Our 6th visit to the Stately Home.....

[oneplusone]

Hi all, took the liberty of starting a new thread. Keep on posting!

pinky I think the fact that you are able to see this from the outside almost is really really positive. And you are clearly able to spot the patterns, the cycles without just being caught up in them. So you are definitely on the road to breaking free - but it is a long and twisty road that often involves a sense of doubling back on yourself before moving forward so it's natural you don't necessarily feel any better at the moment....but hopefully things WILL get easier?

I know with my mum I've spotted loads of patterns/cycles and can see exactly what she's doing now, whereas I couldn't before, and it does make me feel a bit more in control and less depressed about it all, even though I know I can't break out of the cycle completely without provoking a huge family rift and robbing my DCs of their grandparents - that's the choice I've made in a way so for the moment I'm trying to cling on to the fact that I have CHOSEN how to deal with this stuff now, thus I'm in control (even if it still makes me unhappy....)

thirtysomething, I am sorry your mum is like this.

Does she separate out your children in the same way? MY mother has tried to emotionally blackmail my little children ('I won't love you if you don't hold my hand' etc.) and treats my son as the 'Golden Child' over my daughters, though she has hit him over the head before now. My father is just horrible and bad tempered, and for instance complains that my daughter (age 2.5) talks too much- where most people are congratulating her on her excellent speech.

I want contact between us to be very limited, but this is hard because they are georaphically fairly close by.

Do you feel down when you have to contact them or is it just if something bad happens? I ask because I still get anxiety at the thought of contacting them and I am hoping this will pass.

Fab Are you feeling low at the moment? I find I look for people/things that are bad for me when I am at a low ebb- maybe you could concentrate on doing something nice when you feel the urge to make contact? I'm sorry if I'm not much help.x

I am low and worrying about things.

It sounds scarily accurate.

I don't want anything to do with my parents though.

they don't want me but I wish I could tell my mother what a cow she has been and I long for a mum at times.

OM doesn't want anything to do with me, and I am just hurting myself.

I find I really don't want to talk about my parents and have never really thought about why. I have thought about writing to my mother but DH doesn't think it will help as she won't ever see that she did anything wrong and I will end up feeling worse.

That is how I feel. Like I am some dirty secret that has to hide away. I wasn't brought up with my parents so I feel like I have no right to be mad at them.

Years ago (18 actually) I did write a letter to my mother saying a bit of what I felt but I didn't post it. IIRC the main part was about the fact her boyfriend had vocally tried it on with me and she didn't believe me. Having being sexually abused by my foster parent I couldn't believe she would think I would make something like that up.

Will sleep on it to think about writing to her and then will have to decide whether to send it.

I always got the impression that to her mates I am painted as the bad guy as I won't talk to her, send cards, let her see the kids etc etc.

Fab I think that is at the root of a lot the problems we all have- our families have dealt with these issues by making us the problem- and if they can get lots of people to agree witht them it bolsters this fake reality they have constructed. I think they find it easier to pass it on to us rather than face uncomfortable truths about themselves or things that happened to them.

And I can understand it, in a way. See my mother is probably hiding some horrible truths about the relationship with her parents and I can relate, as I am having to face the notion that I do not really exist as a real person to my OWN MOTHER. As Opo says, we have to come to terms with the fact that for us there is no unconditional love. The only thing I suppose we can do is take comfort in the fact that we want to give it. I want to feel and demonstrate my unconditional love for my children, and I want to free myself from my mothers' toxic world view- her perceptions about other people, their motives, the way she makes everything seem pointless and nasty.

I feel intrinsically bad. I feel that at the root of everything there is me, the bad apple in the barrel making everything rotten. I feel that, but I used to think that, too. So this is progress. I still have days where I think it, too, but not all the time anymore, so I am hopeful.

Things seem vey messy at the moment. I have a feeling that thigns are about to get quite bad WRT my relationships with members of my family. Or maybe I am just hving those doom thoughts and I'm overreacting.

OPO I think I would agree with AN. I know that my DH says he's had enough of my parents, he just wants them out of my life- but I think he is trying to cauterize the wound where he thinks I am letting it bleed, IYSWIM. He gets frustrated with having to talk about the same things- how my mind goes round in these loops of thoughts all the time, but I think really he knows that it is not going to be that simple. I have been having those same thoughts as you- that he wants to isolate me. But then he wants me to see other members of my family, and he wants me to see my friends, so I don't think that is it.

OPO , Do you have any RL friends to confide in? This is a new concept to me, but I am finding that I do have friends who want to hear about me. It's a big step but I have longed all my life for friends that I could care about and would care about me and I just don't think I have ever dared to try it out, but I think it is reaping rewards. I have to talk myself through things- feeligns of rejection, paranoia etc but it is worth it.

