Can I ... Should I?

[Margi29]

Hi @Margi29

It is helping. Although I felt like I was explaining a lot of my childhood to someone who hadn’t a clue. My parents were very strict. Mum certainly didn’t want children & dad was an only child with no real idea of what children were.

People have this rose tinted view of growing up abroad, but while the beaches are great, sailing is fun etc, the children (myself included) don’t see a lot of their parents, it’s a fractured relationship with boarding school, bullying & having to grow up young. To all intents I left home at 8, I saw my parents 3 times a year, till I was 16, then twice a year till I was 19. I guess I loved the idea of them, but didn’t know them.

Yes I’m here every day. Sometimes I resent it. Sometimes I just care for her like she’s a stranger, other times, she’s very sweet & I have a glimpse of the Mum I was starting to love when Alzheimers knocked on the door.

Yesterday I felt so guilty about the counselling & describing Mum. Today it felt justified. Tonight I just know I need a pressure release.

I took big brother fishing. I came home to a disaster. I’d washed & hung all the towels. She’d moved every one. She also did the little washing of hers from today, meaning there was no room for me to do mine. I really needed to do mine today :-(

Mum now has COPD, so she’d hung all her wet washing in her bedroom ??? I had to move everything. I was not happy.

She’s also been rooting around in the shed, looking for “something”. I told her she must know it’s not a good idea if she waits till I’m out to do it

Mum then told me “you can’t keep me a prisoner just because you don’t want me to fall”

I give up. Seriously. I just walked away & set to on the paperwork.

Ive left her to her own devises. She’s returned for dinner as sweet little old lady.

To quote you, .... give me strength

It must have been so hard on you as a child, in comparison to how we nurture our children and love them unconditionally, horrible situation for you x

Yes, sometimes I say ' give me strength ' multiple times during day, it's like a pressure cooker waiting for the next crisis to implode!!!

You can only do what you do, to help to keep her safe, maybe a sharp ' I won't be visiting every day if you end up in hospital ' may curtail her actions??? ( I know she will forget though)

Mum tonight for me, she behaved apparently for carer last night, please say there is no full moon tonight !!!

 

[nitram]

please say there is no full moon tonight !!!

OK
'there is no full moon tonight'

Satisfied?

Perhaps I was lying?

https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/uk/london

All attempts at correlation failed with me, it was just something to hang onto, because 'things might be better tomorrow'

 

[Margi29]

OK
'there is no full moon tonight'

Satisfied?

Perhaps I was lying?

https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/uk/london

All attempts at correlation failed with me, it was just something to hang onto, because 'things might be better tomorrow'

Thank you @nitram , I so hope it's not a full moon, it seems to be particularly worse on those nights. Years ago the thought of a full moon scared me of werewolves, nowadays it's mum !!!

 

[Havemercy]

Hi @Margi29

It is helping. Although I felt like I was explaining a lot of my childhood to someone who hadn’t a clue. My parents were very strict. Mum certainly didn’t want children & dad was an only child with no real idea of what children were.

People have this rose tinted view of growing up abroad, but while the beaches are great, sailing is fun etc, the children (myself included) don’t see a lot of their parents, it’s a fractured relationship with boarding school, bullying & having to grow up young. To all intents I left home at 8, I saw my parents 3 times a year, till I was 16, then twice a year till I was 19. I guess I loved the idea of them, but didn’t know them.

Yes I’m here every day. Sometimes I resent it. Sometimes I just care for her like she’s a stranger, other times, she’s very sweet & I have a glimpse of the Mum I was starting to love when Alzheimers knocked on the door.

Yesterday I felt so guilty about the counselling & describing Mum. Today it felt justified. Tonight I just know I need a pressure release.

I took big brother fishing. I came home to a disaster. I’d washed & hung all the towels. She’d moved every one. She also did the little washing of hers from today, meaning there was no room for me to do mine. I really needed to do mine today :-(

Mum now has COPD, so she’d hung all her wet washing in her bedroom ??? I had to move everything. I was not happy.

