THE LIST

Started by CakeManUK, December 19, 2019, 05:35:34 PM

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JonesMalone

I'm feeling a lot of guilt lately so this might be helpful.
-always left us to our grandparents care whenever possible as young kids.
-don't remember her doing anything with me- playing or reading bedtime stories.
-when parents divorced (age 7) my brother (5) told me about it. Mum didn't tell me because she was 'worried about my reaction'.
-obviously struggling with the divorce and attachment issues and she refused to spend time with me. She accused me of being ott when I cried about it.
-looked down on all of my friends
-didn't explain periods to me so when I got mine I thought I was dying. Never kept sanitary products topped up and the constant complaints about having no money made me too scared to ask for any.
-kept me too up to date and too in the know about her love life/boyfriends/breakups.
-treated sibling and I like we were awful kids who were a bane on her life.
-how much time she spent with us always depended on whether she had a boyfriend or not.
-came out to her as bisexual (pressured by a friend) and she looked at me in disgust and said 'why are you telling me?' (She is not homophobic). She hasn't acknowledged that conversation in 20 years.
-guilted me in to giving her a lot of money as a teenager and instead of paying it back would buy me clothes to a lesser value. When I complained she said 'well you'd only spend it on clothes anyway'. Not true I was saving to get out of there.
-guilted me in to leaving my job to babysit my youngest brother because she hadn't arranged childcare.
-ignored the fact that I was self harming, starving myself and suicidal as a teenager. She read my diary and knew everything
-moved house without telling me while I was still living with her. My brother told me before the packing started. There was no room for me in the new house (I was 17). She didn't tell me because she was worried about my reaction.
-once I moved out had very minimal contact with me. If she had no man in her life she would call more often but if there was a man I would get a few calls at the beginning of the relationship telling me everything. Then radio silence until they broke up.
-when my partner and I decided to get married, so did she. When we had to post pone our wedding because my ptnr lost his job she cried down the phone to me about how she had to postpone her wedding because of money issues.
-frequently ignores my phone calls/messages. When she calls it's at a time when she knows I won't be available.
-when I told her I was pregnant she changed the subject about the husband of a lady she worked with dripping dead. Same convo she mentions to me that she is getting married in 4 months and will I be able to come  (I live abroad now and flights at that time of year are a months wages. Not to mention I'd be heavily pregnant). She guilted me about not making it and how she wanted me to be her maid of honour (but hadn't told me?)
-came to stay with me for 2months after baby was born to be a 'good grandmother' but did literally nothing. Not even make me coffee. Did nothing but stress me out and make me wait on her hand and foot.
-has little to do with my little one. Doesn't send cards or presents. Doesn't call. Just posts stuff on social media to make it look like she has a relationship.

Ugh. I think that's long enough. Sorry guys.

tob-ler-one

- Randomly told me about that time a sex worker approached my father for business.
- Heavy focus on men and relationships and confusing messages about men and relationships. No contraceptive talk.
- She did not sit down once with me as a teen to talk about what was going on with me.
- Blindsided by the divorce and clearly regretful, she used me as her unpaid therapist and comfort.
- Involved me in her anger against my Dad
- When I had a panic attack because there was an insect in my room, I was screamed at. "Stop screaming! Stop it! STOP IT. STOP IT."
- Insisted on washing my hair up until I'm not going to tell you how old :blush:
- Occasionally looked at me like I'd landed from another planet.
- Told me I needed plastic surgery.

CakeManUK

I forgot the time M projected her utter disapproval of alcohol onto my W and used it to  kill a party and embarrass/blame my W. At a family BBQ, first time W had met many of them, a few drinks around nothing crazy, M suddenly announces "W doesn't approve of alcohol". My W felt the whole party went silent and looked at her, as if my W had told them all off.
You know the more of these I recall, the thinner that fog gets.  ;)

CakeManUK

All you posting your lists...
:bighug:
Keep em coming
:heythere:

tob-ler-one

I'm sorry I'm not able to put them all in one list.

