Confronting past parental abuse

[Anonymous]

I confronted my abusive adoptive mom about her abuse. She used to hit me, smack me in the face etc. Her reaction?

"I did not! I did it one time and got so worried that I called the therapist you were seeing because I was worried. It never happened again."
Lies. It happened a lot.

Then she tried to say that I caused her to do it and that I tried to hit her. LIE. I was terrified of her, always timid. She made me out to sound like I was an out of control teenager who hit her. I wasn't dumb enough to ever hit my mom and I'm just not a violent person. I don't want to hit anyone. Once I put my hand up in self defense to push her away.

But she denied it all and then told me my memory is twisted and incorrect.. basically tried to make me feel crazy.

I recommend not doing what I did because it will damage you more in the long run. You can't reason with crazy abusive people.

Hugs.

[Anonymous]

I agree that your therapist should not be encouraging this. No good will come of it and it will do more harm than good. OP, if your parents didn't see anything wrong with their abuse at the time they were doing it, why in the world would they see it now? If anything they will look at your successes as the direct result of their fabulous parenting.

When you really, truly work through this then it won't be so important to you. You obviously have much more work to do to get to that place of peace. I wish you well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I both had somewhat the same upbringing due to being from the same culture. Much of our abuse and neglect caused by our mothers came from cultural norms in addition to being psychologically damaged themselves. We have gone through therapy and tried confronting on several occasions. It was of no use as their abusive behavior is so deeply ingrained and they are delusional. From their vantage point, they were mothers of the year, when in fact the reality was more like living with Mommy Dearest Joan Crawford 24/7. I no longer speak to my mother and my husband has limited contact. I am cautioning you that while it sounds like you have made tremendous progress through your therapy, don't expect some ah ha moment from them as a result of the confrontation. My abusive mother got to a point, where I couldn't stand the sight of her. My husband still has to interact with his mom because his Dad is still in the picture, but it saddens me to see her break his heart every chance she gets. Like he puts a lot of thought and effort into a birthday present for his mom, then she gets it, and goes wtf is this crap, don't give me this garbage. If you don't mind that kind of stuff, then keep the relationship, but for me it isn't worth it.

Thank you for your insight. I'm not expecting them to change their ways but instead want to express my hurt feelings so that nobody can say they didn't know how I really feel. Confronting them will be more for me than anything. I'm sick of being in this middle ground where I'm supposed to "play nice" and just pretend that nothing ever happened to me but somehow I mysteriously decided to move away from everyone and have all of these broken past ties . I definitely think I've made progress coming to terms with all of this but admittedly am still in the process of working through it.

OP, NP here, but please understand that you expressing your feelings will likely not change their narrative of why you moved away, nor are you likely to find any real resolution beyond actually being able to speak the words. Understand that you are also opening up the opportunity for them to deny, justify, or try to shove responsibility off on you. Weigh if that's something you want. You don't have to play nice anymore if that's not what you want to do, and you can do that at any time as it's in your power to change yourself.

If you do confront them, I'd recommend doing it with your therapist as a means of letting you express yourself. This will give them less of a chance to derail the situation and allow you someone on your "side". Decide with your therapist ahead of time the ground rules for the session - do you want discussion, or simply the ability to air your feelings? If you allow back and forth discussion, at what point should she intervene if it goes off topic or becomes a bitch session? Would you like to schedule an individual session immediately after in order to talk about what just happened?

I think that we often run a fantasy in our heads over how these sorts of "interventions" will go, and it's rarely the way we hope or that we see on TV.

[Anonymous]

My DH did this. I was, I admit, pretty skeptical. What good could it do? But I was wrong They cried a lot and apologized rather than get defensive, at least in the short term. I don't know that it "fixed" anything; my in-laws did not immediately go seek treatment for their (serious, untreated) mental health issues or try to straighten up their lives. And they maintain that they were "basically" good parents. But they prayed a lot. And cried a lot. And DH felt better. It was sort of an air-clearing thing for him, he says. Just to confront them directly.

He then left the house (our home) immediately for a made-up emergency and didn't return until late at night, leaving me to deal with distraught in laws. so, don't do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DH did this. I was, I admit, pretty skeptical. What good could it do? But I was wrong They cried a lot and apologized rather than get defensive, at least in the short term. I don't know that it "fixed" anything; my in-laws did not immediately go seek treatment for their (serious, untreated) mental health issues or try to straighten up their lives. And they maintain that they were "basically" good parents. But they prayed a lot. And cried a lot. And DH felt better. It was sort of an air-clearing thing for him, he says. Just to confront them directly.

He then left the house (our home) immediately for a made-up emergency and didn't return until late at night, leaving me to deal with distraught in laws. so, don't do that.

Dang. It's like he could do it/but he couldn't. That must have sucked for you. Did you have to play translator/peace maker or could you just hide in the guestroom?

OP, I agree that if you need to say it, then say it. But have low expectations of the outcome and plan to stay safe when you tell them- maybe be somewhere public but far enough from people that they can't hear you. I think you need to give up hope that it can/could be any different. Once you are ok with that then go ahead and good luck.

[Anonymous]

I think you need to work with you therapist on what your expectations are. What do you want them to do when you confront them? What will you do/how will you feel if they don't respond the way you thin they should? Would their denial be acceptable to you? If they don't accept/acknowledge it, will just the confrontation be enough to give you peace?

[Anonymous]

I would just write them a letter. Don't back down. Be prepared to cut them out of your life.

[Anonymous]

Confrontation is usually met with denial, gaslighting, and other frustrating behaviors that make you feel worse than ever. It's hardly ever worth the energy.

You can work on writing a letter to them. Whether you give it to them or not is up to you. I've seen it done and the parents play dumb and nod and say something placating. And then behind the person's back they scoff at how crazy and absurd the letter was. Nothing changed. The process of working out your feelings and writing the letter is meant just for you.

They're not going to change. You are. You're going to work through your pain, anger, and other feelings about how you were treated growing up, and establish yourself outside of the family dynamics.

You're going to build stronger boundaries so that you protect yourself from their future negative behaviors.

You're going to find ways to nurture relationships you want with other family members. Abusive/NPD parents have a way of trying to isolate you from other family members.

Trying to make them see the error of their ways and say they're sorry is a fantasy that takes away your focus from all the work you have to do.

[Anonymous]

OP you're most likely wasting your time and there is little to be gained from such a confrontation. In fact, it is highly likely that even if they own up you will not feel as if they did enough. Your therapist should know better. Of course there are quite a few sessions that can be added as a result.

Come to understand why parents tend to abuse, come to grips with the past and then forgive them. After you have done that then commit to not repeating and end the cycle. In the majority of cases what happened with your parents was a result of what happened to them.

FWIW, I suffered emotional, and severe physical, abuse in my childhood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't confront them. They had every right to raise you as they saw fit. Now that you are an adult you can walk away.

This is either the worst advice ever (which is saying a lot since this is DCUM and there are rivers of bad advice all over!), or it's a troll answer.

Either way OP, ignore it.

[Anonymous]

I confronted my parents re: the abuse in our family. The first time there was a lot of denial, "how could you do this to us?" and just all around asshole-ness. The second time, I ended up cutting them off forever. It was hard, I was scared for a long time that my father would come and kill me and my kids. But, I have moved on. I did what I needed to do to protect myself and my children. GL whatever you decide.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wouldn't confront them. They had every right to raise you as they saw fit. Now that you are an adult you can walk away.

You need help.