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

[oneplusone]

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

TRSmithfield, the book is the 'general' one, not the one about young children or the other one. Have you read them? Is one better than the others?

therealsmithfield - I don't see any reason why you can't say you had a bad christmas this year. you should call it as you see it.
Christmas is hard.
i have always found so. my birthday is in December so it's a real end of the year for me, also really rams home who my loved ones are. i always grieve for my ideal family. i used to be a terrible perfectionist, to the point where i had NHS therapy for it (CBT). Christmas is a terrible time for perfectionists! But your post made me realise that i have come a long way. because this christmas wasn't perfect by a long shot - i spent both my birthday and christmas ill, over a week in total. family relations with both my parents and my in laws aren't great. and yet i didn't find it that tough.

I did have a realisation though round about Christmas Eve, which was that part of the reason I get so anxious about Christmas is because I have memories of terrible Christmases. My parents being very cruel. In fact, my most traumatic teenage incident with my parents took place on Christmas Day (and went on for a while afterwards).

I did feel very depressed before Christmas. I felt that my parents have really fucked me up, and although i'm pretty fine now in my relationships with others, i have in the past fucked up many of them. and i can't get that time back. so i will never have the long-standing close friends i would like.

i yearn more for a best female friend or a sister than i do for a different mother. i really feel the loss of that strong female bond. i really envy people with sisters - i think in most people it creates an ability to make firm female bonds.

i do have lots of female friends, just none that are very, very close. i feel so angry with myself at all the friendships i have broken off because the other person annoyed me, or the few friendships i really focused on when the friend involved wasn't worth the emotion i invested. i really wish i could go back in time and change stuff, i so do.

spiky- I cant believe I didnt see it myself but I think this is why I felt low/frustrated. Your post gave me a bit of a lightbulb moment. It's that whole feeling of having to get things right. Christmas 'should' be perfect in my subconcious mind. Im sure the pressure to create the 'perfect' christmas exists for most people in some way.
I guess it is an even stronger feeling though when christmas memories are generally bad ones.
I think my mother probably let the stress and anxiety of creating a perfect christmas take over and so the build up to the day was always unbearable. Lots of fighting and shouting. On the day itself it was tense and felt disappointing. More so I think as I got older and was able to process it all more. The dynamic, I mean.
I wanted to ask why you feel that it is too late now to have the friendship you so long for?
I admit I am the same as you. I was never able to maintain relationships myself because of my black and white thinking. People were always classified as good or bad.
I think I close myself off as well because I need to protect myself at all costs. Something deep inside of me thinks 'well if I couldnt trust my own mother and father'. These issues with trust spill over into my relationship with dh also. I really have trouble letting people in and so I create issues where there arent any in order to protect myself.

OSAHM- I havent read either, but I am interested to hear more. I have always been attracted to the idea of budhism and I have made it one of my resolutions to go and visit the local centre to start doing the meditation there. My instincts tell me to do this and for once I am going to go with my gut.
Please write more drivel . I find it most helpful.

Interestingly last night I had 'resigned' myself to a less than perfect evening. Just me and dh at home. I cooked a lovely meal, lit some candles. We ate and sat and chatted. We watched a great movie, then said Happy new Year and had a kiss and a little dance . Turned out to be a perfect New years eve actually.

OH YES AND.....

HAPPY 2010 to all of you georgous ladies. The ones that post and the ones that read and haven't posted 'yet' also. xx

Happy New Year everyone xxxxx

TRSmithfield, thank you for your permission to write more drivel .

I just read in the book this morning that you don't have to have lots of spare time to do meditation on your own in quiet moments, but if you are a busy mother you can do the meditation at the same time as everything else! Eg while washing up, focus on the feel of the water and the soap and the temperature of it etc, or while you are walking from the dining room to the kitchen, focus on what each step feels like. It's about practicing how to be 'mindful' of the present moment.

The book was also talking about not trying to escape from negative feelings and thoughts that come to you as fast as possible, but to 'observe' them as though you are observing how your physical body and mind reacts to that particular thing. It helps with anger (eg at the children's bad behaviour) and distances you a bit from it so you aren't consumed by it and it doesn't kind of become the whole of you.

But you aren't denying it because you are still observing it and thinking about why the event makes your body and mind feel the way it does, and whether this is necessary, and what you could do about it to make it better, and what your children actually need from you at that moment. I can't explain it the way the book does but it did seem to help this morning when my DD was having a tantrum because she didn't feel her torch was bright enough and we couldn't make it any brighter for her so she was angry with us.

In the above paragraph I think the bit about whether the bad feelings are necessary is important because lots of the time we have them because bad feelings from the past have been triggered and make us feel/react in an unhealthy way because we used to have to react that way in order to survive, but it is no longer necessary because we aren't children living with our old families any more.

Hi all and Happy New Year to everyone.

spiky, hi, and I can relate so much to what you have said about wanting to have a close female friend. I feel like that too. I have lots of friends or casual aquaintances but not even one really really close friend who knows me inside out, who i can trust and confide in about everything and who i know simply 'gets' me and understands me.

