Dom Violence Living With A Mentally Ill Parent

[Loloma]

I still believe that the environment I grew up in had a huge influence on my life. It's not easy when your mother is mentally ill. In the 1950's there was little tolerance for the mentally ill. They were either locked up in Asylums, given shock therapy or just ignored.

My mother was left untreated until she was in her 50's. She got worse as the years went by, living on drugs and over the counter medication. The first few years when I was a toddler was not too bad. It all escalated as she had more children. She just couldn't cope with my father disappearing for periods of time. Mum became aware that he was sexually abusing us, that's when she really snapped. Instead of levelling her anger at him, she blamed us. She said it was our fault for enticing him.

She had fits of rage, I became her prime target. She would lash out with anything she could find. Planks of wood, bottles, bricks, steel clothes hangars. The beating would continue until she tired and stopped. I remember the wild look in her eyes while she was doing it.

The strange thing is that to the outside world she was a wonderful woman and a great mother???? She really did have a split personality. I always say I was dragged up not brought up. Has anyone else lived in a household with a mentally ill parent?

 

[StarChild]

Has anyone else lived in a household with a mentally ill parent?

Yup.... My "self-sacrificing" mother.... Well, that was the way she so loved to see herself. And of course she labelled/called herself self-sacrificing over and over her whole life.

She had fits of rage, I became her prime target.

Same here. Although she hit/punched and threatened all of us including my father, I was her prime target. Starting when I was about 2 years old.

My mother was left untreated

It was the opposite with my mother; The psychiatrists tried hard to work with her (psychotherapy) but she just consistently sabotaged everything they offered. She even told us full of pride, that she would never work with them. "It.s all a g*ddam b*llsh*t, those stupid doctors are telling. I'll never work with them because I don't need therapy! They're all just liars!" And so, well...she was untreated. They just prescribed her Lorazepam 2.5mg three times a day. So until today I don't know what diagnosis she had.

I remember the wild look in her eyes while she was doing it.

This still is such a scary thing to me! My mother's eyes darkened when she "changed" (for that little child I was, she really became a monster!). And her voice even dropped to become very deep. And no, I don't exaggerate. I witnessed so many times, that she gazed this way at others. At adults. And I'll never forget their anxious faces, when she stared at them in that horrible way. In such a constitution she was a loose cannon.

The strange thing is that to the outside world she was a wonderful woman and a great mother????

Oh lolvita, I feel so agitated right now, I'm near to poke! She managed to appear the most caring, loving and most of all self-sacrificing mother to the outside world, until she ultimately died. She played this part so perfect, that others started to blame and berate me. Once (I was about 4) her social worker visited us in our home. My mother started immediately to cry and told her that I behaved so bad, that her heart almost was breaking. And this f*cking b*tch of a social worker bought her lies grabbed my by my ear and pulled me near her face. Then she screamed at me, what an awful child I was, to give my heartbroken, helpless(!) mother such a hard time....It shouldn't be the last time in my life to have to experience this phenomenon!

 

[Nicolette]

Wow, I'm sorry that you had to deal with such dreadful childhoods. My mother was a martyr too SweetLullaby. It used to drive me crazy how she would cry that she was hard done by (all of which I saw as her own doing).

Sorry, I'm still tired. I have foot and mouth disease tonight as well as an inability to express myself. I just can't get my thoughts down on paper. Time for bed I think.

 

[DharmaGirl]

My father was schizophrenic, my brother was schizo-affective. My mother was narcissistic. She never told me my father was schizophrenic until I was 53. It explained a lot. I think I would have been better off knowing it back then. My younger brother and I have PTSD. Imagine that! Reality was slippery at my house. You could just pretend that something didn't happen and it didn't. It was so strange growing up.

 

[Nicolette]

Wow OverU, impressive list of disorders at your place o_O I don't truly understand the conditions but, from what I skim read, it sounds like it would have been somewhat of a depressive and anxious environment. They say genetics play a part with the schizophrenia - is there a history you are aware of?

I think I would have been better off knowing it back then.

I am curious what makes you feel that? Would you feel comfortable to share?

 

[Lady of Longbourn]

My mother was often sick when I was growing up, mostly psychical sick. But I do think she suffers from depression. It wasn't easy...I was neglected a lot. My husband and therapist both think that if she had admitted to someone that she could not care for me I might have been taken away from her.

 

[Nicolette]

I wonder if my mother suffered from anything. She definitely lived in an abusive relationship and I know she had an abusive childhood. I find it odd how dependent she was on her own children. It was like she needed them to have self worth. From what I know she was also in a bad car accident in her early 20's. I would lean towards her having a disorder of some nature. It's kind of frightening looking back and seeing the pattern.

