Anybody ever considered getting a mediator to get through to their parents?

[SelkieFly]

I have googled mediator but it's all pre-court stuff.

I don't think my mother is quite a narcissist, but she is a people pleaser except to me. ie, she has used me as a tool in her people pleasing and then got furious with me when I point that out to her.

I was accused of not being happy for her. My points were not acknowledged at all. She has done things that I have asked her twice not to do. She has labelled me (paranoid, sensitive, difficult) for years whenever I challenge her or the status quo. My father is a weak man who backs her up regardless but together they're a strong force against me (I'm single).

My brother who thinks he's such a logical rational person sees the current estrangement through my mum's eyes. ie, I hurt mum. Even thought I told her that she had hurt me and that's what started it.

By telling my mum that she hurt me, I hurt her. My family have all ignored the first part but reacted in defense of my mum, all aggrieved on her behalf that I hurt her.

I see all the dysfunction in the family, I'm the scapegoat I know.
I can't talk to them because I get so angry at being stonewalled.

Could a mediator get them through a series of ordered questions to acknowledge that it's not ok to label somebody else, and that if they do that, the other person can reasonably have a hurt reaction to that. And that if the person you're hurting doesn't accept that they have no right to feel hurt after ''all we've done'' then the hurt person has the right to take a step back.

I feel like they're reasonable people except with me

I don't want to have to give up on the only family I have when I know that they're not all bad. They have a blind spot and the blindspot affects ME. But they're not 100% bad.

Selkie

You were not put on planet earth to fix other people and this sort of issue cannot be fixed.

Please do not look to Relate here!. If you want to try therapy for your own self then I would suggest contacting BACP and interview such people carefully and at length before deciding to work solely with any one particular therapist. These people are like shoes and you need to find someone who fits with your approach. This person too should have no familial bias about keeping families together despite the presence of mistreatment.

Doing any form of mediation or counselling with your mother is really something I would implore you not to do under any circumstances. Family are not binding and you are protecting yourself now from Bad Things i.e them.

You've tried all your life. You do not have to try with your family of origin any more. They've failed you abjectly by mistreating you and making you the scapegoat for all their inherent ills within their family structure. It is ok to say no more to being abused, to realise that actually you matter and you do not have to put yourself last.

Your mother is not a happy person and that is not your fault.
Your parents had a choice when it came to you and they chose to abuse you. Its not your fault they are like this and you did not make them that way. They know how you feel and they do not care one iota. They have never apologised nor have accepted any responsibility for their actions and their "after all we've done for you" is typical from such people.

You may also find this article helpful:-
emergingfrombroken.com/toxic-mother-daughter-relationships-when-mom-says-you-are-the-problem/comment-page-28/#comment-1111757

I totally agree with @AttilaTheMeerkat
You cannot fix them. They are extremely unlikely to change. The only way you will find peace is by reducing their impact on you.
They do not define you. You do not need them or their approval. You can find happiness without their input (and actually you are far more likely to find it without it).
to you and good luck on your journey.

I'm doing (more) therapy and a lot of it is helpful. She wants me to be more accepting of myself, the situation... i'm listening to self-compassion meditations every night. It's helping. I'm practicing being an observer and practicing cognitive diffusion! I am making progress working on myself.

And it's leading me to a place where I don't care as much as I used to and that's good.

They want the relationship back. And I want them to know that my grudge is not a grudge, it's a boundary, ie don't hurt me
That's all I ask. Not too much I think. But they are so wounded by my boundary.

I know that I should just walk away but it's not that easy. Because they aren't all bad. They really aren't. If they were worse, this would be easier.

They only want you to return to the fold so you can resume your role as scapegoat. They do not want a relationship back at all and besides which it’s not possible to have a relationship with such people.

Narcissistic people dislike and actively rail against boundaries so she is not wounded by it. She is angry that you’ve actually gone against the grain here in attempting to set a boundary. Remember too what boundaries are in relationships.

Their ongoing training and conditioning of you at their hands keeps you trapped within their dysfunction.

You may find this article also helpful to read

emergingfrombroken.com/toxic-mother-daughter-relationships-when-mom-says-you-are-the-problem/comment-page-28/#comment-1111757

It was actually your parent’s job to provide that love, to lift you up rather than bring you down — and that your narcissistic parent was incapable of providing those things — it can be actually be freeing. It’s like, “Wait a minute, I was actually incredible and amazing the whole time. I had so much to give, and I deserved so much better than what I got.”

