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I am so Mad and Frustrated right now. It baffles my mind how much my parents can still ruin my life even living 1,200km away from me. They will stop at nothing to ruin my life. This is really bad but right now I hate them SO much. Yesterday was the last straw when my Aunt - the only relative I can still talk to and trust and get advice from showed up at my door suggesting I should visit my parents. Are you F*cking Insane? Do you know what those people will do to me?? To my newfound, barely stable sense of self, my marriage, my business, my life? My first suicide attempt forced them into therapy. A few years later when I had escaped from home and the trauma of just being their child caught up with me I booked myself into a psych hospital. I took responsibility for my back then broken relationships and I've relooked and relearnt everything they taught me. Do you have any idea how difficult that was? How painful? And how courageous? Ever since then I've kept my narc parents on strictly low contact and I have never been happier! I've never been healthier! I have me, I take care of me, I have an awesome marriage, I'm growing my own small business. I am doing well. Better than I ever thought I would. I haven't had suicidal tendencies in a whole year. Do you know what a big step that is for me? But now after I've missed one Christmas, married the man my parents love to hate, and haven't visited the Easter weekend my parents have summoned to whole crazy family to come after me because they miss me and I'm doing things I'll regret later and my husband is a washout and I don't have a steady job. You know - they're just worried about me. And they even called my aunt - the very last family member I still trusted and lied and manipulated until she showed up at my door suggesting I should go visit the witch and the evil wizard. I am so upset right now. I have no idea how to deal with this. Please any advice would be appreciated.
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I'm alive, I'm sleeping like a rock, and for some reason I wanted cherry juice so that seems to be helping. (??? Weirdo that I am.)***Infamous therapies over history:1. The Attic. The madwoman in the attic is a motif in literature going waaaaaay back: the nutty female relative is locked in the attic. (See: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte for a grotesquely racist version of it, and Charlotte Perkins...
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Welcome to the Perseid meteor showers, the "biggies" usually every year. (The Leonids beat 'em one year IMHO).AND today much of the northern hemisphere will see 5 to 99% solar eclipse. How cool is that? Your best bet is to be in the UK or norhtern Spain, where totality is excellent before sundown. Me, I'll get a super duper tiny itty bitty slice of it, so little that it won't be noticeable. New...
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My dad? Totally fit the profile for narcissistic personality. My late sister (another abuser)? Same. Half my dad's siblings? Either victims or NPDers. I have *one* aunt I e-mail only --- and she's learned to never ever tell me about "family" and so forth ever again. Ever. She may have found a way to forget, but I fought enough to forgive.
And, yes, I DO know. I had one parent like that and can't count the struggles, the guilt, the horror shows that were parto f that entire yucky web.
I don't know *your* struggle. But I know mine.
Low to no contact is the only survival mechanism that works for my sanity. Held to a total no-fly zone around my dad's family since 2009, and a almost-no-fly zone from 1994. Never regretted it. Nor do they, really.
I'd say stande firm, and say, "Thanks for yoru concern, but I'm busy working," and leave it at that. My two cents, take or leave or toss in a fountain, whatever.
And deep breathing!
You're upset and in pain but mainly you sound really really angry and that's great because anger is the most adequate response to all this shit. And yes, I know about narcistic parents too. And I have an aunt who tried to push me to see them again. I cut contact with her but I like Leo's way of handling it (telling her to never mention your parents again).
Stay true to your boundaries, you're entitled to them and you've come so far, achieved so much in your life. Yes, that took an enormous amount of strength and courage and I congratulate you on it.
Advise? Do NOT go and see the witch and evil wizard. You know that already, just confirming it.
My father went from being a very eloquent pastor of a mega church of 3,000 to being disgraced. Whether he was guilty or not, he had a nervous breakdown and was unable to do anything for a living but mow lawns.
Out of compassion, I gave contact another chance, even though he had ruined my wedding becoming physically violent 8 years before. However, giving him another chance wound up with the same result. When I went to his house to visit him for Christmas he punched me in the face. I was sick at the time, curled up on his couch with kidney disease. It didn't matter.
Obviously, I love my dad or I wouldn't have risked physical danger to try to be with him in his time of crisis. However, there's a definition of insanity that says it is doing the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result.
My getting therapy for my issues with him, I learned, doesn't fix him. It took me six months of work with my therapist after that Christmas, but after giving him another chance to curb his violence I broke off contact forever. Since I knew I might be giving up my chance to memorialize him at his funeral, every paragraph of my goodbye letter repeated the very true line that I still loved him and always would.
I do. Some people don't understand, but I guess they never had to live with a mentally ill, violent parent like mine. I have. You're not alone.
I thought I'd be just fine without my parents and lived that way for many years. However, the people and circumstances in my life caused triggers from time to time. I was not fine. I was coping and I was protecting myself the best way I knew how. .
I thought if I never saw my mom again, it would be fine with me. Even when Mother's day came, I somehow felt compelled to get her a card but would just stand there staring at the cards, knowing that none applied to her and our relationship. My step-dad totally left me as if I was never, ever apart of his family. BUT over time and some books on forgiveness, in my heart I began to let go and forgive. It's your choice to see them or not, to engage or not and to love from a distance. So many of my friends have lost their mom and I am grateful that I was able to forgive my mom while she is still here. I hope you can heal from all that happened in your past and I hope that your parents come to realize the role they played. Praying the best outcome for you.
IF you google the 2 above it really explains a lot too. It is a struggle and the damage they do to kids ( unless. you become a narcissist too and then your always right). Narcissistic parents also produce pleasers. We are the ones that run around and try to be on high alert to please the narcissistic parent and to get love from them..it never works
I even married a narcissist and felt unconscious, if I could get him to love me, I could get my Mom to love me. I feel minimal contact is best. When you change and improve your life, they will be most worried as they like you weak and pathetic as that elevates them. There is no cure for narcissists, my therapist told me. Rarely see them unless in couples counseling...there is nothing wrong with narcissists, they are perfect and always right so no need for counesellinh...sad actually
I just finished reading the Toxic Parents it was good. I have read several books on narcissism and it helps. Have a few on my phone I listen to when I run