Insulted by adult daughter's judgement of past abuse

And an update: My daughter and I are talking again and committed to keeping the bond between us. As she opened up I began to realize that some of her anger comes from the frustrations she is experiencing in her own life right now, pressures and mental exhaustion. She knows I love her and the mistakes I made were mostly due to my own ignorance and yes some denial, but never because I lacked any love for her. Did I make some stupid decisions? Oh heck yeah. If I could go back and rewrite history I would, but I cant. My arms are always open for her, my love is always there and I will always forgive her anything. I'm sure we will have our arguements in the future, we are both strong willed women with strong opinions of our own. But if we dont shut each other out, we can enter a new phase of our relationship that we both really want. Thanks to all of you who lent your thoughts, support, and understanding. I dont know what I would have done without this forum to just vent so I could step back, catch my breath, and take a good, hard look at the problem. You guys are great

I don't want to take sides here, and I wasn't abused so I can't speak personally to anyone's likely state of mind. I'm not a mother but my relationship with my mom is fine, definitely not hostile.

I tend to think that salix11's point of view really needs hearing out. I realize her mom is not you, but I agree with her that the line about self-pity and using this to justify her failures, and the rest of that post she quoted, sounded honestly extremely callous, and your account of yourself does sound a little on the saintly side. I also agree that the truth of these events is likely somewhere in the middle.

Your post starts by saying you are "insulted", when it seems to me like a more appropriate word would be troubled or upset. It really seems to suggest some unusual distance.

I think that everyone would do well to make a real effort to understand the daughter's point of view. Even given her present stress, that doesn't mean there's no truth to it.

I am SELDOM triggered by anything I read on any of the boards here, but I must admit that you have really touched quite a nerve with me. In fact, yours takes the cake. I can't help but be disturbed by your "indignity" over your daughters emotional turmoil from years of abuse.

Forgive me for being so blunt, but I must ask: whose really blaming who here?

Why are you so defensive when your daughter expresses some very difficult emotions to you (obviously for the first time) that she has had to bottle up for all of her life? She FINALLY revealed to you how incredibly hurt she was by your six years of inaction (didn't you think to call the POLICE during that time?), and you did nothing but INVALIDATE HER by your own admission. Then, you self righteously claim that YOU are the victim. Wake up! Who are you trying to convince? Her? Us? I do not see anything we could possibly tell you in your self-righteous state of mind.

Your even involving your son in this mess, getting his opinion and viewpoint on how you think your daughter should feel. My advice: Leave him out of it. You are only provoking chaos and stoking the fire. Haven't you had enough of the DRAMA in your life? No, apparently you want more. I'm sure you were telling her what a good mother you have been while you were telling her to STFU about how SHE remembers things. Who are you to tell someone ELSE what they remember? And involving other family members to boot--classic drama.

Denial is a dysfunctional coping mechanism. If we don't talk about our feelings, and stuff them down (especially over abuse) and becomes worse over the years. The first thing you should have done once the children and yourself was safe would be to enter them into therapy. Instead, you expected them to "BUCK UP" and forget about it. You want your daughter to be in denial too, so that she can avoid the conflict that talking about things long repressed brings about...

I am not sorry for posting this. Be angry with me if you want. Call me names. Tell me I was wrong--whatever floats your boat.
Please think about going to a therapist.

I'm too old anymore for this crap----------I think I'll take a nap.
Sorry if I've offended any of the ladies and gents out there, but I'm sure you know what I mean when I say I can't take this stuff.

Mama, it sounds like you have worked this through and are now listening to your daughter. This is what is really important now. You figured out what was standing in the way of the communication and you fixed it.


Hurt people hurt others. Is it ideal?, no, but it is just the way people react. Understanding and compassion go a long way to help others see what is going on so that they can make things better.

I know what it is like to be triggered. I have been triggered twice on this site because a person lined up too closely to my mother's behavior. The trigger gets set off and there is only reaction, no thinking. I have taken both of these incidents and filed them away to remind myself that these are triggers for me so that hopefully next time I will recognize it before I react.

I like this a lot Mama. There is a thread titled "Forgiveness" over on the PTSD forum. I am going to mention this thread over there because what you have said above fits over on that thread.

My daughter was not abused. I WAS.

And YES I will defend myself against *any* accusations that I KNOW are not true. As I stated in the example of her perception of me being a "bar hopper", which I AM NOT NOR WAS I THEN. If she said I robbed a bank, and I didn't, should I agree to it because she said it was so? Talk about crazy!! Just where do YOU draw the line between fantasy and reality? It has nothing to do with "denial". I deal in FACTS. And since I was there, I think I might know a few facts regarding my own life!