You will ultimately need to grieve for the relationship you should have had rather than the one you actually got.

@AttilaTheMeerkat
Everything you say is true. It’s hard not to miss them though- being estranged from family leaves me feeling alone and really sad no matter how dysfunctional they are and no matter how much hurt they caused. Hopefully this will get better over time. Thanks for your posts- they’re really helpful x

Update! My mother whatsapped me to tell me my dad was sick but on the men basically. I just replied simply ''I hope he gets better''.

Then she replied with a heart. Which enraged me because in over a year she has used every tactic in the book to avoid acknowledging that she hurt me. I shouldn't have responded to her effing heart but I did and I said ''Are you ready to have the conversation you've been avoiding for over a year?'' and I got back a whatsapp that showed that she has had zero insight in the last 13 months. She still thinks that I hurt her by being hurt myself. She lectured me about being so cold and uncaring and told me that that had not helped her recovery over the last year and she told me that when she had called over to see me before christmas I had looked like ''death warmed up''.

She finished off with ''Family therapy is the only way to go''.

Which in a temper I responded ''good luck finding a therapist who says you've bought the right to be hurtful''. Then I blocked her.

But I know I'm making progress. The last time I blocked her I kept unblocking her to see if she'd tried to whatsapp me. But she hadn't of course. I think I recognise I've been through this so many times now, and she always disappoints me. There is no hope anymore. No expectation that she will get it.

And I also recognise @AttilaTheMeerkat that she wants to bring in a family therapist to tell me how much I've hurt her!!! I've been trying to communicate with her for over a year and now she wants family therapy!? It's JOKE

I can see that now.

And as for telling me that I looked like Death Warmed Up. I'm an average looking person in middle age. I look ok. My face is my face and I inherited it from them. I would never tell either of my parents they look like ''Death Warmed Up'' I can't even remember what I looked like at that time, but I'm sure I just looked like myself. I am not battling any great weight issues, skin issues, nothing like that. I just look normal. But to my mother, to my own mother I look like ''Death warmed up''.

What?! She has really revealed a lot about herself there.

[quote Annabel19]@Bluntness100
I’ve been open to hearing their side to be fair and would be in the future x[/quote]
I'm thinking that my 'behaviour' was to offer feedback.

So I don't fear family therapy, if my mother did organise it. I will believe it when I see it though. If she did organise it, I'd check the person out. If it's some croney from the church who thinks you should honour they mother and father, then obviously I wouldn't go but if it's a professional family therapist I would go because I feel really grounded now in my certainty that I cannot make her feel empathy but equally I am entitled to react to that lack of empathy by backing away.

So I won't try and organise FT myself in response to her throwaway comment but if she does organise it and it's not some Christian Counsellor i can see her using this as her source then I would show up.

If a professional counsellor allowed himself to be manipulated by her when our family dynamics are so text book, I'd be surprised.

Instead of tying yourself in knots and being engulfed by this mental anguish, can’t you just go NC? Seems like a more sensible path.

Do not learn the hard way!. Joint therapy with abusive people is not recommended. Your mother is a master manipulator who will likely try to get any counsellor on her side.

Please never do any form of family therapy with your mother. If you want to consider therapy then do that with a therapist on your own.

I'm sorry to hear about the hard time that you are having.

I think you should pursue therapy alive to work on your own boundaries and get to a place where what they say and do bothers you less.

We are NC with my DH's parents. It was a last resort for us because we wanted it to work and because like your family, they can present well and seem 'normal', so we kept thinking 'surely we can help them understand that X isn't ok.'

The problem is you it can't make any one understand or accept anything. At all. If they wanted to get it, if they wanted to support you, etc they'd be doing it.

All you can control is the amount you put up with.

@AttilaTheMeerkat gave me great advice 2 years ago but I wasn't ready to hear it.

I see the thread has moved on but I wanted to pick up on them this point so you don’t dwell on it.

*I wish now I'd just faded away without saying why, and then she would have had to have asked me what was wrong.