She’s also been rooting around in the shed, looking for “something”. I told her she must know it’s not a good idea if she waits till I’m out to do it

Mum then told me “you can’t keep me a prisoner just because you don’t want me to fall”

I give up. Seriously. I just walked away & set to on the paperwork.

Ive left her to her own devises. She’s returned for dinner as sweet little old lady.

To quote you, .... give me strength

My brother in law who is a retired lawyer has never forgiven his parents for sending him away to boarding school when he was seven years old. He hated his father and had a fractured relationship with his mother even in later life. What helped him was the discovey of an organisation called Boarding School Survivors -

https://www.boardingschoolsurvivors.co.uk

and the knowledge that he was not alone and his feelings/relationships were "normal". Just thought you might find it of interest. Best wishes x

 

[Sam Luvit]

Hi @Havemercy

Thank you for that, I’ve taken a look . I think my brother wouId come under the heading of never forgiving my parents, dad in particular for sending him to boarding school. He saw it as a sign that they didn’t love him from a very early age, I kind of thought that, but more as an adult, with a better understanding of things. Everyone who worked abroad sent their kids “home” to get a good education, so it was “normal”. The truth for me, is that it’s pretty cruel. Age 8 is very young to find yourself surrounded by strangers, there is no hugging or bedtime stories, crying is a weakness that gets you bullied & bullying is rife with no one to turn to.

That said, had I been able to afford it, I’d have sent my kids for their GCSE years, as the enforced study, lack of distraction in my opinion, is not a bad thing. Boarding with 100 strangers also teaches you how to get along with people you might not like, it’s stood me in good stream for some of my bosses & staff over the years . It also encourages independence & I found an empathy for the underdog I might not have developed otherwise

I think, I could be wrong, but I think it was the lies my parents used to explain to their friends in England, about why they sent us that made me question it. After all. If boarding school is so good, why lie about your reasons? We were already boarders when a coup was attempted, yet my parents fudged the dates & said that was why they sent us, one of many truth bending excuses they made. Mum giving up work once I’d gone to board with a very reasonable explanation, later made me think she no longer needed the excuse to be out while we were at home :-(

I do resent that she has in later years told me she just got on with having children, because she was married & that’s what you did. I hated that she wouId coo & fawn over children, but she never did that with us. I hate that we were never allowed opinions that went against hers & that she didn’t know me, our personalities were irrelevant. I don’t hate her.

In our own way, I think there is love. I feel tremendous guilt that I don’t love her beyond everything, yet I will fight to get her what she needs & I will & do put her above me. I want to give her what happiness I can, as I believe her earlier years were not filled with happiness.

I know I looked at my friends with their mums & saw the hugs & decided I wanted that. I just started hugging her & dad one day. They were both bemused, but they eventually got used to a tactile daughter lol. I learnt by their “errors” how important it is to show love to my kids. I hug them all the time, I talk to them, I listen. Mostly I listen. Ok, I hug lots too.

Starting counselling has forced me to think about feelings I’ve buried. I’m afraid that bringing then to the fore will make looking after Mum difficult. I do wonder if it’s worth the risk. I do not have memories if a wonderful Mum who put me first, did everything to make me happy & I know that leaves me nothing to draw on when she’s being horrid.

Sorry. That turned into a bit of self absorbed ranting & soap box stomping. I didn’t mean that to happen, but I think I feel better for explaining it to myself. I tend to write as I talk, verbal diarrhoea lol

 

[Sam Luvit]

Hey @Margi29

It was a strange childhood, but there were good bits. I’m still in touch with friends, although they are all over the world & I can’t exactly pop over to Florida, Goa, Australia or Italy for coffee, I still think of them as friends I’d do anything for.

