'But We Took You to Stately Homes' Part 2...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)

That book sounds great, Stately!

Grace that's exactly what the book says, it has a section on 'imagining' where, say your child is upset because you don't have a horse, you kind of 'hear' that upset 'you're upset' but you can also then do an imagining game with them "Wouldn't it be great if we had 400 horses!" "No 25,000 unicorns!" "I want 2 pink ones!" I'm not explaining well, but its really good.

Main thing throughout book is to not dismiss their feelings eg 'Don't be stupid of course it doesn't matter that you can't go to the disco'

here it is

Hello, I feel really nervous about posting here but I have been following the thread for a while and it is really helping me so thought I would take this next step. It feels hard to know where to start. My Mum, I believe, had post natal depression when I was born, which developed into a more general depression that lasted throughout my childhood. This has never been acknowledged but is what I have pieced together through a lot of therapy work. She was mentally very unstable and unwell, although able to keep up enough of a pretense at normality- so we had a tidy home (super tidy), clean clothes, regular meals etc. But she was unable to be loving, and swung from either being furiously angry, attacking and highly critical to just being totally absent in all but body. It feels hard sometimes to pinpoint what it was specifically that was so damaging. She never hit me, but I felt utterly hated and rejected by her. Sometimes she would not speak to me for days because I had done something wrong, other times I would come home from school and find her sitting in a chair staring into nothing. I 'd try and talk to her but it was like she just wasn't there. She would get so angry with me and my brother, I can't remember the content of her tirades against us, I think I blanked them out, but I remember feeling helpless against the force of her rage. Sometimes she would storm out of the house and we didn't know where she had gone. Naturally I thought it was my fault for not being good enough, I grew up thinking that I was inherently unloveable and there must be something terribly wrong and bad about me. Feelings were just not allowed in my family and it has taken me years to give myself permission to have mine. My Dad was the one who I think saved me in some way as he was able to show me love and kindness. Yet now I am starting to see that rather than him being 'good' and my Mum 'bad', in fact he was part of the problem. He just cannot cope with anything that does not fit his view of reality. According to both my parents we are a happy, perfect family and I had a happy childhood. But he must have been aware of how ill my Mum was and chose to ignore it. I even tried to tell him as a child how much Mum was hurting me and he dismissed it. And now I wonder if part of the reason my Mum was unable to admit she was struggling and get help was because she was trying to preserve my Dad's 'ideal family' fantasy. Although he did show me affection, unlike my Mum, I think it was very conditional on me being what he wanted me to be- not who I really am, including those feelings I have which he would rather ignore. I am not allowed to be angry or even sad for too long. I recently had a miscarriage, which devastated me. They were very kind for a few days but then it was as if I had had long enough to grieve. When I cried down the phone to them after that they told me I had to be positive and move on. Now they just change the subject when I bring it up. But less than two weeks after losing the baby they came down to stay, supposedly to support me, and they ended up crying on my shoulder about things going on in their life.
I'm sorry, I'm rambling and not making much sense. I keep thinking as I'm typing this that people will read it and think I am moaning about nothing, but at the same time I am shaking because writing it out is bringing back all the terrible feelings these memories bring up. I have been going to therapy for some time which has literally saved my life, but it feels like writing it out on here in some way is like standing up for myself and my truth which of course my family deny.

I am so sorry for your loss. Mc is so tough.

You are making perfect sense to me. Your writing here is so brave, I'm sorry it has left you shaky, but if you feel that it is good, (and it probably is then) to get it out here then do so.

I don't think you are moaning about nothing. I can see that you have a lot of stuff to deal with that is very familiar to me, and as I get more and more of my feelings out there, either here, or in therapy, I can see, yes it was that bad, still is that bad, and I didn't deserve it,.....and neither do you.

Keep writing.

Trilliums

Hi, you sound like you have had a painfull experience with the recent mc, and did not get the sort of support that you needed from your family, I am sorry for your loss.

It does sound as though your father has perfection issues along with living in a fantasy land, how sad for you all that it was so important for him to keep up that fantasy that your mother was not treated for depression. I wonder why your mother got depressed, you think it was due to post natal depression, have you ever explored her history of life? or why she got with someone who was a perfectionist who could not accept weakness. Were both your parents perfectionists, or did your mum bend re the housework to your dad's demands?

Do you think your mother still has depression? the feelings sorry for themselves when they visited you, sounds like they are all about them and negative, so it sounds like they are still depressed going by that.

