"But we took you to Stately Homes" - survivors of dysfunctional and toxic families

[toomuchtooold]

It's December 2017, and the Stately Home is still open to visitors.

Forerunning threads:
December 2007
March 2008
August 2008
February 2009
May 2009
January 2010
April 2010
August 2010
March 2011
November 2011
January 2012
November 2012
January 2013
March 2013
August 2013
December 2013
February 2014
April 2014
July 2014
Oct 14 – Dec 14
Dec 14 – March 15
March 2015 - Nov 2015
Nov 2015 - Feb 2016
Feb 2016 - Oct 2016
Oct 2016 - Feb 2017
Feb 2017 - May 2017
May 2017 - August 2017
August 2017 - December 2017
Welcome to the Stately Homes Thread.

This is a long running thread which was originally started up by 'pages' see original thread here (December 2007)

So this thread originates from that thread and has become a safe haven for Adult children of abusive families.

The title refers to an original poster's family who claimed they could not have been abusive as they had taken her to plenty of Stately Homes during her childhood!

One thing you will never hear on this thread is that your abuse or experience was not that bad. You will never have your feelings minimised the way they were when you were a child, or now that you are an adult. To coin the phrase of a much respected past poster Ally90;

'Nobody can judge how sad your childhood made you, even if you wrote a novel on it, only you know that. I can well imagine any of us saying some of the seemingly trivial things our parents/ siblings did to us to many of our real life acquaintances and them not understanding why we were upset/ angry/ hurt etc. And that is why this thread is here. It's a safe place to vent our true feelings, validate our childhood/ lifetime experiences of being hurt/ angry etc by our parents behaviour and to get support for dealing with family in the here and now.'

Most new posters generally start off their posts by saying; but it wasn't that bad for me or my experience wasn't as awful as x,y or z's.

Some on here have been emotionally abused and/ or physically abused. Some are not sure what category (there doesn't have to be any) they fall into.

NONE of that matters. What matters is how 'YOU' felt growing up, how 'YOU' feel now and a chance to talk about how and why those childhood experiences and/ or current parental contact, has left you feeling damaged, falling apart from the inside out and stumbling around trying to find your sense of self-worth.

You might also find the following links and information useful, if you have come this far and are still not sure whether you belong here or not.

'Toxic Parents' by Susan Forward.

I started with this book and found it really useful.

Here are some excerpts:

"Once you get going, most toxic parents will counterattack. After all, if they had the capacity to listen, to hear, to be reasonable, to respect your feelings, and to promote your independence, they wouldn't be toxic parents. They will probably perceive your words as treacherous personal assaults. They will tend to fall back on the same tactics and defences that they have always used, only more so.

Remember, the important thing is not their reaction but your response. If you can stand fast in the face of your parents' fury, accusations, threats and guilt-peddling, you will experience your finest hour.

Here are some typical parental reactions to confrontation:

"It never happened". Parents who have used denial to avoid their own feelings of inadequacy or anxiety, will undoubtedly use it during confrontation, to promote their version of reality. They'll insist that your allegations never happened, or that you're exaggerating. They won't remember, or they will accuse you of lying.

YOUR RESPONSE: Just because you don't remember, doesn't mean it didn't happen".

"It was your fault." Toxic parents are almost never willing to accept responsibility for their destructive behaviour. Instead, they will blame you. They will say that you were bad, or that you were difficult. They will claim that they did the best that they could but that you always created problems for them. They will say that you drove them crazy. They will offer as proof, the fact that everybody in the family knew what a problem you were. They will offer up a laundry list of your alleged offences against them.

YOUR RESPONSE: "You can keep trying to make this my fault, but I'm not going to accept the responsibility for what you did to me, when I was a child".

"I said I was sorry what more do you want?" Some parents may acknowledge a few of the things that you say but be unwilling to do anything about it.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate your apology, but that is just a beginning. If you're truly sorry, you'll work through this with me, to make a better relationship."