I have realised recently that I have spent the best part of the last year rushing around (metaphorically at least) desperately trying to find and create this friendship i felt i was missing so badly. Something has changed now though. I have started to think that perhaps what i do have, ie lots of not very close friends, a few closer friends, but nobody very close ie sisterly/motherly is actually normal and very common. I constantly felt there was something missing in my friendships, but there wasn't; what was missing and still is, is the close/loving bond/friendship that if one is lucky, one might have with one's mother and/or sisters.

I realised that by feeling my existing friendships weren't enough and needing more and constantly looking for more friendships and more people in the search for that perfect close connection i craved i was actually preventing myself from appreciating and valuing what my existing friendships were giving me. My energies were going into endlessly pursuing the greener looking grass further away instead of appreciating the lovely grass i had around me, within reach. My search for that perfect friendship i realise was exhausting and stressful as i i felt i had met a potential new friend who might be 'the one' in terms of becoming a close/sisterly/motherly type of relationship, i then constantly worried about what i should say, how i should behave, worrying if i was appearing overkeen or not keen enough etc etc. It was exhausting and pointless. I have stopped searching now and am trying to appreciate what i have rignt now and nurturing the friendships i do have. There are some which i know it's not worth me investing too much time and energy on as i know we will never be particularly close, but there are definately others where it is worth it and given time, they could develop into aomething closer to what i want. I am also far more realistic in my expectations of other people and don't see them as black or white, i accept people make mistakes and might hurt me but that doesn't mean i should cut them out of my life immediately.

But the key, i have realised to feeling closer to my friends is that I have to let them into my life and my heart, which is something i have never done before. Show my vulnerable side, be honest about the real me, and it is amazing how when i have done this, i have felt so much closer to people i have known for years and years but who have always seemed like distant friends. Like many of you have said, i have always been scared of opening up to people, of showing i am hurting and sad and my life is not perfect, but once you overcome this fear, it opens the door to a new world where you feel less alone and isolated and much more connected to the people around you.

Am sorry for rambling on so much, having not been able to log on for a few days, i find i have lots to write.

I also wanted to write about the texting thing on NYE. Always around midnight on NYE i would receive and send HNY messages to anyone and everyone pretty randomly. This year i didn't send any texts to anyone. I think subconsciously i wanted to see who, if anyone would send me a message without me sending anything first. I know it's not really of huge significance as there could be many many reasons why people might not send me a message and vice versa. But i found it quite interesting that i got messages from 2 people who i do consider good friends and very late in the day a message from middle sister with whom i have not been in contact for around 6 months. I didn't get a message from younger sister, nor did i send her one. I haven't replied to middle sister, am not sure if i'm going to.

To an extent i am still a bit confused about how i feel about my sisters. I am far more detached than i was not so long ago. If i think about things like the 2 of them spending lots of time together and doing things together now they both have DC's, i don't feel as hurt or sad or left out like i used to; before just thinking about things like that was so painful it was unbearable and i would immediately think about something else, i could never dwell on such thoughts for long.

What i'm confused about is whether i am punishing them, by not making contact, for the fact that they weren't abused or neglected by our parents and have therefore not suffered any of the long term consequences of abuse/neglect like i have. My intention is certainly not to punish them in any way for not having been abused, but I do feel they are to blame for their thoughtless behaviour towards me over the years and also in particular for their behaviour since i decided to cut ties with our parents. But in a sense even that is probably not their fault in that their behaviour and thoughtlessness towards me was how they were brought up and they don't know any better or any different, so ultimately, their behaviour as a whole, is down to our parents and the messages they gave to my sisters about how to behave and how and what to think both in general and in relation to me. Is it my sisters' faults that they have been unable to develop any self awareness or insight or see the truth about our parents? I don't see how it can be. I don't know what it is that differentiates people between those who do have the capacity and willingness to look into themselves and face whatever they find there, however hard and painful that may be. I think it might be something you are either born with or not as the case may be. An inner strength and capacity that not everybody has, so i can't even blame my sisters for their continuing blindness. I have a feeling that no matter what they go through in life and what experiences they have, they will never develop any self awareness; it's just the way it is. I don't think every person who was abused/neglected in childhood goes on to develop a deep sense of self awareness and insight if at all, i am sure many such people remain locked into themselves and play out their assigned role for their whole life, without ever realising they are playing a role and not actually being themselves.

Some of you have talked about buddhism and i think the journey towards enlightenment is at the centre of what buddhism is about. Complete self awareness is the goal of buddhism, it's the 'nirvana' that is talked about. And i think it also talks about being reborn until one reaches that state of complete self awareness so in a sense some of us are more evolved than others. Eg people such as my sisters may need to be reborn and in their next life will perhaps gain some self awareness and self insight; they are not evolved enough to have that capacity. Of course it's all just a theory and cannot be proven either way, but it is one way of explaining why some people do make the leap from unconscious acting to self awareness and conscious behaviour.