I think it would have had slightly more impact if she had to sit there wondering why I wasn't in touch, rather than spending that time feeling really defensive that she is perfect.*

This is at best wishful thinking. There is not a chance in hell that she would have reflected and come to the conclusion she hurt you or reached out with the intention of fixing things. She would have slagged you off to all and sundry about what a horrible daughter you are. Your brother would have given you a hard time for being so cold to your mum. Random relatives would have contacted you to tell you how much your silence was injuring your poor martyred mother.

It would be another paragraph in the long essay your mother writes about you being always in the wrong. You’d then be in the position of thinking why didn’t I just say something? Heads they win, tails you lose. Always.

The problem isn’t you and anything you might have said or done differently.

If a professional counsellor allowed himself to be manipulated by her when our family dynamics are so text book, I'd be surprised.

Professional counsellors are fooled all the time by people. I’ve read countless threads on here where an abuser puts on a show and uses the therapy session to further abuse the victim. Either by learning more about thei weak spots, getting the counsellor onside and ganging up, or by using therapy speak between sessions to manipulate the other person into doing what they want.

You are not going into it with the same intentions. You want to fix the relationship. She wants to squash you into compliance.

I'm having therapy on my own and it has helped.

I'm not tied up in knots at all. I did update the thread but I'm not tied up in knots. I feel strong.

Going NC before you've got to the point of not caring is one solution, but if no contact doesn't feel right then it won't bring peace. It will protect you in the short term I know.

What will feel right to me would be very low contact with the "reward" of upping contact a little if they displayed empathy for me. But I'd be assesing continuously.

Very low contact would bring me more peace than no contact. Not saying I won't end up NC. I've no plans to contact her! I've blocked her.

"What will feel right to me would be very low contact with the "reward" of upping contact a little if they displayed empathy for me."

When have these people ever shown you empathy?. I would argue your mother is incapable of feeling empathy and none of them have ever shown you empathy. Rewarding their behaviour with upping contact levels if they "behave" is also an exercise in frustration. How would you measure their "good behaviour" and or "progress" here?. Your family's interest in keeping you in the scapegoat role to which you were assigned is far more important to them and your other family members do not want to rock the boat.

Going no contact is a huge decision and it’s easy for people on an Internet forum to suggest it. Much harder to follow through with it (I speak from experience).

That said, your replies are very much rooted in wanting your mother to change which is understandable but not likely. People rarely change unless they are forced to.

If you woke up tomorrow and knew your mother would never, ever change - what would you do differently?

I wonder if you make space to grieve the loss of the relationship that you’ll never have with her. It’s a horrific thing to have to do, to acknowledge that there is nothing anyone you or anyone else can do or say to make your mother care for you the way you want to do.

Have you tried looking at transactional analysis concepts? Look up Theramin Trees on YouTube. I’ve found that really helpful for dealing with my abusive/neglectful relatives.

I also don’t think you will get what you want from family therapy. Therapy isn’t about sitting a family in a room and pointing out the “bad one” and making them admit and repent. The perceived bad one wouldn’t stay if it worked like that. Family therapy works when everyone is willing to make changes.

I am already very low contact. I don't want to make a black or white rule that I feel I have to stick to. I trust myself now to assess. We live in the same town though.

But, I'm not contacting her and not planning to right now, and I've blocked her (and my Dad) not that my Dad EVER contacts me unless it's to give out to me for hurting Mum. So. I guess I am no contact but I don't want to call it that atm.

I'm not against going NC at all but I would prefer to deal with the situation by becoming more and more detached. That is happening bit by bit. I'm working hard on it (therapy, meditation, EFT, books and youtube clips).

I certainly won't be going over there for Sunday lunch but I think people can go 'nc' but still not be free in their head! I would have stalled if I'd gone NC too soon I think. When/if I do, it won't be too soon. NC isn't a magic wand to solve things. I am aiming for freedom in my head so that very occasionally seeing them because we're low contact doesn't de-rail me at all.

@AttilaTheMeerkat can I ask, do you ever cross paths with your parents/family? Did you have to cut them all off? Sorry if you've told your story a million times and don't feel like discussing how you came to cut them off.

@Annabel19 I think you would understand. It's not as clear cut for me to say that they have never showed me empathy. They are damaged themselves and push their emotions under the rug. You can't walk on the rug. You can hardly leap over the rug now at this point there's so much under it! But they have been good to me in the ways that they're capable of.