Fabbakergirl, this is what you wrote :"Why do I want contact with someone who doesn't want it with me and has hurt me so many times?"

You are talking about your ex-boyfriend (please correct me if i'm wrong), but what you wrote applies exactly to me and my sisters. Why do I want contact with them when they clearly don't want contact with me and they also have hurt me so many times? In my caee the answer is, or was, because i had developed an attachment to my sisters in the hope that i would get from them what i was craving and what had been so lacking from both my parents; love, affection, attention etc. I formed this attachment to my sisters as the drive to form a secure attachment in babies and young children is so powerful. And if the ideal attachment figure is unavailable ie parents, an attachment will form to any other apparently available person.

I think we are both seeking what we were never given, me from my sisters and you from your ex-boyfriend. But the problem is we are seeking something from people who will never be able to give us what we need because it is not their job to give it to us and they simply cannot fulfil that role in our lives. So we are continually upset and disappointed by these people, feeling that they are always letting us down and don't really care about us as we care about them. But in fact we have become attached to the wrong people. Not through any fault of our own, but because our parents were not available to us.

In my case, i have been let down so many times by both my sisters and hurt so much that i feel in my head the attachment is gone. I now realise i will never get what i need from my sisters, and i no longer feel i want/need contact with them. I have given up tthe hope that they will one day meet my needs. And yet i do not feel devastated or depressed, instead I feel free and liberated. My sisters cannot hurt me anymore because i expect nothing from them. They cannot and never will be able to give me what i need. It was my parents job to meet my needs and if they didn't do it nobody else can. Except myself and perhaps in small ways other people like genuine friends.

Does any of this make any sense to you? Perhaps i am completely off track but i know how drawn you feel to your ex-boyrfiend and it seemed so similar to how i feel about my sisters; they are bad for me but i couldn't seem to keep away from them.

Sorry, I have jumped in without reading the rest of the thread but that line you wrote just leapt out at me. But AN has said much the same thing as me, sorry for the repetition.

But also what you wrote here:"That is how I feel. Like I am some dirty secret that has to hide away." Again that is exactly how my parents and now my sisters make me feel. As if I am the bad one, the one they are ashamed of etc etc.

I have found the only way to deal with it is to walk away and create a new life with new people who are non-toxic. Easier said than done, but i feel it is the only way forward for me. I have just had a tense time with a new 'friend' whose radar seemed to home in on me last year. I think she thought i was a pushover, and at the time i was, and i allowed her to get to me and she used me to get to DD who she wanted as a constant playmate for her DS who had problems making friends at school. I had gone along unknowingly with her agenda until recently when something started making me feel uncomfortable about her and her motives. And recently when i started trying to reduce her DS's contact with DD, her true colours showed and she turned into a nasty piece of work. I am sure she sensed i was easy prey, and manipulated me from the start. I was completely unaware of what she was doing until now but now when i look back i can see how she has been manipulating me. But as always my gut instinct was right, i had begun having doubts about her a while ago but felt guilty as she had not been overtly nasty to me. Anyway, she is out of my life now, although i get the impression that she still wants to be friends, but i will make sure i have nothing more to do with her.

It just goes to show that the minute i let down my guard, a toxic person will seek me out. But i have also made some absolutely lovely, non-toxic friends, who have no hidden agenda so i will focus my energies on them.

Have to go now, hopefully back later. x

You are spot on OPO.

He was the family I never had.

he used to say he felt responsible for me and is sorry he has hurt me

fab i could have written your post about longing for a mum. That is what is so upsetting isn't it...you feel wo cheated out of the parents you should have had....I think realising how different you are with your own kids to how your parents were with you is the cruellest realisation in a way, as it makes you so aware of the childhood you missed out on....and then absolutely determined not to emotionally abuse or manipulate your DC EVER!!

Pinky my mum totally favours DS over DD but DD gets an easier ride as she's ignored basically and doesn't get manipulated...DS thinks his gran is the best thing ever and is constantly disappointed when she promises him things/trips she's never got any intention of actually delivering on....and I can't say anything as I want him to make up his own mind what she's like; I don't want to influence him in his ability to judge people in any way (as I was totally told what to think of everyone and never allowed my own opinions/judgements to the point that as an adult I've needed assertiveness training and am incapable of ever making a decision as I've learnt that my judgement is faulty...)

fab, i can see how you are constantly drawn to the OM, especially if he says he felt responsible for you. I am sure if somebody said that to me, I would not be able to stay away from them, subconsciously i am sure i would think i had at last found my parent(s).

