I'm feeling very raw and considering a total separation from my mother. I searched the internet for info about parents who abuse, lie and deceive and there is hardly anything. SO glad I found this.

Today I asked my mother to not talk to my step father about me (although they broke up decades ago they're in touch) and not discuss my life or my kids with him, as he had been sending me abusive emails for a year or two following me asking fairly nicely about the severe domestic violence we grew up with.

I never imagined she would deny it happened as it was her he used to beat up mostly, and it was severe. She didn't deny he hit her but told me I had dreamed that it was more than the odd whack. Actually she said I dreamed that I had seen her unconscious, and that the noises I heard when they were fighting were other sounds, such as outside.

I have already cut off contact with my step father but had to block him and change passwords etc recently when he wrote to me, and then my account was hacked into, and a weeks worth of emails were deleted, starting with his. (He happens to own a company dealing with the internet, so I couldn't help thinking it could be him)

He has tried to convince me I am mad, though I have been fine no thanks to them! And that my memories were made up. He tried to needle me into angry or upset responses. And now my mother is saying I have a faulty memory essentially. These aren't recovered memories, I have never forgotten them, and my siblings would have agreed that this kind of thing happened although we have different individual recollections about it. Their memories are just as severe. My mother backed him up, leading to him telling me that nobody else in the family agreed with me .

One sister has bipolar and gets too upset to discuss things now. My brother had a serious bereavement and I can't ask him about painful family stuff, he has enough. My other sister, though she knows its true, wasn't around much as she was sent to live with other people and she thinks of the stepfather as her protector as he protected her from our mother who was very violent to her, even breaking a leg when she was tiny. So I cannot approach any of my siblings about it at the moment. My mother went on the attack about something irrelevant to avoid my anger at her denials.

Sorry I probably do sound a bit potty! But after decades I finally talked with her a bit and she floored me by her quiet, assertive denial, and telling me I dreamed it. I actually have had terrifying ,memories confirmed when my siblings suddenly described something I too remembered and thought I had imagined- such as some lunatic hanging my sister out a fourth floor window by her feet. I thought it just wasn't possible it happened, then she told me about it one day. But most of my memories are strong and clear.

The scary thing is that today I begun doubting myself for the first time, as its the first time I ever discussed it with my mum, though my siblings had agreed with me. Now I feel quite disorientated about the past, as if its possible I imagined things even though I know I didn't- how would a child get a clear idea of what a terrible fight sounded like if it was never heard? We never owned a TV and grew up in a remote area.

If anyone has any insight into this kind of behaviour, I would love a little backup! I have read a lot around psychopaths and narcissists, and my stepfather is definitely a narcissist, maybe with psychopathic tendencies. But I had for some reason held out hope for my mum, and feel so sad.
Thank you :-)