This is really chilling, I think

[404NotFound]

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.

Mardlebum, the whole point of the thread, and very neatly illustrated on the GN thread, is that we have told them what the problem is, again and again and again, but they are unwilling or unable to take it on board.

This www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html illustrates how the dynamic works in these situations - if they claim not to know, it's not for want of them being told.

The truth is you "know" with someone whether you can explain something or not. If you can, you probably don't have the NC dynamic at play because you will resolve the issues.

If you can't, what are your options? Put up with abuse? Squash yourself down forever?

Mardle those of us that go NC HAVE in all the cases I know of told them why, but they refuse to accept it/are in denial. There are numerous forum where toxic family members who've had people go NC with them claim they have not been told, I've seen several posts where they have then let slip what happened (sometimes it's obvious abuse like violence or sexual abuse) but even when fellow 'victims' that have been previously supportive question this they revert to 'we've no idea why'.

Well said 404NotFound!
And the GN thread has been (as inevitably happens) hijacked by a woe-is-me GNer, refusing to accept that she just might be wrong, and still unable/unwilling to consider any other poster's perspective.
Little chance of reconciliation, ever, whilst such entrenched attitudes prevail.

hijacked by a woe-is-me GNer

The one whose son-in-law is conspiring with a corrupt doctor to force the poster's daughter to take large doses of psychoactive drugs, which the poster knows all about even though they haven't spoken for years? It's a whole world of crazy.

That's not the half of it!

Careful! We'll get deleted! But yes it's weird.

As an observer of my husband's relationship with his late mother and the times he went NC, I think sometimes it is the straw that broke the camels back and if you tell someone what the final straw is it can sound a bit ridiculous.

I am trying to think of examples and the only one that is springing to mind is my daughter had broken something when MIL was visiting. MIL took it out of the cabinet where we had put in and had it repaired. She arrived back with it with a smirk on her face as she had been so clever. Now if my husband told someone he had gone mad about that he would sound mad but it was just one more example of her taking over/knowing best and the fact that she had taken it without asking. Probably not the best example but hopefully you get what I mean.

As I've said above - how can anyone really listen and take in that they are the problem? It's cognitively impossible. It's not that I'm devoid of sympathy - I wouldn't want my mums life or to be her for anything. But there are limits - I have to protect myself and others.

That sounds like another case of domestic abuse if even half of what she's written is true. And yet she's victimblaming. Nice.

MardleBum nobody has a lovely happy life and then just wakes up and never speaks to their parents again. We tell them over and over again and they deny and deny and say ti never happened, we're mad and so on. I told my mother what she had done that wasn't acceptable, we had less contact. Then she did more outrageous things and I told her twice in writing and she said it was "a diatribe", "written from an alternative reality" "nonsense" and a "character assassination". If I told you a whole list of things you'd done to hurt me, would you react like that or apologise? These things include bitchig about me to third parties, so possible to externally verify, by the way.

This, from the missing blog says it better than I could:

Another member, a 60-something grandmother and licensed psychologist who worked as a guardian ad litem, had a reply so perfect and thorough that I'm going to let it stand as the conclusion to this article.

<strong>Of course you know why you are cut off.</strong>

<strong>According to you, your daughter stood in front of you at the baseball game and TOLD you why. I presume she used words you understand in a language you both speak. Thus you DO know.</strong>

<strong>I can understand you did not like the delivery method. But the delivery method does not affect the MEANING of the words, nor does it invalidate her feelings or opinions. You may feel justified in turning off your listening because you didn't like her delivery, but that's not helpful at all for you. It's like refusing to accept your paycheck because you want it printed on a pink check not a green one. The money is still the same. [....]</strong>

<strong>I can understand that you may not agree with whatever it was she told you is the problem<span class="line-through">but again, that does not mean there is no problem. She told you in a language you understand what the problem is, and you understood her meaning. That you disagree with the problem is immaterial. It's still a problem whether you agree with it or not. It will be a problem forever until you deal with it. Saying, "I don't understand the problem" when you really mean, "I don't agree this is a problem" will not make the problem go away. It will make the person who DOES think it a problem go away</span>and you had a 8 year cut off demonstrating that principle.</strong>

