Have you successfully reduced time with emotionally abusive parents?

[VerlynWebbe]

I am curious about how you felt when you started changing the way you behaved towards them, and how you feel now?

I know there are a number of people on Mumsnet who have come to terms (or are in the process) with the fact that their parents aren’t able to love/respect them. I spent many years feeling bewildered as to why my father would not look at me and see a strong, thoughtful, moderately successful, hard-working and happy person. He would pick out character flaws (sometimes things I was worried about, but he didn’t know that) and focus on them, or invent scenarios where I was an awful person. Over the years, I have been useless, interfering, had my head in the clouds, been a fantasist, been lazy (as a sahm for a while…), useless again.

Something happened a few years ago with family, where I realised he doesn’t like any of us, actually, and he will never be different. At first, I was mortified that I hadn’t ever considered that he didn’t actually like me, when it was bleedin’ obvious. He said terrible things! I would go back over past things he’d said and done, and berate myself for not having seen it. I’d imagine how good things could have been for me if I had spotted this in my teens. And then I realised I did, in fact, consider it in my teens, I just didn’t believe it could be possible. I lied to myself for years.

Now I’ve come out the other side (I think?) and I feel quite calm about him. We aren’t estranged, but I don’t make too much effort to contact him, and he’s never used this against me, so I guess it’s fine. He rarely messages or calls me, and we see each other about once a year. I’m more adept at spotting his patterns of behaviour, and my responses to them, and I find it easy to manage.

But there’s still a sadness, isn’t there? And I know in my heart it’s not because of who I am inside, I know it’s him (he treats so many people this way) but I am still gutted when I remember things he said when I was a little girl. Is there ever an end point where you just feel fine?

Sadness is a very normal natual reaction to society's emphasis on the family above all else.
Many families have issues, but shame is a huge emotion attached to them, for children that grow up in disfunction.
The shame can be crushing, especially if you are reared amidst friends that have largely normal families.
Of course children just want to be loved, valued and cherished.

As you age the sadness often decreases as acceptance grows. Their death is often an enormous relief when it arrives.
Being able to say "both my parents are dead" with no need to add anything further to a question about their existence, is such a relief.

So IMO acceptance is where it is at, the holy grail, which is hugely accelerated by the finality of death.
Acceptance that it is over, cannot be changed, that they are now dust. The peace is a real blessing.
When the first parent dies, their can be some complicated emotions around your own mortality, but they pass.
We cannot change anyone, it is hard to change things about ourselves.
So when you really start to embrace that and step away, it really is the beginning of the road to calm, peaceful, acceptance. A great place to reside.

In my opinion and in my own case it’s like grief. It gets better over time but it always leaves a shadow. I’ll always wish I had a better upbringing and someone to be close with. All I can do is make sure I give that to my own children. I know I can’t get it myself and sometimes it still stings a little. I’m fully aware it’s on them and not on me so at least I know longer carry the shame, just the wish.

If you have to or feel you have to have contact with them , then Grey Rock them , don't tell them your problems or plans and do nice things and tell them afterwards.

I'm a huge grey rock fan. It's been life-changing for me. It feels like a gentle redistribution of the power dynamic. You get to know you are taking action, and you're not asking for permission or approval to do it. There's no conflict, no difficult situations. It's active in your mind, but it looks passive from the outside. And it so quickly becomes a habit.

I got rid of my landline. I switch my ringer and notifications off during the working day. I go on holiday/away with friends but I don't talk about it beforehand. I never discuss medical problems. I never talk about work, friends, none of that. I could go on! But you get the idea.

At the start of 2020 I told my mum that it was getting to me how little effort she made with me. Since then she has deliberately ignored and excluded me as much as possible and when she does have to engage with me is as deliberately unkind to me as she can get away with without my sister realising. It has opened my eyes to how awful it has always been. There is almost no decision to make about whether to have contact or not as she so clearly avoids me. The only question is whether she truly doesn't want to see me ever again or I am being punished for speaking up but will still be expected to care for her when she needs help. I wont help her. Most of the time I accept it and in a lot of ways it is much easier now we don't see her and I am happier and less anxious than I used to be but, like others have said, there is an underlying sadness about not having a loving mum.

Oh, that's so sad. Another one who has nailed her colours to the mast.

Would you consider talking to your sister and making your boundaries clear now, about caring for her when she needs care? Obviously, she's not going to want that from you (if she doesn't want contact now), but is your sister aware?

I really do sympathise, rejection from a parent is tough. Same for all of you on this thread. And it's always a little bit there in the background, regardless of how well we manage it!

