'But We Took You to Stately Homes'...a thread for adult children of abusive families

[therealsmithfield]

Welcome to the Stately Homes Thread.

This is a long running thread which was originally started up by 'pages' see original thread here

So this thread originates from that thread and has become a safe haven for Adult children of abusive families.

One thing you will never hear on this thread is that your abuse or experience was not that bad. You will never have your feelings minimised the way they were when you were a child, or now that you are an adult. To coin the phrase of a much respected past poster Ally90;

'Nobody can judge how sad your childhood made you, even if you wrote a novel on it, only you know that. I can well imagine any of us saying some of the seemingly trivial things our parents/siblings did to us to many of our real life acquaintances and them not understanding why we were upset/angry/hurt etc. And that is why this thread is here. It's a safe place to vent our true feelings, validate our childhood/lifetime experiences of being hurt/angry etc by our parent?s behaviour and to get support for dealing with family in the here and now.'

Most new posters generally start off their posts by saying; but it wasn't that bad for me or my experience wasn't as awful as x,y or z's.

Some on here have been emotional abused and/or physically abused. Some are not sure what category (there doesnt have to be any) they fall into.

NONE of that matters. What matters is how 'YOU' felt growing how 'YOU' feel now and a chance to talk about how and why those childhood experiences and/or current parental contact has left you feeling damaged falling apart from the inside out and stumbling around trying to find your sense of self worth.

You might also find the following links and information useful if you have come this far and are still not sure wether you belong here or not.

'Toxic Parents' by Susan Forward

I started with this book and found it really useful.

Here are some excerpts;.

"Once you get going, most toxic parents will counterattack. After all, if they had the capacity to listen, to hear, to be reasonable, to respect you feelings, and to promote your independence, they wouldn't be toxic parents. They will probably perceive your words as treacherous personal assaults. They will tend to fall back on the same tactics and defenses that they have always used, only more so.

Remember, the important thing is not their reaction but your response. If you can stand fast in the face of your parents' fury, accusations, threats and guilt-peddling, you will experience your finest hour.

Here are some typical parental reactions to confrontation:

"It never happened". Parents who have used denial to avoid their own feelings of inadequacy or anxiety will undoubtedly us it during confrontation to promote their version of reality. They'll insist that your allegations never happened, or that you're exaggerating. They won't remember, or they will accuse you of lying.

YOUR RESPONSE: Just because you don't remember, doesn't mean it didn't happen".

"It was your fault." Toxic parents are almost never willing to accept responsibility for their destructive behavior. Instead, they will blame you. They will say that you were bad, or that you were difficult. They will claim that they did the best that they could but that you always created problems for them. They will say that you drove them crazy. They will offer as proof the fact that everybody in the family knew what a problem you were. They will offer up a laundry list of your alleged offenses against them.

YOUR RESPONSE: "You can keep trying to make this my fault, but I'm not going to accept the responsibility for what you did to me when I was a child".

"I said I was sorry what more do you want?" Some parents may acknowledge a few of the things that you say but be unwilling to do anything about it.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate your apology, but that is just a beginning. If you're truly sorry, you'll work through this with me to make a better relationship."

"We did the best we could." Some parents will remind you of how tough they had it while you were growing up and how hard they struggled. They will say such things as "You'll never understand what I was going through," or "I did the best I could". This particular style of response will often stir up a lot of sympathy and compassion for your parents. This is understandable, but it makes it difficult for you to remain focused on what you need to say in your confrontation. The temptation is for you once again to put their needs ahead of your own. It is important that you be able to acknowledge their difficulties without invalidating your own.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I understand that you had a hard time, and I'm sure that you didn't hurt me on purpose, but I need you to understand that the way you dealt with your problems really did hurt me"

"Look what we did for you." Many parents will attempt to counter your assertions by recalling the wonderful times you had as a child and the loving moments you and they shared. By focusing on the good things, they can avoid looking at the darker side of their behavior. Parents will typically remind you of gifts they gave you, places they took you, sacrifices they made for you, and thoughtful things they did. They will say things like, "this is the thanks we get," or "nothing was ever enough for you."

YOUR RESPONSE: I appreciate those things very much, but they didn't make up for ....