<strong>If your daughter thinks it's a problem, IT IS A PROBLEM, whether you agree or not. SHE<span class="line-through">not you</span>has the final say on whether she has a problem with you or not. Here again is a power struggle between you: HER: "This is a problem", YOU: "I see no problem". Guess who's going to win this debate? Not you. [....]</strong>

<strong>This game of 'I don't understand what happened' when you have been told in words what's wrong is really counterproductive. Yes, it permits you to shield your ego/self esteem from criticism and 'exposure' of your inadequacies in the relationship--but it loses you the relationship.</strong>

<strong>In order to solve the problem, you have to decide what is more important to you: your daughter and grandchildren, or your ego and belief that you are innocent of doing anything but little insignificant wrongs. It's very common, especially for people from abusive backgrounds who were not adequately nurtured as children, to stop protecting their egos<span class="line-through">way to threatening. And many</span>especially if they have other emotional outlets (such as a supportive spouse and friends)<span class="line-through">will choose ego over a relationship. It's easier and more comfortable</span>but ultimately very self defeating and impoverishing.</strong>

GoodtoBetter, that is a very good explanation but I don't think it fits everyone. I think men sometimes find it harder to express their feelings, I don't think my husband ever really had that confrontation with his mother so I don't think she ever really understood. I tried to explain but obviously I had it wrong.

No, obviously...yes I totally get what you mean, granny. I was jsut trying to explain that people with normal relationships can sometimes fail to understand this dynamic of someone like my mother who it seems is almost incapable of hearing anything negative about herself. She just sees it as an attack, she can only hear the "shouting" even if I'm not shouting iyswim, she can only feel it as an attack, she can't process the content. So, it's not like she hasn't been told, she has but she can't accept it. To her, I suppose I have cut her off and she has no idea why (that's what she tells people) doesn't mean it's true though. I think it can be hard to understand such dysfunction if you haven't lived it.

How can I explain to the children (other than adults meant to make children feel safe and happy & adults shouldn't make children worry or make children feel sad, unless children are being told off) ? It's so difficult to verbalise. But I need to have their barriers up and it's ideal when the children are young to start

London, I think you're in for a long haul here.

I think the best bet might be to get the children to -observe- other people and how they behave and the effects on the people around them.

Slowly posing questions when friction points come up "how do you think that X felt when Susan made a mean comment" sort of thing. Even trying to get children to see things from the other person's point of view, so that perceive that Susan saw things one way, David saw them differently, and who do -they- think acted well or badly?

As they get older, using that old thing "by their fruits you shall know them"; people whose company leaves them with a good feeling and people whose company does not leave them with a good feeling; people who tend to have a good impact on the people around them and people who don't.

It's a gentle and long term process though and not guarenteed to succeed.

One thing that also helps us as a family is that every night we have a ritual; we go to our older son's bedroom and each of asks the other "what was the best thing today, what was the not-so-good thing; what can you do better and what are you proudest of". I hope that it will teach the children to think about their own behaviour and we also notice that the children tend to think about the behaviour of others too.

How to cope with the poor little mites being afraid of their GPs ... that I don't know. It's drastic and maybe completely impossible practically, but ... move away? :s

Hoping for you that something improves

Well, you know, if us young mums would just accept that pesky abuse we'd all be so much happier! Good lord that thread is terrifying. Burning desire to punish the disobedient child over-rides everything. I'm tempted to buy them all a copy of "understanding the borderline mother" to read. Poor notanan is on a hiding to nothing there.

Jeez that thread is terrifying! I thought the original one was bad enough but the way that thread has gone...

All the gleeful 'hope this doesn't happen to YOU when YOU'RE a grandmother notanan'. And the weirdness about the queen being on TV and the 'oooh haha, I'll probably get deleted for saying I think the queen and Prince Phillip are lovely' WTAF?

Does the irony of posting like this not strike any of them forcefully around the head

But you can't argue with a narcissist. Even when they are manifestly wrong they just change all the facts or the argument or YOUR argument, so that they are right.

X post there! Rather than me just copying you almost word for word!

