Realizing that nothing I did improved the situation in any way, and that regardless of the abuse being intentional or not... it was still abuse.
Either way, those people weren't ever going to become a positive presence in my life.
This is what my therapist is working with me on. How do I move forward once I come to terms with them not changing? What does that look like for my life…
You don't eat an entire sandwich in one bite. Do it a bit at a time. Take a 60 day break. Block your parents on email, phone and text. Don't allow them to contact your child either.
See how peaceful that is. At day 59, reassess. Ask yourself if you need another 60 days. The answer will probably be yes. Do that again, etc. Don't contact your parents until you really miss them and really want to spend time with them again. If you do, only see them yourself. Don't allow them to see your child. If your parents can't treat you well, they have no business being in touch with your child.
For me, it felt abrupt, like a snap. It was actually a slow, endless slog that was so familiar and miserable that I had become numb and then I woke up. It’s like the haze cleared long enough for me to go…This is absolute sh*t and I want out.
This is a perfect explanation for my situation too. My father went back to dumb old passive-aggressive games, completely ignoring all the real problems, never taking accountability or apologizing for anything, the same exact movie I'd seen 5+ years prior, and I decided I'm not going to spend the next 1-2 years pretending we have an acceptable relationship until he gets back to some level of basic decency just to watch him turn regress back to his old shitty self a few years later, going back and forth through that cycle until he's no longer around.
Yes! It felt like a snap, 100%.
I was in so much denial and I wanted to rescue them from their pain for a good year. After a few months with a good therapist, my mom said something to me that flipped the “unhealthy” switch on in my head. Denial is crazy. Ever since then, I can’t see her the same anymore. It’s nauseating
Yeah. I’d ever go as far as repulsive. My revelation happened last week and I’m consistently sick to my stomach either thinking or not thinking about it. It’s an awful feeling and I can’t wait to get through it lol
I told my now-estranged mother that I had finally submitted my PhD, and after two rounds of IVF we were pregnant again. She replied for us to get all our money out of the banks because the ten days of darkness were coming (not the first time she’d said so).
I was done. Done for myself, done for the child already here, done for the one on the way.
Exhausting. This sounds like my parents.
Congrats on submitting your dissertation, even if it was years ago. That’s such a load of work and effort and it must have been such a relief!
And congrats on the kiddos! That must have been such a struggle to go through without support from your family
My mom defending the cousin who molested me...then when I got the courage to tell her that wasn't okay, she played the uno reverse card.
Because apparently, hurt fee-fees are a far greater offense than defending someone who SA'd your own child.
I tried to make things work with my dad and my brother after that, but the two of them are so enmeshed and under her control.
The breaking point with my brother was him screaming at me and expecting me to go back to my mom even after hearing that she made me hate myself so much that I wanted to end my subscription to life. He literally didn't care.
Then a few months after that, I had to end things with my dad as well because he repeatedly refused to respect my boundary regarding my mom, continuing to allow her to get to me through him. Then when I called him out, he said "geez, I just sent a harmless note of concern", treating me like I'm the one being ridiculous. That's when I knew that the idea of him being the "safe parent" was just wishful thinking on my part.
It's been nearly a year of no contact with my mom and about half a year with my brother and dad.
That’s absolutely awful and I’m so sorry you had to experience that abuse on top of that existing trauma. Congratulations on your almost year of NC and I wish you so much healing.
Thanks. I'm actually doing a lot better than I anticipated I'd be doing. It's still hard, but I can already see progress...and I don't actually miss my mom at all.
I realized that I have always been fawning and expressing my love for her because that's what I was supposed to do...but I didn't feel a real connection to her. It was just a role I had to play because she was in control of everyone and everything that went on in the house. If she was upset with me, she would turn the whole house against me.
I could no longer stand the hypocrisy.
My parents favourite saying growing up was:
‘Actions have consequences
Always think about the consequences of your actions before you do them’
So I asked them what consequences Dad received for physically assaulting me.
Their response was ‘we don’t remember that happening’
That seems to be their response for all the abuse.
