Has anyone read 'Toxic Parents'? Did you confront your parents?

[slimyhappypeople]

And if so, how did that work out for you?

After several recommendations on here I've recently read Toxic Parents.

It has helped enormously in some ways, as it's helped me to clarify that it actually doesn't matter what I do, my parents will find a way to reframe it in a negative light to fulfil their expectations in me as a loser.

For various reasons I don't want to go non-contact, but I've recently moved on to the paired down and polite version of contact where you move into a zone where you don't trust your parents with any personal or emotional information about yourself.

This seems to be working out ok for me - I just wondered if anyone else has gone straight to this stage without a confrontation stage first?

I just don't want to tell them how much they've hurt me because I feel that gives them power over me. I don't want a functioning relationship with them as I know they're not capable of giving me one.

Just wondered what other's experiences were?

I think what you describe in your OP about emotional detachment sounds great. However, from your subsequent posts it sounds like you need to go one step further and say "no" a lot more (eg. to visits you don't want), and to pull them up a lot more (eg. on digs at you or your children, and trying to impose their drink habits on you).

The emotional detachment needs to extend to those boundary-setting actions, too: you cannot care when they react with displeasure to you saying "no" or "that's not on" -- which they will. Well, you'll care of course, especially at first, but you should be able to reason those fears away. And it will get easier each time.

My parents are like this, including the alcohol issues. I also am tee- total when around them, which they went on about for years.

My advice is to just decide what your boundaries are and keep those solid. Call them on unacceptable comments and behaviour, don't feel bad about cancelling/leaving early if things are going south.

FWIW i have confronted them before about the past and it didn't help. The behaviour is too entrenched and I've realised they are never going to get it. It's been more a case of showing them my boundaries with consequences bit by bit. I went low contact for a long time, which helped.

Not allowing them access to the details of my life helps and they are more respectful these days and have better boundaries. I would actually say I enjoy their company far more now but it's taken about 10 years!

Really interesting responses, thank you.

Goatsdoroam - yes, you're right. I need to get past the conditioning that tells me to go with whatever you want and start to lay down some proper boundaries.

It's a long old road but I'm determined to get there.

whatever they want, sorry.

I haven't read the book, but after lurking on here for a few years confronted my EA mum. At the time she admitted it all and just got upset.

Now, she points to photos of me as a child saying that I look happy and that my childhood couldn't have been that bad then.

I am low contact, a phone call every few weeks and visits on important dates but that's it. I also don't share important information with her. I find her so draining that for my own mental health I keep my distance (whatever problems I've had she's had it so much worse etc).

That's another interesting angle crazycatlady, I hadn't thought of that but I can imagine the denial and protests going on for year.

Glad you are low contact, I think that's what I need.

The book strongly recommends you send a letter / confront them but I think it's more important to do what's right for you.

A lot of the milepost thing about sending a letter is that finally, you are openly saying what happened to you. You can't minimize it any more; you can't deny it once you've written that letter and sent it. It's your reality and you have openly and irretrievably acknowledged it. You're standing up for yourself against parents, who are in some ways the most powerful influence of our lives. That's the really important thing about writing and sending a letter.

But in some cases the person doesn't need to do that and in other cases it can actually make things worse.

So don't take it as gospel that it's something you have to do. Be honest with yourself about if you -need- to do it for your own sake. And if you don't and don't want to, then there's no need for it.

I have read the book and did not choose to have a confrontation with my mother. My father died over 20 years ago. I also felt to confront would be seeking from her an acknowledgement of my feelings and that would simply give her the power again to dismiss them.

My mother has also threatened me with court action to enforce access to my children. Doubtful she would succeed, but she has the financial resources and bloody mindedness to try. I have continued with realtively frequent, limited visits and my children never see her or talk to her without me being there.

As my children have got older i have told them about some things that she did when i was growing up. They were sad and angry and said, why do we go and see her if she is so mean? I then explained about her threats to go to court for access. I told them she would not succeed but that it would be very unpleasant for us all if she tried. They now feel contempt for her and say that she is not nice. They are aware to keep any conversation with her polite, vague and with very little detail. No problems are ever mentioned to her and she is regarded with a lot of suspicion by them. She has been a reasonably good but very hands off grandmother to them.

Their current formal distant relationship is fine and no doubt contact will dwindle during their busy teenage years. If they want to have more contact with her once they are older, then that is their choice, but they will be making an informed decision.

Should she try to manipulate them by contacting them directly, they know enough to be suspicious of her motives. I have no regrets about telling them some of the things that she has done, as abuse and manipulation thrive on family secrets. If that knowledge taints their view of her, that is a result of her behaviour. They are aware there are other worse things which i have not yet told them, as i believe they are too young still to be told about some things that happened to me.

I feel the polite and non-confrontational approach i have taken is the best and the least disruptive to my children. I have also most importantly told them that this is not how good healthy families work and that it is my dearest wish that we have a much closer relationship when they are adults. I want to break the cycle with my daughters and so they are aware that i try to treat them very differently to how i was treated as a child.

Sorry for the long post!

suburban I'm no expert but it sounds like you've handled it really well, especially the tricky thing of how much to tell the children. Unfortunately absolutely agreed that abuse and manipulation thrive on family secrets. Giving them enough information and understanding that they are protected - or even better, learn how to protect themselves - without becoming oversuspicious is a difficult but really valuable thing. It might also protect them later in life against people who seem nice but aren't.

Things were obviously extremely difficult growing up, and peace of mind to you

The book recommends confrontation? I didn't finish it, just dipped into it, so I didn't know that.

I'm all for confronting them in your own head but actually trying to have the last word and make them see is, to my mind, a fool's errand. Really surprised that's the advice!

Have just stumbled across this post and suddenly feel 'normal'!

I think I need to read this book!

DPs just been to visit for long weekend and feel so sad that I can't feel close to them. DM makes comments that undermine me as
A mother to my DCs and DF says nothing at all directly to me which I let him get away with for being old and deaf but it's really just rude

They weren't / aren't terrible parents but there has been a time of no contact for months and I did discover that I had been written out of their will.

Will this book help me to forgive them and - much more importantly- avoid me making the same mistakes with my DCs????

I read Toxic Parents and had psychotherapy with a great therapist. My therapist recommended I write a letter to my mother with what I wanted to say to her. His advice wasn't to send it particularly. He felt it might help me send it but that wasn't the end goal. The aim was to write it all down as a release. He specifically said actually that I wasn't to write it with her in mind as an audience, it was to be about ME. I mean, I wasn't to write it with the aim of persuading her or making her "see" or change her mind in any way as that would be pointless. It was to be about what I felt I needed to say to her/me/the universe.
I wrote it and did actually send it and am glad I did. It was totally pointless obviously in terms of making her understand why i wanted to be NC, she just denied everything and took it as a "character assassination". But it helped me feel stronger, calmer, in control.

Meerka, thank you for your kind words. Trying to find the best thing to do and say is so so hard. to you and to all of us who unfortunately have their own experiences to contribute to this thread.