This is really chilling, I think

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Namechanged for this, as potentially too identifiable to FOO stalkers.

I am NC with FOO, for a variety of reasons, none of which I particularly want to rehash here. Occasionally I lurk on a FB forum for parents of estranged adult children, because I find it morbidly fascinating and actually quite validating to observe just HOW bonkers the mindset is.

Today I found this post on there, which sent shivers down my back because it is SO similar to the kind of thing my NMother has sent to me:

The last time I wrote my daughter...a few years ago, I stated the following: "When a person is charged with a crime, the accused is presented with a list of grievances. As your mother, I feel I am entitled to no less a list of grievances in support of your claims of hatred towards me." I've never received a reply, because she has none. We as parents shouldn't accept responsibility for our adult children's short-sightedness and bad behavior.

As ever, it's much easier to see the crazy when it's not your own personal situation being hashed out, but OMG at the demand that the adult child justifies her emotions with a bullet-pointed list of grievances before there can be any question of her being permitted to feel her own feelings. And these people wonder why they are estranged. You'd think round about the time you wrote about your entitlement to a list of grievances to support your child's claims of hatred towards you, you might get a glimmer of realisation about why your adult dc didn't want to be around you. But apparently not.

Garlic - thanks for advice re Women Aid. I have already spoken to them. They said I have to sit it out. She is aware of womens aid. Cant get to speak to her. Anyone daring to call at the house is met by "him" and she does not even come to the door. It is heart breaking

As a PP said, that situation is completely different to what this thread is about. And where you are going wrong is in trying to apply the same logic from that situation to one where the NC is between parent and child.

Domestic abuse is very distressing for those watching. The isolation from family is part of the abuse. It is very nuanced and difficult. But it is not comparable in the way you are trying to compare it.

Overcome my childhood? Are you joking? It's all branded on the inside and affects every living moment of my life. If you cut me open you'd find my inside glowing red hot with phrases from my oh so loving family childhood like "you ruin everything", "nobody wants you", "you can't...", "you're not..." blah blah blah, on and on and on. That was my own mother. I'm a fucking mess. It took over 30 years and a physical threat to my children for me to walk away. I'm a good mother and I will die before I let them suffer what I did. Bouquets, you clearly think you mean well but you have no fucking idea and what you're writing here is so insulting. Would you tell an adult who'd suffered a life time of physical or sexual abuse at the hands of a parent that they were "missing out on family life"? For lots of us there is no Oxo ad family life to miss, just years and years and years of pain.

What Lizkeen said. Bouquets is talking about a completely different experience to what this thread is about.

Right. Bouquet, what led you to post here on a thread about people trying to overcome abuse from their parents?

Has your person said its because of her childhood that she's in this situation?

Bouquets - I understand that it must be horribly frustrating for you to see your family member in this situation (again, by the sounds of it) - but you are still victim-blaming her for not being able to walk away from the situation. You should read some of the Relationships threads about people in DV situations - how long it's taken them to realise that they are in a bad place, how many times they've wanted to leave, but the fear has stopped them. The partner has threatened to kill them or kill the children or kill themselves - and there is no telling whether or not they'll follow through.
EVen calling the police on a partner, or telling someone they have been hit by the partner which leads to police involvement - they'll be punished for it.
WA may have told you to sit it out, but did they tell you how many times abused women try to leave their abusive partners before they eventually manage it? On average, it's 6 or 7 times, iirc.

Have a read of this www.endthefear.co.uk/information/what-is-domestic-abuse/myths-about-domestic-abuse/ and for goodness' sake stop blaming the poor woman for the situation she is in. I know you think you aren't, but you so are. :(

Thank you garlicshake that is it exactly.

Grannytomine. You are assuming that all mothers love their dcs. My mum has never loved me. She can't. She doesn't know what it is.

The person who went NC has come back when they have been in trouble and I think they should keep some contact so that it is not so obvious that I need you now and I don't want you now.

or - they went NC for good reasons. But going NC is desperately hard. You want the love of your parents, the help of your parents (as is natural) and you long for that, especially if you haven't internalized security from a young age.

If you do go NC, then when the shit hits the fan sometimes you do go back hoping that this time it will be different, this time the love will be there and support. And when the crises has passed and it's clear that the old patterns are still there, the ones that were so bad that you went NC, .... you slip away again.

If you're lucky, one day you realise that that help will never be there and that you are better off on your own. I mean that literally.

I have never NCed anyone. I would rather talk it out.

You've never had the experience of talking to someone that you cannot possibly ever get through to, have you? either because they are severely mentally ill or because they have already have an agenda that they are not going to listen to you.