Sorry went off at a tangent there. Back to my sisters. I don't feel i can rightly hold them fully responsible for their actions even though they are adults, because they have not made the leap of consciousness that is required and they continue to be governed by our parents' messages even though they do not realise this.

So, my main and only purpose in not contacting them is simply self protection and self preservation/ They are completely unaware and insensetive to my situation; i think they are unable to empathise with me, they are unable to put themselves in my shoes and feel how i feel. They are too tightly locked into their own worlds. But it is their inability to empathise which ends up hurting me the most. I constantly feel hurt at how they seem so completely unaware as to how i have suffered, and i have always blamed them for not bothering to think about me and my situation and show me some understanding and compassion. But i am beginning to think now that they are actually unable to think about me, as i am sure they are narcisstic to a degree. My parents are narcisstic and so have not been able to teach empathy to my sisters as they themselves do not now how to empathise, how to feel another person's pain. Because the simple fact is that if my parents did have empathy, they could not have abused/neglected me in the way they did for years and years and years. There may have been incidents of anger etc towards me, but i am sure these would have been followed by saying sorry and making amends as this is how a normal 'feeling' person behaves. Under pressure and stress even an empathetic person might vent his anger on his innocent child, but afterwards he will feel guilt and sorrow and remorse and these feelings will drive him to say sorry to the child and make amends and repair the damage done. In my case the only way my parents were able to continue being abusive/neglectful for years on end was by being unable to feel the pain they were inflicting on me. If they could have felt my pain they would have stopped their abuse/neglect as it would have caused them as much pain as it was causing me.

And I think the same principle applies to my sisters. They cannot feel my pain, not simply because they had a different experience with my parents, but because they are lacking in the ability to empathise. And whilst this may not be their fault, ultimately who's fault it is doesn't matter because their lack causes me pain and that is why i know i should keep my distance from them.

Sorry more to add. I feel guilty, i suppose that's the problem. Because my sisters are clueless probably about why i am distancing myself from them and not contacting them. But then i know trying to explain will be pointless and afterwards they will still be clueless. I feel bad not replying to my sister's text but then i think about how horrible they have both been to me so many times. But then is that black and white thinking again? I know i can't talk to them honestly and truthfully about such a huge part of my life, my experience with our parents, that it just seems pointless to talk about anything or have any sort of contact, even the seemingly harmless and benign sending of a HNY text. But i promised myself i would give myself at least a 'year off' from both my sisters, so i am going to stick to that i think, am sure they won't be particularly hurt or bothered by it. They are more likely to get all annoyed with me and self righteous about themselves and blame me for being uncaring and thoughtless towards them. Perhaps also if i stick to my guns and don't go running back to them at the slightest bit of attention from them, it might just make them think a bit more deeply about things. But somehow i can't see it, they will, like my parents, probably just give up on me as not worth the effort of bothering with for too long.

WTSAfresh, what is the age gap between you and your sisters? I'm sorry I don't remember from when you told us. Knowing the age gap would help me picture your situation more. If it is a large gap, is this a big part of why they are closer to each other and more distanced from you?

I don't think you should have to feel guilty for not trying and trying to get more of their attention when they have made you feel so left out in the past. What can they expect if they haven't made you feel included?

It seems like more of your parents' negative emotions were expressed around you than around your sisters because they felt you could take it more, being older, than the younger ones who would have been seen as more vulnerable 'babies'? I wonder if the 'baby/ies' of the family stay the babies even when they grow up.

Hi OSAHM, yes there is a large age gap between us, middle sister is 5 years younger than me and youngest sister is 7 years younger than me, and the age gap between them is around 2.5 years. Am sure the age gap played a part in us not doing things together when we were children but I am absolutely sure that the real gap between us was caused by the very different treatment we received from our parents and the consequently different ways in which we reacted to that treatment. My sisters were given no real reason to feel anger and hatred towards our parents whereas I was. And it is this difference which has been driving us apart for years and years, i have always felt we were apart but had never really worked out properly why this should be so.

I remember that for years the very reason i didn't cut ties with my parents sooner than i actually did was due to being scared about how my sisters would react. I always knew they wouldn't understand and would be full of condemnation and judgemental and completely lacking in understanding or compassion or empathy and that is exactly how things have panned out.

In 'Toxic In Laws' Susan Forward describes toxic inlaws as lacking the 'empathy gene' and I think my parents are lacking the empathy gene and so are my sisters. It is a crucial identifying feature of narcissm and holds true for all of the toxic/narcissistic people i have identified in my life.

WTSAfresh, I've been thinking about other families where there is a big age gap between children. When your sisters would have been very young and at a demanding stage, you would have been just getting to a more independent stage. I've seen it where the younger children get all the attention because they are more demanding/difficult to 'control' and the parents think of the older one 'oh she's ok' and just leave the older one to it to give them one 'less' to worry about and make their lives easier. The older one then feels ignored/unnoticed/unimportant. I can see how it happens but it doesn't mean I think it is right. The parents should think more about how they are doing things and how all the children might be affected.