I was offered a job abroad, which I only considered after talking it over with the kids & put a fixed time on. They were very much in the equation. I learnt what not to do from my parents :-(

Oh I have told Mum bluntly that if she does something dumb & ends up in hospital I will NOT be visiting. So far, she stopping the really dumb stuff for a week or two. She does know when she’s doing something really dumb, she does it while I’m out lol

Hope your mum behaves for you. Full moon has had a massive effect on Mum, except the last 2, she’s just doing the whole range in one day ... moody, sullen, cross & mostly ending giggling & sweet old lady.

 

[Margi29]

Yippee, mum slept from 12.30 till 05.40. It's amazing what a full nights sleep can make you feel like

I must confess, she got the works, zopiclone, two paracetamol, and a phenergan 25mg.

Apart from the usual, where do you work?? Your dads been round here and new one on me, apparently the queen has a second husband ( I suspect prince Philip hasn't got a clue) David Attenborough !!!

All good, hope everyone has a lovely weekend x

 

[2jays]

You and I could be the same person, in some ways, couldn’t we @Sam Luvit

The one I most identify with is “unable to keep in touch with good friends in times of need” or something like that.

I’ve found that if there has been a very difficult situation, I am able, to a point, to “forget” that time and kind of move on once it’s over. But it’s never forgotten really... just become less able to re contact with people I seem to have “ignored”

I think what really helps me is that 1J also is a boarding school survivor. Though we are a bit insular with the outside world.... in that I mean we are a bit detached and don’t make friends easily. We have the friendly front, but good friendships don’t get developed. It’s just him and me against the world.

Gosh look what you’ve made me do... show what I think is a weakness. That would never have been allowed in the past, would it

Hugs Sam xxxx

 

[Sam Luvit]

I know what you mean @Margi29 ... but 5 hours is not considered a full nights sleep Well not to non carers anyway Just an aside, but Mum told me last night she doesn’t like to take paracetamol until she’s just going to bed, as it makes her sleepy

Poor old prince Phillip

 

[Sam Luvit]

Morning @2jays

Yes, such similarities, they can’t help but make us the same I too have “forgotten” many of the “bad” things, but living with Mum & hearing her spout the “reasons” they sent us away bring back memories & with them comes anger & resentment. She calmly sent us off for 3 months at a time, while they were a single childless couple, we were struggling with insecurities. I think the “home” I missed was my friends, rather than my parents. It was a kinda strange upbringing

You two are very strong together, you hold each other up & make the world a less scarey place for each other. Boarding school survivors, I like that phrase, it’s quiet apt. I think we tend to form intense friendships or very superficial ones

No. Weakness was not a good thing. In a closed environment with little interaction from the adults, that made you a target. You soon learnt to show nothing

Hugs gratefully grabbed Sure feeling the need for a few of those

 

[2jays]

I think the most hurtful thing mum ever said to me was after my father died. He died when I was around 15 - early teens

Her words were.... thank kind goodness you were at boarding school when your dad and I were young so we had some quality time together before he died. You will be ok, you won’t miss him so much, you have school, I’m going to be left all alone now

 

[Margi29]

I think the most hurtful thing mum ever said to me was after my father died. He died when I was around 15 - early teens

Her words were.... thank kind goodness you were at boarding school when your dad and I were young so we had some quality time together before he died. You will be ok, you won’t miss him so much, you have school, I’m going to be left all alone now

Just got to pop in and say , how incredibly hurtful those words must have been to you, sending bigs hugs x

 

[rainbowcat]

Hi @Havemercy

Thank you for that, I’ve taken a look . I think my brother wouId come under the heading of never forgiving my parents, dad in particular for sending him to boarding school. He saw it as a sign that they didn’t love him from a very early age, I kind of thought that, but more as an adult, with a better understanding of things. Everyone who worked abroad sent their kids “home” to get a good education, so it was “normal”. The truth for me, is that it’s pretty cruel. Age 8 is very young to find yourself surrounded by strangers, there is no hugging or bedtime stories, crying is a weakness that gets you bullied & bullying is rife with no one to turn to.