"How can you do this to me?" Some parents act like martyrs. They'll collapse into tears, wring their hands, and express shock and disbelief at your "cruelty". They will act as if your confrontation has victimized them. They will accuse you of hurting them, or disappointing them. They will complain that they don't need this, they have enough problems. They will tell you that they are not strong enough or healthy enough to take this, that the heartache will kill them. Some of their sadness will, of course, be genuine. It is sad for parents to face their own shortcomings, to realize that they have caused their children significant pain. But their sadness can also be manipulative and controlling. It is their way of using guilt to try to make you back down from the confrontation.

YOUR RESPONSE: I'm sorry you're upset. I'm sorry you're hurt. But I'm not willing to give up on this. I've been hurting for a long time, too."

Helpful Websites

Alice Miller

Personality Disorders definition

follow up to pages first thread

Im sure the other posters will be along shortly to add anything they feel I have left out grin. I personally dont claim to be sorted but I will say my head has become a helluva lot straighter since I started posting here. You will recieve a lot of wisdom but above all else the insights and advice given will 'always' be delivered with warmth and support.

Happy Posting (smithfield posting as therealsmithfield)

Christ Roseability what was wrong with these women? Bloody hell poor you, and your poor mother.

GOML, you've already done me a favour. You know what you said about your mum being stuck at 17?
Well, I've always had the number 24 in my mind. When I set a goal, it always has a 24 in it somewhere. My advertising career started at age 24, my first big salary increase was to £24k and there are many more 24s. Which is the age my mum was, when she married a screwed-up, explosive psychopath.

I think my "inner" mind has known this all along. And I think it took you to let me read my own mind!
Thank you.

Thanks again everyone I am orf out for dinner (and am not even driving for once yay!) so will look in again tomorrow.

Have lovely evenings.

Some of your stories are really horrific and I know now that it really wasn't so bad for me. Ok, I suffered emotional neglect but I can rationalise that. My parents went through horrendous times when I was a child and I'm not at all surprised I didn't get the love & attention I deserved. I was a victim of circumstances really - that's not to say I didn't suffer and I still am suffering the consequences, but I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time really.

Skiihorse, yes I often think I probably should have some more therapy as I feel stuck at the moment. I should be feeling happier and more positive now my husband & I have separated but it's just the same, only I have more to do. I need help to move on and adopt a more positive attitude - but I have a problem in finding a suitable counsellor. I've been to four - one, as I said was quite helpful but I just couldn't somehow communicate with the others and gave up after a few weeks. Have any of you had this problem? I'd love to find a counsellor I can really trust and confide in, it would feel really good to have someone supportive to talk to but I just felt antagonised by them.

Wanttostartafresh, I know what you mean about the atmosphere at home, I was constantly in a state of nervous anxiety as a child, I suffered from IBS from pre-school age and just wanted out. As soon as I could write, I used to make lists of things I needed to take when I ran away from home. I never felt protected, loved, cherished or nurtured. How sad that I then went on to choose partners who treated me the same way - in some twisted way I must have felt a kind of safety and security in their treatment (or rather neglect) of me.

Grace, 'Homecoming' looks a very good book and it's content strikes such a chord with me I think I'll invest in it. Thank you for the link.

Poolet, don't downplay your experience because the essential factor is the effects it's had on you. There are people who can survive horrific depredations in war, say, and come out the other end wiser & sadder but healthy (probably the ones who had a rock-solid upbringing ...), whereas others remain stress-disordered for life. What counts is what it means to you - and that the people you relied on, didn't notice/care/know what to do about the misery of the small child you were.

"Homecoming" was revolutionary for me. I cried buckets - it's such an effective book, it can be heavy going. I usually recommend having at least some support from a counsellor while doing it - but that was before I discovered Stately Homes
The fantastic people, here, may well prove sufficiently supportive. Why don't you do the first few chapters, and see how you get along with it?

I'm sorry you couldn't find a counsellor that was right for you. It may be that you need to get to know a little bit more about the inside of your own head, before you know who'll work well with you (double bind, I know!) I've found that, the further along I get, the easier it becomes to work with anybody who's got the training

That's a promise ... it gets easier.

Hello so glad to have found you all!

Poolet I know what you mean about finding the right counseller or therapist. I had a bad experience with a child psychologist when I was a young teenager and as result am very wary. I hate feeling 'managed' too much reflecting back sends me into complete paranoia and panic. The guy I see is quite chatty and it feels more natural but I still have moments where I think negatively about him. Though I always feel he is on my side. I hope you find someone.

