hear from the again. But having read the letter then come on here and read some posts then re-read the letter i can see that it is all false. They are trying to undermine me as a parent and sometimes it does work. I feel like im not good enough for my DD and that i will end up like my parents.

I hate the fact that they seem to be trying to blame my behaviour (as they call it) on my PND. Now bearing in mind that i havent suffered PND for over a year now i feel that they are trying to blame me and make me out to be the bad person, its a ploy so they dont loose any sympathey with my extended family.

I feel oddly empowered that i can stand back now and actually see what they are doing, twisting things to fit their purpose and only caring about themselves.

The anxiety is still there but thats something i am dealing with. I feel more vunerable when im on my own but with DH there i dont notice the anxiety at all.
Does anyone else not really like going out by themselves?

Beldaran

My parents often garnered symapthy from people because I was 'different'. Anything I say can easily be written off becuase 'you know what pinky's like' Such a fantasist.

sakura that must have been very traumatic for you. But you are in control now, not her. I know how a sinlge word, a look from any memeber of my family can crush me. Maybe burn the letter? Not just put it in the bin? This may help, as the words will no longer exist?

I have lived around the people who abused me for so long now I think I have internalised so much. Therapist asked me how I felt about some horrid thing my dad did to me, and I couldnn't tell him. I don't really know how to feel.

Mainly around my old family I feel lost and insignificant, and the old, childhood feelings of fear, confusion, isolation. Lack of control over what is going to happen to me.

preoccupation with death, fear of death, fear of terrible and disproportionate retribution. I can identify with this.

It is strange, realising that you were never really loved by those who weree the centre of your world.

hesdoneitagain Except I'm not a genius, I'm just not in the middle of the white hot fury that you - quite rightly - are feeling now. But glad I could help. I've been reading some of the old threads over the last few days, and one thing that really struck me was people talking about dealing with things as an adult, rather than reverting to 'child' mode with your parents. It's really hard, but perhaps that's the battle going on with you - and when you are child again, you give them power over you.

FWIW I'd be quite wary of meeting them with your therapist - it sounds like a way of getting control over a part of your life which is threatening them. What does your therapist reckon to this?

pinxyminxy I am at your mother. I think I would have throttled her somewhere in the first half hour of that. You are absolutely right, she is mad - which may mean that normal ways of setting boundaries are like water off a duck's back. What does she say when you ask her not to feed your DD like that?

sakura. Poor you. But you sound like you are coping with it. And it's so much harder being pregnant - when I was, I was not even remotely rational and felt like I had lost several layers of skin I was so sensitive. The annihilation thing is very astute, isn't it. The Dorothy Rowe book I've read is Depression which was like someone opening a window when I had PND, but I'm seriously thinking about buying her anxiety book. Her website is here and there are some interesting articles on it.

The one thing that I don't have that a lot of you don't seem to is anger. And I often wonder about this, sometimes I think I understand my mother too much. She had a truly awful childhood, then her first child died at birth, her third was in and out of hospital and nearly died twice, and since then she has been a depressed alcoholic. I think she had very bad PND and never really bonded with me. But she's so damaged I can't - perhaps I daren't - get angry with her in case I break her entirely. So am I really not angry, or am I just suppressing it beyond all belief?

A lot of you do seem to. Gah.

I've been reading all your posts and thinking about controlling parents.

I wonder if some people's parents, because of their own issues, feel the need to control people and be the 'important' one in charge. When they have children they feel important because they get to boss the child around and control their life. But as the child starts to grow up and become more independent and have more control of their own this makes the controlling parent really angry! They can see that they are losing something that made them feel important.

They don't feel important in their own right as they have low self esteem. When their child has their own children maybe the controlling parent would like to think that they can't cope and that they need them to take over. So they try to convince their child that they can't cope and that they need them. They hate it that their daughter has taken over the important role of being a mother themselves and they are no longer needed as a mother in the same way. It seems like it is all about their need to feel important.

It seems that their reasons for having children are really selfish - they have done it only for themselves - so they can feel important by being in charge of someone. They don't care what the child wants or feels or what they are really like as a person, they just want someone they can be in charge of. They want the child purely to make themselves feel good, as something to use. They see the child as their property. They can't see that they don't own the child and that they have just taken on the job of caring for the child and teaching the child how to be happy as their OWN person in the real world WITHOUT being dependent on the parent. They can't see that they should be thinking in terms of owning the JOB of parenthood NOT owning the actual child!

My parents weren't really controlling in this way I don't think, my brother was the one who treated me like his property, to treat any way he wanted to make himself feel better, without caring how I felt. My parents were fairly indifferent and didn't even seem to notice we were there. I think the main thing my parents wanted was to be able to say to other people that they had children and talk about us so that they could seem normal and more respectable. They couldn't really be bothered with us at home though and didn't want to be bothered with helping us sort out our problems. They would rather we were seen and not heard. So they never bothered noticing signs of bad things that were happening to us both and dismissed it when I TOLD them about bad things that were happening to me and failed to protect me.

It often occurs to me that my dad might have high functioning aspergers syndrome. I sometimes get the impression he doesn't feel much so doesn't know how to be normal like everyone else so he observes what other people do and tries to do what he needs to do to appear to be normal like them. He has learnt how to appear to be normal but he doesn't feel normal. He is so controlling over our mum that she goes along with the way he does things. This is a familiar thing for her to do having been controlled by her father and having an inbuilt fear of ever going against the 'man of the house'.

My mum's 'motto' seems to be "Grin and bear it" (a phrase she has often said to me), and don't cause a scene, just keep everything looking respectable. My brother also taught me to "grin and bear it" by 'teaching' me that I was weak and beneath contempt if I cried about anything he did to me. So I have always acted like I was ok even when I wasn't. I have felt that being treated badly was ok because you were just supposed to grin and bear it and if you can't take it that is your own fault.

I agree with what people have said about finding themselves in controlling relationships over and over again as though they have "doormat" tatooed on their head or something. The sad thing is that in a way you DO have this! It is in your aura and controlling people have a radar for people who they feel will 'take it' and be too afraid to assert themselves. It isnt' your fault! It is because you have the habitual fear built into you from childhood that you have to do what another person wants or else! If you can somehow break this built in fear by processing your childhood stuff I believe your 'aura' will be different and controlling/abusive people's radar will not detect you as being someone vulnerable who they can use.

Although I don't wish it on anyone, I feel reassured by the number of other people who have anxiety. I don't feel such a fruitcake when I know there are others!

I've been stressed over having to organise my children's birthday parties which are coming up. The sense of responsibility (which most people just get on with and do it and enjoy it) really scares me. I know deep down that I am very capable, but the fear of not really being a grown up, just trying to pretend I am one but I might get found out makes it difficult for me.

During childhood, whenever I felt ok about myself and felt that people had some respect for me I would suddenly 'realise' I was being stupid to think I was anything at all when my brother found a way to humiliate me in front of everyone or my mum reacted to me with scorn or my dad reacted with indifference and annoyance that I was even trying to get his attention for something so rubbish. I didn't want my brother anywhere near my school friends because I felt he would make them think that I was a 'wimp'/uncool/a 'baby' and they would lose all respect for me. I still have a sense that people might be looking at me and thinking "Who do you think you are trying to be, I can see through you".