That said, had I been able to afford it, I’d have sent my kids for their GCSE years, as the enforced study, lack of distraction in my opinion, is not a bad thing. Boarding with 100 strangers also teaches you how to get along with people you might not like, it’s stood me in good stream for some of my bosses & staff over the years . It also encourages independence & I found an empathy for the underdog I might not have developed otherwise

I think, I could be wrong, but I think it was the lies my parents used to explain to their friends in England, about why they sent us that made me question it. After all. If boarding school is so good, why lie about your reasons? We were already boarders when a coup was attempted, yet my parents fudged the dates & said that was why they sent us, one of many truth bending excuses they made. Mum giving up work once I’d gone to board with a very reasonable explanation, later made me think she no longer needed the excuse to be out while we were at home :-(

I do resent that she has in later years told me she just got on with having children, because she was married & that’s what you did. I hated that she wouId coo & fawn over children, but she never did that with us. I hate that we were never allowed opinions that went against hers & that she didn’t know me, our personalities were irrelevant. I don’t hate her.

In our own way, I think there is love. I feel tremendous guilt that I don’t love her beyond everything, yet I will fight to get her what she needs & I will & do put her above me. I want to give her what happiness I can, as I believe her earlier years were not filled with happiness.

I know I looked at my friends with their mums & saw the hugs & decided I wanted that. I just started hugging her & dad one day. They were both bemused, but they eventually got used to a tactile daughter lol. I learnt by their “errors” how important it is to show love to my kids. I hug them all the time, I talk to them, I listen. Mostly I listen. Ok, I hug lots too.

Starting counselling has forced me to think about feelings I’ve buried. I’m afraid that bringing then to the fore will make looking after Mum difficult. I do wonder if it’s worth the risk. I do not have memories if a wonderful Mum who put me first, did everything to make me happy & I know that leaves me nothing to draw on when she’s being horrid.

Sorry. That turned into a bit of self absorbed ranting & soap box stomping. I didn’t mean that to happen, but I think I feel better for explaining it to myself. I tend to write as I talk, verbal diarrhoea lol

Your post resonates with me. It's only since my mother died that I have tried to address my issues with her, and realised that she was probably a narcissistic mother, who married my father, also a narcissist. Everything and anything they did was to feed THEIR OWN interests. I don't think I can even go into this because it's so very complex! We've had guilt trips, and "me me me" and "what about how *I* feel" and oh so much. If you read up about narc mothers and their children, you often see a "scapegoat", "conformer" and "golden child". YEP, all three in my family. I was scapegoat. I am considering seeing a therapist myself.

I wasn't sent to boarding school, but I wasn't listened to when it came to choosing my secondary school. I was TOLD which school I was going to (because my father was enjoying the fruits of being on the board of governers) - but then it was MY fault that I went from being a high achiever to a drop-out flunk.

My parents told me conflicting stories about why they married/had children. My father told me that my mother invited him and her work mate back to her house after work, and because the work mate was on her period, he chose my mother to get engaged with. In contrast, my mother told me that she got engaged to my dad because "that's what you did in the 60s"...likewise: "having children after you got married was what you did in the 70s".

My mother was also one to coo and ahhh over children - OTHER PEOPLE'S children. Everyone thought she was the wonderful, caring, doting mother and then grandmother, and once facebook came around and me and siblings could see what she was saying and the replies, we were like: who is this person they think she is?! My mother babysat ONCE for me. For less than 2 hours. And moaned about that. She lived 30 mins (walking!) up the road from me. Nobody believed me that she didn't do anything "granny-ish" with her grandchildren. After my sister had children, she was even worse, couldn't even spare a slice of bread when the little-un was hungry during a visit, saying "there's a cafe across the road"...!

Hmm, I digress. I don't doubt that she had love for me. Just she had weird ways of (not) showing it. She would go to hug me (when I was an adult) and then say "I know you don't like hugging, so I won't" - I have no idea why she thought that, I am the most tactile out of my siblings, yet she always was into hugging THEM when they were trying to avoid the hug, and I was there trying to get a hug and was denied.

