Christmas with abusive mother- how do you deal with the bad memories...

[festivefreakout]

Namechanged for this- there are some things I am too ashamed to admit to anyone.

The main thing is that I think I still hate her even though she has been through 20 years of therapy and is (to some extent) a different person now.

A lot of bad memories of her abuse have been stirred up by being here over Christmas and oddly, by a lot of the threads here about controlling men.

She couldnt' ever seem to see I was a separate person...I existed solely to please her, but I failed in that. If I laughed, I was 'hysterical'. If I wore something she didn't like, I had 'low self esteem' and was 'making myself look horrible'.

We were never allowed to lock the bathroom door in case she wanted to use the toilet (even though there was one downstairs.) She would come in and stare and make comments about my body- my breasts and pubic hair etc, and snigger about how I was 'not wasting away' etc.

I got very depressed at 13 or so and she freaked out, screaming at my dad that I was a disgrace, look at the state of me... I remember her saying 'she is my child, she is the way I made her and LOOK AT HER...'

The pain and rage over these and so many other incidents (like the times she used to strand us all on the pavement and lock herself in the car, leaving my dad to beg pathetically to be let back in, etc...he is a classic enabler) don't seem to go away.

I live in fear of being like her and I think it's really undermined my mothering. I don't feel adequate to look after my sons.

This Christmas she's in a bad, snappy mood and I can see the old mum returning. It sends me into a rage, I want to yell at her, but also feel so despairing that she still affects me like this. My dad has always been a 'devoted' husband, servant of the bully, jumping to her every wish. I despise him for that.

He has always put her before us and himself. I recently found out that he went on Valium after I was born so as to deal with HER behaviour, depression and bullying. He never allows us to say a word against her and attacks us if we do.

I just don't know if I can do this anymore. I am 37 ffs and feel like an angry teenager. Maybe I need to cut her out of my life for good. But I'm getting divorced and feel so alone. Maybe better alone than with her tbh.

I'm sorry I haven't got any experience of this but I didn't want you to think no-one was here for you.

It all sounds appalling and I'm sorry for how sad you are

After ds was born I had to make a choice whether to cut off toxic family members or have them in my sons life also. I made a strong decision to totally cut them off and freefall into loneliness.

I'm not lonely at all as it turns out.

My advice is to cut off anyone toxic that clutters up your life. Only spend time with people who make you feel great.

I'm so glad to hear that YOU are better these days.

I'm with Dontforget - just get rid of these people. This is why I live in one country and my mother lives in another. I spent this christmas with the people I love.

Incidentally I had an email from my sister on christmas eve - she's not contacted me for over 2 years (another story). She demanded that I put the past behind me for the "sake of the next generation". I told her to "do one" - I don't need that in my life, or my child's life!

I don't have experience of this but I honestly think I would cut a person like that from my life and leave myself room to find someone I love and who loves me back (be it a new partner, a good friend, or even something like a hobby or job that I can put all my focus on).

I only speak to my parents for 5 minutes once a year on the phone. Justto check in I'm/they're still alive.

And my childhood wasn't half as bad as yours

I would seriously think about what you're getting out of your relationship with her.

(and check out the stately homes thread)

hi all, and thanks.

I think I thought I'd 'got over the past' but I clearly haven't. She's offered me some support over the divorce but it basically seems to focus on 'looking after the boys' i.e. ignoring me and spoiling them. She will not 'take sides' because she adores H and refuses to see that he has done anything wrong.

A few times I have tried to bring up the abuse and talk about it. The first time, she yelled at me and said I was the abuser for saying things like that to her. The second time, she actually fainted!! My dad came rushing up the stairs yelling at me 'what have you done to her???'

Those two scenes say a lot about my family dynamics.

I just hate being here, everything is about fear, anxiety, negativity. Don't do this, don't do that, be afraid of this and that. She has already told me I can't possibly have another relationship after my divorce- because that would not be fair on the kids!!!

I think the horrible thing is that even though they are abusers I still love them and will miss them. I just need so much support atm- they offer me the appearance of that then stick the knife in.

Also, I will be absolutely vilified for cutting them off by everyone and I don't need that atm, but clearly I don't need them either.

Maybe I need to just withdraw tactically, be nice over the phone, just cut contact right down. Find real friends where I live- not having many is a problem. MN has helped with that

Will also check out that thread ta.

I had my first christmas without my family this year - it was the best I have ever had. It was relaxed and enjoyable.

You can do it without her and the waves of relief are incrediable. I kept in contact so long because they had convinced me I could not cope without them.

Without them my mood has lifted so much that it is easier. I can cope.

Have you read toxic parents btw? Very good book.

yeah Armadillo will do- I know the toxic parents theory and it makes a hell of a lot of sense.

