support thread for mamas with toxic and/or estranged parents - Page 3

[nolonger]

Originally Posted by sunkissedmumma67

My parents always seemed to find a way to terrorize me, even when it was somewhat disguised by them as help.l

This is so true of my situation. It just adds shame because "normal" people think i should be grateful for having these fabulous parents who pay my rent and buy me crap i don't want and i am afraid and insecure that i will never be able to take care of myself if i don't jump through their hoops.

[bigeyes]

Originally Posted by LavenderMae

I come from a family that likes to re-write history. My childhood apparently was just a delusion. They also sweep things under the rug but also like to dredge up things I've said or done in the past. But they were always just doing the best the could (said my grandmother so many times), nope that's just not good enough and also not even true.
My mom is the queen of using things you've said against you, it can be small unimportant things or big things. She also has used her messed up mothering to make me feel guilty. She has talked to me about it in such inappropriate and emotionally damaging ways. Because of course it's really all about her.
She's also the queen of manipulation she has a real nack for it. It's almost an art with her.

My grandmother is the queen of denial and just denies denies denies. I haven't spoken to her in many months either and really I just don't see the point in doing so. She is the closest thing I ever had to a mother though. And she's getting older and not in great health. But she has made it clear over the years and recently that she does not like me and does not care about having a relationship with me. Of course all 'said' with out actually saying it, nope being upfront and honest isn't her strong suite. She's very passive aggressive.

Wow, Lavender, if it weren't for the grandmother part, I would have sworn you were my long lost sister. My mom just can't figure out why I've always moved far far away.

[sunkissedmumma67]

Originally Posted by noordinaryspider

This is so true of my situation. It just adds shame because "normal" people think i should be grateful for having these fabulous parents who pay my rent and buy me crap i don't want and i am afraid and insecure that i will never be able to take care of myself if i don't jump through their hoops.

WOW, yeah i can really relate to that normal people think you should be grateful. It's sad they obviously dont have experience with toxic parents. The help, even if needed isnt ever worth the sick crap that comes with it. I can remember my earliest experience with that type of situation, when i ran away at age 15 and stayed with a friend and her family for a couple weeks. I told my friends parents about the abuse and they were so good to me and called the police to turn my parents in. The police officer came to their house to talk to me and i told him many of the terrible things that my dad had done to me and he just looked at me with disgust and told me that i should be so ashamed of myself for saying such mean things about the man who was supporting me, taking care of me, (feeding me, clothing me, paying for the braces on my teeth, ect.) It's just like in an abusive relationship with a bf or husband, the victim, or shall i say the person struggling to be healthy, is often seen as neurotic and the abuser comes across as a nice guy. Unless you have been in one of these sick relationships, you cant really understand!

[LavenderMae]

Originally Posted by sunkissedmumma67

It's just like in an abusive relationship with a bf or husband, the victim, or shall i say the person struggling to be healthy, is often seen as neurotic and the abuser comes across as a nice guy. Unless you have been in one of these sick relationships, you cant really understand!

:


Bigeyes, I'm sorry your mother is anything like mine.

[bigeyes]

Originally Posted by LavenderMae

:


Bigeyes, I'm sorry your mother is anything like mine.

s Back atcha. 3 jobs was preferable to being home, believe me.

I think that's what just killed me when dsd started acting up. I was like wait a minute, I don't treat you like I was treated, how can you be doing this??? I was completely blindsided by the behavior. It's almost funny how naive I was, but at the time it was devastating.

It's opened up some interesting conversation since things are going better. When both dcs talk about things that happen at school, I don't say things like just be nice to other people and they'll be nice to you, for example. Instead I ask them what they think might motivate someone to act a certain way, what they are trying to get when they tattle or bully. I think it's a lot more important for them to try to problem solve than it is for them to think always being 'nice' will get them what they want, yk?

[cristeen]

Wow... somewhere that makes sense to me. to all you ladies. In a way it's great I found people who will probably understand, and in a way it's awful that there are so many of us...

Dh and I each only have 1 family member at this point. My maternal grandmother and his brother. We live in the same town with my MIL, yet I've never met her or any of that family (6 years now). And we haven't spoken to my parents or my sister in 19 months. When I cut off contact with my father and step-mother, my sister chose sides like she always has (as did the rest of that side of the family, aunts and uncles, cousins). Sis's always been a daddy's girl, so I don't know why that surprised me.

