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.

I very recently went NC with my mother and sister.

The funny thing is, it wasn't an epic fallout...simply a realization that I was not happy trying to make them happy. After being called and texted 18 times in an hour from them after I was hung up on by my sister, I decided I wanted to end it. It happens all the time and nothing ever changes.

I've been called all kinds of names regarding my mental health, because I have been on ADs and sought counseling. This is always thrown in my face as an insult whenever I disagree with them.

I have listened to them tell me I'm a horrible person, a bitch, a lunatic, a bad mother because of my anxiety and depression, everything to hurt me.

And then are dumbfounded when I say I don't want them around me or DD.

that blog put it perfectly. It's a weird feeling, but ultimately, I've found my life better without them in it.

So start a thread about the non abusive parents then. Don't use their existence to minimise the damage done by abusers om a thread about abusers.

It's hard isn't it - I'm not in contact with my brother, that's his choice. He barely tolerates my sister or my father either - only contacts them because of his own DC (so he's not afraid of them knowing his FOO). My sister and I and Dad are close - so who is "right" and who not?

BUt I realise that's barely relevant and I probably shouldn't have posted.

Not trying to minimise the experience of anyone who has gone NC with abusive family members - it's often the only way to maintain your own sanity and strength, to cut out the poisonous aspects!

Liz But claiming your child has mental health issues is a common theme. So I am always suspicious when I hear that.

I heard something I found chilling and horrific, along these lines. I mean I really hope not, but...
Was having conversation with a friend about the link between BPD and child abuse and the POV of how abuse victims are labelled and sort of discredited with this stigmatised disorder which the NHS didn't treat a decade ago... . Anyway, she mentioned someone (friends of family type thing) who had apparently had their DD (aged 5/6 iirc) accuse them of abuse (sexual), and it apparently turned out to be untrue. So they decided it was attention seeking and diagnosed this child with BPD. (I cross examined my friend at this point becuase this is so dodgy I thought there must have been some misunderstanding.) They are usually reluctant to diagnose BPD before the age of 18, when the personality is deemed to be basically formed/settled. Certainly diagnosing it in a five year old is very, very dodgy. I'm shocked if this happened in an NHS service - my concern is they went private and bought a convenient diagnosis to discredit this little girl for the rest of her life... I mean, fuck, the damage the label alone can do if everything's viewed in the light of it... her whole life, growing up... but if she is actually being abused. Oh fuck.

Sorry, needed to get that out. Been playing on my mind for months. And I'm utterly helpless to do anything about it.

I'm NC 17 years with my dad. It took him 2 years to notice I wasn't communicating with him anymore.

I don't think your post is doing the same as Whatthe's were Thumb.

You actually raise an interesting point. My brother is still in contact with my parents. Well, he still lives with them. I have no contact with him either. He is two years younger than me and I grew up loving him and hating him.

I love him because we are quite similar and we would get along really well if left to our own devices. But for so long I hated him because he couldn't or wouldn't see in them what I see in them.

The truth is that he is just as damaged as me. Just as much a victim of them as me. He is the golden child. But his life is being stunted by them to this day.

I have no idea if your brother is a twat or if he is justified in his actions. But siblings can come away from the same upbringing with very different world views. Especially in households were there is abuse at play. In my case my mum filters all our relationships in the family through her. So even my relationship with my brother (and his with me) has always been channelled through this controlling and manipulative person. The relationship was controlled by her. None of my family know me. They know the version of me that my mum portrays.

Regarding the DC... It took me a long time to accept that my mum was going to do the same damage to my DC that she had done to me. And she had already done some major emotional harm to my 7 year old. I have been NC for 10 months now and the effects of her are still felt. Perhaps your brother is unable to make that last break.

I hope that makes sense.

Once that is really awful. I honestly have no advice because as you say you have only heard this from a distance. But what 5 year old even knows what sexual abuse is to be able to accuse someone of it? I too would be very suspicious.

Someone with a MH disorder doesn't necessarily act in illogical ways, so going NC with parents is no indicator either way. And, certain forms of health problems, e.g. long-term depression, can be a result of abusive/controlling parents, so the cure can be to go NC.

Parents can also genuinely love their child, but also be damaging to that child. The one doesn't exclude the other, Just that the issues the parent has clouds the way in which they have a relationship. The same is true of parents who are drug/alcohol addicts.

Parents have more invested in the relationship with their child, so less likely to be the one to cut it off. But, where a parent continues to berate and victim blame their child I have strong suspicions about their parenting style. My parents aren't terrible, but I do keep a certain amount of distance. Apparently all the arguments, my teenage depression, attempts to run away from home and self harm, were because I am awkward. I still am, according to them. Ask anyone else outside of my family and 'awkward' isn't even a word they associate with me.