I've wanted to rise above it all, forgive her, make a go of things, now more than ever that I am alone with the kids. But she just keeps pressing the buttons.

I don't want to hurt her either, or my dad. There is a cycle of abuse in my family. I know that she is vulnerable. But she is also cold and nasty.

Recent example: we went to see my gran in a horrible nursing home on Boxing Day. I came back crying because of the situation she is in. She is my dad's mum btw. Mum was totally cold, saying 'it could be a lot worse for her' and then going into a rant about 'all the shit' she'd taken from grandma in her life and also suggesting that I was sucking up to her. This woman was once difficult, but is 94, stuck in a tiny room stinking of urine, she spent Xmas day alone and my mum is just so cold to her.

I don't want to abandon my mum to an old age alone either but am really thinking that while she can look after herself I should withdraw.

If you treated your kids as you had been/are treated by your parents would that be acceptable? Sometimes we are too forgiving - 'oh they've had a shit life', well as a result so have we. I found every excuse under the sun for my parents behaviour but when it came down to it I realised that no matter what had happened to me or what a bad mood I was in I wouldn't find it acceptable to treat my ds like that.

There is a saying and I can't remember if its by Dan Neumann or Susan Forward but it says basically that your parents were responsible for what happened to you in childhood but you are responsible for what happens to you now.

Any decision you take to go low or no contact doesn't need to be permenant. You can do it for 3 months or for 30 years and then decide to contact them again. You can decide to only have contact by letter or by one phone call a year.

I tried to rise above stuff for a long time, but they kept pushing me until they got a reaction.

I felt guilty about cutting ds off from his gps but they had to be supervised with him and it was destroying me.

In the end no gps are better than poisonous gps. I had none - didn't harm me, it was the other stuff that did!

you're so right Armadillo about not treating own kids the same way.

I would rather die than do that. I've felt so horribly guilty when at times I have found myself 'echoing' my mother's behaviour (none of the really abusive stuff, just sounding like her when I shout etc). In fact that all gets very dark for me at times- when ds1 was 7 months old I got so depressed about possibly being like her and a shit mother I decided to kill myself and was writing him all sorts of notes telling him he was better off without me etc. Horrible.

Yeah I need to cut contact and get over the feelings of guilt- this is my life now and my kids' not theirs.

I could still let them see the kids, they are fine with them, just not stay with them/ talk to them much.

Hi festivefreakout - sorry if I've missed this somewhere on the page ...

Have you thought about going for therapy? Sometimes it helps to work things through with someone who is experienced in helping children from dysfunctional family backgrounds, in a place where you can feel safe to express all the emotions you had to hold back when you were younger, and with someone you can trust implicitly. It can be a helluva journey, but well worth it.

hi whatnot. Yeah, I am in therapy and on copious amounts of antidepressants atm

The therapy is helping. But did I mention that my mum (and sister) are both therapists themselves!??! Kind of a tough one that...

The story about your gran just shows how it goes down the generations. For your and DCs' sake you need to break the cycle.

I went no contact over 12 years ago and have never regretted it. The loneliness doesn't necessarily happen - the more relaxed and happier you are, the more people will be drawn to you.

You will not necessarily be vilified; most people won't know and those who know your family may well end up supporting you. I don't volunteer the information, but I don't hide it IYSWIM.

And of course you can have another relationship after your divorce. Just make sure you don't repeat the patterns and end up with an abusive man like I did!

Hi ff

Keep at it - it helps even more; and one day, you might just notice that a shift in your perspective takes place.

It is tough that your mum is a therapist - she obviously knows how to push the right buttons at just the right (wrong) time. Most people become therapists because of their own experiences; but unfortunately, many of them do so without dealing with themselves first - so the therapy becomes a weapon rather than a way to consciousness. I'd vouch that there are a great many therapists out there who are unconsciously putting their own, un-dealt-with stuff on to their clients - and/or their families. It has happened in my extended family and it is damaging in the extreme.

You, on the other hand, have the opportunity to break the cycle as QueenofWhatever suggests. It can be painful and it can feel brutal at times, and it requires a level of honesty that I think can sometimes only be reached when there is another enlightened person with you (i.e. a good therapist), but it is the way out.

I wouldn't say that my upbringing was abusive but it was very dysfunctional and xmas was always difficult. My mother would always manufacture some sort of drama/crisis at some point and it was grim. When I met my DH I was astounded at how they celebrated xmas. People were happy, they had tins of chocolates and no no one was locked in a bedroom sobbing/ranting or having tactical migraines. I've made a conscious decision to have happy xmas's for my kids but when I phone her on xmas morning it always takes me right back to being a kid again.

Scary what you say about therapists WhatnoLunchBreak. I mistrust them a lot more since mum and sister, two of the least empathic people I have ever known, became therapists!!

