Mothers

I'm always surprised too when people seem to like me.

I do have great difficulty in telling people when I think they have behaved badly or hurt me in some way. Tend to not pick up phone and avoid them instead of saying anything. I feel my behaviour is childish but I just don't dare to have things out with people.

Luckygirl - you have summed it up in a nutshell! The lack of love in childhood impacts on adult life. Only through counselling and by reading have I discovered just how my mother's treatment has affected my whole emotional well being. I have copied and pasted a review of Daughter Detox.

From a review on Amazon "Sometimes we don't even know this is happening to us until much later in our lives. What appears to be normal in our own family setting is really making us sick. I love how Peg Streep discusses in great detail the layers of abuse that takes place in a family with an unloving mother. She guides us through the process of seeing our lives for the first time away from the abuse that has taken place. We have known it all along, but our lives are finally validated through this incredible book. She gives the reader the tools to make the necessary steps to live a life that is no longer tethered to this emotional mine field. I am so glad I found this book, I couldn't put it down."

Be assured, I didn't write this book and have no vested interest in it apart from the help it has given me to understand my childhood and 'repair' the damage it did which is why I recommend it to others who had unloving mothers.

Good post Lucky. That's it completely!

kittylester and KatyK - I do know where you are coming from. No-one was cruel to me as a child (although I know that my sister endured some ill treatment after I left home) but no-one ever gave affection either, and this can be so destructive. I have lots of friends and I know that some of my talents which I share with those around me, running choirs and introducing people to the joy of singing, are hugely appreciated and that many people look up to me and tell me often how they like me and are grateful for the things I do - but underneath I always feel as if I am on the outside looking in, if you know what I mean. I find their appreciation hard to believe in my heart.

I am always questioning myself as to whether I am doing/saying the right things - it is not lack of self-confidence as I am aware of my talents and weaknesses and embrace them with no problem - it is a deep uncertainty that is borne of lack of love in my childhood. No-one can replace that.

I can only hope that I got it right for my dear children - we can only do our best.

Kitty I think we can really overthink things and I am sure there are many people who like you. You come over as someone nice who people would like anyway. I think that perhaps there could be more of a problem if your thoughts were the other way around!
I never cease to be surprised at all the deep stuff we all have, buried deep within, that can sneak up and bite us at unexpected moments. I hope that your private little cry washed away those doubts you had tucked away.

bluebirdwsm you have written exactly what I would want to say.

kitty I am always surprised to find that people actually like me. I have very very low self esteem so assume people either tolerate me or feel sorry for me. DH says it's all in my head. I realise deep down that many people do like me.

kitty I can get upset when someone who I like clearly does not like me. It's irrational but just reminds me of my constant attempts to try and make my mother to like me, let alone love me. Nothing worked. It smacks of rejection.

I'm also very touched when someone looks pleased to see me...a grandchild or a friend, because I know how precious that is. It happens sometimes, not often. I take nothing for granted.

Another trait I'm left with is that I get very angry when people have said they loved me [when their actions show they don't]...when they clearly do not mean it in the true sense, it's just words they use to placate others and not genuine. I'd rather nothing was said rather than use such an emotive phrase in the wrong sense...or else it is just a lie and means nothing.

I had wonderful parents who loved and cherished their kids, sadly my mum died when I was 14 and she was 48. My dad died not long after when I was 16. They managed to pass on to all of us the importance of growing up as part of a loving family, hopefully I've managed to pass that on to my kids.

Has anyone else found, to their complete surprise, that people actually like them.

I know my family love me and I don't think I am too badly scarred by my mum but yesterday, I was volunteering and two members of staff who I had not seen for a few weeks came up to me, gave me hug and said it was lovely to see me again.

This thread had presumably stirred up some buried 'stuff' and I actually had to go and have a little cry!

Thinking about it, quite a few people seem to like me which is a bit of a surprise. I wonder if I try too hard to be liked.

Anyone else have the same thing happen?

So sad to hear all these stories of dysfunctional families.
I would just offer a word of warning to those tempted to trace birth mothers, it doesn't always end well. My birth mother had a lot of issues and I was held to blame for her life not turning out well. My adoptive parents loved me.