“Tinkly, that sounds like sympathy for the criminal for what prison must be like for them.” yea, what's worse is being on the receiving end tinkly.

“But claiming your child has mental health issues is a common theme. So I am always suspicious when I hear that.” this is true, but also what happens is the behaviour/abuse contributes to mental illness if it is present.

As someone who is both a survivor and has worked in cp I'd be very very suspicious regarding a 5/6 year old both claiming sexual abuse and the families' determined efforts to discredit them! Given the stigma still associated with mental illness what loving parent would want their child labelled at such a young age? In reaction to one allegation?

I went on gn when MN kept crashing at one point, couldn't stomach it, an awful lot of clearly narcissistic/abusive parents justifying/minimising/victim blaming. Awful.

The same estranged parent, later down the thread, wrote:

"It's no fault of your own that YOU suffered during this time. We take care of our children from cradle to maturity, but if they never mature and psychologically punish us with alienation, it's THEIR choice. They're stuck in the past with the mistaken perception that THEY have been maligned. There is not one person on this planet who hasn't been hurt emotionally and or physically, so if every person alienated another over perceived injustices, then Dear Lord.....everyone would be estranged from each other. I've reached the point after almost 9 years of reaching out and being repeatedly rejected, I no longer give a rat's ass if the estranged adult child (my daughter) feels pain over the pain she inflicted on me. I'm at peace in the knowledge that I have been THE BEST parent I could possibly be and I can meet God with a clear conscience when it's my time to leave this world."

It's the same narrative, time and time again: We were the best parents we could be, any negative feelings our children may have are irrational and unjustified (or as a variant - we were such good parents we gave them too much and made them selfish and narcissistic), they are cruel and unreasonable for removing themselves from our sphere of influence. In some cases they recount horrendous background stories of family life when their dc were growign up, including acrimonious divorces, alcohol abuse and mental illness, but that's all in the past, and they were doing their best, and their dc have no right to feel any differently from how the parents want them to feel.

I can understand why people feel it's too triggering to read the parents' boards, and I probably would have felt like that too at one point. But it is also hugely validating - somehow it's easier to see in other people's stories quite how appalling and bonkers the behaviour is, and also to realise how much of a pattern, a script these types of parents seem to have.

And Yy, Issendai's blog is GENIUS on the subject of estranged parents, well worth a read (she has a new one as well, which is linked to from the old site). 'The Missing Missing Reasons' is probably the single best article, but there are splendid insights and analysis running through all of them.

Liz, I am not miniimising anything. The thread is about adult children being estranged from their parents and I am joining in the discussion about the reasons why that happens and the impact it has. I was also responding to the comment that it's safe to assume the parents are always arses. In my opinion it's not always safe to assume that.
I am not a parent by the way, in case you think I have an abused child out there somewhere who is avoiding me, I don't, I have no children. But I have been very close to a situation where a child has grown into an arse and cut off their parents and I know there are two sides to every story.
We all know that some adults around us are utter wankers, those wankers have mums and dads, and those wankers tend to treat their parents in the same selfish and horrible way that they treat everyone, and that is really hard sometimes for the parents.

But those disclaimers aren't needed. By saying that my parents were abusive I am not saying that all parents are. And no one on this thread is saying all estranged parents are either.

I can understand why you might feel the need to say, in defense of the parents you know, that it isn't the same in all cases, but a thread talking about abusive estranged parents just isn't the place.

I have enough doubt and guilt in my head. Enough fear that other people will think I am the problem and not my parents. Surely me and other abused adult children should have a place where they can discuss the batshit parents they have to walk away from without this nugget of doubt being reiterated repeatedly?

I didn't start the thread with the intention of telling people what they could and couldn't post. But I'm inclined to agree with Liz, it was intended to be a discussion of the very particular dynamics you get in families where adult children have estranged, often with a great deal of heartache and soul-searching, and an element of 'scales falling from the eyes' when they start to see their parents' behaviour from a more objective viewpoint.

Obviously not all estrangements are of this nature (and Issendai has some interesting early posts on the difference between the forums for parents who claim to have no idea why their adult dc are estranged and those where there are clear issues of MH, drug abuse, cult involvement etc.

But pointing out repeatedly that not all parents are abusive/narcisstic on a thread discussing those who are is a bit like going on a thread where women are talking about extricating themselves from abusive marriages and repeatedly pointing out that not all men are abusers. It's not untrue, but it's not relevant and not helpful.

Yes of course people who have suffered from abusive parents should have a safe space to discuss this, and I'm sorry if my comment has undermined this in any way.