"We did the best we could." Some parents will remind you of how tough they had it while you were growing up and how hard they struggled. They will say such things as "You'll never understand what I was going through," or "I did the best I could". This particular style of response will often stir up a lot of sympathy and compassion for your parents. This is understandable, but it makes it difficult for you to remain focused on what you need to say in your confrontation. The temptation is for you once again to put their needs ahead of your own. It is important that you be able to acknowledge their difficulties, without invalidating your own.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I understand that you had a hard time, and I'm sure that you didn't hurt me on purpose, but I need you to understand that the way you dealt with your problems really did hurt me"

"Look what we did for you." Many parents will attempt to counter your assertions by recalling the wonderful times you had as a child and the loving moments you and they shared. By focusing on the good things, they can avoid looking at the darker side of their behaviour. Parents will typically remind you of gifts they gave you, places they took you, sacrifices they made for you, and thoughtful things they did. They will say things like, "this is the thanks we get" or "nothing was ever enough for you."

YOUR RESPONSE: "I appreciate those things very much, but they didn't make up for ...."

"How can you do this to me?" Some parents act like martyrs. They'll collapse into tears, wring their hands, and express shock and disbelief at your "cruelty". They will act as if your confrontation has victimized them. They will accuse you of hurting them, or disappointing them. They will complain that they don't need this, they have enough problems. They will tell you that they are not strong enough or healthy enough to take this, that the heartache will kill them. Some of their sadness will, of course, be genuine. It is sad for parents to face their own shortcomings, to realise that they have caused their children significant pain. But their sadness can also be manipulative and controlling. It is their way of using guilt to try to make you back down from the confrontation.

YOUR RESPONSE: "I'm sorry you're upset. I'm sorry you're hurt. But I'm not willing to give up on this. I've been hurting for a long time, too."

Helpful Websites

Alice Miller
Personality Disorders definition
Daughters of narcissistic mothers
Out of the FOG
You carry the cure in your own heart
Help for adult children of child abuse
Pete Walker
The Echo Society
There are also one or two less public offshoots of Stately Homes, PM AttilaTheMeerkat or toomuchtooold for details.

Some books:

Toxic Parents by Susan Forward
Homecoming by John Bradshaw
Will I ever be good enough? by Karyl McBride
If you had controlling parents by Dan Neuharth
When you and your mother can't be friends by Victoria Segunda
Children of the self-absorbed by Nina Brown - check reviews on this, I didn't find it useful myself.
Recovery of your inner child by Lucia Capacchione
Childhood Disrupted by Donna Jackson Nazakawa

This final quote is from smithfield posting as therealsmithfield:

"I'm sure the other posters will be along shortly to add anything they feel I have left out. I personally don't claim to be sorted but I will say my head has become a helluva lot straighter since I started posting here. You will receive a lot of wisdom but above all else the insights and advice given will 'always' be delivered with warmth and support."

Thank you. I've had time to think about it and I'm glad I stood up for myself. You just really cannot win with these people.

christmas The realisation that maybe it was not me has come about over the last couple of years that I've been back in contact with my siblings separately (as they don't speak) and realised we're all being played against each other and each time we have contact DM will engineer a situation to make sure we fall out as she doesn't like being the centre of everything and relishes in it. I see it now with my own DC that she's done the same with them over the years, one has received every attention from her and the youngest always pushed to the side feeling she's got to work for it.

I'm NC with all of them now and off all SM. I got so fed up of the drama and hysterics, gaslighting and blaming between everyone. I was always the SG so I'm not too fussed if they decide between themselves or tell a bunch of people I don't see bad things about me. I'm feeling mightily relieved now because if I'm honest, I don't feel I'm losing anything as there was never a family there, just the pretence of one .

not being the centre sorry

Christmas sorry you are feeling this way. I've been in that position too.

I just want to clarify from your post - are you doubting your own sanity here, or are you worried that other people mightn't believe you?

You CAN prove the lying and to an extent the manipulating, at least to yourself, because you know that if you're telling the truth and she says something different, you know for certain you're right and she's not.

For myself, I also found that once I'd accepted that my M lied and manipulated, a lot of the bad feelings of guilt I'd had about myself disappeared, over time. I felt free, somehow, and at peace with myself. It wasn't a 'vindicated' one-upman-ship kind of freedom, more just a feeling that this explained everything and I didn't need to feel bad any more. Personally I took this to mean that I must have stumbled upon the right answer, because my feelings were finally aligning with the facts as I now saw them. To look at it the other way around, if it is always you having to jump through the hoops to make things 'right', and even then you still feel perpetually guilty, then maybe you aren't the problem.