And like thirtysomething, i also completely know what you mean about sometimes feeling this absolute, even physically painful longing for a mother. I have cried over this at times, i have felt it almost as a physical pain inside me. In fact it is making me cry thinking about it now. It's a longing for something you have never had and will never have, yet this knowledge does not make the longing go away. I think in a small way it is always there inside me somewhere and becomes magnified at certain times. Particularly during school holidays when i know lots of mums go to their mum's house to stay for a while and be looked after themselves or their mums come to stay at theirs. I know i will never have that, there will be nobody coming to look after me; even when i was living at home my mother never looked after me. I honestly think i will never get over this loss completely.

People talk about finding it from other people, friends etc, but i don't think a friend can ever love you like a mother would. Not how i love my children, where no matter what they do, what they say, I will always be there for them and love them. Even with the bestest of friends, if you inadvertently treat them badly for example, you stand a good chance of damaging that friendship in a way a genuine mother/child bond can never be broken.

my m got pg to trap my dad

messed him about, lies, other men

said she would kill herself if he left her so he stayed and she got pg

i was born

m not happy as i wasn't a boy

her m wasn't great but she could have tried

she dumped me at the social services and walked out

i can never forgive or understand her

he cared

fab. Exactly. He cared. It was possibly/probably the first time in your life you felt truly loved and cared for. You very quickly became strongly attached to him. You are still attached. Therefore you cannot stay away from him, your attachment keeps drawing you back to him because you subconsciously feel you will get the love you need from him.

Your rational mind tells you that you must not go back to this man as it will affect your marriage. So you have a conflict inside you, your deep subconscious is telling you to seek out the OM because he may be able to give you the love that you need so much, but your rational mind tells you not to do that.

Fab, the OM is not your parent, just like my sisters are not my parents. None of these people will ever be able to give either of us what we need. And if we keep hoping for something from them we will be hurt and disappointed time and time again.

Finally, after months and months and months, I have been able to let go of my sisters and let go of the hope they will give me the love that i crave. It has been so hard and it has taken me so long to get where i am. But it is a good place to be in. I don't feel depressed as i thought i would on giving up the hope, instead i feel energised and free. Does my experience give you any optimism for yourself?

And you do not need to forgive your mother. Do not feel obliged to forgive her. Instead feel angry at her. You have every right to after the way she treated you when you were so little and vulnerable and innocent. Vent your anger at her (not literally but symbolically perhaps). You will be amazed at how you feel after you have been able to do this.

OPO

Thank you so much for your posts. They really do help and you totally get what I am feeling for this man.

Small but huge progress - A few days ago I had emailed him when I was feeling very low and . Only today did I get the read receipt and I didn't have my usual feelings about seeing his name in my email. I just deleted it.

I have got through this so many times but I promised myself it would be finished before DH and my 10th wedding anniversary. That is tomorrow, we are going away for two nights, and I am so excited.

Fab, it has taken me so long to get where I am today, literally months and months. I kept thinking, right, I have had enough of my sisters and will not contact them and just put them out of my mind. But i just couldn't do it. I did keep thinking of them. I was, even though i tried to deny it to myself, always anxiously waiting for some sort of contact from them.

Even now, today, i feel a slight sense of anxiety as i am waiting for a response from one of my sisters to a text i sent recently. That anxiety tells me i am still not yet fully detached from them. There is still some dependence on them from my end. The horrible thing about it is that I don't sense any dependence from my sisters on me. So they can quite easily not contact me for ages and I am sure think nothing of it. I am sure they are having no anxieties about me, if say, i haven't contacted them for a while. I haven't heard from my middle sister for quite a while, ever since i sent her a message where i was putting in place some boundaries in our relationship, for the first time.

And whilst i am not nearly as anxious as i would have been a while ago about not having heard from middle sister for so long, i feel inside there is a little bit of anxiety remaining. I want her to respond. I want to know how she feels about me as a result of my last text. I know if i truly was no longer attached and dependent on either of my sisters, i would have no anxiety at all if i hadn't heard from them. I wouldn't be worried that i had perhaps angered them, offended them, annoyed them by something i had said/done.

My levels on anxiety about them are greatly reduced, but are not completely gone.

I have realised that for me, there is nothing i can do to speed along the process of detachment and freeing myself of my dependency on them. It will happen when i am ready and my conscious mind is not the decider, it is my deep subconscious mind that will 'know' when i am ready to finally and totally let go completely of my sisters.

Fab, i am so glad my posts have helped you. Your posts have helped me too. Your posts are short, but so to the point. I tend to waffle on a bit, so i like your 'one liners' that manage to hit the target so accurately.

Fab, forgot to add, Congratulations on your 10th wedding anniversary! It is a milestone to be proud of, especially with all the difficulties you have been dealing with. Enjoy! x

OPO-I usually feel scared before I open a message from him but today I didn't.

AN - she has married that man in the last year or so. Actually you saying how bad my m was/is does help as I feel jusitied in feeling annoyed with her.

I have to sort the kids now but I will be back later to reread your last few posts so I can draw strength from them.

thank you opo and an.