- Parental alienation, but I didn't know she was doing it ("He doesn't care about YOU!")
- Announced my exam results, then stalked out of the room
- Told me to say something to a school bully that was inappropriate and wildly off-base
- Told me what kind of wedding dress I needed to wear
- Intimated how much better things would have been if she'd just "married someone else"

tob-ler-one

Quote from: CakeManUK on December 19, 2019, 05:35:34 PM
Comparison to friends/neighbours children

I was told on more than one occasion that I needed to "grow up". Other girls were "so far ahead" of me. I think it was obvious to other people as well, and yet my mother just used to take the p!ss or patronise me.

Dear Abby

@JonesMalone I am reading all of everyone's input and am stunned by one where your Mom bought a new home without a room for you !  !   and didn't tell you until they were moving.

What did you do?  As much as I wished I lived on another planet when I was growing up, the lack of support and the shame I would feel at not being wanted and not being told about the move, would floor me.

puellareginae

My Parents
-Told me I expressed too much emotion because I cried easily
-Called me "Little Miss Sara Bernhardt" because I modeled the same explosive behaviour my parents had (i.e. wait, wait, wait until the thing is too annoying to be endured apparently, then scream and insult
-Mom yelled at me for not smiling "correctly" in photos - my mother told me she wasn't going to buy my school photos until I learned to smile right. I had a twin sister about whom this was never said
-Called me a drama queen for crying so hard I hyperventilated because my dad screamed at me for spilling orange juice
-Got mad at me for "embarrassing the family" - aka wanting to talk about my special interests in public and not having an understanding of time and place
-Told me I was lazy for having bad grades
-Yelled at me for having a messy room - Dad threatened to take me to juvenile court over it. In high school. The day I won a big award is forever ruined because of that.
-Told me I needed to accept my grandfather's alcoholism and ill - treatment because "that's how he is." No, I don't *need* to do anything that makes me a lesser being and a further abuse victim.
-Dad mocked me for not being able to talk right and then got screamed at for running away in tears and slamming the door because OH NO NOT SLAMMING THE DOOR! CLEARLY THIS IS THE REAL CRIME HERE!
-Told me constantly the dyed hair I loved and made me feel pretty was ugly because I should be happy with the hair God gave me.
-Told me I didn't remember the day my mom told me my grandma died correctly because "I wouldn't do [a call late at night]." Welp, you did. And screaming at me insinuating I'm calling you a terrible mother and gaslighting me isn't helping.
-Dad insisted I pretend to be my dead mother to change the cable, etc. into his name because he "didn't feel up to doing it" Oh, and traumatising me is better?
-Dad expecting me to be his therapist in the wake of Mom's death and telling me about his suicide attempts and his belief in past lives and all this other stuff I was just...not prepared to handle at any time, never mind when I'm trying to process the deepest loss and grief I have ever experienced.

My Grandparents
-Ruined Halloween for me by screaming at my mom because I wanted to be a vampire
-Excused my grandpa's bad behaviour always on the booze (yet he never made any moves to kick the habit...how odd...)
-Told me my professors should slap me for having verbal tics such as "like"
-Grandma paraded around my mom's ring that dad gave her after mom's death, saying "Look at the ring my son - in - law got me!" as if she wasn't there the Christmas Dad gave it to Mom for their 20th anniversary.
-Told me I betrayed my grandfather who baptised me by converting to Catholicism, that I broke vows to God by doing the same, and that I now served a man who served Satan
-Were apoplectic that I fell in love and started dating a man without telling them, and were further angry that he would not travel 7 hours one way so that grandfather could approve of him (as if I didn't know my own mind, or my dad was now dead)
-Got angry that I let them know the wedding would be a Catholic Mass so they could decide whether to attend or not, because "I don't know why you would think that would be a problem" ....Oh really now??

...So yeah, my family is not as messed up as some, but...it has its entertaining moments.

windchime

OMG, after reading your post, I just started typing in a Google Doc. Sorry this is crazy long, but honestly, reading these lists is so comforting to me, so I hope mine is helpful for others too.