I feel so sad for you and for my children, I was depressed when stressed due to divorce, and emotionally withdrawn from my children, along with being snappy with them, not to the extent your mother was, I realised that the change in me was not good, and I felt terribly guilty for not being strong and who I was before, and the guilt ate me up, I could not sleep due to the worry and stress of what was going on with ex, who I suspect has npd, I had some support, although it was not of the sort that was healthy, a lot of friends and family, abandoned me, or enjoyed the show! I had to forgive myself for being depressed, and I had to appologise to my children, I explained I was going through a hard time and that I was not always like that, and things will not be like that again. We are emotionally engaged again, and I am relaxed on the most part again, obviously when a very stressful situation comes along, I tell the children, I am stressed and they have learned to not misbehave and wind each other up, so the cycle of the drama has not continued as it was before... I would so like to say to you, it was not you, it was an illness, and it is a shame that your parents could not admit to that for you.

Trilliums, your post makes absolute and perfect sense to me, down to not being able to pinpoint exactly what was wrong with your childhood. My parents were exactly like yours, not identical of course, but all the traits and behaviours in your parents that you have described are so familiar to me.

I am sure that my mother also had PND after she had me and that it never really lifted completely all her life. She was also absent in all but body to borrow your phrase. Like you, I have pieced all this information together now but back then, as a child, I just felt totally ignored, unloved, rejected and unwanted by her. The worst thing for me was that she was like that only with me. With my 2 younger sisters, she was interested, engaged and 'present' in mind and body. Like you, I always had clean clothes, a meal on the table, etc etc. But the big, invisible thing that was missing was my mother's love. My dad also had a mental illness which my mum chose to ignore and like you for ages I thought my dad was the 'bad' guy and my mum the 'good' guy until I started seeing her crucial role in 'enabling' and allowing my dad to abuse me mentally, psychologically and verbally.

I am so glad you have posted on here. I hope you will keep posting. Posting and being understood and heard and validated is so healing and theraputic.

Positives - love their grandchildren and dd1 loves them. (I do worry they will 'crush her spirit' as they did mine but actually they are different with her).

They spend a lot of time with DD1 especially, used to have her one day a week to save on nursery fees and so that she wasn't in nursery 4 days a week. (However, I was broken hearted at putting dd into nursery but my exh had put us in so much debt I had to go to work after 6 months. My mum kept phoning me and saying how it was 'keeping her awake at night that my poor baby had to go in one of those places' and she just 'couldn't bear to think about it' Quite how she thought this was helpful I don't know Really upset me and made me feel doubly guilty.

Have been very helpful with money. (although this does then mean they comment on what I spend my money on. Classic, when I said to my friend, in front of them, 'That was expensive, that party cleaned me out!' talking about the party for dd's 3rd birthday we'd just thrown, my m piped up 'actually we paid for it', because they'd given me a gift of money the month before (I actually have a very good job and earn a very good wage). This really upset me.

When I got divorced they were very helpful with picking up dd1 when I was at work. (however, my exh had been violent to me and I did feel that he shouldn't be alone with dd but they pushed me (bullied me?) into allowing it and I do wonder whether that was so they didn't have to keep doing the pick ups themselves).

I don't drive and they were very generous taking me to hospital when I was very ill when pregnant with dd2 and DP had to work.

My d was very helpful round the house when I got divorced, so he would put wallpaper up, sort the garden, do 'manly' jobs (before I got with DP). Was very kind of him to give up his spare time to help.

Am still thinking...

Trilliums I am new to this so cannot advise but wanted to say hi and well done for posting

Trillium, I can also completely relate to your parents lack of support after your mc and them almost immediately wanting to talk to you about their problems. My mum was just the same. She was just not interested in giving me support for my problems but was quite happy to offload her problems onto me and burden me with them. She also just changed the subject if I tried to talk about my problems or would just act like she hadn't heard me and carry on with whatever she was doing.

I just cannot understand how she could treat me one way and my 2 sisters another way and never seem bothered about it. I would feel so awful and guilty if I consistently ignored one of my children and doted on the other one. Even if my feelings for one child were stronger than for the other child, I could never openly make it obvious that I loved one child more than the other. It is just so cruel of a parent to do that.She never once stood up for me when my dad was abusing me or tried to stop him. She just stood there silently (looking scared and anxious) and afterwards just acted like nothing had happened.

