When the abuse of your childhood continues into your adulthood

Old 05-06-2010, 01:09 PM
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When the abuse of your childhood continues into your adulthood

That's me - a 46 year old woman abused by her 74 year old mother....

Last August I went no contact with my codependent mother . I made a lot of progress. I acknowledged that I was abused as a child, I ceased to enable my brother's self-destructive alcoholic behaviour and I started to look at the role my mother had in my upbringing. After years of being conditioned to believe that it was all my dead alcoholic father's fault, I forced myself to look at the fact that my mother was at least 50% responsible for the chaos that I survived in as a child.

Three months later on my birthday I received a card from my mother – a spiteful, vitriolic card accusing me of being an ungrateful, vengeful daughter. What had she ever done that was so bad (martyr act). How dare I behave in this way (parent entitlement act). I was emotionally exhausted trying to find care for my newly-diagnosed autistic son, I was worried about having no job and no money, I wanted a Mum to love and care for me. So even though my head knew I would not get what I needed, I crumbled, I broke, I went back to her with my tail between my legs and apologised for my behaviour. I watched my mother as she exulted that her daughter had submitted, placing her once again in a position of power. My heart broke inside me as yet again there was no loving, caring mother to look after me.

I also told her the whole story of ds's diagnosis, giving up my job to become his carer, putting my own family into debt as a result. I told her how I was sick with worry about dh's company being very unstable and his job being in jeopardy. I watched as she listened and then dismissed my problems as unimportant. I then listened while she told me about how my alcoholic brother, who earns 40k+ a year, had problems that were so much worse than mine. I was then punished as she told me that she was giving my brother money to help “ease his financial situation”. I sat in complete shock thinking I've just told you that my family is going cold and hungry and you are giving my brother money to drink away.

I then sat and listened to a lecture about how she was getting old and needed help – someone to do housework, go shopping and look after the garden.... and if I couldn't do it out of love, I should do it out of duty. I sat there, completely broken, looking at this woman who was supposed to be my mother.

The next day when I was feeling calmer, I knew for certain I had a big, big problem that I needed to address. I was an abuse victim and my mother was continuing to abuse me – not physically, verbally and through neglect like she did when I was a child but emotionally, psychologically and through power games.

I can't tell you the shame I felt, how pathetic I felt. I was terrified of this woman. I was paralysed by the gut-wrenching fear that I was experiencing. I had been a “bad” girl and now I was being punished.

It's taken me 5 months to work out where this fear has come from. As a child, I grew up numb, completely disassociated from the violence all around me. I cannot remember ever feeling fear as I grew up. I have to go right back to the age of about 5 when my mother beat me with a hairbrush to touch any feeling of being afraid – 41 years of suppressed emotions. So this fear that I was experiencing as an adult was the suppressed fear of my childhood , was me touching my true feelings about this woman.

It has taken me 5 months to realise that my shame is not mine – it is her shame and her's alone. Shame on her for the pathetic excuse of a mother that she was and continues to be.

Our situation at the moment is odd – I refuse to go to her house, the seat of her power and the place of my childhood abuse. I refuse to have her in my house (she did not come at Xmas and will never be coming again for Xmas day). My dh and children have no wish to see her (their choice) and have not seen her in over a year. I meet with her once a week in a cafe for an hour where my boundaries are subject to a verbal hammering – can dh fix her computer, no; can ds do her garden, no; who is going to look after her when she can no longer walk, social services. On good days, I find it incredibly funny as she throws everything in her arsenal at me. On bad days, it triggers me and I wonder if I can put up with another 20 years of once a week visits.

If anyone has any words of wisdom or has found themselves in the same position, I would love to hear from you. Thanks for listening to me ramble on, IWTHxxx
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Old 05-06-2010, 01:17 PM
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I'm so sorry. Your story brought tears to my eyes. Is there any reason why you HAVE to meet with her weekly? Are you doing it out of a sense of duty? With all due respect, I don't feel like you owe her anything. Can you not just cut her out of your life?
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Old 05-06-2010, 05:48 PM
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Parts of your story sound amazingly like my own. My answer is I simply don't see my mother. I have found I'm happier and I feel I'm a better and more capable mother to my children.
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Old 05-06-2010, 07:48 PM
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Originally Posted by Iwanttoheal View Post
If anyone has any words of wisdom or has found themselves in the same position, I would love to hear from you. Thanks for listening to me ramble on, IWTHxxx
You were doing great -- and you can again. Just because you had what the AA's call a "slip" and caved in for awhile... doesn't mean you can't reassert the boundaries -- as you've already done again -- and do another no-contact if necessary.