She has always been jealous of my success
She wishes I would fail
She has never liked my husband
She has emotionally manipulated my daughters
She has done potentially physically harmful things to my daughters when they were little
She has stolen money from me
She helped ruin my relationship with my MIL by lying to her about me
She shared confidences with my MIL
I have had to be the parent for most of my life
She has told family lies about me
She lied to her hubby about me before he died
She put a lot of stress on her DH (not really married and too young to be considered my step dad)
Her DH died trying to pay off debt for her material stuff she demanded
She treated her DH like a slave
She manipulated her DH
She has ruined some of my friendships
I struggle with mental health issues as a result of her "parenting"
She only loves me when she is getting something material out of me
Every time she texts, she finds a way to lay a guilt trip and try to shame me
She is emotionally and physically exhausting to be around
She has stolen from my DDs
She tried to steal from DH when we were dating
She physically abused my brother
She always plays the victim
She is good at manipulating others against me
She is incapable of real love
She views my girls as an extension of me and pokes at them to get to me
She spies on me and my family through social media
She guilt trips my girls
My girls are uncomfortable around her
I have no idea everything my girls experienced with her when they were little
She has stolen from my DHs family
She has given me and my family expired food on purpose
She has purposely not bought me a Christmas gift or gave me something that she knows I will not like or is expired
She always complains about not having money
She wants me to pay for everything so she can just blow her money
She has never taken responsibility for her actions
She will never get help for her mental illness
She showed up at my job unannounced and cause damage to my reputation and job
She has shown up unannounced to my home
She always blamed me for estrangement and problems in our relationship
She always guilts me over the issues in our relationship
I have had to shut off  my feelings as a coping mechanism in my life which has caused me long-term mental health issues
I am not sure if I hate her and/or still love her
She ruined my relationship with DH who was an amazing man who loved my DDs like they were his own
I didn't see her DH the last month of his life because I had to take a break from her.
She didn't contact me when her DH died. She contacted my DHs family first, so I found out from my SIL he was dead
My daughters lost their best grandparent early because of her
Her manipulation has caused stress and strain on my marriage
My daughters experience anxiety because of her
MY DD sabotages relationships because she is afraid of being abandoned or getting hurt
My other DD is afraid to get close to people because of her .
My mom always questioned my parenting and made comments to my girls when they were at her house
She was controlling of my kids when they were little and at her house
She turned on my girls as they got older
She has always been destructive to my girls, but got worse as they got older
I don't even know if she ever loved my girls or just loved what she got from them
I can see patterns with my girls that I experienced as a child growing up with my mom
My mom can be mean and cruel when she is angry
She has punished other family members before
She has spread lies about other family members
She likes to turn others against me
She loves to play innocent when I confront her
She is good at making me second guess myself
She tries to manipulate me to contact her in text by bringing up childhood stories to create nostalgia
She purposely makes comments that go against my values to poke at me
She purposely using the wrong pronouns for our pets even though she knows their sex
She zones out when I talk
She always told me I was too strict on my girls
She always criticized Girl Scouts when we had our troop
She always says I am "lucky" I have my DH to take care of me as if I have no role in how my life turned out and that he is just some dumb "knight in shining armor" with no other purpose
She always says I am "lucky" to have the life I have as if I haven't worked and paid for all of it myself
She says she is proud of me, but it is always in conjunction with a text or call to shame and guilt me. It is a sham.
She is always over interested when my financial situation changes.
She always endears herself to my new friends so they will think I am nuts if I say anything bad about her.
She friends my friends and hubby's family on social media
She unfriended and blocked me on social media but remains friends with my in laws and other family members
She likes to brag about me and my success as if it is a reflection of her parenting
She would listen to my phone calls as a teen
She would spy on me as a teen for no good reason since I didn't do drugs or anything else bad
There were so many times she would suddenly like my DH because one of us has done something she approves of.
She made me buy all my own personal care products and clothes once I got my first job as a teen
She always threatened to kill herself when her and I lived together (I was 18 and was able to move us both out of my grandma's house) to manipulate me
I had to convince Donnie to move in with her when I got married so I didn't have to support her





CakeManUK

Windchime
Thanks for your hard work on that list. Once again it aligns with textbooks on npd. I think this is a little like writing therapy, we can have a good old rant and get it out there.
I wish you some peace and time for self care.

Andeza

There have been similar topics, but they were more top five or top ten types... Not all-inclusive like this. So I'll try chronological order from earliest to most recent I guess. Trigger warnings abound... this was the behavior of my uBPDm.

