April 2023 -"Well we took you to Stately Homes"

@tippinggtowardsinfinity I just listened to the part of that podcast you suggested and it makes so much sense the heartbreak she talks about is definitely real.
I've been NC for 4yrs now and it was suggested to me by a therapist that I had to go back in my mind as an adult and visit that little girl who was being horrifically abused and to acknowledge that child.. that beautiful little girl who loved Jason Donovan and grease 2 and who someone should have noticed and helped. It was my birthday last month and my husband really does go all out to make it special but I've always felt abit sad on birthdays.. this year when everyone was out I got out a photo of 8 year me and said happy birthday to her. I sat it down beside me had some cake and sung my heart out with Michelle pheiffer! Might sound silly but it feels good to acknowledge that child. (This post probably sounds insane... please tell me I'm not the only one!)

@tippinggtowardsinfinity I did try EMDR therapy but it didn't go well at all I was doubled over in pain afterwards for 2 days.
I might go back and try again in the future though. I'm currently in the middle of a police investigation to try and get some justice for the damage done to me.. as you can imagine this has gone down really well with all the enablers in my family but I'm past caring what they think. I've found that by going NC I have had to give myself really firm boundaries about who can be in my life.. basically you either believe and support or I'm done with you. It's left me with a pretty small circle but it's the best I've ever felt.

Marking place. I was here before under a different name a long time ago. I've avoided these threads to be honest. It is actually too painful to read them sometimes. It has been very, very hard to acknowledge some parts of my childhood I think I suppressed them completely. In the course of therapy stuff started coming back. My response was a child response- literally shaking. It terrified me to be honest.

How are you all managing the family and friends you didn't get to have that you should have - really feeling this at the moment. Relationships generally really as I have a complex connection with work (if this is classes as a relationship) too. And with colleagues.

So how do you your wider connections look or have you accepted you won't have any but very close immediate friends and family you created?

Just reading that back and clarifying that I don't mean those you are LC/NC or keeping away as they are flying monkeys.

Wow @tippinggtowardsinfinity . That is a skill and acceptance. I'm working on getting back into the right therapy which will help.

I notice a colleague is very like a previous toxic friend so like you I avoid other than high level professional niceness. I might look at the other boxes - how I see them and what is playing out.

So are you saying it is the detached observation that helps? And the not needing to engage.

@tippinggtowardsinfinity I need a job like yours!

I been thinking of asking a similar question here over the last couple of weeks @HatchlingDragon - I'm glad you've asked it!

I'm not sure I can explain it well or whether this is related to my background though. I'm 50 now and look back and see a common theme but also how it has changed. I feel in some ways that I've been through it all twice - with mine and DH's family (very different MO). In terms of positive family relationships I have one really great brother (not local) and DH has no one (he is LC with his local parents). In a nutshell I think the more overt dysfunction/abuse/trauma in my family made me and my brother closer and in DH's family the more covert nature (lots of triangulation and shit stirring from the parents) did the opposite.

As for friends - I have made several significant house moves. I've got one lifelong very close friend from my hometown (not live there for 35 years but that doesn't matter). She is more like a sister to me and her family close to a pseudo family too although that has dwindled a bit with time (and I know I'm incredibly fortunate to have this). I've kept one friend from each of the places I've lived. I tend to hang back a fair amount in groups - there is often one person in the group that sets alarm bells off and I have to fight the urge to run. Local friends have changed a lot in the last few years (this time they are moving not me). I am distancing myself from one friend at the moment, and have been for...5 years! I think I've really had enough now though. This represents the internal fight I have between not over-reacting to red-flags and having boundaries and protecting myself.

I haven't explained what I am trying to say at all! I don't think I've got this right though. Observing people from more stable backgrounds/supportive family network they seem to not be as bothered by things in people that I am and can keep them in their 'circle' and as a result have a much better circle of friends.

How about you?

I meant to write bigger circle of friends rather than better!

I agree, that really is powerful acceptance @tippinggtowardsinfinity .

I definitely recognise parts of what you've written and it is very helpful to see it like that.

I am wondering whether or not I would still be friends (or even am I?) with this one person from each place I've lived if I had continued to live there. Sometimes I think I have continued on with 'friendships' simply to be able to say I have friends.

I've got a colleague who I get on with particularly well and we have a lot in common but I have also seen reasons not to trust her (nothing major at all but enough). I know I'm resistant to taking things further. I think re-framing it will help a lot. There is an activity I would like to do with her outside of work but that feels more like a true friendship and I didn't want to go there. I didn't want to risk what we have now!

A major thing I like about work is having social interactions with a variety of people but leaving it at work, there being a line. Being able to keep it up at this level without the need to go deeper.

@tippinggtowardsinfinity , thank you for your deep wisdom which you shared. You should write a book! I would buy it!! And YES to the snuffly horse. I have one and she's my everything.

@mysonsmother82 , I'm doing talk therapy and EMDR and my therapist now has me doing inner child work. In an EMDR session I stepped into a traumatic memory to save my child self from my abusive parents and took her with me into the present day where she would be safe and did everything for her that loving parents would have done but my shit parents failed to do.