You can't always prove any of this to other people. You have to accept that. One of the ways these people operate is to use that very fact as a kind of threat to keep you in line. It's basically blackmail, and just like any other kind of blackmail, In order to 'escape' you have to make yourself not care about what anyone else thinks any more, which isn't easy.

My personal experience is that there are far more people out there who'll understand - or at least accept - your new status quo than you could ever have realised. Not being in contact with a family member is more accepted now than it might have been a generation ago. There will be some people that don't understand, but generally those people have unresolved issues of their own. I have found that some friendships where this is the case have naturally waned as a result of how I now feel about my M. But other friendships have taken their place.

I haven't read any grandparents' rights threads on here to be able to comment on that, although I've read about it in the news. Yes, it's troubling, but my gut feeling is that because of the basic tenets of the Children's Act - i.e. putting the child at the centre and putting the child's needs first - it'd be very hard for any grandparent to prove that their rights to see a child should take precedence over anyone else's.

You might find the outofthefog website useful, if no-one's pointed you that way already, to help you understand the FOG (fear, obligation and guilt) you might be feeling at the moment.

Thank you both for your replies.

SwingCity, I'm really sorry about the way you're being played off against your siblings. There's a similar thing happening with me and my sister at the moment. DM has been telling my sister and grandparents that she isn't allowed to contact me, which is not true - last autumn, DM was bombarding me with messages (an email, two texts and a facebook message by the time I got to work in the morning and calls and a voicemail after work). I'm doing a PGCE at the moment and it was too much. I asked DM to tone it down but she has interpreted this as 'I'm not allowed to contact Christmas' When she said this to DSis, DSis said of course that wasn't true and sort of stuck up for me a but, but I can't talk to DSis about our parents, because she shuts down. She's only 20 and at uni so has to see them in the holidays and I think that's why she doesn't want to open up about it - she has to have more contact than I do because I live away 'properly', IYSWIM? DM and my dad have used her as a go-between for their marriage problems, asking her to sit with them because they can't be alone together, and we've both been put in sort of 'saviour' roles in different ways WRT their relationship.

SpareBedroom both, I think. Sometimes I think that I'm being awful towards my parents by moving away and cutting down on contact, because they can't have been that bad and I'm making too big a deal of it? I've told a counsellor about the recent incidents and main ones I can remember and she said that, from the sound of things, DM emotionally and psychologically abused us throughout our childhood. I think my gran believes that this has happened, I sort of confessed my version of events to her a few weeks ago and she agrees that DM can be very 'cutting' and rude/mean, but my gran didn't think she behaved that way to us - she thought we were 'the perfect family'.

I feel like it's my fault for wrecking the perfect family image. I'd love to feel the peaceful feeling you describe, but at the moment I have this inner turmoil all the time - is it my fault/have I treated my parents badly/am I a narcissist who's causing these things/have I remembered wrongly/maybe what they did wasn't that bad. Just a constant cycle.

Outofthefog has been really interesting as well, thank you for recommending it. I also looked at 'Will I Ever Be Good Enough?' and checked off something like 27 of 33 (I think?) characteristics for DM.

My dad kept writing me emails back in the autumn about how DM 'needed the support of her eldest daughter', how he wanted us to 'be happy again like he thought we all once were'. He came up to meet me in a carpark after my first day on my PGCE course to cry in his car about how I didn't see them enough, he wanted to leave DM but didn't know how and he wondered aloud why he had had DSis and me.

They both pretended that DM was diagnosed with MS in September, which I believed - I drove down after school to be there when she got home from her appointment. Now I know she was diagnosed more than four years ago.

I keep going over and over all of this. I'm really sorry for repeating myself on here but I can't get my head around it. I'm almost 25, I'm just trying to train as a teacher and live closer to my boyfriend. How can my parents be like this?

Christmas you need to keep repeating because their behaviour is so bizarre it needs ongoing processing!

it sounds as though your parents have no boundaries whatsoever. Why would your Dad tell you that he wondered why he had you and your sister? From your posts I get the impression that your Mum is correctly identified as overtly abusive, but your Dad also sounds very manipulative and intrusive.