I also have struggled with the guilt that I don't love my parents "beyond anything" - I get people (friends, family) saying "you only have one mother/father", but that just gives me more guilt that I don't have this warm lovely feeling towards them! And I wonder if in a way, this makes the pain of loss even more so, because I am also grieving what I didn't have as well as what was there...?

Signing off this post now before it rambles on further into the night...!

 

[Sam Luvit]

I think the most hurtful thing mum ever said to me was after my father died. He died when I was around 15 - early teens

Her words were.... thank kind goodness you were at boarding school when your dad and I were young so we had some quality time together before he died. You will be ok, you won’t miss him so much, you have school, I’m going to be left all alone now

Hi @2jays

That’s such a hurtful thing for your mum to have said :-(. I’d hug the pain right out of you if I could. Although my mum didn’t say anything like that & I was so much older, she definately saw herself as the only person suffering after dad died.

We were driving back from town & she was going on & on about how her life had changed & how she was left all alone with nobody to love her. My brother & I had dropped everything to run around after her & do everything to ease the pain, yet she saw us as nobody, with no right to feel sad. I remember saying “I know you lost your husband, but I lost my dad. You knew him some of your life, I knew him all my life”. Then I just cried all the way home.

Mum still talks of her pain, she misses him, she is the one left behind. She doesn’t even think of her children as losing anyone.

 

[canary]

(((hugs)))))
That loss of empathy, that narrowing of their world so that everything revolves around them, their needs, desires and comforts and their inability to see anything from anyone elses viewpoint is so hard

 

[Slugsta]

Morning all,

I don't have any experience of boarding school but know it would have to have been something exceptional to make me send my 7 year old away (when he was 17 I would gladly have given him away!). I know one of my previous bosses never had a good word to say for his time away

I always felt guilty for not loving Mum more, especially when I had not been through the kind of upbringing many of you experienced. I do recognise the bit about not being able to argue or state an opinion, Mum was really good at telling me 'Oh no, you don't want that, you want this. . .' even when I was an adult.

My son simply doesn't understand when I was I wasn't allowed to do something, or watch something on TV. He, rebel that he was, would probably have tried to do it anyway but I was too afraid of Mum to even attempt it!

I was probably not even in my teens when Mum told me she had never wanted children. Father wanted children, Mum said they must wait until they had £x in the bank, which took them 10 years. Then I came along and my father discovered he wasn't that keen on children either.

Philip Larkin certainly had it right, didn't he?!

 

[Grannie G]

My son once asked anxiously, if we won the pools would we send him to boarding school.

My mother once said my father should never have had children.

Oh what our parents inflict upon us!

When I was young I was determined to bring my child up in entirely the opposite of my own experience.

 

[Sam Luvit]

Morning @rainbowcat

I’m sorry my “thinking aloud” rambling thoughts, trying to make any sense of why I feel like this, has bought back such painful memories for you. It’s obvious you are still very angry about it & I really get that. My mum is still here, but I can’t talk to her about any of it, she just doesn’t remember & it wouId just upset her, so no gain there. It’s so hard keeping it together at times, hence councelling was started.

I have buried the less pleasant memories, but I’ve found being with Mum 24/7 & her memories of our childhood hard to reconcile to mine. Her idea that they gave us a great life, took us places etc. Yes we grew up with sunny skies, but we missed hugs, nurturing, proper conversation & like you, my parents decided & we had to do. No choice. No discussion. They just knew best. End of.

