The silent treatment runs in my family. They are like haughty toddlers.

[AnFiadhRua]

So sick of it, and dreading Christmas. It's weird how rife it is, clicked on two threads and two people are being given the silent treatment by their partners.

My mother used to give me the silent treatment the moment I failed to endorse her rosy perception of herself. My father holds her coat in this quite happily, her willing foot soldier. My brother threw me under a bus for trying to be heard. They all talk about me but not to me.

The narrative in my family of origin is that I am sensitive, emotional, that I ....shout

And yet, my mother, having orchestrated a smear campaign that has reached cousins via my aunts, now wants ''a happy Christmas''.

She wants me to play the part of Daughter. Summonsed back to play the part of daughter but still, just to be clear, STILL denied any voice, any communication. She told me that my father and her decided not to throw accusations around. What I call a conversation, she calls '''throwing accusations around''.

If you try to connect with my mother, she literally gets angry.

But if I'm to go back to heel for Christmas, not sure what I'll be invited to under sufferance yet, but the narrative will be that they're saints overlooking my ''behaviour'' (ie, me raising my voice trying to make my point after they'd decided between them that there would be NO conversation with me about the hurt I told them they caused me, but not telling me that this was decided, and yet, when I said that they were stonewalling me, I was told ''no we're not''.)

I'm single and that's a problem only in that they don't respect me on my own. If I had a partner in my corner they would have acknowledged that they hurt me. But they have no respect for me. They own me.

I must respect their right to hurt me and stone wall me. But.............. I'm summonsed at Christmas. Even though, whatever distorted martyred accounts of our falling out my mother has given to my aunts, they didn't respond to a simple text I sent to thank them for something they sent to my daughter.

Anybody else feel like their family has the emotional intelligence of a bunch of toddlers? But worse, haughty toddlers who have zero self-awareness but act appalled by my ''behaviour''.

If I cut them off, I'll be the worst in the world and it'll be half way around Ireland what an ingrate I am after all they did for me. The 8 aunts will tell the 32 cousins who'll tell their spouses and they all believe it.

I dont think I could ever have not tried to "get through" to them though. That was just where I was mentally when this kicked off. Im less enmeshed now.

Still enmeshed though, clearly, as I still care far too much what they think.

outofthefog.website/ 💐

I have been through emerging from a fog when i left my x but now im doing it again.

As individuals my family not bad people like my x was. But the dynamics of our unhealthy family, all of the dydfunction is at my expense so they dont cant wont see it.

Everything in our family revolvescaround sparing my mother a moment's uncomfortable self reflection. I envy her. The anxiety i feel constantly and she has found a way to sidestep that.

Yesterday i felt like my inner voice was telling me, right, you've tried everything to be heard, and you know now you wont be, so your mission for 2022 is to stop caring what they think.

Not sure how to conquer that, but i am asking myself why i give so much weight to their low opinion 0f me (paranoid, sensitive, emotional, and for trying to have a conversation they dont want to have, "abusive" now too. And also "mentally ill").

If a stranger called me abusive and mentally ill id shrug it off but my parents dont really know me. They never wanted to. The knew my role.

Im giving weight to their perception of me when rationally i do that they do not know me.

I need to really square that, cross that, dot that i

I remember reading something about what other people think of me is none of my business.

Also, when you find yourself getting caught up in what someone thinks about you, quickly move to what you think about THEM.

If you think badly about someone, then consciously ask yourself "I don't like this person, they are awful, why would I give a damn about what THEY think of ME".

I'm not saying it is easy but it can become a good habit, and a way to train your thoughts. It does work if you just keep saying it to yourself.

Yes, I really need this to sink in to my core.

I feel self-conscious typing it but I need my inner child to be less dependant on others' approval.

Rationally you can know all of this but it takes a lot of time and work for it to go under your skin.

I need to be unfazed by my mother and father's projections on to me.

This whole shit show kicked off because I couldn't tolerate the injustice of their perception of me (paranoid).

It's not sorted out. Not even a bit. They haven't backed down on the paranoid. Either in the past or in the future. So no resolution has been achieved. And in fact, there are now new labels i have to live with too. So it was paranoid, now it's paranoid, abusive, mentally ill.

I'm going to listen to a few videos about letting go of others' opinions of you today.

Good for you.
This is a great use of your time.

Don't expect it to happen overnight, these things take time to relearn.

My friend once told me when she had an issue that she was consciously trying to retrain her thoughts about, she stuck yellow stick pads with a smiley face drawn, stuck around the house.
These were to remind her constantly of the thought she wanted in her head.
Perhaps you could stick a few up to remind you.

You are doing great, and you will get there.
There is a time thing with this stuff, it gets easier as time goes on.

Be kind to that inner child

Now i'm listening to clips about how to go in to creator role which is apparently an empowered version of the victim role in karpman's drama triangle where you become an empowered version in the role you're in

^ Well that sounds interesting OP, I'll look into that ...

re. "emotional, sensitive, angry" I get that - you will be labelled that way by your family if you step out of android, do-as-you're-told, people-pleaser mode for 10 seconds (and I think sometimes society does that too)