I feel this terrible guilt, wanting to bring a child into a world where they won't have any extended family, just DH and me (both his brother and my sister have made it plain they have no intention of ever having children). Yet at the same time we both want children, maybe in part to prove that it doesn't have to be that way, that the cycle doesn't have to repeat. I'm not real sure how to reconcile that in my own heart.

And yet we have surrogate family. My mother's BFF has been like a mother to me since mine died 20 years ago. Her oldest child is my BFF, everything I wish my sister ever was. DH's BFF is like a sister to him, and she has a family of her own (niece and nephew).

Not sure where I'm going with this. I've just been thinking about it a lot lately, trying to settle my own heart.

[LavenderMae]

Cristeen, my children have no real grandparents (my fil and his wife do send b-day/x-mas presents but they have never met my kids) and the only family member I speak to is my sister but that relationship isn't wonderful and she is not close with my kids. My dh doesn't have contact (except like I mentioned with his dad) with his family. It does make me sad my children don't have any extended familyu. But they do have each other at least. I think that's one reason I knew I wouldn't have an only child, I wanted my children to have family.

[urklemama]

A few months ago, one day my son started crying and telling me how sad he would be when he would have to leave me, and asking me when he would have to go live by himself. It took a long time but I finally got him to explain that he thought that since I'd moved away from my parents and no longer spoke to them, he would have to do the same thing. I told him that most people stay close with their parents forever and I reassured him that he would never have to leave me if he didn't want to. I told him that grandma and grandpa and I were all really angry at each other but it didn't have anything to do with him.

I feel like I have to make things civil at least for his sake. I really, really, really do not want to. I have just been not taking any action for almost two years now. It's not just my parents, it's my entire extended family.

[Cherry Alive]

Hello. Didn't ever want to be here, but here I am.

I chose to cut my father out of my life. It's hard, bc I love him, but he is just so manipulative, abusive, and toxic that he's not a healthy person for me or my family to be around.

If I didn't have a family who depended on me or we lived in another state (far, far away) it would be different...I'd probably still be where I was 5-10 years ago with my father still being a central figure in my life. But now there is so much at stake, and I've come to realize having him in my life will continue a cycle of abuse that started in our family at least 3 generations back.

There are a few central people in my family who don't respect my choice. It's absurd, bc they aren't even directly connected with my father and know a lot of our history (can't go into details, but it's disturbing).

I hear a lot of "you can't deny a grandfather his rights" and that is complete BS. He's an abuser. He never really stopped, and he won't as long as I let him continue. It will always be a vicious cycle until I put enough distance and boundaries up to protect myself, and that's going to take time, strength and work.

If I don't, not only do I get hurt, but my husband and future child will, too. I don't trust him near my future daughter. I know he'd use her to get at me. He's an attorney with a Masters degree in psychology and plays head games waaaay too well.

I don't like doing this. I know it hurts my father... It breaks my heart to hurt him...to shut out someone I love and possibly severe such a large branch of my family tree...

But in my heart and my gut (which I've learned I should always to listen to and trust), I know this is the right choice to make. I am lucky there are people who support me very strongly—including therapists, fellow abuse survivors, my closest friends, certain family members and husband. If it wasn't for them, I couldn't do this...or I wouldn't survive it.

It hurts, but I am going to focus on the positive. I am blessed to have good friends, family, and my husband. I will soon have a beautiful child, too. I know I can and will become a stronger person. Life will be good.

[MPJJJ]

Hugs. All of you are so strong. This is never easy, and there are so many emotions attached. It's all the harder when our children are involved. And there isn't any real gains, just an absence of pain that is replaced by another one. This is a group that nobody wants to be part of.

[A&A]

Originally Posted by MPJJJ

Hugs. All of you are so strong. This is never easy, and there are so many emotions attached. It's all the harder when our children are involved. And there isn't any real gains, just an absence of pain that is replaced by another one. This is a group that nobody wants to be part of.