You have no "duty" -- that's the line of bull my Dad tries to pull on me, same as you're getting. Just because he got my Mom knocked up, doesn't mean I'm his servant forever. Being our parent doesn't mean they own us.

Keep in mind, all it takes is one click to do this:

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Old 05-07-2010, 03:54 AM
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Originally Posted by suki44883 View Post
I'm so sorry. Your story brought tears to my eyes. Is there any reason why you HAVE to meet with her weekly? Are you doing it out of a sense of duty? With all due respect, I don't feel like you owe her anything. Can you not just cut her out of your life?

Thank you Suki

Yes it is a sad story isn't it - a real-life fairytale or fable and it is my story, it happened to me. It is also a story of strength, the more knowledge and understanding I gain, the stronger I become.

Last August, I posted timorously on here, seeking external validation - Was I really an abused child? Now I no longer need that validation, yes I was abused as a child - physically, verbally, emotionally, psychologically and I escaped sexual abuse by a hair's breadth (If my mother had had her way, I would have taken her place in my father's bed. Thankfully, my Dad wasn't interested in little girls). I was also shamefully neglected - not fed, clothed or housed properly.

My story has moved on - I now understand and accept that my mother is a very, very sick person indeed - even sicker than my alcoholic dad was. At the end, he at least knew he was an alcoholic and tried but failed to clean his act up. My mother has no knowledge what so ever that she is a very mentally ill person - her personality is so shattered that she cannot live in or accept reality, either past or present. She re-arranges truths to fit her version of reality where she is a perfect, omipotent being - the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect person with a superior lifestyle better than all her peers.

It took the feet from under me when it finally sank into my brain that she truly believes this constructed reality. I only exist in her world in terms of what I can do for her. As I child I was somehow transposed into being her mum, the person who took care of her. Now I only exist to take care of her physical needs, her house, her garden and to look after her in her old age. I don't exist as an individual with needs in my own right - I am an extension of her.

When I don't behave as she wants, she can no longer use physical and verbal violence to bring me into line but she delves deep into her armoury. She did her best - the injured martyr act. She is disappointed that her daughter hasn't lived up to her expectations - laying the guilt trip. What will she do when she can no longer walk - shock tactics, awfulisation. I find these rather amusing as she has now become so transparent to me.

What I don't find amusing is this paralysing fear of disobeying her. That's why I can't just walk away. I did it once and fear of her drove me back. What did she do to me as a very young child to instil this fear, she broke me good and proper as a child. I know I can walk away again but first I have to work through this toxic fear of her and guilt of being a "bad" daughter. If I don't do that, I will just go around the abuse cycle once again.
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Old 05-07-2010, 04:46 AM
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Have you considered counseling to help you overcome your fear and misplaced guilt? I am sure you know logically that there is nothing she can do to you now, but because of all the abuse in the past, you are still very afraid of her. A good therapist can help you work through all that and begin to make healthy choices for yourself.
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Old 05-07-2010, 08:34 AM
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I felt flashes of recognition reading your story.

The martyr act is my father's favorite. "I never did anything. ANYTHING." I remember once during a screaming/cussing rendition of the martyr act he told me that when I was a child, he "ate sandwiches so that we could have something better to eat." Given the hell that this man put my sister and I through throughout most of early years, that statement just struck me as a so ludicrous. Sometimes there's nothing to do but laugh, and realize that some people just don't care about the truth and will say and believe literally anything to maintain the delusions that they cling to. Funny thing is I can remember his own mother, my grandmother, making very similar preposterous statements when I was young, shifting blame for my father's problems and categorically denying any wrong doing despite how obvious it was that she was mainly responsible for his alcoholism and insanity. I guess it runs in families and is just part of the pattern in a dysfunctional family.