Spanking me for my bad attitude or being disrespectful because I disagreed with her or was unhappy about something.
I wasn't allowed to have my own emotions, so looked to her to figure out how to outwardly react to everything around us.
She projected what she thought I was feeling onto me, so even blank expressions were dangerous.
Got mad at me for being a shy child.
Got mad at me for forgetting the names of people I hadn't seen in years as a child and informed me I was being rude.
Complained when my girlish figure started showing because I could no longer wear handmedowns from my boy cousins.
Got very angry about buying shoes, church shoes in paticular. You know the little hard, shiny black dress shoes that eat the skin off your heels. I said they hurt, she kept trying to get me to wear them. She had a meltdown in Walmart.
Told me I read too fast because she insisted on screening all the books I read up until I was fourteen or so, when she finally gave up because I was bored to death waiting for her to hurry up and finish.
Shared all her stories of growing up with me, including age inappropriate ones.
Continued to threaten to spank me regularly into my teens.
Never facilitated the ability to make friends, and in the rare case that I actually managed to make a friend she would insinuate that their parents weren't "nice people" or some such nonsense. Because she was totally perfect, you know.
Failed miserably at preparing me to go out into the world, in fact, trained me to be terrified of any and all people. Because everybody has to be a pedophile or a rapist.
At the age of eighteen, when I got my first boyfriend at college, said to me something along the lines of "Well we hadn't decided when you'd be allowed to date..." Guess she didn't entertain the idea that I might meet someone nice in my first year out of the nest. Regardless, I was eighteen, she no longer got a say.
Constantly implied I was not a good daughter because I was NEVER homesick. Not once. Never have been, gee.... wonder why?
Constantly questioned me as to whether my husband and I slept together before marriage. We didn't, and she refused to believe it. That was a projection as I later found out she was quite promiscuous in her early twenties.
Never taught me how to dress myself, except it was virtually a sin to show a bra strap, and baggy clothes were the only okay clothes. As a married adult woman she later implied I was improperly dressed for wearing a tank top.
She went topless in the house in front of me well into my teens. Ew. That is all.
More recently... Was weird about my pregnancy. She kept asking if everything was all right, almost like she wanted something to not be.
Stated she couldn't wait to see me breastfeed. Um. No.

Never stopped talking. Ever. Everything had to be about her.

There's more, I could sit here most of the day, but this will do.

Remember, that there are no real deadlines for life, just society's pressures.      - Anonymous
Lasting happiness is not something we find, but rather something we make for ourselves.

JonesMalone

@Dear Abby by the time she was moved I was 18 and moved far far away.
It was really very hurtful but while looking back it's theme throughout my life.

Fortuna

I thought this list was good idea. So far mine's seven pages long.  :blink:

tob-ler-one

I didn't want to make a topic specifically about this:

- I used to share a bed with her, and it happened when I was an adult.

...
I can't believe I'm typing this. I feel so embarrassed. If you're wondering why I did it, the answer is because she used to cajole me into doing it. I can feel the embarrassment on my face as I'm sitting here. I was never to tell anyone. Isn't that laughable? She didn't want anyone to know.

I walked into her room one night and she smirked at me. I'll never forget the look on her face. She mocked me for "wanting" to do it, when the truth is that, if I remember rightly, she was always the one who asked.

There. I might just delete my account now.

Boat Babe

Sending all of you so much love.
Horrible, horrible things they said and did. Yet here we are sharing our stories with clarity and compassion, seeking to end this intergenerational trauma and pathology and live and love healthily.

A very Happy New Year to all of us.
:fireworks: :fireworks: :fireworks: :thewave: :thewave: :thewave:
It gets better. It has to.

CakeManUK

Aww Tob-ler-one
No embarrassment here, you are with peeps who understand.
PD parents train us. They condition us. They drip feed. They normalise. Keep us thinking we are dependent and giving them supply. They keep us as children.
When I think how closed down I was, how childish I was kept, I am so embarrassed and sad at opportunities lost, life experiences that were limited and relationships ruined. How must I have appeared to everyone else! I lose hours daydreaming about how life would have been if I'd woken up earlier. I can only try to understand what happened and gradually file it and move forward.

D.Dan

******trigger warning for sexual abuse******






There's too much for me to actually list. So instead I'm gonna list things that I'm not usually able to.