I guess I was thinking of the nice parents with problem children, and also the borderline parents, who probably do love their kids, but because of their own issues have no idea how to be good parents. Either way it's horrible for those affected.

The bit in the blog about parents completely rejecting, and just refusing to hear and acknowledge your point of view, because it clashes with their own, is very
accurate.

I find this thread interesting, having read the GN one. The constantly repetitive nature of that thread eloquently illustrates just how fixated those mothers are, on never being in the wrong and picking away at the nonexistent relationship like a scab on a sore.
Never truer was the fact that they cannot, and probably never will, accept any responsibility for the situation, it's always someone else's fault.

I do hear what you are saying. But this wasn't started as thread about abuse, it was a thread about estranged children/parents, and you can't expect only people with the same shared experiences to reply. I agree we should not minimize each other's experiences, but it does work both ways.
Some people are estranged from their parents because they don't like them, one of my friends is estranged because she can't bear their racist views, but there is no hint of abuse. Some people are estranged because of abuse, some people are estranged because they aren't nice people and they treat people badly including their parents.
I don't think it's fair to start a conversation on estrangement and then try to silence anyone who puts forward a point of view that's different to yours.

LizKeen: In my case my mum filters all our relationships in the family through her. So even my relationship with my brother (and his with me) has always been channelled through this controlling and manipulative person. The relationship was controlled by her. None of my family know me. They know the version of me that my mum portrays.

My mother did this too - 'triangulation', I now know it's called. When you grow up with a parent who mediates in this way, it takes decades to notice even that they do it, and that it's a family dynamic that's not entirely normal. But even then, there are layers of habituation to cut through, and everyone in the family is in their comfort zone as long as they maintain the roles that the manipulator has cast them in. The trouble starts when one child objects to their role and starts trying to escape it or to renegotiate relationships on a more mature footing. Even if this is a 'good' thing in the long run, everyone else in the dysfunctional structure gets panicky and rejects what is being attempted. Or at least that's my experience. The David Campton play 'Cagebirds' is a vivid allegorical exploration of what happens to troublemakers who invite others to leave their cages, even gilded ones.

In my mother's case, it was the fallout from children communicating with each other because of a massive family crisis she had precipitated for attention-seeking purposes which led to yet more of us going NC with her. The lies she had told to us all about each other were jaw-dropping. Many of them were decades old and had shaped our relationships with each other in desperately sad ways. No less sad - and mystifying - is that even some of the siblings who were party to these conversations still can't see what has been done. I realise, as I must, that people come to these insights in their own time. It took me 40-odd years - why should it not take my sister 50-odd?

My mother unquestionably has a narcissistic personality disorder and clear factors in her own personal/developmental history that make her a victim too, as someone referred to upthread. Appreciating this is a source of some comfort (it was always her that was 'the problem', not me/us), but is also the rather unhelpful source of much of the guilt that comes with going NC (it's not her 'fault'). However, her complete lack of insight into the effect her history has had on her parenting means that she is like the family's very own toxic waste dump site. Sometimes you just have to move away to a place of safety.

Sorry for the brain dump. This is all very current and triggering for me, for reasons I can't mention as they would be extremely identifying. I would have namechanged for this thread if I had been thinking.

it was a thread about estranged children/parents

No. It's a thread about the spectacular self-deception among NC parents who ignore their children's clear statements of grievance, preferring to cast themselves as innocent victims.

Your line of argument is disturbingly close to theirs. It's harmful in a thread like this, where adult children will be recognising their own situation but still battling their ingrained feelings of being "wrong".

When this sort of thing is happening in your own life, you can't unsee what you have seen. You've begun to break through the FOG. Protestations that you are wrong will not make you unaware, they'll only hinder you and increase your distress.
Why would you want to do that to people who are already hurting?

I totally agree you can't unsee what you have seen, hence why I wanted to join this discussion. I have no desire to hurt anyone I just wanted to join in the discussion about something that is really important to me and isn't discussed very often.

The Issendai blog is excellent. Having had the time/motivation/stomach to amass a large quantity of data, she(?) is in a position to make some general observations which are a better overview of the problem than I have ever been able to gain from my own isolated situation (although I am lucky to have patient people in my life who are prepared to listen to conversations and events hashed and rehashed endlessly).

I was very interested, for example, in the idea that estranged parents genuinely don't understand the accusations levied at them because anything you might say presents itself as 'just shouting at me' - the content gets lost. The idea that they block the pertinent content because their fragile egos can't take any criticism clearly makes sense to me, as does the conclusion that painstaking attempts to present the unpalatable truth gently are ultimately pointless, because critical messages have to be wrapped up in such a swathe of reassurance in order to prevent instant defensive rejection of the allegations, that the message becomes hopelessly anodyne and the parent can't grasp the scale and scope of the problem. This has tremendous resonance for me.