I am sorry to keep going on about my mother. I think over the last few days I have been triggered into thinking about her and I have been feeling very angry today. As usual, she is the silent partner in all the money wrangling with my dad. Have not heard a peep out of her. In fact have not heard a word from her since I cut ties, apart from a letter full of self pity. I hate and despise her more than my dad, she is the more evil one of the two in my eyes, for watching me being abused and doing nothing at all.

Diving - thinking more about you saying not allowed to have differences of opinion. If I even mention that my best friend is a lesbian I am told to 'shut up and stop being disgusting'. If I mention my period, as in oh ive got spots coming must be because of ... my d will say 'Don't talk about that please'.

They are racist in the sense that they see people of other races as less than them in this country if that makes sense (they would never vote bnp or do anything bad / say nything bad to someone of another race), to best sum up their attitude it is that they read and believe the Daily Mail. I've tried to ask them not to be and the only way I've (sort of) stopped it in front of me is by saying that they won't see dd again if they say anything like that in front of her.

They talk about single parents etc in derogatory ways seemingly forgetting that I am one (dp and i are not married so not really a single parent but in their eyes i am).

But how do I start to draw boundaries? If I said about my house 'if you don't like the mess we can meet elsewhere' i'd get a chorus of how 'difficult' i'm being, how 'over sensitive' etc.

And I think i'm going mad because when i talked with my brother he just said 'yes they were strict but so what?' He won't hear a word said against them. They don't do any of the belittling stuff to him. He's witnessed them do it to me but said it was my fault that boundaries got eradicated when i got divorced and i was lazy and let them do everything (i was going through a divorce and working 60+ hours a week and totally depressed / bewildered and yes i did step away from looking after dd a bit, i couldn't cope).

Sorry, will stop rambling.

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I am going to avoid both Brian and Bob!

I keep reading posts and its like I could have written them myself. I think Ive just been dumping stuff on here so far too - so sorry about that, I will try to be more coherent from now on.

The bit about everything being qualified - exactly like I said before, "hasnt she done sooo well" with the underlying "considering".

And the accusations that you make her ill through your actions? (by not doing x you are making me sooo upset I am not well now).

Ive just realised I wasnt even a year older than dd1 is now when she took to bed for almost a school year. Do being neurotic about your health, and npd, go hand in hand?

Guilt - disloyalty - mistrust - and that nagging feeling of never quite being good enough no matter what you do.....

Stately - Ive often had it flung in my face about my children going to childcare - where Bad Things Happen To Children - with the implication I should either stay at home or more likely hand them over to m and d to look after - they seemed to miss the point that I have such bad memories of my childhood I would never have left them with my children in a sustained/continuous pattern.

Is there any way to let the children establish a decent relationship with the grandparents do you think?

Thank you all for your posts. I know that I am not just 'moaning', that what happened to me as a child was deeply distressing and has taken me years to start to recover from... but like you say Diving there is that lurking voice in your head that tries to convince you otherwise. And it is very hard to let myself believe in what I know to be true, when I was brought up in a family that insisted all was perfect and fine, and still does. I really did think I was mad, bad, over-sensitive, etc for a long time. I still slip back into that at times. Part of why I wanted to write on this thread is because I have been working for a long time to unravel and see what the 'truth' of my childhood is rather than what my parents want me to believe and I think writing here is a big step in choosing to believe myself and not them, IYSWIM.
Mummiehunnie, i think that my mother had many issues herself, self-hate, low self-esteem, that stem from her own relationship with her mother. From the little I have heard my grandma, though very loving to me, sounds like she was very cold and critical to my mother as a child. I think having me triggered those issues, causing post-natal depression, a depression which lasted throughout my childhood. And yes, I think she is still depressed, but she gained some relief from me and my brother leaving home and no longer requiring her to be a 'mum' in the same way and so her depression is not as crushing as it was. That is my guess anyway, but to be honest there is so much I will never understand. It helps in a way, reading of women who have struggled with depression and taking care of their children, because it helps me understand that it wasn't my fault, it wasn't anything which I did or didn't do. I'm sorry you had such a terrible time going through your divorce, but I'm sure it made a world of difference to your children that you were able to explain things to them. Unfortunately my mother never had the self-awareness to change and get help. (not saying that you were in any way like my mother, of course).
vanillabean one of the hardest things has been that to the outside eye I am sure we looked like a perfect family, and there was no physical indicator that anything was wrong. I'm sure my Mum looked highly functional and a responsible 'good' parent to everyone else. But it is devastating to feel at best ignored and invisible, at worst hated and unloved by your mother, it has taken me a long time to stop thinking 'god, what kind of terrible person must I be if my own mother couldn't love me. I can see now that she was very ill, although I don't want to go down the path of making excuses for her/protecting her.
I think the m/c has triggered a lot of old stuff for me- I started thinking that it must be my fault, I lost the baby because I'm not good enough to be a mum, I don't deserve to be happy etc. On top of that I have had to struggle to let myself grieve, ignoring my parents who would rather I just shrugged it off and 'be positive' as they are fond of saying. That and, 'it's in the past so all you can do is move forward'. Meaningless statements when your heart has been broken .