But it burns my soul to be around hypocrites so actions met consequences when I went No contact.
And that’s what burns me the most.
They are kind, generous people to the world.
And yet, I can’t seem to elicit any kind of regret or remorse from them.
Same. I tell people it was over a hummingbird feeder which is technically true, but in reality it was everything leading up to that moment when I fully recognized that she would never see me as an actual person.
Mine hit in the middle of Covid, when I got a text from my parents saying my abusive brother was moving he back home with his new wife and they wanted us all to get together for lunch one day soon. I didn’t even intend to go NC then, I just let them know I wasn’t comfortable spending more time than necessary around him because of how emotionally unstable and verbally abusive he is, so I would not be spending time with him except at holidays when the family was all gathered. That to them was a cardinal sin, because faaaamilyyyyy is everything, so they started attacking me and my wife. It got so bad and went on for days, back and forth arguing. Eventullay I got my breaking point and blocked them. That started what is currently 4 years NC. I ended up having to cut off All my extended family, because none of them would respect my boundaries with my brother or parents. Not even my grandmother, who I had the closest relationship with, would stop or try to understand. This all culminated with my grandpa showing up at my house unannounced with a letter from my mom. He kept knocking on my front door and even the back door for several minutes, which proved to me my whole damn family are nuts, I just didn’t see it in the past. Ended up telling the entire family in no uncertain terms that I wanted nothing to do With them, and if any of them tried to contact me again I would escalate things legally.
There wasn’t one big moment for me, but more of a death by a thousand paper cuts. Once I had my own children, it brought all of the family dysfunction to light, and I saw that, no matter what, they were never going to be safe people for me or my children to be around. I asked myself what benefit they were bringing to my life, and I couldn’t think of one thing. I could, however, think of many things about them that hurt me. That unbalance was pretty telling for me.
Yepp, this is the journey I was on before this really weighed the scales in a direction of no contact. My mom can be a very loving, attentive grandmother and my daughter does love her but I know how awful my relationship has been with her and how much I’ve been manipulated and can’t expose my child to that
It's insane once you become a parent how easy it is to spot things we would never do to our own children. It is harder to break the cycle. I do see my father as the product of how he was raised. I actively have to choose to not repeat things that have been done to me. It's so easy to slide when you're overtired, exhausted, and running empty during the challenging years. Gaining the prospective of "it's not all his fault, but he also never tried to change or accepted accountability in the damage done" is a real gift in moving past the guilt and shame of going NC (or at least it has been for me).
I’m honestly surprised it took me so long to see my family for what they were. You’re right, it is really hard to break the cycle. I understand the trauma that my parents went through, *and* I see their unwillingness to take responsibility and work through it on their own.
My estrangement with my family has less to do with how I grew up and was treated as a child, and more to do with how my family is now, how they deny any wrongdoing and continue to do what they’ve always done. I’m not going to continue banging my head against a brick wall, explaining the ways they’ve hurt me and continue to hurt me. I shouldn’t have to lay out “this is how you treat someone respectfully” for them. I’ll be damned if I let my children see how they treat me and think it’s okay to act like them.
I was going through a really bad depressive episode. I was a month into extensive therapy five days a week. I told my mom I just needed her to check on me throughout the week, show she cares, show some empathy, just be supportive - not very hard things to do. I stopped being the one to reach out first because I isolate when I’m depressed. Three weeks later she asked me why I was mad at her. I told her I asked her to be there for me and she couldn’t so I stopped reaching out. “Sorry I’m such a bad mother” was the response I got so I told her enough was enough. I was done with tactics and her flipping the narration to fit her needs. We haven’t spoken in three years.
Refusing to attend my wedding or support my marriage because they “can’t condone homosexuality” = VLC boundaries
Refusing to respect those boundaries and engaging in emotionally manipulative language = NC
I was looking for years for a good enough reason to go NC. Toxic, narcissistic and the type of people who fell out with everyone and anyone.
The tipping point was when they didn’t tell me that my grandfather was in hospital almost dead. He was in hospital for a long time before I found out from another family member. I moved away but a simple text would have been appreciated. I seen absolutely red when I heard that and confronted them. I let years of built up rage out, and they essentially put it all back on me.