I also love it when they go out of their way to point out how bad someone else supposedly has it as a way of de-legitimizing your own anger. In my family its a cousin whose father would never pay child support to his mother when he was a kid. I can't count the number of times as a child being told how lucky I was to "have a real father" and don't I know that ****** would give anything to have what I have? To this day, they still tout our the cousin. My father has even been so bold as to say "I think ****** has a lot of anger inside of him over the way his father has treated him over the years." To which my grandparents would nod this deep, somber, profound nod. Wow!!!!! And all these years, through the drinking, the long struggle with his mental illness, the chaos, the insanity, the rage, and everything else, they have the gal to talk about how other people probably "have a lot of anger" over the way they were treated by a parent. But me, I don't know how lucky I am.
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Old 05-07-2010, 08:39 AM
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I can really relate to the disconnect in my mother about the "distribution" of her "charity."
She lavishes both affection and things on my sister while I'm still neglected. The pattern continues, but at least now I can see it. "Courage to Change"(Al-Anon devotional) on page 2 "We go to the hardware store for bread" and on page 153 "Expectations are just premeditated resentments." I was helped when I stopped expecting my mother to change as she is who she is. She has shown me her character. Now I need to believe what I see, and I can be the parent and protect myself
(((((hugs)))))
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Old 05-07-2010, 02:14 PM
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Tromboneliness I like your analogy of a "slip" . Painful as it has been to work through, this slip has allowed me to see everything with so much more clarity. So yes, the contact boundaries have been reasserted, allowing me to continue to work on myself and decide where I go from here.

Originally Posted by suki44883 View Post
Have you considered counseling to help you overcome your fear and misplaced guilt? I am sure you know logically that there is nothing she can do to you now, but because of all the abuse in the past, you are still very afraid of her. A good therapist can help you work through all that and begin to make healthy choices for yourself.
12 years ago I had a fabulous theraspist who tried in vain to punch through my wall of denial and to address my childhood issues. However, I wasn't letting anyone near me and my childhood at that point - I would only discuss my failing marriage. Unfortunately, she is no longer alive or I would be beating her door down to let me speak to her again. I didn't really get on with the therapist that I saw last year - I only saw her twice as she wanted me to bring my Mum and brother in to do a family session to allow us to "heal" - she didn't "get" that I wanted to "divorce" my dysfunctional family. I have thought about seeing a therapist who specialises in childhood abuse and dysfunctional families but haven't got past the thinking about it stage.

I feel very similar to how I felt last August - like Alice in Wonderland. Then I was seeing with fresh eyes going WOW!!!! look at my reality, I really was an abused child. Now, I'm doing the same thing again, only it is OMG!!! Not only was I an abused child, I am an abused adult and I didn't even know. I wasn't fully aware that I was/am an abuse victim. It is a very surreal experience. I'm glad to be able to feel the fear if that makes sense - it validates the truth of my experiences. It is now up to me how I let this fear dictate my future moves.

Today I saw my Mum again and this was also a surreal experience - talk about seeing her clearly - it's an amazing and empowering experience. We had a civilised conversation (not an emotive argument) where she tried to tell me that Autism and Alcoholism were the same - when I challenged her saying that one was a genetic condition and the other a chosen behaviour - she spoke from her superior position of wife of an alcoholic saying "No - alcoholism is an illness, your Dad couldn't help his behaviour". I further challenged this saying that although my ds had Autism, this wasn't a "get out of jail free card" and that he had learnt that there were consequences for inappropriate behaviour. Alcoholism is different she insists, your Dad couldn't help himself.

This is a total rewrite of all the hystrionics of my teenage years where she would talk to me for hours telling me that it was all my Dad's fault - he was the one who chucked the booze down his neck, he was the one who was always trying to "control" her. Somehow death has deified my Dad and she has rewritten history to put a golden sheen on him and her as good parents - it was an amazing example of gaslighting. This time though it didn't make me crazy - I just sat there thinking - wow lady, you are one sick, sick person.

As I was feeling strong at this point, I decided to go for broke and asked her how did she feel as a parent when her two children who had grown up in an alcoholic household both had long-term mental health problems (my brother is alcoholic plus is on medication for anxiety disorder; I have been on antidepressants for 12 years plus have a history of eating disorders). Her response - and me, and me, I had to go on valium when your Dad was at his worst. A prime example of her "what about me, I had it so much worse than you" She truly believes that she was a victim and completely powerless because this allows her to absolve herself of any guilt that she may feel towards her two children.

I imagined myself in her position where one of my own two children were sat in front of me telling me that they had long-term mental health problems because of my poor parenting (this may yet happen, who knows). I feel sick at the thought, I would be horrified, I would be apologising, I would be crushed with guilt and remorse - I certainly wouldn't be sat in front of them justifying myself saying well, I had it so much worse than you. There wasn't one shred of guilt or compassion for me - for the child I was or the damaged adult I am now - I just don't exist for her in that form, therefore she sweeps me away, denies my experiences, my pain and her part in it. Now I only exist to her (as I always did) as a caretaker - someone to look after her in her old age.