I could have written many of these posts too! When my mother was in a home with dementia, she started thanking me for coming. I was touched, after 70 years of being criticised, and it was only after she died aged 92, that I realised that she didn't know who I was.

I left home at 18 to get a job in London, having given up A levels as it was entirely impossible to study when you were being told off for having 'your nose always stuck in a book.'

Never cuddled or told I was loved, in fact, told I wasn't wanted - something I remembered vividly when I had my daughter and couldn't stop crying for the tiny baby that was me.

Then married a narcissist - quite common apparently - and spent many years trying to please him.

This sounds miserable, but in fact I have had a happy life, have a lovely family, and live alone, pleasing myself.

It's nothing new and nothing unusual, is it? Those who had a happy loving childhood and a good relationship with their mothers were lucky.

This Be The Verse (Philip Larkin)

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

A the age of 70 I finally realise what an odd upbringing I had. Things I accepted as a child were far from normal. My mum was diagnosed as being bipolar in later years. When I was a child my mum was regularly threatening suicide, my dad took the sharp knives to work with him. I was constantly worried about being left an orphan, which I accepted as being normal. When my dad worked late shifts my mum and I would be visiting relatives or wandering the streets at 12.00a.m. She would cry when my dad went to work or when she broke a glass. I was well looked after well fed and well dressed (my mum was an excellent dress maker), she didn’t seem to realise that by dressing me like a doll (so my husband says, having seen photos) she was actually making me different from other children at school. I suppose what made it worse I am an only child. To escape I married at 17, had three children and to be quite honest have had a very happy life with my husband. He came from a big family and is quite happy go lucky, very different from the person I was, quite shy and introvert. I’m neither shy or introvered now. It’s taken me years to come to terms with my up bringing. Please don’t misunderstand, I loved my mum and I’m sure she loved me. I’m sure if she was alive to comment on GN she would be saying it was how she was brought up, my Gran wasn’t the nicest person around, a bit of a stickler for discipline and quite unloving.

Well done for breaking the mould!

I am hoping that we have succeeded in that too. Certainly my DC are very wonderful (of course!) and infinitely kind to me and OH. Heaves sigh of relief!

My childhood was difficult,and also for my siblings. My sister ran away at 18, I went nursing at 18 to get away and my brother left the country as soon as he had his trade
Despite this we all did OK in our working lives but we're all scarred emotionally.
Myself and my sister suffer depression and anxiety and my brother needed counselling on and off for all his adult life so far.
To the rest of the world we looked like a good family with everyone attaining good grades in exams, good jobs etc.
My own child was brought up differently much to my mothers chagrin.shes happy and once told me aged 14 she didn't want to grow up she'd had such a lovely childhood. I cried.The mould had been broken.

My childhood was too much of a miseryfest to go into just now as I've had a difficult day and I'm trying to wind down rather than be wound up, but I do occasionally get comments from people who know bits of my childhood story along the lines of, 'Well it's all made you the person you are so you probably wouldn't want to change it.' Said and meant as a compliment I know, but oh my goodness!! What? Yes, of course I would change a miserably sad, scary and abusive childhood - in a heartbeat if I could!!! I'd take myself back to being five and give me a couple of parents who cared more for my needs than their own and at the very least fed and clothed me properly.

I was only born because my mother 'couldn't get an abortion in those days' and nothing else she tried had worked. I was her third child in two years and her subsequent babies were better spaced so it was just me that she didn't want. I know that because she told me.

My mother was ok with me until she met my stepfather when I was 10 and went on to have 2 legitimate children and therefore a 'respectable' family. She then made me the scapegoat, everything I did was wrong, I was in the way, a nuisance [a reminder of her past mistake]. Nothing I did could make her like me though I tried so hard.

I always felt I was a disappointment as I wasn't the person she wanted me to be. She was emotionally distant, said unkind things to me, and always, always put my half sister and half brother before me no matter what. I never had a cuddle or a hug, was never told I was loved...until a few days before she died!