My therapist suggested a schedule a weekly playdate with my inner child. So we do art together. She talks to me through the art and sometimes she writes messages for me. I use my left hand and write in a child's crayon and her little voice seems to come through that way. It feels magical but also very healing and real. I have her pictures set up in a place of honour.

@tippinggtowardsinfinity Thank you so much for sharing all that you have today. Your depth of understanding and your ability to communicate it is extraordinary. I'm sat here in tears. What kind of tears I'm not sure. I feel like something has shifted.

I'm not overly convinced that when I tried counselling a few years back (had about 40 sessions) I was fully open, who understood how, to go deep and get to the core of how I felt. The thing that had really stayed with me was when she explained 'growing around grief' . I felt like a weight had lifted with that - that the goal/expectation wasn't to 'get over' or be without grief but to accept it and grow around it. That was when I last felt a shift like this!

My mum died when I was four (and I've got no reason to believe there were any issues up until this point) - that was the start of a fair amount of abuse (and I hid it). Headline stuff was an unpredictable violent (kicking, strangling) father but I think some people saw me as unprotected/open to being their punching bag too (emotionally) - that did as much, if not more damage. I'm appalled now when I look back at my maternal grandparents though an adults eyes.

Very gratefully received - thank you!
Not sure how a horse would respond but I'm thinking a gentle nudge with my head and a lean in.

@tippinggtowardsinfinity similarly I feel like I have learnt how to do marriage, motherhood and friendship. It sounds like I haven't had as tough a childhood but it was still bonkers in different ways. Without role models as children having healthy relationships requires a lot of work. I used to wish that I had a stable loving childhood but I've made peace with what it was. In my case all the therapy, self awareness and grieving have made me the parent I wish I had both to myself and my children. My partner has patiently been with me through all of this evolution and we have a better relationship now because of it. I have a couple of close friends who have also always been there and I finally trusted them enough to share some of what I've been going through. I am now enjoying having looser connections (friendships and colleagues) on a social level - this is quite hard for me as I tend to expect an unhealthy amount of loyalty from people (which I now recognise as a fear of abandonment).

I had an episode of paralysing grief at the start of the year, which was triggered by a toxic family member who has been trying to cause drama for over a year. For the first time I didn't reach out for talk therapy but instead just let waves of anger and then grief - like you said @tippinggtowardsinfinity I had been carrying a paralysing grief deep within me that I hadn't allowed my body to feel. It was quite an intense period of time to allow this feeling, but I feel like I did finally thaw. It's given me the self love to finally let go of some relationships and it's made other relationships in my life so much better. I have more room to be loved and to love - cheesy but true.

One aspect of my life I have actively stopped myself from doing well in is in my career. All the childhood and early adulthood chatter of me never amounting to anything or being judged in my every effort by family has made me walk the other way from career success. Even when opportunities come my way I find a way of blocking them! I have done ok in my career but now in my 40s, it's time to allow myself success rather than feeling ok about it all. Has anyone overcome this?

@Avocadomother Beautifully written and it's nice to read from someone who has had similar circumstances and progress. Your words on relationships really resonate with me. I feel I have (had to) learnt a great deal how to form and maintain healthy relationships. It used to be all or nothing for me from the start with anyone as my abandonment issues meant I didn't want to give things time to develop and evolve. I'm now meeting new people with very little expectations. I see where things take me with someone and sit back more. I'm ok with acquaintances when previously I couldn't see the point in anything other than pursuing a close friendship. It means I probably treated some people awfully in the past but I have become a better person.

On career I'm the opposite and have no real advice. I always pursued a career and money because I needed this 'admiration' I thought it would bring me and I didn't want to live having to think about whether I go to a cafe or not - this was how I grew up. There were times I couldn't buy my mother a birthday present because I had no money as a young teen and my father didn't take care of me in that way. It was terrible for me. Anyway, I'm now more laid back at work because I want to focus more on my life outside work.

I have just found this group, I have been nc with my dad for 18 years, he was abusive in all ways and have been nc with my mum for 3 years. when they split 18 years ago (I was a teenager) though she would be ok to live with. I was wrong. She is narcissistic.
I find it hard not having any parents at all. I don't want the ones I was given back just wish I had some. I have 2 kids who I look at and just am so in love with them and think they are the best things ever, but why wasn't I? My sister always was but not me.

@rainbowsprite56 I'm sorry to say I know exactly how you feel. I've been no contact with my father for 35 years and very low contact with my mother for 25 (I deliberately live on the other side of the world from her). I am so, so, so jealous of friends/partners who had the 'normal' experience of parents growing up - parents who put them first, made sure they had consistent good schooling, parents who took an interest in their lives, etc. Myself and my two brothers had none of that. I'm now nearly 55 and I just feel myself getting angrier and angrier about it as the years go by. My mother shows no remorse for the hell her and my father put us through...but also can't understand why she doesn't have any grandchildren.

I still try to get answers to the 'why'...it's really hard to accept that I'm just not going to. In my opinion, some people should just not be parents...they just haven't got the emotional resilience or maturity.