WTSA I have not read all the detail of your posts on the old thread. But something struck me the last time I was there and I was going to post but felt too depressed. It was the bit where someone talked of telling their sibling that 'if they wanted to have a relationship with them they would have to accept they have different views of their mother'. It struck me that the idea I could set any conditions to my siblings being allowed to have a relationship with me seemed so unrealistic. They would simply say 'who do you think you are?' and cut me off. Which effectively they have.

My parents stayed with my brother over Christmas. Between Christmas and New Year my parents requested and arranged to visit us but cancelled at the last minute. Since then my mother has been sending me messages saying how sad it was that they did not see us over Christmas and that if we had made more time for them we could have seen them. Bonkers. She has now sent a cheque written by father (he always writes the cheques for some reason) for christmas presents for my children. It is still sitting in it's envelope I just don't know what to say to her any more.

I too feel that I have been very mean to my DH in the past. I am working to address this.

I also want to be a more positive person. I have a habit of analysing things negatively all the time instead of looking for the good in things. 'niceness' and kindess was always ridiculed and seen as a mark of naivety or weakness when I was growing up. I remember last year at my fathers birthday my sister sitting there like a great lump complaining that everyone's conversation was 'as dull as dishwater'. What a charmer. I quite like friendly chitchat, everything does not have to be impressive, negative, critical sharing some private joke at someone else's expense. I don't think I am like her or my mother but I have had moments in the past. I am fed up of feeling like a negative-thinking person.

Sorry for the me me me.

PM what's wrong with "you, you, you"?

I would like to respond to so much on here but have not the energy. So many people with such moving stories to tell.
I feel I seem to post about myself and not really get engaged with the excellent discussions that go on.
I feel that I am self-absorbed..Lordy how many times have I been told I am. My sis loves that one. If it was her it would be 'persuing her own fabulously exciting and worthwhile life' but me I'm self-absorbed. But I do feel like I am and I struggle to join in with conversations here and in RL. Then I start thinking it is me with the problem, I am the NPD one and so the cycle begins anew!

In short, I ramble on and am boring and self-absorbed

Thanks Grace, I see what you mean by the ability to cope being related to someone's upbringing - strange how that's not occurred to me before...I really need to straighten out my thinking and my aim is to become emotionally stronger - just have to work out how. Thanks for your support.

PinkyMinxy - snap - I feel I'm all me, me, me at the moment and really identify with your not having the energy to post - I find it difficult to put a lot of what I want and need to say into words - my thinking is very disordered at the moment, but hopefully in future we'll be able to offer support too.

Can't sleep - I keep thinking about this. I was looking at the difference between what the 'secure' me would have done and what I really did. I've packed a fair old life into my time so far: I did go to uni, though for a work-related degree at a red-brick rather than the one I was going to do at Cambridge. I did have an exciting & successful career; I've travelled; been published; learned a lot; been interested and entertained.

So I got to thinking, then, how would my life have felt different? It would have been a life more of the intellect (not that mine isn't, but I really wanted a classical education). It would have been a life more loved and loving; probably less cynical. Most crucially, though, I think it would have been a life more lived. More 'in the moment' - more conscious.

Do you find you keep a kind of distance between yourself and the world? For all the amazing experiences I've been lucky enough to have, the memories are hazy. For all the passion I've felt, I've always tempered it with doubt. I have put myself down incessantly, turned away from opportunities and mistrusted people who seemed "too nice".
This is what I want to change.

Smithfield & WTSA - you know you both mentioned travelling, doing new things, having fresh experiences? I'm a big fan of travel - it does help mend the heart and expand the mind. But. All of my big adventures were undertaken at times of great emotional distress. I was trying to literally distance myself from my problems - and, as we know: wherever you go, you take yourself with you!

I wonder if your urge to travel is rooted in a similar kind of desire to get away from yourself? With my other, marriage-mending, hat on, I would suggest talking to your partners about it. They might surprise you. You can travel with children, in fact it improves the experience.

Given that we are who we are, where we are - before you take drastic action, please consider whether the place you need to explore first is inside your own mind!

