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WHY DO I HAVE TO KEEP EXPLAINING ABOUT MY TOXIC MOTHER?

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Having to explain about my toxic motherQ I made the mistake of speaking honestly about my horrible and ‘toxic’ mother to a new friend at work, but she totally didn’t get it. Instead of understanding what I was telling her she gave me a lecture. She says that I should see things from my mother’s point of view, that she’s been doing the best she can, that I’ll regret it if I cut all ties with my mother…and the worst bit…that I probably love my mother deep down! She couldn’t be more wrong!

I walked away from that conversation, but it shows me again that some people just can’t seem to understand what it’s like to have bad parents.

I shouldn’t have to explain and give examples for them to judge. I’ll have to keep it to myself in future as it’s too awkward to share with someone who has no idea what it’s like to feel unloved and be treated like rubbish by your own mother.

A You’re right. People can only respond from their own ‘frame of reference’ and what they know.

If they’ve had no experience of toxic parents – either personally or from hearing about the experiences of others – then you might as well be speaking a different language. [Read more…]

WHY DOES HE KEEP TELLING ME LIES?

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Compulsive liar damages relationship, in childrens home, in foster care, in careQ My soon-to-be-ex partner keeps making false promises and telling me lies. Then he never explains himself to me when he’s been found out. He just laughs it off, blames someone else – including me – or he disappears for a few days.

He’d promise that we’d do something or go somewhere… and then make sure that we didn’t go – for one reason or another. It took me a few months to cotton on to what he kept doing because he’s so believable.

I don’t understand why he bothered to offer me things like holidays and shopping trips and then never follow through with anything.

He lies about what he’s said and done – even when I know the truth. He will argue that black is white that he’s in the right and other people are wrong. He even has me confused and believing him – although I know the truth!

He used to be in a children’s home as a child, and had several foster homes, so maybe this has something to do with it.

I’ve decided to break up with him and I’ve stopped believing any of his pie-in-the-sky offers, false promises, and frequent lies. But I’m still curious about why he keeps doing this and setting me up for disappointment – and making himself look bad too.

A I do sympathise and empathise with you. It is impossible to build a solid relationship on shifting sand. Without trust and safety there’s nothing for you (and your inner child) to attach to. That lack of attachment is also significant in another way … for him.

When he’s making his offers and promises he probably feels that he’s being seen by you as generous and kind – and he’s liked for that.

Then he can’t, or won’t, deliver on his promises and so he then gets the familiar pay off of being seen as a disappointment – and disliked (and ultimately rejected) because of that. [Read more…]

WHY CAN’T HIS MOTHER LET HIM GO?

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Grown up son still at his mother's back and call, toxic mother, demanding and controlling motherA My boyfriend has his own business, employs staff and has lots of friends. What I don’t understand is how someone who seems to have their life sorted, can be under the thumb when it comes to his mother.

I’ve met her and she was offhand and rude to me. He says it’s just her way and not to let it bother me – but it does.

He’s at her beck and call. Even though she’s in good health she rings him a few times a day, and expects him to drop everything and do errands for her. He’s 43!

When he introduced me to her she said to him (in front of me) ‘you’ll always be mine’ – how weird is that, but he can’t see it.

He’s an only child so I can understand her dependence on him since her husband died 40 years ago (she never re-married) – but this feels more than that.

It’s as if she’s jealous of him having another woman in his life.

She treats him like her property and ‘as the man of the house’ (he still lives with her). She expects him to be more like a husband than a son.

He has told me that she was very controlling when he was a kid and would give him the ‘silent treatment’ if he didn’t jump when she said jump.

I don’t mind him helping her now and then, but she’s really got her claws into him and I worry that she will convince him to break up with me. Why can’t she let him go and have a life of his own?

A I’m pleased that you are aware of what it is about this set up that bothers you the most – being rejected by him on her say so.

He clearly has a strong loyalty to his mother and is willing to be at her back and call – perhaps putting her needs ahead of his own.