I almost.... almost felt sorry for her at that point (but I'm not that forgiving). I thought if you ever had the courage to look at yourself warts and all, with true honesty, you would fall apart Mum because you are a poor, pathetic speciman of a human being.

If you are still reading thankyou. Sorry for yet another long ramble but this is so healing.
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Old 05-07-2010, 04:19 PM
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I'm continually amazed at the similarities in all the stories. I guess I shouldn't be. My mother, too, is a martyr. My mother, too, has spent years letting us know who the bad parent is. One of the things I have been relieved to get away from is the sniping my parents do at each other and through me. No matter which one I spent time with, they'd grouse about and make nasty comments about the other. Even with my dad, who is much more pleasant to be around, I finally wanted to say, "YOU made her what she is, YOU abused her and destroyed her, and you still do."

They also both think they're quite perfect. My mother believes she is full of sage advice, where all I see is a sad and broken child, at best, trying to tell others how to live when she can barely manage her own life. When I pointed out to my father that he spent my high school years telling me he 'didn't like me,' and tried to choke me when I was a young adult, he simply denied it. "You're imagining it all," to be exact. The sad thing is, I believe he probably did block it out of his mind and takes my saying so as more proof that I'm a rotten apple.

Can you look into EMDR therapy? I did it for awhile, and found it enormously helpful. They don't know why it works, but it does. I was able to really internalize, emotionally, the things that I knew in my mind. I could look at my parents' behavior and know it was a reflection on them, but knowing that in my mind didn't stop their critical voices in my head, or stop my belief that maybe they were right about me. EMDR seemed to move the knowledge to the emotional, spiritual level, where I could finally start seeing myself (at least most of the time) as a fairly normal, decent human being.
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Old 05-08-2010, 12:46 PM
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Iwanttoheal - I can relate to your story although it was my dad living inside my head that caused me to abuse myself. And the kicker is that he died 2004 and it wasn't a release. Because in the end it became me abusing myself and my head didn't need him to be alive to tell me how worthless I was.

Regarding counselling: In the past I too had counsellors that wanted to explore family of origin issues and I wasn't ready so brushed it aside. When I was ready about a year ago, I couldn't seem to find a good one. They were all pushing CBT which has been good in the past for me but I am ready to try delving into my childhood. I have given up for the moment. I trust that when the time is right, I will find the right one.

Regarding your non-alcholic but co-dependent mum: I can only share from the heart and until I woke up to the circle of abuse that was in my marital home, I was her. I am very fortunate that I stopped the denial when my children were 1 and 3. Through hearing Al-Anon shares, I realised that all my attempts at controlling my 3 year old were probably doing more damage than seeing her dad drunk on a daily basis. I no longer coerce my children, my husband is sober and the family situation is healing.

It has been a year and a half of recovery and at the beginning I was so ashamed of myself. While negative emotions can bring growth, the problem was that holding on to the guilt wasn't healthy. After about a year of beating myself up, I had to forgive myself and say that honestly I did not know better at the time. The only difference between me and your mother is that I woke up and she hasn't yet.
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Old 05-09-2010, 08:11 PM
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I like what CYMBAL said

She has shown me her character. Now I need to believe what I see, and I can be the parent and protect myself.


Theres a saying in alanon recovery called "the merry-go-round called denial"...this saying refers to how those in the family keep doing the same thing expecting a different result, alanon also taught me that one definition of "sanity" is when no longer wish for a different past, and to me that also includes what that has done to my family and who they are today and how our values do not meet on even ground. how many times must i touch the electric fence to get to the green grass on the other side before i know i just cannot? there is no green grass!

how have they hurt me?

how can they help me?

these two questions helped me a lot when i shared them with god, myself and another person...i was able to share all the hurt but after a time i realised there is nothing that they can do to help me to undo the childhood damage (for me this included some severe abuse)....i realised if they cannot help me now, they cannot hurt me anymore.....unless i volunteer...this one precious life is now under my direction...they are powerless over me, at least i try to keep practicing this principle and work my program and i find it is starting to become clearer and stronger within me...and we are never alone with the help of our Higher Power.
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