Anyway, I don't know if this sort of thing happened in your family or not? But it could be one of the contributing/additional factors. Only one of the factors, I'm not trying to simplify it. It sounds like your dad had some mental illness as well and your mum didn't find being a mother came naturally. That is another unfortunate thing about being the firstborn for some people - your parents have more anxiety because they don't know what they are doing first time round and anxiety often turns to irritation (this is what I've found with my kids, I've been a much more relaxed parent with my second child than my first). Also I don't know about what sort of past experiences your parents had which made them the way they are.

I do think it helps to think about why things happened and what factors contributed to it (I don't think Therapist agrees with me). I definitely feel less angry knowing that the person who bullied me so badly had contributing reasons for doing it (being bullied/abused himself). Therapist disagreed that this should make me feel less angry. It's how I feel though, not how I think I should feel. I think knowing some of the reasons behind things helps you to know that it wasn't your fault, which helps your self esteem, it was caused by other things in people's lives. For me, I feel things didn't happen because of me being crap, which I felt for a long time - that I was crap for not being able to stop it.

Feeling strange today. Full of 'poison' - bitterness and anger, and almost 'depressed', but I have tasks I need to get done before tomorrow and I can't make myself do them yet as I feel immobilised by negativity.

I don't know what is causing it.

I'm having random images of people from the past coming into my mind and out again and negative feelings about them.

Maybe something to do with Christmas? Suppressing anything negative so that I could be happy over xmas and have a good time and feel that I have family without thinking about any of their faults?

DH has gone back to work after time off over xmas so it marks the end of xmas for us and I've stopped being in a 'jolly xmas mood'.

Or is it just hormones? Maybe I should just ignore myself.

I do accept feeling like this occasionally and my life not being perfect. I don't feel like this all the time. Reading other posts/threads I do realise that loads of people have difficulties/sadnesses etc not just me on my own.

It struck me, reading another thread, that children seem to automatically think their relatives must be 'good' people, just by virtue of having the label of 'mother', 'father' etc, and this feeling sticks with us to some extent. We then feel shocked when we realise that our relatives can actually be quite shit people and you can't necessarily rely on them to do the right things. It's quite an insecure feeling, which must be why children have an instinct for feeling their relatives are good whether they are or not, or the insecurity would scare them. It is horribly scary when a relative does something you know they are not supposed to do.

Is this how people function in life - by kidding themselves that the world is a safe place? It must be easier to kid yourself if your childhood was full of security and your instinct to trust the people around you has not been broken.

Is this why some people feel a lot more anxious than others?

How do you get back the feeling of the 'illusion of safety' if you feel it has been proven to you by your experiences to not be true?

I'm feeling particularly irrational about my DD's behaviour with my DS today. When I see the slightest hint of her having any power or control over him, or that she might hurt him, physically or emotionally I feel really scared and anxious and that turns to anger. I feel like I need to get her away from him.

I find it harder to cope with some days than others. DS stands up for himself better than I did though. He doesn't seem scared or his personality defeated. DD isn't doing anything really awful, probably nothing unusual for a girl her age. She isn't doing anything out of anger or getting pleasure out of hurting/controlling DS. I need to just keep an eye on whether DS is ok with the situation and try to relax more.

I'm not going to 'not notice' awful things happening to DS like happened in my childhood as this is one of my number one fears so I'm really conscious of it and looking/listening out all the time - probably too much - it wears me out.

I'm just trying to reassure myself a bit by writing...

I also feel anxious about material things getting broken or about DD taking DS's things from him. It seems like it would be really awful if something got broken, but would it?

OSAHM, it's hard when you feel as you have described. Especially after a period of feeling 'up' and 'good'. I've had this too, although i wasn't particularly 'up' over xmas so don't feel particularly down now it's over iykwim.

I just wanted to give you my thoughts on your post about what people to do avoid the feeling of insecurity/anxiety/fear that the world is not a particularly safe place and that even your own relatives cannot always be relied on to cause you no harm. I am not sure whether you are talking about children or adults here, but my take on this issue, on which i have been heavily influenced by Alice Miller, is that people use one or more of any of the following to try and avoid their deep seated feelings of fear/anxiety/insecurity (and usually they are completely unaware of their own feelings, the one's which they are trying to avoid): drugs, alcohol, food, shopping, religion, escapism using books, tv, films, computer games, radio, chatting all the time, etc etc.

From my own experience i have found i have the greatest insights and taken the biggest steps forward in my levels of self awareness when i have been simply doing nothing. When i have not been distracting myself from my true feelings by any of the above activities and have simply allowed my feelings to 'be' to exist and then taken a step back and examined those feelings, worked out what they are and where they are coming from. Alice Miller talks a lot in her books about how most people will do anything in their power to avoid 'being with themselves' alone and with nothing to distract them, avoid just allowing their natural thoughts and feelings to occur. Because those thoughts and feelings that they are trying to avoid are the scary/painful feelings of anxiety/fear/insecurity which stem from childhood.