Mine seems to be vg but I do have trust issues with her because of all this.

Problem is that, currently, anyone can call themselves a "therapist" or "counsellor" without qualifications or accreditation. A good qualification with a recognised institution and/or membership with a body such as the BACP or UKCP are there, among other reasons, to safeguard therapists from bringing their own c**p into the therapy room and then flinging it at the client.

If you think your therapist is vg, then that's a good sign, imo. The trust issues that come up in therapy are not only widely expected, but with some forms of therapy they are positively encouraged, so that therapist and client can work through them.

... is that "institution" ... or "institute"? I can never remember.

OP- I've been there. My mother was similarly abusive, and I can honestly say that no contact has relieved me of a great burden. I finally put an end to our relationship when DD was 18 months and I realised how much her abusive behaviour was continuing to negatively affect my mental health. I wanted to protect DD from a continuation of the cycle of abuse, so I knew I had to cut her out. I'm so much happier, more stable. And whilst I get plenty of entreaties to re-establish contact (my brothers mostly) I made my position clear that unless she is willing to sit down in family therapy with me to work out our problems I am unwilling to see her again. She point blank refuses therapy of any kind, which is a relief really because the sad fact is that I'm much happier without her in my life.

WNLB- My mother is an extremely well qualified psychologist, but was abusive to me in childhood and was in a relationship with a physically and emotionally abusive man. There is no way she keeps her BS out of her sessions with clients. Her emphasis on "not dwelling on the past" for example. That sort of attitude serves abusive parents very well, because it implies that whatever abuse happened at their hands should be forgotten as opposed to confronted and worked through.

I'd say a good therapist is not as much about the qualifications of the therapist as it is about how supported and challenged you feel in your sessions together. I've seen friends with complex psychiatric illnesses deteriorate under the "care" of very well qualified psychiatrists, and blossom under the care of a psychotherapist with a lowly batchelors degree. For that reason I'd say go with your gut on a therapist.

Oh dear.

First off - I'm quite, quite sure you don't parent like your mother. And you won't. Ever. You are not going to wake up one morning and find that you are parenting like that.

I suspect you have trust issues which make talking about this with RL acquaintances difficult. If you were able to talk to friends, I am sure they would tell you categorically you do not and won't ever be that person.

Secondly - That bathroom comment is quite telling. Sounds to me like she couldn't (and possibly still can't) deal with her own issues (vulnerability?) being reflected back at her in you/others.

Of course, that was all (is all) going on in her head. You are not her, you're not a mirror reflecting back whatever it is she thinks she is seeing, about herself, about you. So you don't have to take any of it on board.

However, it might give you a "clue" as to how to manage the relationship with her as grandmother/parent to a mother.

Should you wish to continue that relationship.

I would suggest NOT offering her your vulnerabilities as a mother/person. I suspect she will let you down, quite badly. But, if you tell her, firmly, how you expect her to behave towards your dc, she will almost certainly comply. She will have a great deal invested in being the "perfect" grandmother. Not least because she needs to prove that you were the "problem" in your childhood.

All of which is a bit grim, really.

I don't know. Obviously, I don't know how damaging your current relationship with your family is but sometimes I do wonder if we underestimate the effect this sort of stuff has on us. And I'm not sure it gets any better with time.

I've re-read your post and noticed what you said about the divorce.

Have you tried saying to her something along the lines of:

"Mum, I get that you're aiming for objective disinterest here, but have you considered that, perhaps, now is not the moment for that?
That in fact, it is downright, totally weird to be trying for a casual, sitting-on-the-fence position whilst your daughter is going through a divorce?
I know, for a fact, that I love my dc so much that, were they divorcing, I would be telling them that they are fabulous and their (ex-) is [insert epithets] ... even if I thought it wasn't true. But I wouldn't think it wasn't true. Because I think my dc are amazing.
And, call me Mystic Meg, but I know, now, before they've even met that person, that I am always going to like them more than their partner.
And, no, that's not objective. But, actually, motherhood is one of those rare occasions when objectivity is actually really, really slightly freakish."

Obviously, I know absolutely nothing about your divorce, but if your mother really is being "even-stevens" about it all , well, that's quite odd, actually.

Hi dizietsma

I agree with your post completely. Unfortunately, quallies and accreditation are only there to safeguard - they can't stop that kind of abuse from happening. Which is a terrible pity.

Funny - I was also going to say that intuition is your strongest bs-detector when it comes to choosing a therapist, but I erased it from my previous post for the reason that sometimes clients are so broken down and unsure of themselves that it can be hard to distinguish intuition from fear or another emotion. But, yes, when your intuition is serving you well, it is the best ally you can have imo.