@christmaspresentaibu your dad is trying to emotionally blackmail you.
My dad (enabler I think) has said similar things to me too, hoping things will go back to "normal" and putting the pressure on to get back in contact with my m because she was ill (a cold).
I think some of it is because of their need to project the image of a perfect family x

Thank you both. Poudrenez, I'm sort of glad you've said that. I think it is bizarre but if I stop talking about it, I sort of normalise it in my head. But at the same time it can't be right or healthy to dwell on it.

At the moment I never hear from my dad at all, he doesn't even reply if I message the family facebook chat. Never asks how I am or what I'm up to. With both him and DM, it's like they've gone from one extreme to the other, it's like a version of the silent treatment DM used to give us, it's a punishment. I don't think my dad has any boundaries any more because my DM has eroded them over the years and they've tried to do the same to us. This reaction (the too much and then the silence) has come about because I have started to put up some boundaries and to try to build a life together with DP.

I had travel injections for a holiday last year and DM threw a fit because she found out from my gran that I'd had an injection and I hadn't told her - it had just slipped my mind because it was so insignificant! It's bare-faced hypocrisy because she kept us in the dark about her MS diagnosis.

After I'd upset DM on many occasions like this last autumn, I had to bring flowers to her at my dad's request, give her hugs and tell her I loved her. I also wrote down my new address (in DP's hometown) so she had it for future reference. She then told people I had moved away and not told her where I had gone.

Takeoutyourhen, I'm reluctant to say my dad is manipulative but I certainly think that, like yours unfortunately, he is an enabler. He has always tried to cover for DM by saying 'she doesn't do emotions'. Re. the flowers etc, I feel like those gestures from me make his life easier because he is the one who has to live with her. I'm sorry our parents are so similar!

Telling her I love her is something she's become fixated on in the past year. She didn't tell me she loved me before I went to South America for six weeks because she was in a strop with me for going away with DP. When I brought this up, of course she said she had, she could remember saying it, she gave me a hug and told me she loved me.

But a couple of months later, I'm summoned to their house and she gets to cling to me on the sofa and sob and beg me to tell her I love her, after all which she looked me in the eye and said very calmly, 'I know you hate me.'

Hello i am joining i hope thats ok! I literally only found out about this thread tonight, i could have done with it the last couple of months as i have gone nc with my mother and it has been horrible.

On mothers day i finally had enough of my narcissistic mother (undiagnosed but has alot of the traits) and cut her out of my life for the third time. There are so many reasons why i finally had enough, wed be here all night if i went into them.

It was very traumatic, initially it started off as an argument so there were abusive text messages, many missed calls (i didnt want to answer because i knew it would lead to hours of screaming). Then she turns up at my house wanting to come in to talk. I said no because i was home alone with my ds and the mood she was in i didnt trust her not to scream and shout in front of him or refuse to leave.

I answered the phone to her to tell her to go as i wouldnt let her in and she stood on my doorstep screaming and shouting at me (down the phone) It finally led to her saying do you want me in your life and i said no. This led to more screaming and shouting then she left. I had a few more abusive texts and two emails and she went silent for a couple of weeks.

Then she turned up at my house when i was out, had a go at my husband and left. Then i got another email demanding to know why i have done this. I didnt respond straight away (left it like 4 days) because i didnt know what to say. Whether be completely honest and upset her (i still cared at this point) or try to be honest but not too honest if you know what i mean.

Because i didnt respond she turned up at my house when ds and i were napping on the sofa, she could see us through the front door (she presses her face up against the glass) so i had to open it. And the launches into me demanding to know why i have done this.

At first i tip toed then got so angry it all came out: her lying, the way she treats my husband, not supporting me when ds was born (i made the mistake of telling her i had pnd which she did not know until now), having a go at me when i was in the hospital after lo was born alone with him on neonatal and me recovering from a csection because i hadnt told my brother the truth (i had said we were ok, he was away i didnt want to ruin it for him), her kicking off on my wedding day because she didnt get the room the she demanded, to name a few.

She had arguments for all of them and made them seem pathetic. In the end i told her to leave. She left and emailed me saying she would never bother contacting me again. I still felt bad that "just leave" may be the last thing i ever said to her.