I have found time and time again that even though it might feel very scary to let these thoughts into my consciousness, once i actually do so, my fear always melts away and i realise it was the childhood me who was scared as she didn't understand her feelings and had nobody to talk to about them who would help her deal with her fears, but the adult me has so many tools at my disposal to make sense of my feelings.

Sorry think i am rambling now, will stop.

Also what you say about feeling over-anxious about your DD's behaviour towards your DS is something i can very much relate to. Not in exactly the same way. I am over anxious about how my DH behaves with my DC's. But the parallels are there. In my case it was my dad who was the one causing the harm and i know that is why i am very sensetive to the way DH interacts with the DC's. I also want to be the polar opposite of my own mother who turned a blind eye to all the abuse i suffered and i always make a point of mentioning to DH if i am concerned about his behaviour in any way. Eg. recently DH was taking the DC's to the park. He helped DD with the zip on her coat and DD being DD didn't look up when she was told to and consequently her neck got caught in the zip and she had a tiny scratch. I didn't see what had happened, i only saw the scratch when they came back. I spoke to DH about it and of course it was a complete accident and there was nothing sinister behind it, but i felt i had to ask DH how DD got the scratch if only to make sure he knew that i was there, watching and listening, looking out for my DC's. I think DH realises why i am like this and doesn't react badly to being questioned by me in this way, but it makes me feel good to know that i don't just know in my head i am different and better than my mother, i am actually following it through with my actions. The first few times i spoke to DH about things i was concerned about i was quite scared and it gave me a bit of insight into the fear my mother must have felt about talking to my dad in the same way. But i overcame my fear, perhaps because my fear simply was not as great as the fear my mother must have felt because DH and my dad are such different men, my dad was a psychotic monster, DH is calm, kind, consistent and reasonable. But even so, no matter how great her fear, my mother should have found the courage to overcome it instead of using me to stop herself from being burnt by the hot floor.

Thank you WTSAfresh. It feels really nice that someone has tried to say something to help me. Even if what you wrote made no sense (which isn't the case) it still makes me feel better.

It does make sense though. Let oneself feel it all so that your mind/body is 'free' to work on it and heal it. It does say this sort of thing in the book I'm reading but it is hard to remember to DO it. It helps me when someone puts it in different words or simpler words though.

Your DH sounds really good in his ability to understand why you would question him, and letting you do this, which seems to help 'heal' you, by showing yourself that you can do things differently to your mother. And it is good that you have chosen a partner who is calm and kind and not likely to do the things your dad did as people often end up with people similar to their parents.

I had another thought after my last explosion of verbal diarrohea which seems to be helping. My anxiety about the children makes me feel I have to leap up and do something about it as soon as I detect that they are less than contented or DD is doing anything remotely controlling towards DS. I feel anxious that I must do something about everything and be completely opposite to my parents, but I think I might go too far the other way, which could also be harmful. The book I'm reading says if we protect children from feeling any negative feelings at all they will not learn how to deal with negative feelings and then what is going to happen in later life when I can't 'fix' everything for them.

Well then I thought, what if I try to scale my anxiety down a bit by instead of thinking I must always DO something about every situation, just MONITORING and evaluating each situation instead and concentrating on making a good judgement as to whether, and how, I need to intervene or not.

I am also gradually believing what my logic tells me, that my feeling that the same things that happened to me are LIKELY to happen to my children is not true because what happened to me was not usual for most people. The fact that one of the perpetrators is now in prison must be proof that he was not normal and the majority of people don't have a sibling like him who is 'bad' enough to end up in prison. My DD is NOT likely to be like him towards my DS.

I think my anxiety might be worse today because DH has gone back to work after having time off. When he is here as well I feel that it isn't just me making sure and monitoring that nothing bad is happening to the children and I don't feel such a huge weight of responsibility. When he goes back to work I feel dread that what if I can't cope with it on my own. I think I feel the responsibility is heavier than it actually is because of the feeling that bad things are LIKELY to happen to the children which I need to protect them from. If I can really beat this feeling that bad things are likely I think I'll find my life less tiring and stressful.

Realising and accepting that things weren't normal seems such an important thing for people on here I think.

OSAHM, when you talk about images coming into your mind, can you 'capture' them and examine them and examine your feelings about them?

And I can totally relate to your feeling of paralysis whilst you are dealing with some emotional stuff that has come to the surface. I have this too, i suddenly need to sleep all the time and cannot get on with things when i have emotional stuff to process. But sometimes i am not even aware there is stuff coming to the surface because life around me is so 'busy' ie DC's around, background noise etc. Only when it's quite and i am alone can i tune into what is going on with me. I suppose it's my own version of meditation, being quite and still and lets my thoughts and feelings wash over me and not getting distracted by the outside world. I realise i have been meditating in this way regularly without even knowing it. At least now i can tell DH that i am going off to meditate when i feel the need to go into the bedroom and lock myself away from everyone for a while.

My energy always returns once i have processed my emotions and I feel sure the same will happen with you.