Hi Trill,

I think you have done ever so well to get down to such an understanding of things, you have obviously a strong sense of self awareness, I also think you are doing really well in yourself from your posts x

I just keep reading everyone's posts and I get such a lot from it all x

Thanks mummiehunnie, that means a lot to me. It has taken me years and years and years of therapy to get here though- and as you can see, I am still working on it! It has been a long process- I am finally in my first healthy, loving and long term relationship, after a decade of brief, destructive relationships with unsuitable men. This has been a huge step forward for me, yet even now I still have moments of being amazed that someone could love me just for myself, I am sure it is a mistake.
I too get so much from the posts, it has helped me move even further away from the madness of thinking, 'but what if I'm overreacting/ making it up/ being too sensitive' etc and gives me the courage to believe in myself and respect my feelings.

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Hi all, am not having a good day today. Sorry to only talk about me, please feel free to ignore.

Have had a lot of triggers about my mother recently. A friend's mother died and she was talking about her, saying how close they had always been, that she spoke to her for over an hour 3 times a week and how she missed her. I felt sorry for her loss but realised I just could not imagine how she must be feeling, to lose somebody that you loved deeply and who loved you. I have never known that sort of love myself and I just feel so sad about it.

So many memories are coming back to me of the countless times my mother let me down. She was there for my sister when she was distraught after splitting up with a boyfriend but when i went through the same sort of thing she was not there at all, totally silent and absent. She gave me nothing and yet expected so much from me. She would talk in an accusatory way about how other people's daughters visisted their mother every weekend without fail and called them all the time and were such lovely, devoted daughters. She was having a dig at me about not being a devoted daughter to her. But she totally failed to see that the other mothers she was talking about had given their daughters so much, so much love, support, kindness, attention and protection. She had given me none of that and yet wanted so much from me. She blamed me for the fact that we were not close and never talked properly. But I tried so many times to talk to her but always got rejected and ignored, so in the end I just gave up. But she blamed me saying she couldn't talk to me because I was hard to talk to. The worst thing is that she was completely different with my sisters and so validated her pov that all our problems were my fault. She can't or won't see that her relationship with my sisters was so much better and closer because she was always a much better mother to them. She just doesn't see that it all starts with her. As a child, all I could do was respond and react to the way she behaved with me and that is all I did. I learned to keep my mouth shut and not make any demands on her or talk about my feelings because she didn't want to know.

I truly hate her for the way she has blamed me for everything, and not taken one shred of responsibility for the way things have turned out, for the fact that I had no choice but to cut ties with her and all the consequences for me that have flowed from that decision.

I really want a mother I can call up and talk to about anything and everything, big or small. There is nobody else who can fill that gap, especially now that I am a mother myself. I really feel I need somebody I can talk to, somebody who has been through it all and knows how hard and tiring and relentless being a mother is. Friends can't fill the gap, nor can DH. I just don't know what to do when I need something that I just can't have.

Sorry for the incoherent rambling. I know it doesn't make much sense.

Diving - "The Compassionate Mind" by Paul Gilbert. I'm still reading and loving it

Vanillabeanfrosting that makes total sense to me. I find it unbearably painful longing for a mother that I can't have, and the despair at knowing I will never have her. I find it hard at times to see mothers with young children who are being warm, responsive, joyful, kind with them... all the things that I never had and never will. It is horrible that sort of hunger inside you for something unattainable. Over the years I have tried to drown it out with numerous bad strategies- drinking too much, eating too little, buying things I didn't need. I don't know what the answer is, but I think a big part is letting yourself feel that longing, however painful it is and allowing yourself to grieve. Easy words to write I know, not so easy in practice. But something that this thread is giving me is a sense that I am not alone, that other people also know what it is I feel. For a long time I saw people around me with seemingly healthy relationships with their mothers/ children and I felt so lonely, like I was the only one who had been rejected by their mother. As much as I am deeply sorry you have suffered too, I suppose what I am trying to say is that I understand how you feel and knowing other people have been there too and understand how I feel is a comfort to me and I hope it might help you too. Hope that makes sense!