To this day I feel other people are better than me, I lack confidence and feel others just put up with me. I married at 18 to get out of the situation, I loved my husband very much, we had 2 lovely sons...who my mother just wasn't interested in [she was too young to be a grandma!]. I vowed not to damage my sons by cruel remarks but to love and support them and they have turned out great...hardworking men with long strong marriages and 2 children each, lovely grandchildren. One DIL is v. difficult but that's a different story and I see my son regularly as he refuses to let her come between us.

Me and their dad divorced unfortunately, I am single, living alone and quite happy with that. But my husband helped build me up and showed me love at the time...and saved me.

The other thing which kept my head above water was my grandmother, who could see a little of what was happening and I felt she loved me a lot, loved to see me and i felt I hadn't let her down. Without her I dread to think how I would have ended up. I loved her so much.

There is a lot more to this story than I am prepared to say here but my teenage years were pretty awful. Since then I realise how unhappy mother was, how her life had disappointed her and that she had really needed help. How I kept seeing her all her life I don't know, people who knew me urged me to not see her as she would upset me each and every time I saw her, just that I remembered the young woman she had been up until I was 10...and I loved that person not the dragon she became.

I did my best to support her when she became unwell and eventually died, and we made a sort of peace which I will always be grateful for.

Luckygirl ...I think we are on the same page. I would never have allowed my mother to look after my children.
It is good to know that many of those who struggled to mother became more caring as grandmothers. Sadly, my mother remained vicious, mentally unstable and unpredictable, as well as deeply manipulative, until the end of her days.
Perhaps that is the difference between those "not cut out for motherhood" and those who were mentally unwell?
I don't know.

I have found it immensely heartening, though, to read so many stories here of women who broke the cycle and have achieved loving and close families.
Personally I will always wonder if I was "good enough". I think the fear that you may unconsciously inflict damage remains with you always.

We had the holidays and the decent clothes - but not the love and affection.

I too had a terrible childhood. Never felt loved. Violent, alcoholic father, downtrodden, weary mother. No holidays, days out etc. Irish Catholic school so I was frightened at home
and frightened at school. I was never ambitious for my own child. I just wanted her childhood to be different from mine. Just for her to be cared for, decent clothes, holidays etc when we could afford it. I think I succeeded.

Reading through these contributions, I could write screeds [but wont because it would be so very depressing for our readers]. Suffice to say that when I was 17 [just before leaving] and already out at work, I cheeked my father, who in a violent rage took off his rubber-soled slipper and whacked me around the face and head whereafter my face was literally black, blue, pink, etc. Work colleagues said "whatever happened to you?" and when I answered "walked into a door", they gave each other THE LOOK. One never forgets an incident like that. Wont post more misery again!

Interesting that some of these problematical mothers were good grandmothers. I guess it gave them a sort of second stab at it. I do regret that I did not give my mother more opportunity to be with the GC - but I was so afraid that she might treat them as she treated us. On one occasion she was manipulating one of my children in her battle with Dad, and I looked at the puzzled expression on my child's face and it brought back so many memories that I could not deal with. I stayed away from her for some time after that.

This all sounds so familiar. So sad that many of us feel hopeless, unloved, unwanted. Even so, I miss my mother desperately.

millarhandbags I too had a wonderful mum who died far too young.
She was within 4 months of her retirement date when it was at age 60. My father was also about to retire 3 months before her and she was dreading having to be with him 24/7 and with no possibility of escape. He was known to us as a 'street saint and a house devil' and I can remember my jaw dropping when someone told me how lucky I was to have such a kind and charming father. He could charm the birds off the trees outside the home but was adept at setting anybody and everybody at loggerheads. He did that with DH and myself until we worked it out and it never happened again much to my father's frustration. When I looked up the definition of a narcissist he fitted every single point. I have worked out what made him into the man he was and I feel very sorry for him on very many levels and have forgiven him for his treatment of me for my own peace of mind.
I am another teenager who left home to get married early after my now DH told him that he would have me made a ward of court if he didn't sign the papers to give me his permission to marry. I have been truly blessed with a wonderful husband, children and grandchildren who are all incredibly close even if now we are geographically miles apart but I am still so sad for my lovely mum and miss her even after so very many years. My darling FIL was the best father I ever had and his son is just like him and is the best thing that ever happened to me.