A few days later i got the worst email i have ever got from her. Saying i had changed from a nice confident skinny girl, to a gossipy horrible girl who had put on weight (shes always had an obsession about my weight even when i was skinny) and lost a job, and ended up on antidepressants that i had never been on she i lived with her (no i self harmed instead!) Everything is my husbands fault and hes abusing us (bollocks), theres more but you get the gist.

I didnt reply, its what she wants. So her next tactic, emailing me to tell me she was going to take me to court to get access to my ds but despite having a good case she decided not to as she wants us to want to see her. And thats shes changing her email and phone number and we will never hear from her again.

So now i am on edge waiting for the next thing (social services?!) terrified i will be made to either let my ds see her which i do not want, or she will make up some lies and try to take him away from me (granted a bit extreme but its my fear) or say because of my pnd im not suitable to look after him. At this point i wouldnt put anything past her just to get a rise out of me.

All i want is peace, if she died i wouldnt care. Shes so close to breaking me. Everyone would be happy if she wasnt around.

Sorry its so long, i dont have many people i can let it all out, they wouldnt understand. Thanks for reading if you got this far xx

Christmas I tell you one thing, no narcissist ever lay awake at night wondering whether they are a narcissist. The fact that you reflect on your own behaviour is a pretty rock solid indicator that you're not NPD.

I forget who asked this (on mobile so can't look unfortunately) but someone was asking how you know, when you've been living with an emotionally manipulative gaslighter, whether the abuse actually happened or whether their version of events is correct. I've heard people ask that question a few times in different ways and the answer is really simple: you know you're right because you experienced it first hand, and while that might be good enough for a jury, it can and should be good enough for you. You've been programmed from an early age to doubt your own perception of reality but the good news is there's nothing wrong with your eyes or your memory or whatever. You probably don't have that feeling of certainty around the memories of the abuse, they feel different to memories of say where you parked the car. But that's because of the gaslighting, not because there's anything wrong with your recall.
I don't know if you will relate to this but I used to get the dear when people said things like "there's his version and her version and the truth is somewhere in between". The thing is, that might be true about normal people but with an emotionally manipulative gaslighter, it's not true! They're not sitting there telling you their truth as they perceive it, they're choosing lies that will have a certain effect on you. I think there's some suggestion that for people with a personality disorder the choosing of those lies is almost as instinctive as breathing, that their whole life is an exercise in spinning plates so as to never have to perceive the truth, and so you could argue that the lying isn't deliberate, IDK. But that idea of the truth being halfway between - no. They don't do truth. Your memories are accurate. Trusting your own perceptions after a lifetime of emotional abuse can feel uncomfortable (to me it felt "too easy", like could it just be that I didn't have to think myself in circles and prove everything like I was a lawyer) but the more you trust yourself the easier it will be.

Munchin,

Welcome

It is not your fault your mother is the ways she is, you did not make her that way.

re your comment:-

"I didnt reply, its what she wants. So her next tactic, emailing me to tell me she was going to take me to court to get access to my ds but despite having a good case she decided not to as she wants us to want to see her. And thats shes changing her email and phone number and we will never hear from her again".

If your so called mother (she is really not worthy of the term) has indeed done the above then she has done you a huge favour. Well done for not replying, that was indeed what she wanted. Disordered thinking of people like this want a response, they know they have you then. My guess is that she will attempt to contact you again at some stage. And she has no case at all re seeing your children either.

What you write is not atypical of how such dysfunctional relationships eventually play out. I would not worry at all about her potentially involving Social Services also because grandparents have no automatic rights of access to their grandchildren. Its a well worn tactic used by such disordered people to get their own way. She is clearly a toxic influence to be at all around and you already have plenty of evidence to suggest a relationship is not at all beneficial. She cannot use PND either against you, its a recognised medical condition.

You will have peace if she is not in your life in any way shape or form. Do not let her back into your lives or put yourself ever in the position of having to cut her off for a 4th time, there was already good reason you were no contact with her before now.

I would suggest you look at the websites entitled Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers and Out of the Fog. Both could help you here as well as posting here too.

Hi Attila

Thank you for responding, your right i was still feeling so bad for cutting her out. But threatening to take me to court that changed something she is not getting near my son. I dont think shed ever hurt him but i dont trust her poison.