Recently i have had a lot of realisations about just how bad my whole family made me feel about my eczema which is ironic really as my parents are the ones who caused it in the first place. They made me feel as if they were ashamed of me because of my condition, my dad made me feel as if i was inferior and not as good as my sisters because of it and that i deserved less than them because of it and in fact on one occasion he actually told me this quite openly. They made me feel i was a less valuable person and less worthwhile and my sister openly told me how she resented having had to tiptoe around me because of it (although i certainly don't remember any tiptoeing around on her part, in fact she used to taunt me and mock me and call me nasty horrible names because of my eczema); i wish now i had questioned her about that and asked her exactly how she had tiptoed around me as she claims to have done.

In fact it was people outside my family, friends mainly i suppose, who seemed to be able to see past my condition and see the person i was inside and appreciate and value me for the qualities i had. All my family ever did was make it clear i was inferior and worthless purely because of my eczema. I know though that regardless of my condition, my family would have thought i was worthless anyway and would not have been able to see the real me because of their own narcissistic traits, the eczema was almost like some sort of proof in their eyes that they were right about me, that i was rubbish, inferior, bad.

Realising all this made me feel fresh anger towards all of them. I found myself getting disproportionatly angry at DS for things that he always done which i always find irritating and annoying but at which i have never before got really angry about. I knew almost straightaway that he was triggering me and i walked away til i calmed down. I have found that if there is anger inside me, almost anything can trigger it, the present day situation need have no bearing at all upon what happened to me in the past, it just needs the tiniest random irritation to trigger the anger hovering just below the surface. I do my best to stuff down the anger, especially if the DC's are around and there is no safe way of releasing it, but all it needs is a trigger and if i have been trying to suppress it for a while and the pressure is building up, a hair trigger will be enough to release it.

It brings to mind the tv programme that used to be on years ago called The Incredible Hulk where he used to suddenly get really really angry and blow up, but otherwise be an ordinary reasonable sort of guy. That programme could have been based on me not that long ago when i just used to explode. Thankfully it happens rarely if ever now.

Anyway, realising and remembering all the horrible stuff about my eczema and the way my family treated me has renewed my resolve to not contact any of them or respond to my sisters if they contact me. I am sure the complete break from them all will do me the world of good.

OSAHM, i am sure your anxiety about your own DC's is normal for you, given your particular childhood experience. Perhaps the fact that you feel such a degree of anxiety that it is hindering your day to day life might mean that you still have unresolved stuff to deal with about what you went through? I know you have come a long way, but i have learnt that there is unfortunately always just a little bit more work to be done. Again like Alice Miller said, the work on oneself is 'neverending' and i don't think she was exaggerating. It probably is not as intense and all consuming as time goes on but i doubt if there ever comes a day that i can say "That's it, I'm done" and not ever have to deal with this stuff again.

Sorry just a bit more to add, again wrt my eczema which i know most of you cannot relate to. It's a strange thing this condition because although mostly i hate it, wish i didn't have it and feel it is hindering my life in a big way, i think there is also a part of me that is actually scared of what would happen if it did suddenly clear up completely. I feel i almost hide behind it and use it as a reason to not fully be myself and not fully achieve my potential. If it was gone i would then have no excuse and it would just be down to me if i was still useless/incapable, had difficulty making friends or pursuing a successful career etc etc. On the one hand it makes me feel very depressed and down and held back but on the other hand i am scared of no longer having any excuse for not being able to do x,y or z.

In a strange way, it seems to be similar to a situation where somebody is captured and tortured and hate their torturer but at the same time also feel they love their torturer and feel dependent on them and don't actually want to leave when they are set free. There is a name for this particular psychological condition, although i can't remember it right now.

Being busy does make it difficult to find time to make sense of things, which is another reason I'm having too many thoughts today - because DH has gone back to work there is one less person to think about and thoughts are coming into the 'space' he has made. There isn't quite enough space though so I'm getting irritable and finding it hard to focus on tasks I need to do.

When you talk about the eczema issue I'm imagining your parents being something like mine in that maybe they wanted to give off the image of a perfect family with no problems and a physical problem with one of the children (your eczema) might have been uncomfortable for them. I see this as being so weak. They should have felt sorry for you, not for themselves. It sounds like they made you feel like there was something wrong with you as a person just because you had a health problem.

Is this a bigger part of things than you thought - the divide between you and your sisters? - because you were not only separated because of the age gap but because you were made to feel inferior to them by having eczema also. It sounds like your dad made you feel this and your sisters made you feel this as well without your parents trying to stop them/educate them about it. A health problem does not make you an inferior person.

I think I have probably saved up some aspects of xmas day with my parents that I felt uncomfortable with but was delaying thinking about. My brother phoned earlier and asked me about my visit to our parents and I found myself talking and talking and pouring things out and feeling some relief. I didn't realise I had such a need to talk about it. He knows exactly what I mean having had the same parents and recognised the feelings in all that I was saying. I felt heard and a bit relieved. It's weird to feel 'helped' by one of the people who was bad during my childhood.