 

[p-no]

The strange thing is that to the outside world she was a wonderful woman and a great mother???? She really did have a split personality. Has anyone else lived in a household with a mentally ill parent?

My mother (who I usually refer to as "that woman" once I have made clear I am talking about my mother) was wonderful to the outside world and had many, many friends. She was a godmother to at least one boy and him, his five brothers and his mother adored her. She treated ALL other kids amazingly -- one time, when I had long been grown up and gone, my godchild (then about 4) and I went to visit her because she lived on a farm with lots of animals, so I got to witness it most then, but also with her own godson and children from the neighborhood. I often tried to get help for myself, but because she was so split (and then again not, it wasn't DID or anything, when I look back now), they just all thought I was the sick one. Some did get it, those adults who were treated the same as me, all those who were really close to her/us.

I am 100% sure she had severe PTSD (if not complex); that is because later-on, when I returned to my family's members to face them with their abuse of me, she realized that what had happened to her throughout her life was severe sexual and other abuse as well. However, she did drugs early on, also during pregnancy, drank etc. She added to her issues that way. She got pregnant at 16. My biological father being a schizophrenic, alcoholic, illegal and legal drug abuser, etc. I met him once in my teens and heard his own father yell in severe aggression from his bedroom (thank goodness he was so ill he could not get up!!!), I also met his mother then who became a door mat the instant her husband yelled away... I can guess where he's got most of his issues from...

Anyway, my therapist suspects my mother to also have had bipolar and I suspect some other comorbidities, only occassionally, which didn't make it better for me as a child.

@Nicolette: There is a genetic disposition for schizophrenia, but, as in all disorders I have made myself fairly knowledgable about, it doesn't mean you'll have it if your parents or grandparents had it. It depends a lot on your own, well, let me say personality for a lack of a better word, your own coping abilities, abilities to find your way of healing and not just coping, of getting help if in trouble, i.e. social upbringing. I have never been diagnosed with it but I do think that I have made it to here the way I have, because of therapy, therapy, therapy, and not to forget therapy. I have had several therapists say to me they're amazed at how healthy I am considering. I don't feel that, but I do see what they're saying. My determination has always been not letting "them" win. If it's the last thing I'm doing.

 

[Loloma]

My mother past away about 5 years ago. I no longer feel anger towards her, only extreme sadness about the whole situation, although I haven't forgiven her. I took the time to look in-depth at her life and the environment we were raised in. Her living situation was extreme. My father was narcissistic, a womanizer and a pedophile. In that time period, a lot of family issues were swept under the rug. Covered up by medical professionals, authority and society in general.

Women had little recourse, nowhere to go as the majority depended on their husbands for support. I'm talking about the 1950's. My mother didn't believe in birth control and had 14 children, which made the situation only worse. Any self control she had dissipated, leaving her totally powerless and out of control. She lost touch with reality and made our lives a living hell.

I was the 3rd eldest child. My brother ran away when he was 14, after my father punched him through a wall in the house. My older sister had a baby by my father at the age of 15, left NZ when she was 16 and went to Australia to live. That left me as the eldest. I became a mother figure to my younger siblings, helping to care for them as best I could. While still at the mercy of my sick father and crazy mother.

All these years have past, it still effects me on a daily basis. I go through periods of deep depression, isolation and feelings of not fitting in anywhere! I don't trust men nor most people in general. I don't think I will ever be happy.

 

[Nicolette]

I don't think I will ever be happy.

That is so heartbreaking to read as you do deserve some happiness. I hope you find some one day, even a little just to make you smile :)

 

[JustBe]

Reading back through these replies it amazes me that I was not the only child who had a parent that instantly became happy, kind and patient as soon as others were present.

 

[therapybankrupt]

Sending you all extra special warm hugs. It makes me sad to read you all had to deal with the hardships of unhealthy parent. My mom has her thing but most of all it is a codependency issues and the way she was raised. I think that generation was taught such weird thinking and were to trusting for the evil at the time. The also believed children were more resilient than they are.

I am an empath and was raised with rose colored glasses by very strict parents. My issue was severe vulnerability and fear to have emotions. I am giving my mom forgiveness but I did not let her off the hook she had to hear what happened and answer her own questions on how could this happen under my watch. I also have strict boundaries around her so she does not pull me in to her thinking and manipulations.

She is in her mid seventies and I found you can only expect small changes because they are who they are.
I am glad she talks to me about my questions and usually she is aloof to what she was responsible for. In a way it makes it easier to forgive her.