London - I have a suggestion on one thing that might help your children to at least deal with the visitation with their GP.
I was taught it as a "mind trick" when dealing with emotional vampirism (something my mother practised) and I found it useful, your children might like it too, especially as it is a visualisation thing (depends on how literal they are!). I've offered it to a few clients in the past as well, and it's worked well for them too.

So - there are two variations, I'll write them both down, your DC can pick the one they prefer (if you decide to tell them).

1. Imagine that you are wearing a space suit. It can be whatever colour you want it to be, and shiny, sparkly, fluffy, whatever you like. But it's a space suit and the important thing is that NOTHING can get into it. You can still breathe ok, and you can still feel the world around you; but NOTHING gets through it, NOTHING penetrates that space suit. It is completely protective. And you put that suit on whenever you are facing something difficult, when you're scared, or when someone might hurt you - you put that suit on and it PROTECTS you completely from the scary thing/person. No one else can see it, except you - and the better you can truly see it in your mind's eye, then the stronger it is.
   Whenever you are wearing that suit, you are invincible. You are strong and safe, and you are fully protected from hurt or harm by others.

2. Imagine that you are in a glass greenhouse. Except that the glass is fully armour plated, and NOTHING can get through it. You can have what you want in the greenhouse with you, plants, books, chairs, whatever - it's your safe place. You can go into this greenhouse whenever you feel threatened, or unsafe, and lock the door securely. NO ONE else can get into your greenhouse. NOTHING can get to you through the glass, it is completely impenetrable. You can still breathe ok, and can still feel the world around you but you are SAFE from harm while you are locked in your greenhouse, with the things that make you feel happy.
   Again, the better you can actually see the greenhouse, see the details and the things that you have chosen to have in there, the better protection it will give you.
   You can stay inside the greenhouse for as long as you need to feel safe and you will be protected from hurt while you're in there.

It was really interesting and amazing to me to hear what some clients came up with in terms of their greenhouses or space suits - the level of detail! But the detail is important because it makes the suit/greenhouse more "real" to the person, they can truly see a picture of it in their heads, and it helps. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it might help to reduce the impact of this GP's time with them.
It's also quite important that they don't have anyone else in there with them - but sometimes they'll want to "take in" a smaller relative - if they do, then just say that they have their own greenhouse that is right next door to yours but they have to be separate to work properly.

Sounds woo, I know - but it honestly made a difference to me, and to those of my clients who had a go at using this technique. Hope it might be helpful for you and yours too.

I have a 'greenhouse'! It's a great idea to offer the technique to children :)

Actually, mine's a space bubble. Maybe my therapist couldn't decide which visualisation to offer It has a rock garden and a waterfall inside it, along with other things.

I like the sound of your spacebubble, Garlic. My greenhouse made me laugh really, it had a few dried up geraniums in it, a comfy chair and a stack of books! But it was mine and it worked.

How does one acquire a greenhouse or a space bubble? :o What type of therapy is that?

GoodtoBetter, sorry wasn't wanting to disagree its just I know my husband, and I suspect lots of men, just don't communicate it. In his family it seemed to be something passed down the generations, he can remember his gran being the same to his mum and then his mum to him. His gran said her parents ruined her life so we are going back to someone born in late 19th century. It has certainly been around for a while.

I know someone was talking about young mums but my husband is almost 70 and he experienced it so not just young mums, or shall I tell him he can be an honorary young mum? I think he would like that.

I think that some of these people have personality disorders. Raised by a narcissist and a psycopath they KNOW they don't have a problem, they have nothing wrong with them. They actually don't have the capability to realise they have serious faults. They think it's me, I don't know what's real, I am emotionally damaging! But it isn't their fault, they are ill but don't realise it, or the effect on their family. I'm nc for my sake and my dcs. They have been told why, but the don't understand and won't accept my reasons.
However, after reading gransnet I realised some of these gps have dcs with personality disorders.
Tbh I did read it to see if my parents were on it moaning about me!

As an observer of my husband's relationship with his late mother and the times he went NC, I think sometimes it is the straw that broke the camels back and if you tell someone what the final straw is it can sound a bit ridiculous

IMO that's a branch of gaslighting: drip drip drip hundreds of little things that are designed to goad you, but if you reacted to any one of them you'll look like a crazy over-reacter. But in the context of all the rest of it it's a last straw!