The things that I was uncomfortable about on the visit, I could cope with well as an adult, but I think it is the thought that this is how it always was, throughout childhood, and a child finds it harder to deal with those things and the sadness and bitterness about how it was throughout childhood and that it is no wonder I didn't turn out completely normal. At first I find their 'ways' on a visit funny and then I think well it wasn't really funny for me to grow up with these ways though and has caused lots of difficulties in my life, then I start to feel a bit angry - but have tried to suppress this. After all, I don't need the same things from them now as I did as a child so it doesn't matter surely? They can be adequate (ish) as grandparents (even though they mostly ignored the kids this time), but more was required of them when they were parents of us as children living at home.

I suppose it was illuminating how DH was surprised about certain things in their house and a bit annoyed - which is proof that those things aren't good/normal? But I wasn't surprised, as it was what I was used to and what I expected and I have normalised it in my mind. After the visit I have the gradual realisation of not having been happy with things and those things not being normal which gradually breaks through the denial I try to have because I want to feel that everything was good.

Waves can I join this thread?

I totally relate to SpikySauce my birthday is near Christmas and every year my parents managed to make me cry until I was 29 and met my partner.

NoLongerStrivesToBePerfectTiggaxx

Hi Dawntigga. Are you 'over' this year's xmas and birthday yet? How long does it normally take before you feel back to normal?

Do you feel able to write about what happens at these times?

When I've talked about things that happened the impression must be that the worst things were sexual abuse from grandfather and other sexual incidents, and bullying from brother (which therapist calls abuse), but the way my parents were was very damaging as well. The problem is that it is so hard to describe the way they were so that people will understand and this feels frustrating. My brother agrees and says that they had no bad intentions but made some big failings which had a bad effect nevertheless. He understands what it was like and DH seems to have some understanding, having visited them with me lots of times. Trying to put this into words in my head seems to be what is bothering me at the moment (not sure why my brain is choosing now to focus on them). DH didn't seem confused about what was 'wrong' with them, he simply said "They don't do normal things that other people do and they don't live in the real world". I bet that doesn't sound very bad to anyone does it! I feel like I'm whinging about nothing if I talk about it so I've probably focussed on the things that people find more obviously bad when I've talked about it before.

I've been thinking how to describe my parents.

My dad seems to me, to show a lot of signs of having Aspergers syndrome. He has always been very uncomfortable with people showing emotion, which made us as children feel it was wrong to express ourselves. It seemed to really irritate him and his disapproval is something we both seem to really fear.

Our mum is completely dominated by him, not physically, but her own unique character seems crushed. She is scared to have an opinion on anything. When she speaks he seems to immediately react with irritation and as though what she has said is utterly stupid. She doesn't speak much when he is around. He just starts talking about something he finds interesting, at length, and other people pretend to be interested while being bored, but can't get a word in to change the subject.

Our dad dictates what they are both going to do, where they are going to go on holiday (booking it without even discussing it with her), what they are going to watch on tv etc. She just does as she is told.

She is scared of his disapproval, eg saying things like "stop talking about it now, your dad's coming", when we aren't even talking about anything controversial. Or "your dad wouldn't approve of this" in a scared warning voice to make sure we don't do that particular thing ever in front of him, eg eat a certain type of food in a cafe I took her to once. She was scared when he wasn't even in the same town.

Our mum made us feel we shouldn't say much about anything 'human' in front of him because she was scared of him getting annoyed by it, therefore she got annoyed if we talked to her about any problems because she was scared of him finding out and being annoyed. She would rather we didn't say it at all. It wasn't just big personal stuff she was scared of him hearing eg when I told her that her father was doing inappropriate things to me, it was normal, 'human' things that you wouldn't think were embarrassing or controversial or whatever as well. So we grew up feeling very awkward about a lot of very normal human feelings and everyday things that were part of other people's lives and families. They made us feel these things were 'embarrassing' is the only word I can think of right now.

If talking about normal things in front of our dad scared our mum you can imagine how unacceptable she found it when I told her that her father was abusing me and my brother was bullying me. She just tried to shut me up as fast as possible and ignore it and discourage me from mentioning it again. I despise/am disgusted by her for her weakness yet I am starting to see how damaged she was by my dad which made it very difficult for her.

We didn't seem to do the normal things that other families did - I'm not even sure what these things are but I just feel a massive difference when I'm with DH's family and can relax and have a laugh and we all seem interested in each other as equals and do things we find fun together. I think I'm feeling all this right now because I spent xmas day with my parents and their were 'weirdnesses' about it, then spent some time with DH's family straight after and the contrast was striking.