I am sad that all kids did not have such a good childhood but I do have things like divorce and associated problems and a difficult birth in my life now as payback probably

there is no payback. There is no evening-out. Some people just have bad luck and have done nothing to deserve it, but have to live with the consequences (and also have to decide not to become self-pitying mushes but actually get on and -live- their lives, as a corollary)

Life isn't easy like checks and balances. Life is random and you can get some good luck and some bad luck. Karma doesn't exist, ime. It's a pretty fairytale to make people feel better because actually, you need luck and your own determination to make a reasonable life. Some people get kicked in the teeth from the very beginning. It makes everything harder - especially when you're faced with the uncomprehending assumption that there's two sides to every story. yes there are, but sometimes one side is not true.

You aren't going to understand, Bouquet

The best thing you can do, if you really want to help, is to stop expecting everything will be okay, stop judging, and offer to be there for that person if they want to ask help. And to have the wisdom to realise you do not know what it is like to walk in that person's shoes and never will.

Then, you might be able to help, if you want to.

SeaEagle - not sure if you've seen Bouquet's latter posts - it seems clear that her NC relative is in a domestic violence relationship, so it's unlikely she actually has any control over the NC herself anyway :(.

Rest of your post is good, though.

Which makes Bouquet's stance even less understandable imo. If you know she's in an abusive relationship, has it not occurred to you that it isn't her forcing the NC perhaps but her partner? The abusive one?
And I totally agree with SeaEagleFeather that you clearly (luckily for you) have no experience of trying to talk to someone who just denies everything and refuses to engage.
Me: you really hurt me when you said all those things about me like xyz.
My mother: you have a very vivid imagination/I don't remember that/that never happened.
Where do I go from there? Just suck it up and go along with her pretence that it never happened?

Spanky2 I am sorry your mother is like that. It isn't so much I assume all mothers love their children more than I think all children are entitled to that.

I can't imagine anything that would stop me loving mine, when they were being horrible teenagers they would sometimes say I didn't love them and I would sometimes say, "I don't like you very much at the moment but I will always love you." I still feel like that. I look at the 4 of them and am amazed that they are my babies all grown up. I can't imagine anything more wonderful and I pity your mother if she will never know that. I hope you have found love as we all need that.

Bouquet

I can't quite believe what I'm reading from you. Blaming the victim for their abuse is exactly what our abusers do to us.

Was it my fault that I grew up in a violent alcoholic household? That my father beat the crap out of us whilst my mother watched and did nothing? That I was neglected and had a serious accident as a toddler? That we more often than not went hungry and freezing? That when I was ill as a child I was called a burden and a nuisance? That when I've been seriously ill as an adult and in hospital, my parents never visited as 'it's too far' or 'they're busy?'

The truth is, some people should never have kids. I've had to call on Samaritans more times than I care to count because of my parents.

My parents are emotionally and physically abusive, neglectful, uncaring, narcissistic, alcoholic sociopaths. I've been assaulted by violent alcoholics who later gaslight me and deny it or say I deserved it. Never any apology for the abuse. Which part of that is my fault, in any way?

Just because some have a family to go to so they could escape abuse, doesn't mean others do.

I wonder are you a bit of a sociopath and lacking in empathy, given all your victim blaming.

Really weirdly, and at the risk of being deleted again but trying to keep it general etc etc; Gransnet have edited one post at the end of that long-running thread to take out names ... but not throughout the rest of the thread. Do they have a different policy from MNHQ on that do you think? Wonder if it's worth mentioning?

I have to say, if my mum ever started posting with my name and kids names like that online I'd go ballistic and if cut off any and all contact for ever. What a total lack of any real care for that relationship, that child and that grandchild.

It does make you realise that in a digital world you can never fully escape an abuser if they're determined and know your names. Was it easier 30 years ago to just move somewhere and cut people off do you think?

I answered some of Bouquet's earlier posts actually, which did get under my skin thumbwitches ... Yeah, now I see it in context that she's deeply concenred about a family member in a nightmare relationship.

Actually I suspect bouquet is a nice person, caring, who just simply has no frame of reference. No window into the weirdness and hurt that leads an adult child into eventually making the very, very painful decision to go NC.

it's never easy. Not easy living the life that made you consider going low contact, or the exceptionally difficult process of pulling away, or living knowing that you are cut off from your roots, afterwards - though after going NC, your life is usually cleaner and healthier mentally. Which is a damning indictment of the situation that you were in.

merd it was, yes.

But equally it was a bigger step to move to a city where no one knew you and there was a lot less information easily available about support organisations. That made a big difference in finding your feet.

Much harder to go, but easier to not be tracked down.

I wish I could move away tbh.