I have tried talking to my sister but she is the golden child and can see no wrong in my mum. My mum is very devious and everything she does is now clear as day to me but is always deniable if you know what I mean. I don't think my sister will ever see the reality and will probably only see me being mean to our mum (and her) by not helping. I do hope that as time passes she might realise the truth but I know it often never happens

Sending love to all who have posted on here. And those lurking and reading with that all too well known feeling of free fall in your stomach.

I went no contact about 4.5 years ago. Parents both died about 2 years ago. Sibling who is deep in deification has stopped talking to me now after being ‘not ready to see you yet’. She’s knows about the psychopathy. She’d seen the physically attacks on their small child because they lost a game. And it’s all that and a lot more abuse AND no love ever from them.

The point I wanted to make as someone almost 5 years down the road Is that your journey continues as long as you live. Your parents may have died but your recovery still continues as long as you can sit with your Little You. I’m finding deeper and deeper okayness about what at first seemed like an excruciating and never-ending fucktangle. The dust takes a long long time to settle as it would when you’re wrapping your head around a reality that almost everyone you ever met told you is false. The reality that your parent held no love for you and that in the place where there should have been cherishing and nurture, there was pain.

It’s absolutely right that this takes a lot of time and space and love.

It is a grieving process I first realised around age 10 that my mum didn’t love me , have now had 40 years of it being made clear on every interaction with her. My dad is like a vegetable just believes what she says and does what he is told for a quiet life hwve no evidence of him caring either . I stood up to her for the first time aged 50 politely as she makes racist offensive comments (heavily influenced by the daily mail) pointed out she had said something offensive neither of them have spoken to me or their only grandchildren since . It has been truly eye opening and confirms they don’t love any of us we re just there to do what she wants and satisfy her fantasy of life

In my experience, those that allow themselves to be thanklessly dragged into elder care despite being treated very poorly are left additionally damaged.
IMO, far better to put firm distance and boundaries in place with siblings on that score. It is amazing how many golden children who basked in their love and support will expect full participation from the abused black sheep of the family who stepped away.
Far better to refuse to engage if you can.
Therapy would be helpful to support you as you establish your boundaries on this score.

I don't think my sister will ever see the reality and will probably only see me being mean to our mum (and her) by not helping. I do hope that as time passes she might realise the truth but I know it often never happens

Being understood is so massively important to humans in social systems with family being the first and most important. When parents are disordered children are sitting ducks in one big ol’ nasty Hurt Machine. I’m increasingly seeing the dropping away of other relationships as just evidence of it being it is what it is. I think if I was wildly wrong and delusional in my assement of how sick my family is that my siblings wouldn’t want to keep away from me. If one of my siblings estranged themselves from another sibling and it was clear they were a bit delusional in their opinion I would be concerned for them, not shun them. Shunning them would look like there we something deeper going on.

The value thing, yes that's what I have with my mum. I am only contacted when she needs me to do something. Just no interest in me at all. My value is in my computer/admin fixing skills or ordering stuff online for her.

There’s a grieving process, perhaps not so much for them, but for the relationship you should have had (and really, really tried to have). Who that person should have been in your life, how things could have been, how different they were to the parents of friends and the lovely relationships you see them having.

In my case I tried, and tried, and tried but “D”M never changed. She behaves as if I’m a terrible person who she needs to constantly correct and berate, be negative with and cause drama, no matter what is happening. I realised sometime in my 30s that she enjoys being this way and I’m just her current target……so I stopped providing ammunition. She initially reacted badly and doubled-down, fortunately that just confirmed I’d made the right decision!

@Freshnminty I’m a terrible person who she needs to constantly correct and berate, be negative with and cause drama, no matter what is happening.

This is so accurate to my own situation. Second to last time I saw my father, he revived a story of my feckless badness that happened 30 years ago. He had remarried, and I asked him if I could use our old house - he had moved to his new wife's place - for a New Year holiday with friends. OK, he said (which was nice) and we had a few days of laughs, card games, a few drinks. We were not massive partiers, but it was new year, so we had some drinks! And we cooked. And we cleaned the house! But I left a pan unwashed by accident.

Thirty years later, after a pretty much exemplary life where I've caused him no trouble and asked him for nothing much, he still brings this up, with a nasty tone, as 'that three-day house party you had, with the booze and the mess, and probably drugs as well'. I just have to laugh. I could never, ever make him understand.

@VerlynWebbe yep, they love being able to tell negative stories that fit their narrative of the person they’ve decided you are!

“I just have to laugh. I could never, ever make him understand.”

He understood alright. He understood that he had to always feel superior to you no matter how pathetic it looked or what he lost or how it hurt you. None of that came into it. He just needed you to be bad/stupid/anything but okay, or god forbid, lovable.

My dad had a fantasy version of me where I was some long standing aggressor. Experts in psychology are baffled by the cruelty of humans sometimes so I have to be patient that it makes no sense to me, a minimum paid white collar worker with scant qualifications.

