How awful that much-loved 30-year-old son cut all contact

[soupsetpleasehelp]

I'm actually writing as I have a very, dear old friend whose DS has completely cut her off. He is in his early 30s and he grew up between his parents (in a different country so no risk that this is outing) after his dad left the mum, shared contact which is common over there. The dad has since then had numerous relationships, and was horrible towards my friend in the early days, and wouldn't provide enough economic support etc. All the main care really came from my friend.

Anyhow, she was always extremely close to her son and was (is) the most warm, loving mum (person) you could imagine. Her son was always her first priority (but I wouldn't say he was spoilt) and we, her friends, always used to meet up with him and he was super cuddly and loving with his mum. No wonder, she was always very encouraging. However, over the last few years he's gone into modelling and has had a few girlfriends, the most recent one who is from a wealthy family.

My friend's son has slowly cut contact from last Xmas until a hard cut off earlier this year. He kept bringing up old (what I would have considered normal experiences) from when he was a child, when he felt she didn't meet his needs with regards to taking him e.g. to the doctors immediately after a fall (she did the next day when he complained of more pain, he initially said it was OK) and he had a fracture. Well, I'm sure lots of parents would have been the same. She is the most far from neglectful you could imagine, a wonderful person.

My friend has taken onboard that perhaps she and her parents at times talked about her ex husband (the father) in not too rosy a terms but I don't think it was a bad case of it at all, just a few occasions (tbh we all knew how awful the father was to my friend).

I wonder at times whether he due to mental health issues is gaslighting his mum, and now that he is in the modelling world and with rich girlfriend and parents, he somehow is embarrassed about his mum (who is very overweight and lives in a small flat) and that this has created some sort of dissonance which have led him to almost create false memories of how awful she was when he was growing up.

I hate seeing my friend upset and I would like to offer to write a letter to the son (and perhaps to his girlfriend and her parents as they only have his word) as I know both my friend and remember seeing her son grow up from 0-5, then seeing them regularly almost every year until he was in his late teens/early 20s. She honestly is a natural with kids and the kindest friend.

I would like to hear from all of you out there that have been affected by this either as the person being cut off, or the person dropping contact. What would be the best way to approach this letter?

After reading your first post I assumed yet another example of a social media obsessed person who is struggling in life and looking for someone else to blame all their problems on. They scroll through insta or TikTok and get shown reels of ‘are your parents toxic? Here are ten signs…’ that goes on to list seemingly innocuous, every day stuff.
He has decided to blame his issues on his mother. Probably diagnosed her as a narcissist because of some other social media bullshit and has cut her out of his life.
After reading all of your posts, I still believe this to be the case based on what you have said.

Read a book called ‘Bad Therapy’ by Abigail Shrier. This is becoming increasingly common, unfortunately.

It’s tragic as young/younger people are being taught that they don’t need to work at or repair their relationships any more. Nor do they ever have to take responsibility for their own lives and actions. There’s always someone that can be blamed and they just need to ‘go no contact’ with that person and of course all their problems will be magically solved (!)

Ask me how else I know?
I thought about going NC with my mother years and years ago. Or at least having a serious talk with her about how ‘awful’ she was during my childhood.
Im so glad I didn’t. Because I was being an ungrateful brat. I know realise that many of the things she did (or didn’t do) that I once thought of as tantamount to neglect, actually helped me to build resilience and is partly why I am the way I am today.

I note that you’ve decided not to send a letter which I think is a good decision.

I mean what I said; it's not up to you or me or anyone else to say "that's not a sufficient reason to cut contact with someone."

You can have an opinion on whether it's a good enough reason for YOU to cut contact with someone. You're not in a position to have an opinion on whether that reason was good enough for someone else to do it. It would be the be the height of hubris to do so.

It's not living your own life that's the issue. It's when the cut-off doesn't fit the crime - although sometimes, in those cases, I wonder if it's down to MH issues.

But....people do form opinions, about all kinds of stuff, don't they? It's human, no? And there are discussion forums, for people to share their opinions.