Why didn't I call the police? Oh please. What do you think! When I went to court for custody I had pages and pages of police reports where I and others called the police. My abuse happened in the 70's. The law regarding domestic violence then was FAR DIFFERENT than it is today. The police had to SEE him hit me in order to take him to jail. All they would do is sit him and down and tell him to stop. I did call the police, oh wait, maybe thats a false memory and I really didnt...because I liked being beaten, got off on it! You seem to know so much, why dont you just tell me how it really happened?!

My son is 7 yrs older than my daughter, and was quite aware of what was going on, why wouldnt I talk to him about it? You said I should have had us all in therapy, yet I'm not supposed to involve him? LOL I'm supposed to forget he was even there??? It's not about drama, lady. It's about Truth and not having either side in denial. Nobody is telling my daughter how to feel. I was trying to find out WHY she felt that way. Get a clue.

I dont need YOUR abuse either. Go fly a kite.

BTW, I'm out of here. I've never met such a bunch of self righteous hypocrites in my life. I came to get help and 90% of what I got was Judgement. Yes a few of you (and you know who you are) were truly nice and tried to understand MY frustration and MY anger and I thank you. But the rest of you need a lesson in compassion or the issues involving REAL domestic violence. I'm really disgusted by some of you and your presumptions. I dont play the "false memory" game, maybe you and your therapist do and it makes you feel better to come up with crap that didnt happen, but I deal with reality. I had every right to be upset with false accusations. I admitted my mistakes but I will not admit to something I didn't do. You people want blood. It's like Lord of the Flies around here. You all have "mother issues" and think I will take the abuse for your own moms? Ain't gonna happen.
I must have been nuts to come here. I'm sure as hell sane enough to leave though. Have a nice life!

I'm sorry that you got so offended by what others wrote. I think that this is a touchy subject and a lot of the people replying are basing it off of their own hurt and perceptions, and it doesn't sound like their mothers ever tried to make it right. When you have never been shown what a real loving relationship is like how are you supposed to know genuine love when u see it? I ask u to please look past the anger that was aimed at you and to see the hurt that lies underneath what was said. Because of my relationships I have a hard time recognizing true love and when I do see it my first reaction is to think its fake and they are just acting. When you have been "damaged" especially by abuse it is hard for you to recognize genuine feelings. I think it is hard for a lot of ppl on here to see that you really do love your daughter and instead they latched onto the anger (which is what they are familiar with from their own mothers) that you felt towards your daughter and recognized that as the only true emotion you felt. It is easier for people who have grown up seeing angry vengeful people to see you as a bad person than to see you as a normal human who experiences both anger and hurt. You are not a monster, you made mistakes, we all make mistakes, you tried your best w/your daughter and you gave her what you could. I think that a lot of people just think you aren't trying to take responsibility for what happened. I think that it's great that you and your daughter are speaking again and I do think that you are taking some of the responsibility but I think that the blame lies somewhere between you both. Your daughter handled her feelings irresponsibily and you think that she should be over what happend to her because you had it worse. I think that as you have shown you two are both above this and it was just a bump in the road brought on by stress. I think that this topic got clouded by bias and personal feelings, it is a very touchy subject for most but the point is you and your daughter are happy again! I think you should both spend some time on this subject just so in the future it won't happen again! But you are obviously a good mom and you shouldn't let people make you doubt it, I think most of these replies were born out of peoples own hurt feelings so don't judge the site to harshly. To quit because you didn't get the reaction you wanted isn't very fair. I hope that you will not leave over this!

My thoughts are w/you, and again I am sooo happy for you and your daughter!!

My thoughts are with both you and your dear daughter... You say that you were the only one abused, however, she was abused as well if not physically but emotionally! You have to understand that she is looking at this from a child's perspective...she was afraid...she thought she was going to die or you were going to die...she wanted to be safe and you did not provide that for her at the time! You have to be able to put your anger aside and listen to her, empathize with her, and love her through this!

You are obviously still in pain because of this and therapy was needed then and is needed now, for all! Really, bringing her brother into this will only cause resentment between the two...you should really let this be between you and your daughter!

TJ

Remember Mama, this forum helped you get back with your daughter. A little conflict of ideas is okay.........

This is a really, really extreme reaction. I know a couple of the replies were from angry daughters, but many others including mine were polite and impartial, even if they didn't support your point of view 100%. If you are really interested in fixing your relationship with your daughter you would give them thought.

There's no "false memory game". 20 years is a long, long time and pretty much everyone's memory changes or fades a little in that time.

This is true. It was an awful time for women.

I think Sannah's comment about triggers and how they make you "react" instead of "consider" are appropriate here.