'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)

Just a quick one to say I really liked that story about what happened with your DS Smithfield.

I find it really uplifting to read about how you can recognise that you are parenting similarly to your own parents and stop and think about it, then change it and do what you would have wanted when you were a child. Then you made your DS feel better and also processed some of how you felt as a child when you didn't get what you gave to him. As well as feeling sad I bet you felt some satisfaction and achievement that you broke through an ingrained habitual way of thinking about things and did better than your parents.

Remembering to stop and think about things is the hard bit and you did it. I think it is brilliant.

Thankyou ordinairy Hope you are travelling well. Have a feeling you probably are

smithfield, how lucky your DS is that you actually took the time to listen to him and hear him. I NEVER had that as a child from either parent. And I can completely understand that when you felt your DS's pain, you were at the same time feeling your own pain from when you were a little girl. That is what this journey is all about, re-connecting with and feeling our little self's feelings that were ignored at the time.

And I can relate to the discussion about 'one way traffic' in relation to siblings. That is exactly where I was at last year and this year I have stopped and it has become 'no way traffic' which says it all really. I was right to stop bothering and making such an effort because they simply do not care about me. If they missed me and wanted to see me they would get in touch and vice versa. Neither of us have. My experiment shows that blood is not thicker than water!

I can certainly relate to past relationships that have gone wrong, which I now recognise were partly my fault. It was the old me constantly needing love, approval and a replacement mother figure. I have actually tried to apologise but sometimes people just move on and maybe those old friends didn't like the damaged side of me. fair dos really. I just hope they know that I am sorry and I have no bad feelings now

On the other hand I am allowed to have made mistakes and to change and to grow as a person. I will not keep persecuting myself for those past mistakes that were born out of immaturity, low self esteem and a lack of awareness about how much the damage from my childhood was driving me. It doesn't mean i don't accept responsibilty for anyone I have hurt or that I am not genuinely sorry but that I am forgiving myself, moving on and nourishing myself in the healthy relationships I have now

Vanilla you hit a nail on the head, there. I broke contact with my M&D and B&S because they were completely doing my head in, narcs the lot of them. I do feel guilty for not trying to keep up contact. Yet, none of them has really bothered to keep in contact with me in return or sought to find out why I haven't been in touch. Not once has any one of them asked how I am, and they all know I'm pregnant. And part of my getting back in touch anxiety stems from the inevitable contact once my DC is born in a couple of weeks. I really would like not to be in touch because....I feel like they don't deserve to share in my good times, when they're not interested in me at any other time. But I still feel guilty as hell feeling like this. Arggggh! My DSis (younger) will end up being the go-between if I don't get in touch with the others directly, and that's just not fair on her.

Could not sleep thinking about the sibling stuff.

If I accept that:

1. my toxic siblings are just as much victims of my parents as me, albeit that;
2. one of them was the "favoured" child, so, objectively, one can surmise she felt a less painful form of victimhood than the unfavoured; and on the basis that,
3. they were just as much helpless to the parents' conditioning as me albeit in a different way,

is my cutting contact with them because of their behaviour towards me a form of abuse/invalidation of their feelings/narc because I have set myself up as the victim rather than recognising that we were all, in one way or another, victims? Using Rose's words, are they too not allowed to make mistakes and grow as people?

Or is it just an act of self preservation/ acknowledging a hopelessly damaged situation, time to move on, as Rose says?

By coincidence, this from today's Guardian

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/15/sibling-rivalry-brothers-family

Thankyou vanilla. It is hard sometimes to just tune out everything else and just listen to them.

BOF Thanks for the article. Interesting.
My online counsellor asked me why I retained contact with my middle db. Which is why I'd been thinking about it.
Initially 'fear' I think was a predominant factor because part of the abuse from my mothor was to isolation from the rest of my family. 'Dont speak to her..' she would spit. I hated that isolation more than anything else. living in a home where no-one is speaking to you and you are treated like a lepor (sp) felt very shaming.
I think I was afraid of being cut off from all of them at once as it raised all that anxiety again.
I have moved past that fear/anxiety now quite a bit (although perhaps not completely) So if i am honest it now bils down to one thing. 'Duty'. That is it, and how sad that that is all it boils down to.
I dont blame any of them. I used to spend ages trying to get dsis to see my POV and both dbs. I also used to feel inanely jealous of the two goldens. I dont anymore. I think because I am seeing that they were (as in the goldens)my mothers supply/victims as much as I was. Narcs need supply fullstop, whether neg or positive. It is harder for the golden ones to walk away because they 'are' my mothers positive supply (dont know if that makes sense). I on the other had had less to lose. I am free, they are not.
I have to say BOF you are lucky to have your dsis it must be a nice feeling to be validated by a sibling.
Btw when I had dd my dh sent a text to all my family members. Apart from I called mid db myself (the fear was very much present back then.)

boils not bils editing not my strong point.