I wonder too if this whole scenario has any old links and associations with you and your past? [Read more…]

HOW CAN I MAKE SOME FRIENDS?

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emotional childhood abuse, lack of friends, hard to find or make friends, toxic parentsQ Growing up I was always a loner at school. My mum drank heavily and I now realise that she took drugs too. My dad was a long distance lorry driver who was away a lot.

When he was at home they argued and I kept out of the way. I was so embarrassed and ashamed at the state of our house which was always smelly and very messy. I wouldn’t have wanted to invite any friends round to play, even if I’d been allowed to. My mum would have made a show of herself anyway and then everyone would know what my so called family was like. She kept me away from people so that I could be there for her to listen to her moaning about my dad, or to clean her up when she’d been sick, or to do the shopping or washing.

The trouble is I’m still a loner. I’ve never had any close friends and I feel jealous when I see people who have. I don’t know how to make friends now, even though my mum and dad are both dead. I live alone in a one-bed flat, and work in a call centre. I wish I could have some friends to share things with. Everyone else seems to have lots of friends. How do I make friends now I’m in my early forties?

A I can really sense your deep loneliness and sadness, and the overwhelming shame your mother inflicted upon you. 

She was a toxic parent because of her emotional neglect of your needs – and the affects upon your social development.

You’ve had to sacrifice your childhood to meet her needs – because she didn’t take care of them for herself. [Read more…]

WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO RUIN MY BUSINESS?

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toxic family's smear campaign to damage a start up businessQ I had a big fall out with my family a few years ago and don’t have anything to do with them now, even though I still live in the same town. I’ve recently started up my own business and have a salon in the town centre.

I’ve been told by a few friends that members of my family have been bad mouthing me and trying to put customers off from coming to see me. ‘Someone’ has also sprayed personal graffiti across my shop front window, and put rubbish through the letter box. They’ve always been nasty and that’s one of the main reasons I needed to distance myself from them…but I don’t get why they are trying to ruin my business. I have a child of my own and they’re affecting our income and livelihood.

A My first guess is envy…followed closely by ‘smearing’.

Envy that you are the one trying to make a better life for yourself and setting up your business (which takes strength of character).

Smearing refers to their attempt to destroy your credibility… whilst trying to appear that they’re telling people these lies for their own good – as if doing them a favour. [Read more…]

WHY AM I SO ANGRY WITH THESE OTHER MUMS?

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feeling excluded, not good enough as a motherQ I had a bad upbringing and horrible school years, and I never made any good friends at school. And now my 6 year old son is also being excluded from his school social groups and get-togethers. I hear the other mums talking about what they’re all arranging but they never invite me or my son. It’s as if we’re not good enough for them and don’t belong in their posh little club. I imagine them laughing about me and my son and that makes my blood boil. I’d hate him to feel as isolated and lonely as I felt as a child.

My husband has built up a good business and we can now afford to send our boy to a good private school since we moved into a much bigger house in a nicer area. I never expected the snobbery though. I feel so angry towards these stuck-up mums. Is it just me, or them?

A Either they are snobs (and behaving like egotistical children), or you are projecting your own dislike of yourself (and what you experienced in school) onto them and believing it’s them who dislike and reject you now.

Or perhaps your childhood conditioning means that you behave in ways they find uncomfortable or even strange. Not to say that you are strange… maybe just a bit different to them. It might be that your body language is giving out a message that you’re not aware of. [Read more…]

WHY IS SHE THEIR FAVOURITE?

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sibling rivalry, favourite child, golden childQ My sister has always been my mum and dad’s ‘Golden Child’ – as I’ve recently heard it called. This title fits her to a tee. She’s prettier and smarter than me and she’s definitely their favourite. No doubt about that. But why? It’s not my fault that I don’t look better, or that I wasn’t that good at school. They paid for her to have extra classes after school, and they made sure she went to college and university. I left school at 16 and had to get a job in the local supermarket, where I still work.