That is telling in itself, that his mother would not only discuss him with another person but would encourage another person to interfere not only with his life but would try & manipulate both his partner AND her family. This is someone who cares more about how she’s perceived than her son. Plenty of people would talk about how amazing my dad is, so kind, would do anything for anyone, help everyone etc etc. He also made me clean up the blood off the walls after he’d beaten my mother & is kids (along with lots of other emotional abuse & violence). Even to this day I get people telling me I should make up with him, he didn’t deserve a daughter like me when he’s such a good man…

Of course you can have an opinion on someone else’s behaviour and treatment of others.
If someone treats my loved one like shit, I form the opinion they are an arsehole, and I consider myself fully justified in doing so.

If I have got that wrong then I am sorry , I thought I read you were but frankly I have no wish to read all your posts again to check so lets assume nobody has gone NC with you.

In which case I can't understand why you are such an apologist for people who's children have decided to go NC with them, its not the easy option you know. Its easier NOT to and you can't seem to grasp that.

My mum would seem lovely to people who know her (including people who know her as well as you know your friend and who witnessed as much of my childhood as you did your friend’s son’s) but this is extremely different to how she was behind closed doors. She screamed at us, hit us, teased and manipulated us and it’s taken me years of therapy to try and unpick this so that I can move on. I’m not saying this is the case for your friend’s son but just to say that however well you think you know the story, you just do not know what happened between your friend and her son.

Any intervention from you would be completely inappropriate and could be extremely cruel and damaging to a man who is trying to recover from a difficult childhood. If you want to support your friend you can do that by being there for her, listening to her etc. It may make you feel better to write to this letter (I would think carefully and honestly with yourself about why you actually want to do this) but it absolutely will not help the situation.

It absolutely is. A very under regulated industry (see the book I referred to in my last post - Bad Therapy which is highly informative on this topic)
Absolutely no mind is paid to the iatrogenic effects of psychotherapy.

I once saw a therapist for a while. She unfortunately seemed to like me and agreed with everything I ever said. The final straw was when I spoke to her about a big falling out I had with a friend. She doesn’t know her, never met her and told me that I was completely in the right and my friend was a narcissist. I never spoke to her again after that. It was woefully unprofessional. I wanted her to help me make sense of it, or give me coping strategies… not blindly agree that I was right and my friend was wrong.

Me and my friend did eventually make up, after I realised the part I played in us falling out and apologised. She did the same. We are closer than ever now. Therapy is not always the answer.

It's very hard to police. I remember telling a teacher a small bit of what was going on at home and I got absolutely battered for it. I never told anyone again. I remember wishing someone else would see it and report my mother but then again, that would have been my fault aswell. I can't explain the fear even a look would give you. In fairness I would have taken a good slap over the emotional abuse though, that was the worst. You just feel so powerless and worthless. I would have taken physical punishment every time.
I do think teachers etc are more vigilant nowadays though compared to when I was young, well I hope they are.

In which case I can't understand why you are such an apologist for people who's children have decided to go NC with them, its not the easy option you know. Its easier NOT to and you can't seem to grasp that.

You use words like “an apologist” - implying that all parents who are cut off from their children are abusers.

What makes you so certain that this is the case?

You have your experience, but your experience is particular, not universal.

Other people will have experiences that look very much like yours, and others still will be very, very different.

I implied nothing of the sort.
Anyway, I am not engaging on this thread any more - I know I said that earlier but I got dragged back in.
Its been a really horrible experience to read all your posts, I don't remember a time I was so upset by MN BUT that is my issue not yours.
AND before you try and claim its because I know you are right its really really not

Since you don't want to look through my posts, here's one from the previous page, the one I mentioned to you just now, bc I think you might have missed it, and I think it's relevant when you said I don't have empathy for those going through it:

gannett · Today 16:58

For me, that poster's insistent voice in this thread reminded me of the voice in my own head that stopped me going NC earlier. The internal voice that told me only arseholes cut their poor old parents off and maybe I was the problem after all, and what would everyone think of me? The voice it took me 20 years to silence. (Funnily enough, none of my dear friends, my chosen family, thought any worse of me.)

Noisy
I like this post, because it actually tells me why someone might feel triggered, instead of just calling me every name under the sun and character-assassinating me.
I had no idea that people who estrange themselves go through so much doubt beforehand. They always seem really sure and really final, so much so that it's hard to believe they don't just move on without a backward glance.
If you struggled with a voice like that in your head, regarding making the decision, I can totally see why you found mine triggering. I had no idea that my opinion would echo what you yourself had been thinking in the difficult times when you were making your decision.
Please accept my apologies for mimicking that voice. It wasn't my intention at all. I'm so sorry that your parents were so awful that you had to make such a heartbreaking decision.
Are things better for you these days?

