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.

Nina, there's a report button on each post - you need to report your own posts and ask to have them withdrawn, but you need to do it one by one. You may need to report our posts too if we've quoted something inadvertently identifiable about you or your daughter too.

But at the risk of being a patronising git on the Internet, maybe if you stick around you'll learn something from the POV of people like your daughter, as Bacony suggests. Maybe that could help you relate more to what she's going through and help you to rebuild things. Who knows though - she might just need space and time.

Sadly as someone's said above, I can't help thinking that your "research" may have supported you and your own unconscious biases - I would inadvertently do the exact same thing from the opposite POV of course (and I did think about pursuing a PhD in this subject and dismissed it for that reason).

X-post ... You've had quite a while to scan through now, do you get why it made me and others a bit though??

This thread and the parallel one on GN plus Issendai's blog have all been very helpful for me this week.

I've had to deal with someone who is deeply unpleasant and I have realized, does many of the dysfunctional and destructive things that abusive parents do. I find this woman incredibly hard to be around, everything about her is so triggering for me (due to my upbringing with a cruel and, I think, mentally ill, mother and a kind but absent in mind father who whenever he could absented himself in body. My mother abused him too, but now I'm an adult I know he was a grown up so he could have stopped his own abuse and certainly intervened to stop the tyrany and madness meted out to me, the family scape goat.

Anyway, I digress. This woman, she's in a position of power over me, and she terrifies me. I can see her using all the circular thinking, misattribution of causality, denial, minimization etc. i had a horrible meeting with her today which just went on and on as she swore black was white, no that didn't happen, no such thing ever occurred, and when reminded of the written evidence just refused to accept it even then... It was awful. First time I've ever had to refuse to back down, as I have no choice this time. I've tried to engage with her before and faced with the single minded pursuit of her own ego and needs, I've let her 'win' as I have to protect myself from the damage engaging with her does to me. But this time I can't just go hide and do things another way. And I think it came as a shock to her that I didn't give in or melt away. God it was awful. I'm scared she will retaliate worse because I dared continue pushing reality on her. But she's in a position of power over me and holds in her hands my future... And has already behaved against current legislation and I think has no grasp that the law applies to her too.

God I'm scared and shaking about it. It's like I had to do something vile and unhealthy by being in that meeting and exposed to her. But it helps to see what warped tricks she was using to impose her will on me.

Sorry that sounds dramatic, but I can't say more on here about the situation, but it's awful, just like being back home in the madness and delusions. I feel sick and want to shower and scrub it all off. Ugh :(

Was that directed at me?

You admitted you hadn't read the thread surely to be in a better place to comment both here and in real life it's better to be fully informed by all aspects of the discussion?

Well ... chasing can be part of the abuse, so ... Yes?

I disagree. I didn't say any such thing. You've misinterpreted my comments. I have made it clear that in abusive situations you've no choice but to remove yourself. I am estranged remember??? But, in other situations where there is hope, to keep that thread of communication going

What other situations Nina? situations where people haven't had to go NC? I'm sorry, I might be being really thick here, but isn't that a non-statement? I mean it makes no sense. "If you don't feel the need to go NC, don't go NC" - I mean.. who would? what?
Who/what are you talking about?

Miscellaneous sounds awful x

Misc, I do wonder how people deal with my mum at work. The "warped tricks" and blank lies about something that just happened in front of us ... It can't just be something she does at home. I really do wonder what they all think of her.

"I have made it clear that in abusive situations you've no choice but to remove yourself." But you made comments that made it clear that you assumed that many people who choose NC did so for petty reasons. You were even dismissive of your own dd yet had admitted that she had experienced/witnessed abuse. Do you genuinely not understand that your role as her mother is ideally to PROTECT her from abuse?

I know that my mum had a "shit list" at work of people who she would delight in shooting down in meetings, she would be so proud of herself, almost as if she did a public service by making them feel small…. because in her deluded head the world was a better place if anyone she disliked was belittled.

It didn't need to serve any sort of purpose in terms of work loads or tasks.. the other persons work might not overlap with hers at all.. but she liked to make them look bad in meetings. And then tell people about it proudly is if she'ld done a good thing

People gained a place on the shit-list for crimes such as going on maternity leave and generally having a happier life than her

"Do you seriously think any parent who didnt care would be doing the chasing?"

But then you have to wonder what is it they 'care' about?

Being right?
Being seen as right? (Public appearance)
Regaining control?

Because it's rarely the person they care about. If it were the situation would have likely not arisen in the first place.