What makes things worse is that she takes credit for my stuff and says it’s hers. I created a recipe and she made it and then said it was her own recipe. When I said she was lying they all turned on me and made out I was some kind of nut case who makes things up. She’s also stolen things of mine and said that I’d given them to her. I’m always seen as the bad one.

They put me down about my body, my personality, my job, my friends – there’s not one good thing they comment on. They talk to me as if I’m beneath them and they’re ashamed of me. Why is she their favourite and what can I do to make them like me too?

A You can’t make them like you. You have to like yourself in opposition to them. It’s their loss. In fact everyone loses.

Your sister is being given an inflated view of herself. She has become toxic in her own way. Life may well change that for her, but it will be a hard lesson.

Your parents have ‘split’ good from bad and projected one onto each of you. That’s something only they can stop doing, and first they’d need to acknowledge that they are doing this, and then figure out why. [Read more…]

WILL HE GROW OUT OF IT?

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Advice for foster carers, foster care system, child in foster care and affects on the familyQ I’ve been a foster carer for about a year now and I’m feeling more and more concerned about the affect this is having in my own young child.

I don’t want to stop fostering and if I speak with the social worker I’m afraid this might go against me. The ten year old boy in my care comes from a background of neglect and abuse, and more than that he often makes racist and homophobic comments (to people in the street, or he shouts things out to the television set). To make matters worse he lies and steals and deliberately damages or destroys things. He then manipulates the truth to get himself off the hook and to make my son look like things were his fault and to take the blame.

I do try and explain things to both of them together but it seems to fall on deaf ears with the foster child. The social worker says that he’ll grow out of it in time and with ‘corrective experiences’. I fear for the affect of all this negative behaviour on my own son.

Do you think this foster child will grow out of it or shall I just give up now?

A Having been a foster carer myself for eight years I do understand your doubts and fears.

This boy has grown up with certain conditioning – and so his present behaviour may be his way of keeping the bond with his birth family.

This is his ‘fantasy bond’ of attachment. The family system may be ‘dysfunctional’ and unhealthy, but it’s what he knows and feels to be the ‘norm’. [Read more…]

WHEN WILL THEY LEAVE ME ALONE?

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Sexual abuse flying monkeys in the family blame the victim Q I’ve never got on with either of my parents and left home as soon as I started work, and I don’t have any contact with them now. Fortunately my best friend’s mum took me in and I’ve been living with them for over a year.

What’s bothering me is the snide comments on Facebook and by texts from my older sister, aunt and uncle. They don’t know the half of what went on and how nasty my mum was to me, and how much my dad touched me where he shouldn’t have done. I haven’t told anyone about that but it makes me sick that these people make out it’s me that has the problem, and that I’m the one causing bad feeling and telling lies in the family. I just wish they’d mind their own business and leave me alone! Sometimes I start to doubt myself and what I know to be true about what happened to me. I think maybe I should forgive and forget, but that would be more of a lie! Why don’t they just leave me alone to get on with my life?

A You are describing what’s called ‘Flying Monkeys’…people that swing around blaming, criticising and trying to shame others into compliance with their wishes to keep the family secrets in the dark. [Read more…]

WHY DOES SHE KEEP CREATING CONFLICT?

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Toxic family dynamicsQ My step-grandmother keeps setting up battles between members of the family – and then somehow turns it round as if she’s the victim! She’s just lately told lies to my aunt about what I’m supposed to have said about her relationship with my uncle. My aunt questioned me about it and when I asked my gran about what she’d said and why, she denied it to my face and said my aunt must be lying – and she added the usual ‘why does everybody in this family keep telling lies about me’? Yet SHE is the one setting it all up! She creates conflicts and fall outs, and pitches people against one another. There is so much bad feeling and lack of trust now. I don’t know who to believe any more. Why does she keep doing this, and why do the rest of us seem to keep falling for it?

A Let’s think about what the desired outcome might be for your grandmother – because we all do what we do for a reason (not to say that it’s a good or bad reason).

It may well be that she is somehow replaying her own early family drama – and recreating ‘triangular relationships’. [Read more…]