Have you tried looking at transactional analysis concepts? Look up Theramin Trees on YouTube. I’ve found that really helpful for dealing with my abusive/neglectful relatives.
Thanks @DelilahDingleberry
I will look up theramin trees. This last year I've been watching Jay Reid, Patrick Teahan and I did the Bethany Webster mother wound course. They were and are all good. Now I'm working on being kind to myself. I thought I was, but I can give it more.

At the very least, a family therapy could be a reset where I just play the part of daughter again but with freedom in my head now.. I tell them the garden is lovely and the weather is colder than forecast, but I just expect nothing and react to nothing.

I am almost past caring though. If she doesn't arrange it, it won't happen. And I'd be surprised if she did.

Thank you for all the comments, even if it seems like I'm disagreeing or not taking advice on board, it's all helpful, it's all valuable.

Going no contact is a huge decision and it’s easy for people on an Internet forum to suggest it. Much harder to follow through with it (I speak from experience).

And I speak from personal experience that it can be very easy to follow through with it. This is the case for myself. I just thought fuck this for a game of soldiers and that was it. It was indeed a magic wand and I honestly never gave it a second thought afterwards. Only time it pops into my head is with a thread like this or someone telling a story in person and I think ‘oh, that’s right I had problems and did that’. Otherwise I honestly never think about it. Life’s too short and busy for crap.

I just expect nothing and react to nothing.

I think this is possible but much, much harder than it sounds. It means fully accepting that you won’t get what you need from them and really realising that it is not your fault. It is not your fault that she hurts you. It is not your fault that you don’t get what you need. I hope you can find a way forward that feels right for you.

I think that mediation or family therapy are for situations where both sides acknowledge that a breakdown in relations has occurred and both are motivated to change to try to rebuild. It’s not for where one side (however justifiably) feels that they’re the innocent victim and wants to get the mediator or counsellor to ‘get through’ to the aggressor.

As someone from a very dysfunctional family background I think I understand where you’re coming from, though. I still catch myself wishing that someone, anyone, would understand truly what it’s been like to be me being brought up and then trying to function as an adult with very neglectful and abusive parents. Because outwardly the abuse wasn’t too bad (I probably fall into the ‘we took you to stately homes’ category) I often find it hard to acknowledge just how damaging it in fact was. When you’ve grown up with that the major thing you learn is that you don’t matter, and not to trust your own feelings or instincts. So you look for external validation that you’re ‘right’ to feel the way you do about your upbringing and the relationship or lack thereof that you have with your family now. If I’m not careful it becomes a vicious cycle: I want validation, to be told I’m in the right, but relatively few people understand family breakdown and I at best get incomprehension and at worst the ‘but she’s your mother!’ reaction, so I feel worse and look for more external validation... and so it goes.

In the end peace comes only from learning to acknowledge, trust and value your own feelings, understanding and memories. External validation from professionals or friends is nice if it comes but it won’t fill that great hole of not trusting yourself internally. And you will almost certainly never get the validation you crave from your parents and they will probably never admit they did anything wrong; this lack of such a fundamental relationship is a wound you might well carry all your days and it might well be impossible to make up for the lack of that secure early relationship that a good enough parent creates with their young child. But you can come to accept that, make peace with it, and stop it ruining the rest of your life.

I don’t know how to suggest finding internal validation - for me, one day in my late 30s it just suddenly clicked for me that my feelings matter as much as theirs, that I have a right to be treated well and that I neither need to put up with their shit any more nor convince them nor anyone else of the rightness of my cause. It’s not been all plain sailing since but life has got a lot better.

I wish you well and hope you manage to find some peace.

I’m also aware the above may well be entirely my projection, but of course you will ignore it if it’s unhelpful.

That was very wise and helpful.
I am getting there wrt needing their validation less. I used to want their respect, just that basic minimum level of respect that would stop them calling them paranoid and then, if I asked them not to call me paranoid, stop them from calling me sensitive! And then if I got mad that there was another new insult, not to call me ''angry''.

Now, although I want things to be ok again on a very superficial level I think now I can just just accept talking about the weather. They can summons me to play the part of daughter but they can't summons me in to the approval seeker I once was. I have done a 360 now and I just don't respect them.

Before I wanted to connect.......... have a voice, blah blah blah but I've given up on that now, but things are so bad, they need a reset just to go back to talk about the garden and the weather.

I think now I can play the role they wanted me to because I couldn't care less anymore.