Its only this time i have realised truly how toxic she is and i dont want to deal with it anymore. I already feel better (apart from the stress of the emails) not seeing her like a weight has been taken off. Im glad she cant use my pnd it was worrying me so much.

I have no intention of ever letting her back, shes gone too far this time. But even if there was a part of me that did, the coward part doesnt want to deal with the fallout or the things to be held against me (you cut me off 3 times, you called me a liar, you husband abused me (not true)). Just no im sick of things being held against me and then brought back up years later.

I will have a look at that website thank you for telling me about it.

Toomuch your post is so true and very thought provoking. It made stuff click for me thank you for explaining in such a great way!

Totally agree with everything said and this thread(s) has generally been so helpful for me over the years lurking (and it has taken years to break the ties).

My turning point has been seeing the same behaviours used on my own DC and my youngest being treated so differently, the nasty messages about how much more attention my other siblings are getting whilst no one sorts it out themselves and just dumps their feelings on me and, finally, realising I don't want to be a part of it anymore.

One week NC and tbh I'm looking forward to the kids being able to tell me what they want for Xmas or birthdays without being told "I will give them that" just so she can get them something better than me. Booking a holiday or trip that she's invited to but then makes excuses not to come, then shits all over it and goes in a sulk if we've had a nice time without her.

I'm due her phone call soon that she's so worried about the DC and hopes they are okay as they must be struggling without her. They're not, it's just when I'm not about she realises my siblings do SFA.

That was a bit ranty sorry, but it follows the pattern

Hi guys,
I'd appreciate a bit of support. I've come a long way with dealing with my N Dad but I have realised recently I feel very let down by my Mum (his enabler). (I've spent a long time trying to worry about her, understand her position, see her as a victim, feel sorry for her).

She accepts everything he tells her unquestioningly. She has no emotional intelligence so just accepts his version of events and cannot see that he is manipulating her/me/events or lying.
Anyway I am getting tired of pretending I'm fine with her and, through therapy, am realising it is not good for me to suppress my valid emotional reactions to their behaviour.
So I just had a full and frank phone call. I was honest, I stayed calm and and I called her out in her version of events. I didn't allow her to derail me with weepy 'poor me'. My DH said I did really well and that it was bound to happen. Strangely I do feel better as it's her birthday this week and that was weighing on me. Plus recently she invited herself up which I accommodated, to which she then said 'Great can Dad come?', so I just felt the whole thing was a set up. I've had to state clearly, again, that I will not see him alone, I will not see him without my DH. These boundaries are not arbitrary. They are based on his appalling behaviour towards me previously.

So just rambling actually. Any thoughts anyone?

I posted too soon, basically she said I 'turn' everything and she can't understand why. She's never going to get it, I know that. Not sure where we go from here.

Bump

Hiya @fc301. Well done on being honest with your mother. I think your mother is doing the classic enabler role - she'd say "I just want everyone to get along" but the actual content of what she's asking for is more like "please get back into your role and help me manage your father". I would imagine it's something she's not even admitting to herself, because it's a hard thing to face up to - your partner is so scary and so nasty that the rest of the family have to be pressed into service to keep him on an even keel. IDK. I guess they all have their own reasons for staying - I suspect that none of us will ever be able to change their minds, as they've been playing these games for a long, long time.

I don't know where you go with this - my dad died before I ever copped on about my mother - I would have found it hard to do as I did and go NC with my mother if my dad had still been alive. He enabled the dysfunctional setup we lived in but on the other hand, if he hadn't stayed, I might have ended up living alone with my mother and the abuse would have been never ending (she hid the worst of it from him) and if I know anything about love and friendship I learned it from him. There was definitely a moment when I was a teenager though that I realised I was eventually going to leave, and he was going to stay, even though he seemed to hate it as much as me. I had to give up the idea that I could rescue him, and I did feel very guilty. I don't now, looking back. You have to save yourself - and I think a parent would always, in their best moments, understand and approve of that.

FC301

People who enable narcissists generally do not have clear boundaries. The consequences are not upheld when the narcissist crosses a boundary. This teaches the narcissist that the person's boundaries don't mean anything, and consequently the narcissist doesn't have to respect them.