AND before you try and claim its because I know you are right its really really not

FWIW I wasn’t going to try to claim that - nor do I think that.
I can understand how this thread could be really triggering to a lot of people for a lot of reasons.

Christ. How absolutely fucking horrific. So your teacher told your mum that she had said something, and your mum took it out on you? Why oh why didn't she tell Social Services????

The fact you’re even saying this is wild.

Why?

I don't know. I think it is better these days but in the 80#s they spoke to the parents. I only told her a little so maybe she thought she could help by telling my mother that her calling me the ugliest thing she has ever seen and the fact she didn't wash my uniform was upsetting me that my mother would stop. She didn't. I was terrified to tell her the full story and to be honest I had a lot of shame about it.
I am sorry if I was rude and snippy in previous posts, I just really got triggered by this thread.

Op, you're going to write that letter, aren't you? So many of us have advised you not to, but you'll go ahead, because you are right and right and righteous indeed. Tell us, how do you get on with your own family? Do they like you or do they put up with you? Have they cut you off? Do you think that perhaps they might? If you were so sanctimonious, holier-than-thou, know it all to actually write that letter, and I were your child, it would be the absolutely last straw on the camel's back and I would never speak to you again. But never mind ~ you and your friend would have each other. And who really needs a family. eh?

<deep breath>

But what is "serious abuse"? What is "enough" for someone to have EXPERIENCED that would make it acceptable and justifiable for you to find them going NC palatable?

You can't answer that because you are not, and nobody is, the judge of another person. You cannot say you know better than the person who experienced it. You cannot possibly. You also cannot say what someone else can find intolerable. You are not them. You don't know their threshold.

You might be ok being amicable with a member of an extreme group (Kkk, what have you) but you can't expect else to be. Conversely, they might be ok with it and you not, but you'd be understandably put out if someone told you your reason or disgust wasn't "enough" or "serious" enough. When you do, as a few of you have been on this thread, if is invalidating and hurtful and reeks of hubris. You don't get to tell someone else how to feel or whether their feelings are "enough".

Please just stop doing it.

What an odd thing to say. My patients are adults of sound mind. Do you think a therapist is a priest, a professor, or a policeman whose job is to tell people what to do?

This thread is another shining example of what I keep seeing on MN, and other places online.
That the woke #bekind brigade are some of the nastiest people going.

A quote from the inimitable Stephen Fry:

“It’s a strange paradox, that the liberals are illiberal in their demand for liberality. They are exclusive in their demand for inclusivity. They are homogenous in their demand for heterogeneity. They are somehow un-diverse in their call for diversity — you can be diverse, but not diverse in your opinions and in your language and in your behaviour. And that’s a terrible pity."

It honestly depends what you mean by that. If someone feels like their relationship with their mum brings them down and spending time with them makes them suicidal, do you really expect the therapist to say oh but are you sure about that/what if she didn’t mean it etc? You have to just focus on the patient and work out what is right for them based on what they show you.

I bet anyone who meets my mum would feel she is such a lovely kind parent and can't understand why this year after 51 years I have decided to cut contact. Not many know she abused me terribly as a child and then as a narcissist person controlled my life and made me a shell of a person. I now feel free. I know some family members feel I'm a terrible person and she will always be a victim. To those people she seems to be the perfect parent. In fact my cousin has sort of 'adopted' her as her mum. She's welcome to her. So please don't interfere. Be there for your friend when she needs to talk but don't do anything else.

People are entitled to feel what they feel. But people are accountable to others for their behaviour.
It is absolutely ok to have an opinion on someone else’s behaviour.

Going no contact in some cases may be a horrible and painful last resort after a lifetime of vicious abuse.

In other cases it may be a selfish/ self-involved and callous act that causes immeasurable suffering to others. People might do it to punish others for failing to conform to their unreasonable expectations, or they might be assigning unwarranted and unjustified blame. They might be avoidant, cowardly, entitled. there could be any number of issues.

Recently there has been a cultural shift too- with less value placed on traditional ideas about obligations / reverence towards family/ the elderly , and a rise in individualism and emphasis placed on personal “boundaries” etc.

As hard as the conversation may be, it’s totally ok to discuss these things, and no one should be emotionally blackmailed into thinking otherwise.