In my parents house I felt scared about making them cross in some way and felt that I had to keep the children quiet and calm so my dad could get on with doing his own thing which he would have done if we hadn't been there. I feel stupid when I talk to my dad and start getting my words mixed up and sounding thick etc because I'm tense. I watch what words I use and what I talk about and worry about whether he approves of me or not. His disapproval frightens me and I don't know why. I'm not scared like this at all with DH's family. I accidentally dented FIL's car once and how scared I felt of what he would say was only a fraction of how scared I am in my parents house just of saying the wrong thing! My brother also agrees that he felt scared of our dad as a child and still scared of him when he visited as an adult yet we don't really know why we are scared because he was never violent or anything. I think it is a fear which must come from early childhood when we wanted to be loved and it was painful to get either NO reaction and be ignored or an intensely irritated reaction. It hurt a lot when we were vulnerable and the fear stayed with us through early childhood conditioning. We've both always desperately wanted to impress our dad but never felt we managed to. I'm ashamed to say my mum's opinion has meant nothing to me and I've dismissed her probably as much as my dad has.

We felt separated and isolated from other people because of the way my parents were when we were children and found it hard to relate to them or feel that they felt we were normal. Other school children treated us like we were different. My brother was bullied but wasn't 'allowed' to talk about that at home and get any help. He was abused outside the home and didn't talk about that either. Instead of getting any help with his feelings, he turned the negativity onto me and copied what had been done to him and did it to me.

It is hard to explain what I mean when I say we didn't do 'normal' things in our family. I wonder if the description of present opening on xmas day this year would illustrate it a bit. My parents both looked very uncomfortable and ill at ease about the whole thing so I took over the role of handing them all out, even the ones that were from them and tried to ignore their tenseness and be jolly about it for the kids. They showed no reaction to my children's excitement at opening their presents and opened their own presents without saying anything. It is hard to know if they like what they have got or not. I don't ask them as they seem embarrassed about the whole thing. My dad then started to fall asleep despite all the children's noise and excitement around him. My mum tried to give him some presents from herself and from people who live near them and he looked angry about her keeping him awake. He had no interest in opening the presents. He did eventually but looked like he was doing it because he had to. He was irritable, my mum was tense and scared of him and I was trying hard to not feel tense as well. It just felt uncomfortable though.

His wife, my mum - must just want to share xmas with him and enjoy it like any other couple, with a bit of affection, but she doesn't get any of this from him and it is a sad thing to see. When we were children we would have wanted to have happy jolly times like xmas etc together but everything just felt awkward and tense instead of fun and warm like the glimpses we got of other people's families.

Another example, one of loads, my DD was going round in the morning giving everyone stickers she had made by drawing on post-it notes. She said they were breakfast stickers and anyone who had one could have breakfast. She asked each person what they wanted for breakfast and what colour sticker they wanted and it was her cute little game. When I went into the other room I saw that the kids had stuck multiple stickers on him with sad faces on and I asked DD what it was about. She said they had given him grumpy stickers. I asked my dad why. He said in an annoyed voice, "I didn't WANT to choose what colour sticker I wanted, and I didn't WANT to have a sticker to say I was allowed to have breakfast". He won't participate in anything like this to make a fun game for the kids and refuses to use his imagination, eg. another time DD asked him what animal he wanted to be and he refused to choose an animal and actually seemed incapable of having the imagination to think one up! She then asked my mum and she wouldn't say an animal either! She seemed like she was too scared to because my dad hadn't done it.

osahm- What you describe sounds so stifling. And it sounds to me as though you have had to use all your power and resources to stuff down your feelings enough to go and spend Christmas day in this environment to be with you parents out of duty.
It sounds as though all those feelings are surfacing now though.
If you look at that from an outsiders perspective (as I am) you have chosen to spend a very special day amongst people who make you feel truly awkward and make it impossible for you to relax or be yourself. It also sounds that because of your father and the power he has over the whole household you all spent your time walking on eggshells.
Why should you be able to tolerate that just because you are an adult?
How does your dh cope with your father? Does he find it difficult to cope with while he is there.
I dont know anything about Aspergers but epitomises an NPD to me. Its as though no one else exists for him. No one elses feelings or needs.
There is also no counter balance for his behaviour either because your mother sounds totally complicit and enabling of his behaviour.
I sense you feel as though you 'should' be able to spend christmas day in such an environment. I think even an adult without the emotional links you have with your parents would find it difficult and may well refuse to go along with it because of that. You are emotionally 'linked' to your parents which makes it even harder.

I also relate to the lack of emotion, because my mother was like this. The only one allowed to show emotion was my mother and generally the only emotion she displayed was irritation and anger.
My mother never hugged me or cuddled me or said anything nice and motherly. It 'is' hard to pinpoint or explain how or why this is 'so' damaging when you are an adult.
It is hard for me to relate to it as being abusive.
I do try and imagine what my children would be like now if I had never held them close or told them how special they were and how much I love them. When I think of it that way I think of it more of a deprivation, it feels far more serious to me then.
If your children had to live inside of that environment OSAHM (the one you experienced at christmas) everyday from the day they were born, would they be the same children they are today do you think?

OrdinarySAHM Actually I'm over my toxicity and I'll write about it but right now I'be got to put a little man to bed.

WillNotPassOnToxicityToTiggaCubTiggaxx