It's reassuring to read some apparently objective data which supports the realisation that engaging with such a parent is futile, and that the decision to go NC is not unreasonable. I think few people are immune to ideas about it being wrong to give up on/walk away from a family member, and most of us are very vulnerable to the guilt and self-doubt that ensue, piled precariously on top of the guilt and self-doubt that are already in place after a childhood characterised by abuse and neglect.

I am not sure I could lurk in the forums themselves, though, for the good of my blood pressure if nothing else.

Yy, Mrs Lupo, I found that aspect of the Issendai blog immensely validating, and seeing the stuff on the estranged parents' forums provides live field data as it were for her analysis.

I was particular struck by the post I c&p'd in my OP, because I have been on the receiving end of many similar demands for a list of grievances to justify my decisions, which I know if I replied to would just lead to endless circular arguments in which any and every point I made would be rejected, denied and dismissed. I know my EP claims to have no idea why we are estranged. But we had many, many conversations in the run-up to me cutting contact in which I spelled out repeatedly that I was not okay with being criticised, shouted at and abused everytime I expressed an opinion that didn't quite fit with their script. So if they don't know why we are estranged, it's not for want of me explaining it to them in words of actual English.

I have also concluded that my parents and others like them genuinely can't hear or remember anything that is threatening to their painstakingly-constructed worldview, and they will lose a relationship rather than challenge or restructure their own thinking patterns. And tbh, by the time an estranged parents has got to the point of using that kind of legalistic language to 'demand' that they are 'entitled to' a list of 'grievances' to justify the estranged childs 'claims of hatred' towards them, they've kind of illustrated their own point, really. The glaring absence in this worldview is any awareness or understanding that the child might entirely legitimately have emotions and perceptions other than the ones the parent wants them to have. And if someone can't and/or doesn't want to see that, it's hard to see how there can be any way forward for the relationship.

GarlicShake has it spot on.

I am not trying to silence anyone. Even suggesting that seems like a tactic my mother would use. There is a time and a place for talking about abusive adult children. This thread isn't it. Me pointing that out is not me silencing anyone, or doing anything other than asking for a safe space where I do not have to justify walking away from my entire family.

MrsLupo I agree about that blog. So much of it resonates with me. It gives me comfort in a strange way. It validates my feelings. My mum told me stuff that my brother apparently said. Now I really don't think he did. She put her feelings onto him, instead of owning them for herself. It only stands to reason that she has been doing the same to me all along towards other people.

I used to think that the lack of close familial relationships was my fault. Something lacking in me. But now I know that they were having a relationship with her version of me. That really angers me.

The thing that really struck me in the blog was a passage she writes about the process of separation. It is exactly what I have went through. I have been NC twice before, and I went back. This is the third and last time. I will never go back. I am now in the process of grieving for the parents I should have had, and the parents I did have who are now absent. Life feels empty. There is a very conscious process of rebuilding going on inside me.

Liz - this: "But siblings can come away from the same upbringing with very different world views" is SO true. Even in house holds with no obvious abuse. And again I wonder whether that is down to different natures, or what!

In our house, if anyone was the golden child it was my brother; but only in my mother's eyes. He was Her Boy and could do little wrong. But she also infantilised him a lot, which he hated. My sister confided in me in later years that she felt as though she was the odd one out - I was Daddy's girl, he was Mummy's boy - who did she belong to? Not a nice scenario for her to deal with. :( She has no memories of our childhood, really.

I taxed my mum on some of the things that happened when we were teens and she veered between history re-writing and martyrdom - I don't think she was NPD as such, because she could be brought to listen, and even occasionally to accept fault (rare though!) but she definitely had some traits. And the constant criticism - oh yes! Even when I told her I was pregnant, she said "Oh no, now I'll have 6 grandchildren" - like that was some kind of a problem for her. As it turns out, she didn't live to see DS1 born, so it was never a problem for her after all. I'm not as sad about that as I think I should be. :(

Sorry, I'm waffling on. I feel rather fraudulent on these threads, because although we didn't have hugely happy childhoods, and I do feel cheated of having a mother who truly loved me, our situation hardly compares to some of the serious abuses that others have suffered. :(

That blog, btw, is very insightful.

Please don't feel like a fraud Thumb. The thing about this kind of abuse is that it is not obvious, and in many ways it cannot be measured. Nor does it need to be. Your situation is your situation, it is no less than anyone else's.

Do you know the reason's for your brothers distance from your family? I mean, we can guess probably, but has he ever said why he keeps himself away?

This is really interesting - shows the difference in perspectives- both sides think they are in the right!