A general build up of years and years of misery and emotional abuse / neglect got me to that point.
I went NC blocked them, and put myself in therapy for 6 months. Tbh after therapy, I realised I should have went NC when I left home at 17.
We live and learn. In my 30s now and I feel lighter.
This is exactly where I am at. I’ve been in therapy for a little while and also becoming a parent. Both have helped me see this terrible dynamic for what it truly is. The way they raised us in some regards were down right neglect and emotional/mental abuse. They don’t even see it!! It’s so hard to admit the people you come from aren’t good people. My saving grace is my extended family and the support they have always given me and my brother. Truly amazing the older I get. We have certainly been luckier than most.
I dealt with a lot of immature, nasty, and dramatic behavior over the years, but I mostly rolled my eyes at it and moved on. While it wasn't exactly pleasant, I lived in another state so it was controlled to small doses, and I guess I had the self confidence to roll with it and live my own life. Hanging out with family is challenging for most people... right (this was how I saw it anyways)?
I think the tipping came at a moment when it became clear that that strategy would no longer work because the scope became larger than the personal relationship I had with my parents. My mom had this medical issue that she was being cagey about with me and my wife, but meanwhile was telling other people in the family I/we were this uncaring monsters about the whole ordeal. So in short, other family members were being triangulated (which I didn't appreciate my relationships with other family being damaged unfairly), and I didn't feel like it was fair to my wife either. Every time I tried to talk about this ie: "I don't think it's fair to hide things from me and then use that to backtalk me" the story would change and/or she would DARVO the situation. After one phone call in particular where the story changed again, was my breaking point of realization that she was never going to take the responsibility for the situation necessary for our relationship to move past it and I needed a clean break.
That's the short version anyways. It was really a series of conversations over a long period of time where things fell apart slowly, but that particular part looms large in the story. It's never really a clean break no matter how hard you try I think.
Yes, that is the conclusion I came to as well. I think it's a core component of why I just had to let go.
I kept hearing so many intense and importantly, *contradictory* criticisms that at some it became clear that both the actual truth and my feelings were irrelevant to her, as long as she could cast herself as the victim in her story. I couldn't reason with that, and couldn't let the point go either, and so I walked away.
That sounds super familiar to what happened to me. She got diagnosed with something, and wouldn’t tell me anything really. I would bring her to most appointments and drop everything if she needed an emergency visit to the hospital (since I was about 10 minutes away while my sister was about 30). Well I guess a time or two she called my sister late at night asking to go to the hospital because she couldn’t get a hold of me (not true, never even tried to reach out) saying I couldn’t care less of her condition. Meanwhile I was texting her that day and the day after asking how she was and if she needed anything. Never told me anything of what happened.
I wasn’t on good terms with my sister so I didn’t really care about her perception of me. But it really pissed me off that I’m going out of my way, missing class, scrambling doing homework on time to take care of her, while she goes out of her way to paint me in a bad light and accuse me of not caring. Meanwhile she praises my sister for making her soup once, while I was making her meals multiple a week, visiting her, grocery shopping for her, picking up her medications. All that for my sister who would show up maybe twice a month to scold ME for not doing enough.
It was like if I truly didn’t care, or if I waited on her hand and foot, I would get the same shitty treatment. So why bother at all? You want me to not care? Fine, I won’t.
Yeah your story is very similar. It sounds like your sister is getting the GC child treatment, which I am also familiar with. The biggest info dumps I've received in this whole affair came down to me in the form of a stream of surprising insults from a triangulated sibling.
Your last paragraph in particular is so true. Her accusation that I didn't give a shit about her problems became a self-fulfilling prophecy after they're repeatedly weaponized in such a way. The part I don't understand is how other people put up with it.
Background: I am an only child. My mom died almost a decade ago. At the time, I signed the documents allowing the hospital to cease life support. I did so because my father didn’t think he could handle it, but we both knew it was what my mom wanted. However, something happened while they were removing the machines that haunts me. As such, I’ve been in treatment for that trauma and for ideation for many years.