I am still really really upset about diving's posts. I keep going over and over what she said in my mind and I just cannot understand why she suddenly would say such nasty, horrible and hurtful things to me. In all my posts I know that I have never said anything to her or about her that could have provoked such a nasty outburst from her. If she found my posts so tedious and boring why did she keep reading them? She didn't have to read them much less respond as she did a couple of times.

I honestly don't know why she suddenly felt the need to attack me like she did. She seemed to take offence to me saying I found DD's endless talk boring. And she clearly found my posts boring, but she should have just ignored them, there was no need for her to keep reading them, and for 2 years. Why has been reading my boring posts for 2 years if she actually didn't want to? I just cannot understand why somebody would do such a thing, and then all of sudden attack me for my posts. All I have been doing is talking about my issues, wrt my sisters and various other stuff, which I what I thought this thread was fpr.

From what I can remember of what she said to me, she seemed to take offence that I had not responded to her posts about her struggles or to other posters about their struggles. But that is just not true. I may have recently talked a lot about my own issues but I always respond to other's posts when I feel I can. Admittedly sometimes I am so consumed with my stuff that I can't respond to other people even though I want to. And I am always under a time constraint, I don't have time always to fully respond as I would like and sometimes I just need to vent about my issues to clear my head.

Despite her denying it, I am sure that my posts have been triggerig her wrt her sister in some way, as I have talked a lot about my sisters in the last year or so. And I cannot understand how she can decide she doesn't like me just on the basis of my posts. I don't really care if she likes me or not, but I just don't think she can make s judgment about me or anybody on the basis of their posts because I don't think anybody's posts can ever tell the whole story. I feel more of a connection with certain posters because our situations have similarities but that's no basis on which to decide I like or dislike somebody.

Like many of you, I had a lot of respect for diving and found her posts insightful. But that has completely evaporated now and I am questioning her authenticity. To me she is no better than my toxic parents after her recent posts to me. She to me has shown the same unjustified cruelty, nastiness and lack of empathy that my parents did. I don't care how bad a place she was in, there was no justification for her posts to me.

Vanilla, please don't shoot me but is it impossible for you to accept that diving is just as fragile, just as vulnerable to mistakes, as all of us? I feel it's pointless (even, perhaps, intrusive) to try and evaluate her reasons for getting so upset at what you wrote. What we do here (mostly) is allow other posters to work through their own responses, drawing any lessons from them in their own time ... which is why I'm not about to second-guess your reasons for reacting aggressively to the hurt you felt.

You evidently did trigger one another. It is possible to view that as a constructive event & learn something from it. You both might feel unready to do that right now. Not a problem.

My therapists have often needed to remind me to sit with my feelings, especially when my feeling is "sad". I often kick out when I'm hurt, all humans do. But, like many others here, I need a little extra thought before I recognise my true response is sadness.

Grace, all of us on here are fragile, me too. Which is why it is so awful for one poster on here to turn on another poster. I think I was entitled to react angrily to divings posts because they were so nasty and deliberately and knowingly hurtful. It wasn't a mistake on her part, she knew what she was saying.

What bothers me even more is that only Rose seemed to recognise that I was very hurt, whilst also recognisng that diving was in a very bad place. Most people seemed concerned about diving, understandably, but not about the person who had been attacked, judged and criticised, totally against the ethos of this thread.

MH even took the opportunity to dig the knife in again, talking about being worried that she would bore me by going on about something. It's diving she should be worried about boring, not me.

Whilst I'm on here, as this is going to be my last post, I am going to say that I found diving's posts to be highly intellectually insightful and eloquent. But to me she always spoke from her head, not her heart. I never once felt or sensed any emotion in her posts, only a very good intellectual understanding about her issues. She is a great intellectual, but that is actually a hindrance in this work; intellectualising too much can prevent getting in touch with and feeling one's previously unfelt emotions from childhood and that is the key to recovery and healing.