I might not understand it but at least now I can name it.

I was emotionally, psychologically and sometimes physically abused by my parents for my entire childhood and negatively compared to my golden child sibling.

It took a particularly abusive event/s and I realised it was never going to stop. They saw me as ‘less than’, there was no love from them and no concern, just spite, venom and cruelty. It was like that turning point in any abusive or toxic relationship. I realised I was worth more than what they were putting me through (which was a big turning point for me as I had no self-esteem up until then due to the constant insults and abuse from them), and I just couldn’t take anymore of them. I dropped the rope, lost all hope that I had that they would treat me any differently and realised that actually I didn’t love them either. I don’t think of them as my parents anymore. I never want to see them again.

I feel a pain inside me that feels like a hollowed out, empty part of me. That part of me doesn’t miss them, it’s a part of me where the love, care and understanding of a parent should be, but that has always been empty because I’ve never had any of that.

Experts in psychology are baffled by the cruelty of humans sometimes so I have to be patient that it makes no sense to me

That's a very useful sentence. Thank you. I have spent years "understanding" that in part it's his background, but still baffled as to why he doesn't stop himself. Or try to stop himself. (Maybe he does.)

Perhaps the whole thing is just unknowable, even by experts, and we should just let that bit of pain go.

@Grennwyld I was emotionally, psychologically and sometimes physically abused by my parents for my entire childhood and negatively compared to my golden child sibling.

So sorry. Lots of us have mentioned the golden child. It's unbearable.

Is your sibling still the golden child? Mine was dropped by my father. But up till I was about 30, with a degree, a postgrad qualification, a husband and a steady job!, I was the one having to listen to how great they were and all the things my dad was doing to help. Now their life has gone awry and I hear literally nothing. (NC with mother and me/LC with father: I'm VLC with mother and LC with father. What a family!)

“(NC with mother and me/LC with father: I'm VLC with mother and LC with father. What a family!)”

There’s always a care giver with no empathy at the core of these families. It’s the outworking of the way the parent moulds(damages) relationships.

I ripped the plaster off and went no contact six months ago.

I felt relief, sadness, relief, sadness. Got some therapy with a specialist therapist in narcissistic abuse (well worth every expensive penny), read the book "you're not the problem". In a much better a place now. I feel hopeful about the future and looking forward to living my own authentic life.

In hindsight LC was just prolonging the torture. I wish I'd gone NC sooner, but here we are.

It can feel really lonely, but you are not alone in your experience know that. Too many people suffer.

Good luck to everyone on this thread who is dealing with narcissistic parents. They're inflict terrible harm.

It is very hard to come to terms with. I am in contact, and fairly regular contact at that (phone call maybe once a week, visit every 3 weeks or so). I live close enough that visits can be short. I grey rock the heck out of my mother (and father but he is not really interested in me so is easier to handle) and make myself utterly boring. Nothing is ever happening in my life (that I tell them about). I refuse to feed drama and gradually build stronger boundaries. Periodically my mother notices that I am withdrawing and starts love bombing. I make myself even more boring and after a while she loses interest. I have a sibling who is totally enmeshed and family get togethers are very unpleasant and difficult.

I do now feel I have the strength to go NC if she really oversteps the mark. I would rather not deal with the family uproar and surely my parents cannot go on forever. Both will soon be in their 80s and neither is in tip top health. I'd rather not rock the boat and if I do it will be because I have been forced to.

I've been having therapy for a couple of years. I am still sometimes sad and sometimes angry and sometimes find myself tempted to respond to her in a way that she wants so she will be nice to me. I think I have mostly come to terms with the fact that she will never be interested in anyone other than herself. It is sad, and I grieve for the poor child that I was, who was at her mercy and was so dreadfully treated by her. Currently I am striving for indifference to her.

@VerlynWebbe

I 🤔 think the way your father is could well be cause he is weird and envious you are much better at certain things than he is and he feels inadequacies about that,

Your mother could be enabler and have personal issues of her own that complement his issues and personality type too,

He could very well have very severe personality disorders nothing you can do can ever change that,

I would seek good therapy or therapies to address the emotional and pschological effects of having such a extremely shitty father as this too...

It's obviously hard or there wouldn't be so many people commenting on this and other threads. LC/NC hasn't solved it for me. Just hiding in my cave. The sadness still seeps in when I'm not busy with something else.

Last I heard the golden child was very much still a golden princess in their eyes. She married a very wealthy man and as they only value money and status it solidified her golden status. My sister dropped me when she realised I wasn’t going to roll over and carry on being the emotional punchbag for the family any longer. I haven’t seen any of them for over a decade.