[layne]

I haven't posted here in a while but am reading. It is getting really hard emotionally right now because the holidays are coming and it is my second christmas/thanksgiving sober. Last year was excruciating and I know I can't manage another one like that and keep my sobriety and sanity. The worst part was that no one seemed to get that I was in pain, drowning in it, because I had been drinking and faking my way through it for so many years and the ones who upset me were too busy fighting over the last glass of wine themselves.
I am spending thanksgiving with the family members that I was lucky to have an wouldn't have chosen for myself because I'd have thought I didn't deserve them but then there is the rest of my family and ILs hanging over my head. I would love to just never deal with it, pretend they are not there and stay home, but I am not sure how to get away with that, how to draw that line and not be wounded by whatever is said about it.
So it is still tightrope walking for me. Not my strong suit. I have to keep it together now for the kids and in a year or less we will move and be done with it for a while.
I am so glad for you mamas. If I had to be in this club, I am glad it is full of such caring and wise women as its other members.

layne

[nolonger]

Layne, I've got the Christmas blues too. It's kind of silly that I have been obsessing so much over the email from mym mother asking what me and the big kids want for Christmas, but we don't want ANYTHING from her! Last year she threw a hissy fit that the kids hadn't written thank you notes and they both specifically asked me to tell her not to buy them more stuff.

Her gifts are always mean little digs at us.

The one year I asked her not to send gifts because ds1 and I didn't have the heart to celebrate Christmas right after she had taken dd away from us, she duid not respect my wishes so i don't expect her to respect them now.

This is kind of dumb, but Terran's known donor (he doesn't have a father) opened a "family" website for interested recipients to post pictures and keep in touch with "cousins" and I am positively thrilled!

Red_Lil_Mamma, a friend of mine fought a long, hard legal battle to protect her children from toxic grandparents and she won. He does not have the right to do the same thing to you that my parents did to me and my older kids. Do be prepared for a wave of hormonally induced emotions after the birth. It is NORMAL to want to reconnect with our parents when we have a new baby.

I dealt with it by accepting my need for contact and redirecting my desire to share the baby with them into listening, nurturing my parents as much as I could, and trying to learn why they were the way they were.

The desire to tell them about Terran passed on its own without any "Oh NOOOOOOOO!"s or "How could you be so stupid?"s or "But yoiu have to buy a puppy because I won't have MY GRANDSON growing up without a puppy"s or anonymous calls to CPS.

[A&A]

:


Thank you. I feel better now.

[layne]

Originally Posted by A&A

:


Thank you. I feel better now.

::
thanks - that cracked me up.

[A&A]

So, is anyone else going to see their parents for Thanksgiving? I am, because we will all be at my sister's.

It occurred to me that I can't deal with my mom like I would any other person, because something primal inside me panics when she is upset with me. Does anyone else experience this?

[sunkissedmumma67]

Originally Posted by A&A

So, is anyone else going to see their parents for Thanksgiving? I am, because we will all be at my sister's.

It occurred to me that I can't deal with my mom like I would any other person, because something primal inside me panics when she is upset with me. Does anyone else experience this?

Yeah i spent about 3 hrs. of Thanksgiving at my parents house. I don't know what it is but i just can't relax and be myself around them. I guess because they were always so critical. They are just so negative. They take a negative situation and instead of being supportive and trying to make it better. They make it even more negative and they will take a positive situation that they dont like for what ever reason and make it negative. I mean i don't understand why if you do anything different from the way that they do it, it's autmatically negative!

[A&A]

Originally Posted by sunkissedmumma67

Yeah i spent about 3 hrs. of Thanksgiving at my parents house. I don't know what it is but i just can't relax and be myself around them. I guess because they were always so critical. They are just so negative. They take a negative situation and instead of being supportive and trying to make it better. They make it even more negative and they will take a positive situation that they dont like for what ever reason and make it negative. I mean i don't understand why if you do anything different from the way that they do it, it's autmatically negative!

[Kaitnbugsmom]

not enough time to go into it right now but sufice to say y'all will wish i'd hush when I do speak my piece. A few of you probably remember the livejournal post I linked to in Personal Growth a couple years ago explaining the whole thing. Needless to say it's not much better if at all. I already hated the holidays but the last couple of years have sealed that deal, at least for me.

just so manipulative, abusive, and toxic that {insert person}'s not a healthy person for me or my family to be around.

sums up far too much of my family and dh's for words to adequately cover it.

[Tapioca]

hugs to all the mamas having a hard time right now.