I wish you all the best for the future, and thank you for all the support you have given me in the past.

Oh god, is it my fault you're quitting?

Please don't.

grace You are not to blame at all Vanilla ia an adult, her own person, if that is what she has decided it is nt because anything you have done.

vanilla I have to disagree. I have also read divings posts for the past two years and she has always spoke from her heart.
I think its a shame you have decided to leave but I truly believe this is more about your own issues of feeling like an outsider (as you felt in your old family), which you are not here btw. It just feels that way right now.
You are an adult and you stood up for yourself in an adult way. It was not the responsibility of 'any' poster to intervene on your behalf.
I have actuually felt incredibly upset about the whole incident. However I chose not to write about it, and as grace said sat with my feelings, because I had to ask myself was this making it about me? It would have been which would not have been fair to either you or Diving.

Thank you, Smithfield. I guess conflict resolution is something everybody needs to work on, even without a history of screwed-up relationships.

Sorry actually grace for jumping in. Im sure you would have sorted it

Don't be daft! I meant thank you - and my comment was generic

Unbelievable!

Actually, I am quite disgusted at the mention of my name is such a way, what an odd comment to make about me, I have been nothing but supportive, I have had things I wanted to post myself and waited, until things died down, and now I am being attacked for being supportive??? What strange thinking!!!

The behaviour of someone attacking innocents is selfish, self absorbed and over sensitive behaviour by someone who is angry, upset and not thinking straight!

This is behaviour from people are recoving from abuse, this does not mean that I am going to accept it, it is not behaviour that I am displaying and I do not expect it from others, I would now ask for an apology Vanilla from you, I feel that you have been wrong in your comments about me, I am hurt!

The drama triangle has gone from Vanilla and Diving being persecutor and victim, to Vanilla persecuting anyone to get back in control and be a persecutor to stop feeling like a victim, and used my name in particular, I was not the one who swore at you Vanilla, I was supportive to you as I am to others in this thread, I treated you like you were ok, I encouraged you to think for yourself and you accuse me of something that was not the case, UNBELIEVABLE!

Thank you for your good wishes TRSmithfield x
I'm feeling quite 'moderate' at the moment, which feels better than the extremes of previously.

I haven't been on here much lately, and am sad that people have been getting upset with each other. I didn't see what Diving wrote before it was deleted so don't know what my opinion is on the issues.

I just want to wish everyone well with feeling better about everything, as whoever is in the wrong or in the right, if they are on here, they are finding things difficult.

I want to start sharing, I had a very difficult week last week! I was so scared, that on friday morning, I relented and phoned a family member, I don't even know what I wanted to say, I do know I was insecure and scared, and if I was abused by them or they were kind was going to make all the difference to my ability to cope, why I set myself up I don't know!

Anyways, it was neither in the end, I asked if they could talk, they said not now love and put the phone down, the rejection was fine as they added love, and it was ok then for me to the things I needed to do!

I had not spoken to this person in a very long time our relationship is over, I don't even know why I phoned up, I think lonleyness and fear?

Interesting, mh. I'm trying to figure out what happened for you there. Was it that their kind, but neutral, response made you feel able to make your own decision? Would a put-down have robbed you of your power, do you feel?

refreshers - sorry about your last post: mainly because I remember thinking it was really good, but can't remember what was in it!
Hope you're okay.

I think you are right Grace, the neutral response did help me!

I don't know what a put down would have done, I may have used it to make me strong, and brave and know I am on my own, goodness knows I just was not doing it from a place of thinking!

I have spent the time since ex left, being scared of so many things, and I have now gone out and organised us getting a new pet, I feel able to cope with it, and able to take on more responsibility, which is so good, as it is all just me! My confidence is rising so much.

Also with developments on friday, I feel like there is going to be an end to things with the ex having control of my life, after so very long financially, and after he cut every path forward that I could make in my life, and me having the plans dashed over and over again, I had given up, and lived with limbo, now I am geeting excited as there looks like an end to it and that I can make plans again, it is so exciting for me right now, being able to move my life on, and not being trapped anymore!

Grace, I have been thinking more upon what you said, and I think part of the problem is that I have become reliant upon this thread, and at the time I did not feel it was a safe place for me to share, I am still uncertain if I will be heard or attacked for someone else's issues, I do feel right now I can cope with an unjustified attack from another member or being ignored!