Just found out that a distant relative, that my mum bitches about constantly, had a family event today. We weren't invited. Probably because it would be upsetting for my mum. Even after all she has done, they all still rally round her. We were invited to the last one, back when we were still in contact.

They can still find out too much about us, as a neighbour is a distant relative, and they can still go on some peoples social media to look at mine. But I won't have it said that I have cut everyone off so I can't block those people.

I long for a new life. I have gone as far as looking at houses in a town an hour from here. But we are tied because of DH work and DD1s dad.

I've been out all day and thinking of how bouquets posts don't make sense.

Bouquet, you say you are "caught in the middle".. but your children can't see the NC persons children. So you're not in the middle at all are you? that person is NC with you? Or are you NC with them because they're NC with your parents?

You're not an independant observer either way are you?

Also, why are your children so acutely aware of these other children they can't see?
If the NC is very recent and they were close up until then then fair enough
If not then why are the NC children being bigged up to your children to the point where they're asking why they "can't see them"? If the latter your children are being used as tools to demonstrate how wrong the other side is

If all of your side is so concerned about the NC person and suspects DV, why the bitterness over the money that's been given in the past?

There's such a change of tone over your posts, if your earlier posts had the same tone of your later posts then noone would be anything but sympathetic, it's awful when anyone close to you is in a DV situation.

But there's such twists and turnes with your posts, first you describe them as subburn and hurtful and bitter.. now they're helpless in the situation…

Its this flitting about that's making the red flags pop up, which is why you may feel that nothing you're saying is right by us.. it's not that, it's because what you're saying is so inconsistent.

And in a lot of your posts I see how my mother would describe me, such as telling people she's "worried about me".. to imply that I'm not fully capable of making decisions like NC . It's just gaslighting.

I just don't understand why Bouquet started off saying that one other member of her family had been NCed by another member of her family

then it turns out bouquet has been NCed. Why not just say that from the off?

"Hi, to give another POV, I've been cut off by a relative, we suspect it's isolation due to DV"

That's not how bouquets earlier posts read though

I'm really uncomfortable with the later turn in Bouquet's story, too. When the change began - and, to be fair, more of a comprehensible narrative emerged - the DV victim's denial of of her bruises was seen as an attack on the NC family. It's very confusing. The most generous explanation might be that Bouquet has been gaslighted out of her critical abilities. Whatever it is, it's a disturbing read.

^I think this is because two adults can not put their point of view across and be listened to and have the situation adjusted until it suits both sides.
Life is about co-operation with others a lot of the time. It is so uncomfortable to think that the closest people, parent and child, can not co-operate.^

It's a bit of a leap from that, to my rellie is being abused and forced to NC.

This is something I observe on the other thread too, it flits between it being the evil DIL/SIL causing it, to the EC being the bad guy.. and back and forth and back and forth as the pages go on to fit the discussion of the day

I've just read several of Bouquet's older posts. She really is very upset about this situation. Some of the details change, as is usual with posts on confidential issues, but it seems the DV victim is Bouquet's eldest sister and, from other posts, that at least one child is being seriously abused. She implies that the abusive BIL has threatened Bouquet with retribution if she interferes.

Looking at the thumbnail sketch provided, I'd be wondering whether an older relative was abusive to your elder siblings, Bouquet. Perhaps even in descending order of severity by age. If something like that happened, and your mother failed to stop the abuse, it would explain the uncomfortable references made by others. Naturally there are other possible explanations. It is very often the case that, when the children of a family display social/behavioural & financial problems, there is either a heritable illness in the family or a history of trauma (or both, obvs.)

I'm sorry to hear of your own illness, bereavement, sadness and fear.

Was your family fairly chaotic in your childhood?

Yes I completely lost track of what Bouquet was trying to say. Best guess - she's the aunt to a daughter who's been trapped in a bad relationship and occasionally runs back to mum and dad; loyalty with her sister automatically and thinks the girl is just being a PITA? Or sister to the woman in a bad relationship? God knows.

I see what you mean about the "old days" SeaEagle. I guess these days part of properly running away would be changing names etc too.

Sorry for the latest snub you've received Liz, it's galling to think others buy their bullshit isn't it? I've just about learned not to care but still get furious when the occasional relative says "your mum misses you you know! She does love you!"

As if ANYONE in their right mind would just go NC with someone who really loved them - short of a witness protection programs, why on earth would you? I would love to have a normal loving family, even one who drove me crazy in a million other ways.

But then how do you tell someone who has been properly loved what it's like not to be?

Yes, Screen. I'm really not sure what I'm reading here. I am sure, though, that it's taken over the thread for a whole day!

(Ah. X-post. Sorry, that's where the search function would help on the app.)