I did try at school, but I was no “A” grade student. Therefore I was a disappointment to my mum in particular, as far as she was concerned, I just didn’t work hard enough :-(. I got a reasonable number of exams, but only one “A”, to this day, she tells people I just didn’t try. Maybe being pushed into the sciences, for which I had little apptitude, might have something to do with that. Mum ridiculed my interest in anything “crafty”, failing to see that I could design & make clothes by the time I was 12. To her, it was “a little hobby” & nothing to be proud of :-(

My parents reaction to their first grandchild. “Don’t go expecting us to be unpaid babysitters”. They never had any of the grandchildren over without a parent present. Far too many comments about keeping little fingers away from their things for it to be relaxing. Yet to hear her talk to friends, you’d think she was desperate to see the little darlings. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Oh, such memories are not good when I now have to mop up wee in the bathroom, or gather up tissues & kitchen roll as she leaves them on tables, drops them on floors etc.

Ugg. Sorry but I don’t think I could have coped with my parents telling me those reasons for getting together. Mine said they were crazy about each other & so they got married. Both sets of their parents were against the marriage, my mother wasn’t good enough & my father was English lol. I do wonder about that. Both were hard working & very determined. I just don’t think they thought about what having children meant. They stopped short of saying they gave us life, but we were expected to be grateful to them that we existed. After all, just look at the life they gave us ... great education, sunny beaches, holidays abroad. (Our view being ... sent 5,000 miles away, one letter a week full of what a great time they were having, as for holidays abroad, no, we went home)

Now we are all older, Mum is better with the kids, but she feels slighted if they don’t visit, mine visit (I kinda force that one), my brothers don’t. I’m always making excuses, but the reality is, they don’t know her, now they never will. My youngest is a definately favourite, which I disagree with, but there’s not much I can do about that. He makes the effort to visit & calls to see how she is. He spent a fair amount of time with his grandparents just after I separated, he was “interesting now he can hold a conversation” (as they put it). If he’d been younger, I doubt they wouId have helped out :-(

My brother commented to me this week about just how selfish Mum is, but that she’s always been selfish. He knows her well :-(. I don’t think he cares for her much, while I can push the frustration aside & care for an old lady, he doesn’t seperate her past (& present) behaviour to allow him to show any feelings. I think he only visits to support me, rather than any love for his mum :-(. It’s all so damn sad.

I very much grieve the Mum I never had as a child, but also the adult Mum I was starting to love & really care about. There is a deep fierce protection inside me for her, although if I’m honest, I can feel the same for any friend who is being mistreated.

I doubt I wouId have ever examined these feelings or felt this level of resentment without the dreaded Alzheimers knocking at the door. I’d have kept them buried & been the dutiful daughter visiting every other week, with plenty of phone calls & plenty of distance to keep me sane.

Oh well. Things just didn’t work out like I thought. I had this naive idea that I’d move in, we wouId keep that caring adult relationship & I’d manage. Yet here I am nearly 3 years later, talking to my mum like she’s a child or stranger. When she’s in a good mood, we have a shadow of that adult relationship & I foolishly think it’s all ok. Then she flips to nasty & I've nothing tangible to hang onto

 

[Slugsta]

Sam (((hugs)))

 

[Margi29]

Morning all,

I don't have any experience of boarding school but know it would have to have been something exceptional to make me send my 7 year old away (when he was 17 I would gladly have given him away!). I know one of my previous bosses never had a good word to say for his time away

I always felt guilty for not loving Mum more, especially when I had not been through the kind of upbringing many of you experienced. I do recognise the bit about not being able to argue or state an opinion, Mum was really good at telling me 'Oh no, you don't want that, you want this. . .' even when I was an adult.

My son simply doesn't understand when I was I wasn't allowed to do something, or watch something on TV. He, rebel that he was, would probably have tried to do it anyway but I was too afraid of Mum to even attempt it!

I was probably not even in my teens when Mum told me she had never wanted children. Father wanted children, Mum said they must wait until they had £x in the bank, which took them 10 years. Then I came along and my father discovered he wasn't that keen on children either.

Philip Larkin certainly had it right, didn't he?!

If you find a boarding school for my twenty year old son, please let me know
Failing that free to good home advert springs to mind !!!

How awful to be told ' never wanted children ' words fail me @Slugsta , big hugs x