Boundaries can be tough with a narcissist, because like a stubborn, rebellious child, they will cross every line you draw in the sand just to do it. So don't say things you don't mean. If you say you are going to end the conversation if they cuss at you one more time, do it. They will then see that you are serious. This leaves the choice up to them: if they want to respect your boundaries, the conversation will continue. If they don't, it won't. In this way, you stop enabling the disorder that is controlling - and ruining - everyone's lives. You wouldn't let a two year old be in control of the entire family. That's ludicrous. So don't let an adult narcissist. Stand your ground, state your boundaries and stick by them. Also children grow up, I feel that narcissists are emotionally stuck around the age of six and try reasoning with a six year old.

Enablers of narcissists are often living in as much of a fictitious reality as the narcissist is when it comes to this. A lot of times, we are talking about a long-term enabler, so the pattern is often very deep and very established. You are likely not going to get through to this person. Their entire identity may be wrapped up in "helping" the narcissist and they are in just as much emotional danger as the narcissist if this pattern does not continue. They are probably enmeshed with the narcissist, which means interpersonal boundaries are so poor that they cannot tell where the narcissist begins and they end. They may get defend the narcissist, get angry, or simply deny everything. We often hear, "I'm doing the best I can!" or "It's not me, its him!" These are both narcissistic statements in and of themselves, spoken by people who don't really want to take responsibility for the things they are doing or change them. And you already know what that means. It means it's pointless to even bother.

No contact is still and always will be the best strategy for dealing with narcissists and with their enablers. Again, narcissism cannot exist in a vacuum. There are always enablers. When identified, they should be subject to the same rules as the narcissist. If that's no contact, then it is. It's sad that this can result in going no contact with people you love, but they are not protecting you and are in fact enabling the narcissist to abuse you and others.

I'm wondering how other people cope when their parents are elderly and in poor health?

I've been NC for a few years and constantly worry about the situation and the future - I wish I'd gone NC years ago, when my parent was not frail, though I suppose that would have meant me being a different person.

I dread being back in contact and all the shenanigans and drama, plus hurt and anguish.

But how do others cope with the worry and guilt of leaving an elderly parent to face the end years of their lives? I just can't seem to reconcile what I need to do to protect myself with my anxiety over this.

peekyboo

I would not go down that particular rabbit hole.

You are in all likelihood no contact with your parents for very good reason; I would keep it that way. Their health really does not come into it now because you owe them precisely nothing. They had a lifetime to make all the difference when it came to you but they took the low road.

This link may help you a bit:-

www.emergingfrombroken.com/what-if-my-mother-or-father-dies-before-we-resolve-our-relationship/

Darlene Ouimet wrote the following re her parents in that above excerpt:-

"If my parents are getting old or if either of them is sick, that doesn’t change the fact that I have rights and it doesn’t change the facts about the way that I was treated by them in the past. They are not sorry. They don’t acknowledge the abuse. They never wanted to change or tried to change. So why is it up to me to be there for them when they were never there for me? (and although I am well aware that they fed and clothed me, they housed me, they took care of my physical needs, SO WHAT?? They decided to have a baby, legally that is the least that they HAVE to do.) This whole subject is just another great example of the power differential between parents and children and however ‘socially acceptable’ it is, it is still wrong. I have equal value even if I am the only one in the world who sees that truth".

Peekyboo the way I look at it is, that while my M is in her right mind, she is still responsible for the consequences of her own actions. So however disabled she might become in body, she should theoretically still be capable of making decisions that take into account her own disabilities and needs, and that also take into account any boundaries I might have set about contact. If she doesn't make sensible decisions at that point - for example if she decides against something that might help her manage her life better because she is expecting me to fill the gap, despite the fact that I may have said I'm not prepared to - then that's her look out.

If my M loses capacity mentally, I might be prepared to step in, but only if at that point she has also lost the ability to damage me further.

It's not perfect. I know that. Things aren't usually that clear-cut! But it's what I go back to when I'm confused.

Maybe it would help if you examined how much of your anxiety actually stems from how you were brought up to feel. It might be that that feeling that you 'must' be doing x or y, and the anxiety that results, was actually put in your head by your parents themselves, and once you acknowledge that to yourself you'll be able to rationalise it more easily.