Sara,

Thank you so much for your kind reply. You and Anita are of course right, my family are mean, manipulative and nasty. I knew that all my life but of course it was the norm.

I never had that childhood where you felt safe, loved or like your parents would hug and kiss you. My mother did her best, but she kept having children with a man that couldn’t be a father, putting more and more pressure on me to help her take care of the babies. I was the eldest and grew up very fast. I know my mother loved me, she walked me to ballet lessons in all weathers with young children cold in the winter. She used her last penny to pay for me to go to ballet. My father didn’t give my mother a penny and he once a week gave us a basic shop of a couple of tins of value beans, a big sack of potatoes, fish fingers and spring rolls. We had no fruit or vegetables. We had a sunday lunch once a week and that was our only luxury. My school lunches were value yoghurt, value crisp and I’d get badly bullied so in the end I’d throw it in the bin and stave myself all day. I became ill from lack of food. It’s probably why I had serious stomach issues and weighed less than 90lbs all my life. I only gained weight 3 years ago when I went on an anti depressant to help me sleep and function after the attack. I am now a healthy weight around 118lbs.

I had a tough childhood dealing with all of that then on top a mentally ill brother that saught my mothers attention constantly by attempting suicide, self harming, running away leaving notes… childhood was awful. My parents used to fight infront of us evrey night when my dad returned home from the pub. My only happy memories are of being at my nan and grandads. It’s where I felt safe and loved. I looked forward to every summer as my nan would have me on my own for a week, I remember i used to cry and beg her to let me stay. My Nan was like a mother to me, she is ebverything I hope I can be. When she passed 4 years ago I never got over it, I was distraught. 3 months later I was attacked by my brother and family gave me hell. I have never had a chance to grieve her. I cry if I even think about her. I am so grateful for her, she has made sure I had happy childhood memories. My mothers side of the family are nice people and sane, they were where I felt I had a normal life. At home my mother was stressed, always shouting, spitting at my dad, my dad would escape to the pub…. it was awful. At 19 I developed anxiety and it’s no wonder really looking back.

I moved out at 20, married at 21 and my first child at 22. I adore my children, they are my world. Looking back though to their younger years I was always anxious and stressed because of my family. They were always causing an argument over something. My husband still recalls coming home from work and he said I’d have a banging headache, and I’d be on the phone trying to prove my innocence to someone that I’d not been ‘slagging them off’ as my family would accuse me. Then after my brother attacked me (the year before he had attacked my hubby) I said enough was enough. I’d still get random messages saying ‘Jo said you’ve been slagging me off, what have you been saying’ from my younger sister and vice versa. I had it and told them to never contact me again, I was sick of the childish nonsense and I am not a nasty person, I don’t ‘slag people off’. I was always the scapegoat and I had to get away from it all. My brother attacked me because my sister convinced him I had rung social services on him. I hadn’t, he was abusing his son but I never called them. He knew my mother and sister knew everything as he had told them what he had been doing and for some reason I was framed. Now my family just expect me to forget what he did to me, forget that they framed me and are the reason he attacked me, forget that my mother abandoned me after I was attacked, forget the abusive texts I received for over 2 years from my sisters…… They want me to be part of their family again because it’s my mothers wish and my mum said it will always be her dying wish.

I can’t do that. I have stopped craving my mothers support in the last year, being ill with my thyroid has made me a stronger person even if I don’t realise it, but I feel sorry for my children. They know my family are toxic but they miss their cousins, they love their grandmother and I just can’t seem to completely break that last tie. My children are all older and do understand but my sons have said they still want to see their grandmother, so my fear is if I say they can’t then they will hate me.

For now I am keeping well away from my family. My thyroid isn’t good again and have had to increase my dose. My anxiety isn’t good as a result and I cannot handle anymore stress. I know cutting them off completely is what I need to do but I honestly feel I can’t do that to my children. I have cut off my siblings and as a result they have no cousins in their lives. I feel terrible for that because they used to see them a lot. I feel they have grieved the loss of family despite knowing how toxic they are.

Thank you for your kind reply, sorry I waffled on.

Julie x

Thank you Anita.

Thank you Sara.

Great advice. I do make sure my children see their grandfathers and they have a big circle of friends. My children are really happy and go out with friends most days, very sociable and having lots of fun which makes me feel better about the family situation.

I did something brave this week and I chose not to let my mum visit on my sons birthday. I told her I was taking care of my health, I need some more tests and don’t want to risk a crash because for me it isn’t worth it. I didn’t mean this in a rude way but I told her, her visits make me feel anxious and in turmoil inside which causes stress in my body and leads to a huge crash for days after, so I get nothing but negative from her visits. If the positives outweighed the negatives then the crash would be worth it but as things are they don’t. When she visits I feel nothing but hurt, resentment and fear. I told her this in a polite way and said for now I have to focus on myself and getting myself well has to be my priority because I don’t have family support, other than my husband and my children deserve a well mum again. She was shocked but agreed to it. I said my husband could bring the children to visit her at her home on Sunday and that’s what they did. She gave my husband some flowers to give to me, something she has never done and it did upset me because all I want is her to be a mum not send me flowers, although it was a nice gesture.