Nina, since you provided the link to your work - and, my goodness, you do a lot of work! - you won't mind my quoting you here:
... Respectable, solid, upstanding people that have been devoted parents only to watch their relationship with their children fall apart over the most minor issue such as not agreeing to a request, saying no to a loan, having a different opinion or simply not being available to babysit.

It's staggering the wrath that the adult child can inflict on a non compliant parent.

This utterly trivialises what members here have written about their lives. By refusing to read our stories yet feed us platitudes, you insult us.

Is "A Devious Truth" about estrangement within family?

I don't think NC is a case of being permanently day to day angry. That suggests NC decisions are based on grudges and if an NC person would let go of their anger and forgive... the problem would be fixed and they'd re establish contact. What comes next, since the person they went NC with has done nothing to change the relationship - return to being abused?

It still suggests a belief that someone who has gone NC has failed to be sufficiently tolerant.

I was trained as a child not to cry or react during my parent's (terrifying) tantrums, and as soon as they came out of it to then act happy and as if nothing had happened. Being faced with consequences like crying or withdrawn children triggered them. Their enabler, my other parent, would look the other way until they were finished kicking off, then play the 'nothing happened, look at the emperor's lovely clothes' game with them while muttering to me quietly when they were out of earshot about poor them, they're having a bad day, I needed to understand and sympathise with their need to make me shaky, terrified and worse. Not their fault.

I know you'll dismiss this as me justifying or saying I've had it hard - you know what, it was bloody hard. It was hard to learn in my 20s with the aid of a therapist to stop dissociating to the point where I couldn't feel my body. It's been hard to learn to have boundaries - I got myself into two relationships with abusers in my 30s, I'd been so brilliantly trained in being tolerant to people treating me very badly and 'understanding' them instead of thinking 'get the hell away from me you creep!'.

Am I angry about that? It took me a lot of work to learn to be angry about it instead of believing I deserved it, and daring to feel that anger. I've actually never expressed it to them and never will, I'm too afraid of them. I'm upset thinking about it right now, but day to day it rarely occurs to me. That's not a failure to process anger or to 'forgive', whatever that means. Tolerance is not a problem. Way too much tolerance has been a huge problem.

My father was military so

Anyone of a lower rank questioning him would likely be risking their career progress in my experience this is something of an attractive career for narcs for this reason.

When he was being too awkward/pissed off someone of a higher rank he got posted/promoted. I'm sure this happens in other jobs too though of course more promotion.

My mother never was in any particular job for a long time, partially embarrassment as she'd sense people realising she was a battered wife.

Miscellaneous that sounds horrible I know that feeling of gut wrenching stress and trying to shake it off afterwards. In the workplace where complaint procedures can make things so much worse - sometimes the only option is to move to a healthier job and workplace.

“It's a true story of the abuse I endured from a corrupt ex husband and my father”

“The situation with my ex husband really hurt my daughter”

Your words

I'm a bit tired so you're not making a lot of sense, I honestly don't know how to respond to what you're writing ... Unwanted contact is unwanted contact. I don't think you need to call it stalking but am not sure? It's kind of the basis for this whole thread though really.

I can see why your daughter gets frustrated. You're not processing what many people are saying and I wonder if you're like that with her.

How does she feel about your book and the things you've written about her dad and family online, do you know at all?

The entitled comment and the hard yards comments felt pretty judging!

I didn't say you were judging me however, I was trying to respond to your comments in a discussion and share with you my perspective on why releasing anger isn't always a core issue in estrangement.

misc good for you for sticking up for yourself. It can't have been easy. These people pick us because they can read our abusive past off us - we look like we will be easy to bully - and I know from experience that if you show you won't take their bullying they can be very unpleasant while their expectations of you adjust. But stay strong.

I'm smiling to myself at the idea of anger being the thing that, as an adult who was emotionally abused as a child, is going to corrode my soul and make me unhappy. Christ, I hardly know what anger is! It took me 3 months with a therapist to even get angry. Emotions weren't allowed in our house - being angry or sad or happy would get you punished - and as a result of nearly 40 years of that training I could calmly say goodbye to my mother on the last day I ever saw her knowing I was going to go no contact. I was ever so calm. She even remarked on it, that I was such a calm driver. It was an absence of feeling - some relief, definitely, just reliefrom feeling tired and repulsed by her stupid mind games. It was such a small thing that broke the camel's back, after all I went through as a child - but it was the past straw. I thought suddenly of the fact that there are people in the world estranged from their parents and I thought, why am I not one of them? I would so love to be one of those people. And so now I am. It was a selfish act in the sense that I did it for myself, and it was the best thing I ever did, but time spent with a therapist made me realise that even if I'd had more to give myself, I owed it to my young children to keep them safe from someone who was quite clearly abusive and could be so again.