You made perfect sense, Vanilla. I'm finding it hard to regain my "balance" vis-a-vis my family, likely because of my recent strides forward in recognising my truth. Whilst I accept that others won't see things the same way that I do, I wish they would: I feel so alone!

I gain strength from other posts here, reminding me of all the ways to stay neutral around my mum, and very much from being able to post here when I feel wobbly. I'm trying to figure out whether I can slightly shift my sibling relationships. Golden Sis has said a few things, lately, that make me think she's revising her opinion of Mum. I've realised that Golden Bro has subtly gone minimum-contact with all of us, and am wondering if there's a way to open a new dialogue with him. Currently, I'm hoping my own processes will reveal the answers in due course: I hope they'll hurry up, as I feel so very isolated

My psychologist has given me some worksheets to help with two important & interesting tasks. I've to identify the qualities in people I admire, which I want to strengthen in myself, and to create an 'icon' (animal, vegetable or mineral!) that will represent feelings of safety, being nurtured and cared for. I'm loving the first! I've already got a list of 30 women, and am surprised that they're all 'warriors' on some sort - boundary-pushers. They have almost all been fiercely attacked by men ... so perhaps it's not that surprising after all! For the nurturing thing, I keep coming up with a beach; that seems a bit wimpy, but perhaps it is the right thing for me - for now.

The only times she found her voice and became a presence in my life was when there was something good happening. When I had DD I suddenly got so much attention from her and my dad, it was quite bewildering for me, but nice as well, for the first time in my life, at the age of 33, my parents suddenly noticed me and seemed to like me. It was not about me of course, I know that now, they knew they had to go through me to get to DD, but all the same, at the time, it felt good. I felt cared for and looked after by them. I felt they were thinking about me. They weren't of course, but it was my first ever taste of feeling loved and wanted by my parents.

Somebody talked further up about being unwell and scared of going to school and going to bed everyday at 4pm and their parents not noticing that surely something must be wrong and shouldn't they find out what it was? Mine were the same, many many times it would have been obvious that there was something very wrong in my life and they would literally just ignore me and carry on life as normal, as if there was nothing amiss. And then when I had something good happen in my life, something my mother could show off about, then she couldn't shut up and tell the world, even if I had asked her not to because I wanted to keep certain things private. It's so hard to figure out my mother as she held down a fairly good job (primary school teacher for SEN) and was a seemingly good enough mother to my sisters. But to me she was a complete failure and let down. Why? Was it because of me? Something about the way I was that meant she couldn't be a proper mother to me? Was I a particularly difficult, bad tempered, grumpy child? I think I was 'difficult' and discontented, because she was not giving me what I needed from her. But she can't see that. She just thinks I was difficult and grumpy. Full stop. Nothing to do with her. And she has blamed me all my life and never once looked at the part she has played or the ways in which she has failed me. She thinks she has done nothing wrong.

I know these are things I have talked about before, but it all seems to be surfacing afresh right now.

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Hi all, sorry to hear that things are not going well for you, we are all here listening to you, keep talking if it helps!

Grace, I was advised to do something similar, to pick people to look up to other than my parents, the last can be as long as I like, I chose Joanna Lumley and David Atinburgh... When I have been down I have thought to myself Joanna and David would tell me to do... blah blah blah..... they are just the sort of relaxing clam gentle kind people I like

oh dear, I made a boo boo, the list not the last lol x

Diving, we posted at the same time, it is good that you are at peace, as you say going through all that grief and pain is dreadfull, I don't know if I am out of it the other side yet or not, I hope so, I know all that anger at my family and my ex has subsided, it helped that I have disassociated with people, the sad thing is that they needed me and I them, during that time, and I was good for them and they were good for me, we were also bad for one another, and I no longer need them to parent or rescue me, and keep me angry to do what I had to do, as that was not healthy for me! I feel a bit of a user sometimes, then I think about what I did for them and how supportive I was to them at times when they needed me, and how I was a source of supply for them, I gave them a purpose, a drama for them to enjoy etc... hey ho... I was in a bad place my life turned upside down, I was so vounerable, and I have to let it go...

onwards and upwards