I had messaged my mum last week to tell her I was unwell and needed more tests which I was quite anxious about. She ignored the message and eventually she rang me 28 hours later and said she had been helping out my sister staying over at her house as she was ill with a virus and didn’t want to be home alone with her husband out on stag night, so my mum offered to stay to help her. It stabbed me hard in the heart because I have been ill a year and she has never once offered to support me. I just had a 4 week flu virus on top of my ill health and had to take care of ill children, my mothers response at the time was ‘oh dear’ when I told her pn the phone. So it hurts me she sent flowers yet can’t be a mother like she is to my siblings. I am ok though because this last few weeks has taught me something. We had a our big talk at Christmas and it’s made me stronger because now I can walk away guilt free because since the talk ok I have said I am too unwell for visitors right now but my mother still hasn’t offered a single day of support to me, a visit is tea nad cake but an offer of support is coming to my home to help me out when I am unwell and have children to care for too. So now I can walk away and just accept she can’t be the mother I need, and I can’t expect her to be like the mother i am, I have my standards of what a mother should be like and she has her own. I cannot force her to be caring, loving and show it like I do to my children.

Yesterday a friend in the US sent me out of the blue the most beautiful message. She told me I was a wonderful mother, she admired me and inspired her to be a good mother to her child. She said despite my ill health and anxiety I put my children first and they are such happy, confident, kind hearted children. She told me she was proud of me and that I should love myself because she adores me. It made me cry my heart out, we haven’t spoken in a while and out of the blue she sent me that. Well it was amazing and made me feel so good about myself. My mother called to speak to my son last night on Facetime. It was his birthday yesterday. I stupidly told her I’d received this beautiful message and she just looked at me with a look of either guilt or jealousy and said ‘oh nice’ and there was an awkward silence. I felt hurt but then said to her, it made my day and made me feel better about myself. She said nothing. When we were children she was always so angry and jealous if we said our friends mums were nice, she would lash out and say ‘well go live with them then’ It’s as though she is jealous of anyone doing a good job as a mother and maybe hearing I was told I was a good mother made her feel more guilty for letting me down, I don’t know but if my daughter told me she had received a message like that I’d have said ‘well you are a good mother, an amazing one’. My mother has never told me I am a good mum, or brave and strong. I wished I’d never told her but it was another message from the universe telling me I am doing right staying away from her.

Sorry to have offloaded all of that. I am in a good place right now and yesterday for the first in 4 years I enjoyed my childs birthday, I felt relaxed and happy. My sisters didn’t send my son a card of gift again, which really didn’t upset me at all. I still acknowledge all my nice and nephews birthdays by sending cards and gifts and will continue to because I still do love them, it’s their parents who have driven me away and that is something I can’t go back to but I won’t stop loving their children.

Julie

Thank you Anita

I am waking up more and more each time I am speaking to her. She made a slight effort for 2 weeks after our deep heart to heart at Christmas, she rang me twice a week and would call asking how I was. Since there has been no effort, nothing at all and I am realising that’s ok and I don’t need her. I will allow the children to see her as they are asking to but I am protecting myself. My mother is acting like she hates me now when we speak, she is cold and rude, yes it hurt but it has made me stronger because now I hold no guilt for walking away. I know my mum feels sad things are like this, and I think she just thinks I am depressed and cutting everyone off because of that instead of them actually seeing that they are the cause. My mother and siblings are the cause of why I am cutting them off, they are also the cause of the depression and anxiety so I am moving away fully now. I won’t allow the cycle to continue. I feel free. I won’t’ allow the guilt that she is my mother pull me back in. My mother won’t ever learn her behviour is unacceptable if I keep going back to her and letting her visit.

I know she will say ‘well how can I make things right if you haven’t let me visit since our talk at Christmas’. The thing is there is a big difference between a visit for tea and cake, putting on smiles and pretending i am well and fine, then an offer of support. She is fully aware I have a chronic illness and she was fully aware last month I was ill with a flu virus for weeks, yet she offered no support at all. All I got was ‘oh well’ or ‘oh dear’. She only has herself to blame that I am walking away. I cannot even speak to her anymore, the last 2 calls she was telling me she was staying at my sisters house as she had a virus and didn’t want to be alone and the call before was about how they had a mother daughter day together and how wonderful it was….. I feel she likes to stick the knife in and keep hurting me. Making me feel like I am not worthy of her offer of support or love. I won’t allow her to do that to me. I can’t keep every year having a heart to heart, her admitting she’s not been there for me or offered any support and love. Then nothing changes and I am the one left feeling rejected and hurt. No more. I am worth far more and I cannot overcome my anxiety or ill health until I eliminate the triggers.

Julie