-she claimed me and my younger sister were having sex when we'd shut the door to our shared room to block out her loud partying at night (I was 10)
-she claimed I was having sex with stuffed animals  :aaauuugh: at random times
-had a meltdown when she had to buy me my own bra at 14 because I couldn't fit hers
-forced me to show her how to use a tampon with my own body (I half remember this, it's like the top of my vision where the faces would be is blacked out, but I still remember our bottom halves very clearly  :aaauuugh:)
-woke me up one night to tell me I was a whore and a slut when my sis was pregnant (I was 17 and still a virgin)
-made me and my 3 younger siblings pray for her cancer to go away (she never had cancer) when I was 12 and then pulled me aside to force me to promise to die a virgin so she'll go to heaven
-actually tried to get me arrested for raping her!  :aaauuugh:
-got mad at me for not stopping her from beating me during a drunken rage
-allowed our 40something? male neighbour to grab my ass because he was helping us move on my 11th birthday
-told me I was trying to steal her 50yo boyfriend (bro2's dad) by letting him feel me up and look down my shirt when he'd do tickle attacks on me and my sis (I was 11-14, begging, and crying didn't make him stop)
-would spank me if I tried to defend or protect myself from her or my younger siblings
-screamed at me when I had my first period, accused me of making a mess on purpose and should have known it was going to happen
-got made at me for a week for having a secret baby (she saw stretch marks from a growth spurt on my back, I was still a virgin)
-bought me a bike for my 7th birthday that only my sis was allowed to ride (GC)
-would allow adult men to literally kick my ass when I would wet myself (I had a severe problem with bed wetting and peeing myself up to age 13, I learned at 35 that it's a sign of childhood ptsd) they got my tailbone a few times
-made fun of my peeing myself and would talk about it in public with strangers, while I stood there trying not to cry
-left me alone at home a lot, for long periods of time until age 6
-made me hold the cab alone (again up to age 6) when she'd visit her drug dealer at night (I remember it always being nighttime)
-screamed at me for running to her instead of letting her 45yo boyfriend pass out on top of me when I was 11
-she let her 45yo boyfriend climb into mine or my sis's beds to pass out after we went to sleep, he'd trap us by lying right on the blankets and pinning us to the beds (we had to help each other escape and usually ended up sharing a bed for the rest of the night, I was 10-14)
-I got a spanking for almost hitting her 50 yo boyfriend with my hockey stick to save my sis (I was 10 and that was the last time we ever got any sports equipment)

I'm gonna stop here, this is already a lot longer than I thought it'd be. None of us deserved this garbage  :grouphug:

indibindi90

#37
Writing this actually felt pretty good, a bit upsetting, but also relieving. Also crazy how much stuff comes back to you when you start writing. Makes you realise that what you went through was REAL and really was as bad as you think it was  :-\

Childhood

  • Telling me my father didn't love me when I was a child
    Telling me I was only born because my father was trying to hide an affair with his now current wife (my father never cheated)
    Shouting at 8 year-old me that I was the reason she had a falling out with her friend
    Making promises to buy me things or decorate my room as a child but then I would be 'bad' so lose that prospect
    Restraining me whilst I was crying and shouting against her saying my father didn't love me until I gave in and said it myself
    Constant tales of how my Father abandoned me - which weren't true (apparently I don't remember them because I was just so traumatised!)
    I would be grounded all the time for the smallest things (like trying to explain when she accused me of doing something wrong)
    I was once grounded for the whole summer - every time I tried to explain each word was an extra day of grounding
    Constantly being yelled out that I was a selfish child
    Grabbing me by the throat and leaning me back over the banister of the stairs shouting at me because me and my friend weren't cleaning my hamster cage fast enough
    Arguments that included her kicking/punching me