Hi Sorry for disapearing last night had to rush off.

grace- It's funny I actually dont have any urge to travel anymore, which is HUGE for me because I have never felt settled before now. So Im glad you brought that up because it makes me realise how much I have sorted my head out so to speak. I am dare I say it 'happy' for the most part.
When I was younger I 'always' had the desire to get away but it took me a while to stand up to my mother enough to actually do it.
SO like you, I did end up travelling (not vastly) but have done a fair bit and I am SO very grateful I did. My most liberating moments were spent in faraway places. Travel is good for the soul. It is, I believe, as good as meditation. Of course Im talking about the child-free variety. I am blessed that I had the opportunity when I did.
Like you I've had a 'fairly' rewarding career (although I think of it more of a job than a career).
It is my current work that is the issue, I chose it for all the wrong reasons but mainly to win approval. Sorry can never explain this very well beacause it is still jumbled in my head.
I did always want children and a family and I know I am blessed to have had them fairly late on in life. It took me a while to get on with it because I was playing a role of single, independent woman but I was suppressing the 'real me' which is probably why it took me so long to get here.
I think what I do feel sad about is having missed out on more 'fulfilling' work and having fulfilled my potential on that level. If only I had valued,recognised and used my natural gifts in a career or education when I was younger. But I was far too damaged then and spent my most promising years drinking, dating bad men and generally acting out my self hatred.
Would you consider doing the cambridge education now? I bet you could you know.

pinky your posts never read as me me me. That is a perception you have of yourself but it isnt a true one it's a false perception that your family have put upon you.
Great to hear from you. at your mother still playing power games with you. Could you get a new mobile number , or a second mobile, one for your mother and the rest for normal people everyone else.

wtsa- Dont give up! Perhaps you need to grieve some more for the person you 'could' have been. But once the grief subsides you need to find a compromise. You are right you will never be able to live it now as you would have a 'single' person but you could perhaps look at incorporating some of it in to the life you have now perhaps?

Hello poolet and GOML- Welcome to the thread. I am glad you are finding it useful. Dont worry about thinking how you can be supporting others. Quite often by writing about your own issues you are helping others because your way of writing down thoughts and feelings may redefine feelings and thoughts for those reading.

grace went like this about your little brother. DD is 2 and the thought of a full grown man doing something like that (let alone that man being her own father) makes me feel physically sick.
Then I think about the horror of ds (three years older) witnessing it, and that makes me want to cry,
Yes your mother was probably afraid, and yes it was probably harder for women to leave or run away back then....argh I dont now it just makes me too to want to even try and understand IYKWIM.

THANK YOU for yet more fabulous posts, smithfield! I'm sorry, everybody, for dominating these pages at the moment - it's because so may issues are presenting themselves to me right now. Hopefully I'll be able to gift-wrap them & put them away, one by one, before this thread reaches 989 posts

Smithfield's totally right when she says that sharing your thoughts & feelings helps others I was thinking, when I logged on (again!) just now, how much like group therapy this is. Only still more effective in some ways, because written words can be reviewed as needed. Everybody here has already taught me loads. Thank you!

Smithfield, Mum could have left. It was much, much harder in those days but she was qualified for a profession. As she has told me, she considered it but loved Dad and didn't want to leave him. Needless to say, I find that abhorrent. But I have to accept she was/is like that: she's a strange creature and I can't change her. I do still, though, need to change much about myself - which I internalised from her examples iyswim.

One of those is what she actually said, in the discussion I just mentioned: "I considered leaving him because of the way he treated you but ..." In her mind, she would have left him on my account! Not because he beat shit out of her, wouldn't let her have friends or a job, or because he treated all her children as personal stress toys. Because of me. So, even if she had left him, her problems would have been my fault

Which leads me on to my next post.

When I read marriage problems, here and elsewhere, a tiny part of my brain is always asking "Is this DH#2? Could it be his wife?" I know it never will be, but I don't know why the marriage still hasn't gone to bed in my mind. It ended 8 years ago. I've lately realised he has Asperger's. As he said back then, we were incompatible. We were!

Someone wrote in their break-up thread here, "Why do I still feel like a failure?" I know the responses to this - everyone who's divorced must know them - but her question still nags me. I've gone overboard on learning about Asperger's - okay, I'm glad I've learned from my experience, but why the constant wondering? Because I still feel felt like a failure.

The answer's in my Mum. Because I feel felt that all relationship failures are my fault
Dad abused Mum "because" I annoyed/upset/disobeyed him. If her marriage ended it would have been "because of" me. In fact, whenever Dad was upset it was my fault; my punishment. When they had a big row, it was "look what you've done now" (Dad thought this was funny). Meanwhile, Mum gave up everything to try & please him, frazzled herself to fit in with his needs, and absolutely idolised the bastard.

So that's what I learned about relationships - all relationships are my responsibility; all relationship failures are my fault; a woman who loves her husband ignores his violence, controlling and insults (so I didn't love my exes "right"). No wonder I had so many relationships with people who refuse responsibility for their own behaviour - partners, bosses, colleagues and friends
I think you have answered my question, Stately Homes! Thanks again!

Smithfield again, thanks for what you said about my 'alternative life' I'm probably going to need to work this through with the psychologist, but am not sure I'd need to revisit the things I didn't do (like the Cambridge degree). It may be more of a - very slightly simpler - question of putting aspects of it back into my life. I'll see. Finding the differences between that life, and the one I had, was a massive step for me and of course I need to mourn it a little. I reckon that's why I couldn't sleep. I should let it inform me for the future, though, certainly!

I think I share your feelings about having chosen your present career for the wrong reasons. My advertising work let me 'prove' a whole bunch of things, mostly in the sense of being completely, utterly different from the life I grew up with. It wasn't "fulfilling" though. Now it's over and my life at present proves nothing to anybody! I lost absolutely everything, materially, so I see this phase as a sort of empty space in which to create a new life for myself. A sort of psychological garden shed

I hope we both manage to fit together our pieces, with 'creative power'. You seem to have some pretty good materials in your garden shed! It's a matter of sorting them out, eh ...

Oops, another "Aha" moment:
< When they had a big row, it was "look what you've done now" (Dad thought this was funny) >
Funny - because Dad knew that was how Mum would see it! He may not have realised how perceptive he was ... no, he did. He didn't think I caused all the family's problems. He knew that it was MUM who scapegoated me! And I wouldn't be surprised if he picked on me so as to build on that; to deliberately increase her sense of guilt and emotional confusion. I was a tool in his programme of complete control. Blimey.

GOML, I know what you mean about wishing your Gran were still around, so you could get some answers. However ... It wouldn't surprise me if you're only able to start asking those questions, now, because she died. I'm pretty sure I'd still be one of Dad's "tools" if he wasn't dead. Some nasty people get their psychological claws into others - especially children - so deep, we can't fight them until they're six feet under. Even my Mum's happier now!!

It's a long and peculiar journey, isn't it.

PM hi and glad you found the new thread. I also worry that I'm being selfish when i post only about myself and do not respond to other people.

But then i always find reading other people's posts so helpful even if it is just about them, without trying to help, I feel I have been helped and I imagine other people feel the same way. So please keep posting about you, it does help others even if you are not responding directly to them.

smithfield, it has just sunk in what you said to me. About grieving for the person I could have been. I realise I have never done that. I have never grieved for the person I could have been. Only for all the things I could have done, all the losses I have sustained, all the things i missed out on. But never for me, the person I could have been. You have definately given me food for thought. Thank you.

For me grieving was the start of my healing, I grieved for me, for the parents I should have had. For my parents who didn't know any better, then I pulled up my boots and got on with living every day a little better than the day before. Sometimes, the tape that says 'Why bother, you can't do any better than you have done' which is my personal ishoo still gets me but I don't beat myself up about it anymore.

HealingALittleMoreEveryDayTiggaxx

As always once I realise something it is so obvious I wonder why on earth I didn't see it before. I have realised that as well as being triggered by DH and DD I am regularly being triggered by other people and events.

At DD's school there is a group of mums who all belong to a particular group. DD is friends with a few of their DDs and so I have become friends with some of these mums although I don't feel particulAarly close to any of them. The mums and their DDs seem to all get together quite regularly and do things and I am never invited along. I realised a while ago that I was not invited simply because I am not a member of the particular group to which they belong. I realised it wasn't personal as the mums with whom I am friends are always nice to me and we help each other out whenever we can.