Teenage

  • Calling me fat with back rolls (I was a slim teenager)
    When bumping into people she know at the supermarket after they left she fixed my hair and said "ow I wanted them to think you're pretty"
    Purposely making me late for School by taking a bath in our only bathroom at the exact time I needed it and not letting me in (she didn't work or have to be anywhere)
    Purposely making me late for anything and not letting me make my own way there so I could be on time
    Acting angry and hostile when I got my first boyfriend, and caused arguments to ground me when I had arranged to see him
    Got too attached to my second boyfriend and we always had to hang out with her at home playing cards etc
    She would tell me I wasn't a good girlfriend
    Telling me I'm broken because of my Father and as a result I have no empathy
    Saying I have a clothes problem and once brought down my entire wardrobe to the living room where I was with my friend and exclaimed that I had enough clothes to make an outfit for each day of the week. When she looked to my friend for back up asking "do YOU have this many clothes" she replied "I have like 4 times this amount" she acted defeated and avoidant.
    Yelling at me for coming home exactly on curfew at 10pm when I was 17. I should have come in 10 minutes earlier to show her I was responsible and making sure I was back on time.
    Telling me for years that I should learn an instrument and then when I was playing guitar she would take it away from me all the time as a punishment when she saw it was an outlet for me
    Told me I should move out with my boyfriend when I was 17 after we had been together for like a month
    Getting into an argument because she refused to let me have the train money to get to School despite saying that she would, which ended up in her kicking me on the ground. She accused me of trying to push her down the stairs to everyone we knew and wouldn't let me back home.

My cancer (age 19)

  • Made me get my disability money put into her account so that it would cover my rent and upkeep (despite being in hospital most of the time and not really eating anything because I felt so sick). From this she gave me a £10 per week allowance and said I couldn't put it in my account because what if 'I went downhill' and she couldn't get hold of the money out of my account.
    Limited contact with my friends and family
    After my operation I wasn't allowed to lift anything heavy for 6 weeks - I got my brother to put my laptop on my lap whilst I was sitting in bed and she got angry and yelled at me. She went to take the laptop away and I held on as it was my only contact with the outside world and form of entertainment (I didn't have a TV or anything in my room) she fought with me for it, even though I had a healing operation wound of about 15cm long.
    During my chemotherapy she was constantly telling me that I was abusing her and taking advantage of her kindness
    She turned a support nurse against me with these claims - she was meant to support me but would only ask how I am doing then would go off with my mum to talk
    She yelled at me because I wasn't handling having cancer and wasn't dealing with it
    Wouldn't let me near people or go out because of the chemotherapy. I barely saw my friends or my father. But if she wanted to go out to eat, I had to go with her to a busy restaurant.
    Forced me to go to church with her even when I felt really sick - to parade me around for sympathy basically. She told everyone that I was being mean to her there and so many people would come up to me saying "you know you should consider your mum in all this too, this is also hard for her, have you apologised?"

Adulthood

  • She opened my mail and saw my student debt, took it all into my boyfriend's place of work trying to "expose me" and told him and his coworkers/friends about my 'money problems' (she has no understanding of student debt she barely even finished School)
    Once recovering from cancer, told me that if I put my disability payments into my own bank account that I would have to move out
    Had a sit down with my boyfriend (when he went round to collect some stuff for me) trying to tell him how awful a person I am and asked "who told her she could put the money in her account?"
    When I moved in with boyf she came round one day screaming and yelling because she was still receiving mail to her house for me (it had been a couple of weeks) - I said you can't just come round to my house and scream and yell - she said "yes I can". My boyf told her to get out.
    Saying that me and my boyfriend broke up because he thought my body was disgusting (including genitals) despite me breaking up with him.
    When I moved back in with her after break-up she wouldn't let me have a key to the house. After months of this actually beginning to be inconvenient for her, she let me have a key to the back door only. This is because I lost my house key once when I was 14 at School.
    Visiting me at Uni for a weekend but bringing up all my stuff that I have ever owned, childhood photo albums, etc everything! She didn't consider me to live in her house anymore so had to get all of my stuff OUT. I was ejected from the family home where I grew up.

Of course throughout all this there was constant rages, moodswings, arguments, belittling, patronising, shouting, accusations and worst came to worst and I have been NC for a few years now. Still, feels good to get this off my chest. I had therapy last year but it definitely doesn't fix everything, things still creep back and I still have bad times but I have some tools to help cope with it all. The stuff listed isn't even the half of it.

CakeManUK

Wow. Indi and d.dan that stuff is way off the scale. :aaauuugh:
:no:
You guys deserve such peace and happiness.

tob-ler-one

Quote from: CakeManUK on January 08, 2020, 06:08:18 PM
No embarrassment here, you are with peeps who understand.
How must I have appeared to everyone else!

Thank you for the reply. :)

I can certainly relate to that. SMH.