But I kept on hearing in passing from these mums about things they had all done as a group and i felt left out but immediately rationalised my feeling by telling myself me and DD hadn't been invited too because we were not members of their group. By rationalising in this way i prevented myself from feeling the pain of being left out and excluded from the group. The feeling of being left out and excluded was of course originally felt by me in childhood when my sisters and my mother were always off doing things together and always leaving me out.

But the rationalising away of my feelings didn't work and today i felt a flood of emotion as all the feelings of being excluded and left out came to the surface and i was upset enough to cry. I realise that over time i had accumulated lots of snippets of information when chatting to the other mums and at pick up time i would overhear snatches of conversation about the mums arranging to meet at the weekend etc etc and i think all this stored information built up, naking me feel more and more excluded and left out until it was too much to keep inside and it had to spill out.

I also felt today a desperate need for a mother to look after me. I wanted a sympathetic ear, to feel somebody cared about me and had the time to listen. I wanted somebody to cook me a meal and just be there for me. It's just awful to so desperately want and need something or somebody that it is impossible to have. DH does a lot for me, but none of it is what I actually need. He thinks i take his efforts for granted and I probably do, simply because he is not doing what I actually need and would like him to do. I am going to have a chat with him and see if he can do some of the specific things that I know would make me feel a little bit nurtured, cared for and looked after, like cooking me a meal occasionally. He has never done that, apart from once when i was too ill, and a little gesture like that from him would go a long way to filling the mother gap in my life. It's not his duty to fill that gap I know, but I hope he will be willing to do it anyway.

I keep remembering that I have finally had the courage and determination this year to make no contact with my sisters and every time i remember this I feel a thrill of glee inside me. I am so pleased I have been able to care for myself in this way, I am looking after me and it just feels really good to know this. For once I have not let myself down, I have been strong and managed to stick to my guns, and managed to overcome any moments of weakness and self doubt. Apart from 1 text they haven't contacted me either which makes me even more sure I am doing the right thing. My eczema has improved even more which also tells me I am doing the right thing for me.

I was feeling a bit despondent about the situation with making friends and feeling like my efforts did not seem to be paying off and trying to stay positive and telling myself it would take time etc etc. But then a friend called yesterday and invited me over to hers next week and it gave me such a boost of confidence. I was worried that maybe there was something inherently wrong with me so that I was just unlikeable and no matter how much effort I made nobody would like me enough to want to be friends with me. I feel reassured now that I got it right with one person at least. It gives me the confidence to keep making an effort with friends.

I read on another thread about friends being for "A reason, a season or a lifetime" and I think that is such a good way of looking at it. It will hopefully stop me feeling such a failure when friendships don't work out or come to an end, perhaps that's the way it was always meant to be and it is not necessarily my fault something didn't work out or last very long.

Sorry, more to add. Although I am making more of an effort and trying to make more friends, I have realised that I am finding it hard to feel close to them. Sometimes if i feel able to open up and talk about personal stuff and the friend opens up too then i temporarily feel close to them. But the feeling soon fades and then i feel disconnected again and lonely. I feel I am like this with everyone to an extent. I am always taking a step back and feeling detached from the relationship and looking at it from the outside, objectively. I began to do this after I realised that often I was rushing into friendships too quickly, getting too attached too quickly, having unrealistic expectations and then being disappointed. So I began being more conscious of myself of what i was doing when meeting new friends and now i think i have taken it too far. I have become so detached that i am not feeling the benefit of the friendship ie feeling a sense of closeness and connection but with realistic limits ie not expecting the friend to be a mother or a sister.

Will i eventually, having been at two extremes, find a happy balance in the middle somewhere? ie in between being overly detached and too attached?

wtsa I honestly think you will. It has taken me years to reach a point where I have started to 'trust' again enough to let people in. And ultimately we have to be willing to do just that.
The thing is your trust in others intentions toward you has been destroyed by your family. So it is understandable that you would have issues with trust as many of us on here would I think.

case in point for me has been my relationship with MIL. I have had numerous issues there. But then I was bound to struggle given my track record of relationships with 'mothers'.
In the end I had to take a leap of faith and trust her intentions toward me just might be genuinely good.
We now have a very good relationship with each other.
Im not advising everyone to do the same wrt their own MIL's . But it's just interesting for me how much things have shifted there.
I've opened myself up to the possibility not all people are like my old family. Some may like me, some may love me some may even dislike or hate me. But I finally have my arms open.