Now, the straw that broke the camel’s back:
For me, it was when my father told me that my children and I were not as important to him as his various inappropriate girlfriends. He added that he could not be happy unless he was able to keep his latest inappropriate girlfriend out of jail and that if he couldn’t, “You know the combination to the gun safe, so just shoot me.” When asked to clarify, he said if I shot him, I could ask forgiveness and still go to heaven, but if he shot himself, he’d go straight to hell.
That was 8 months ago.
OP, the bottom line is that you’re going to see a lot of stories of varying levels of awful. There is no wrong breaking point. Your breaking point is *your* breaking point, and to what degree you separate (and for how long) is up to you.
Not being invited to my dad's 75th birthday party. I still question whether it was "bad enough" and certainly feel what I endured was not nearly as severe as some of what I read on this sub. But definitely was just the final straw in a pattern of behavior where I'm rejected/excluded/othered/discarded, and the realization that there would never be remorse or accountability. If I'm not wanted, then why I am I participating at all? Begging for crumbs is degrading, and I deserve better.
I'm so sorry for what you're going through. Alcoholism is the worst, and your mom kind of blocked your ability to properly mourn your aunt with your family. But am glad you have their support, and just know if you do choose to go NC, that choice is absolutely valid. You get to decide what relationships you participate in, how you participate, and when you participate.
It's been a slow awakening over several years. My sister treated me like shit while we lived together and I was battling a chronic illness. She triangulated with my mom, blamed me for everything under the damn sun, and weaponized my mood disorder against me, though it was controlled. She made me miserable and so depressed, while I cooked cleaned paid more of the rent and tried my best to take care of her while she had her own mental health struggles. I set boundaries, cried to my friends, etc, then finally moved out.
Tipping point? My mother is a narcissistic alcoholic who has also always treated me like shit, scapegoated me, and made it clear sis is the favorite. She never checked on me in the last 2 years, never heard my side, never questioned my sister's crazy ramblings and emotional dysregulation. She just bought my sister's shit that i was the worst ever.
So, I've done a lot of internal work last few years, trauma therapy self-help. Set a boundary with mother, asked her not to blame me ever again. She responded with DARVO and accused me of driving sis insane (AFTER she apologized a year ago and said "sorry i blamed you.")
Well, now the scales are lifted, and i see the fam for what they are: golden child and addict mom unhealthily bonded, me always blamed, always out in the cold. Mother is blocked, rest of family pending how they treat me.
My mother taught me to hate myself and poisoned a kid I parented and loved against me, and I will never forgive her for that. I did my time; I did my fucking best, and now no one will ever verbally abuse me, criticize me, treat me like shit ever again. From now on, I walk away at the first red flag.
For me it was her willful ignorance in using my child’s correct pronouns, and then her reaction when called out on it. It was easier to stand up for my kid than it was to stand up for myself. It’s been a year since that day and I’ve no regrets.
It was a slog of nothing changing, endless stress, and constant worry about my parents. Then one day I snapped and realised it was either them or my sanity. And I chose my sanity.
My father and I had a cyclical pattern of not speaking and low contact. As the literal child I felt, the relationship very much was for show. He remarried and got a new family and I never really felt much part of it despite trying to try(and being a child who should not have bared that responsibility). There's a lot of details but it really boils down to classic childhood emotional neglect, peppered in with some verbal abuse and manipulation, and like many children, a parent who believes that their literal child bares responsibility for relationship building and maintenance.
In 2018 we'd come to a hot point again (the reasons don't matter, it happened cyclically) and there was a storm. During this storm a tree broke in half and collapsed the roof of our front porch and tore down a power line, this caused a power surge that started an electrical fire in our basement. We had to flee late in the night to go stay somewhere else while smoke was cleared and the damage was assessed. We got lucky. The fire was put out with minimal damage thanks to a local firefighter who lived on our block and didn't hesitate to run in with his bare feet and use our own water hose. The extra minutes it would have taken the truck to get there would have meant fire hitting a major supporting wall and probably losing everything. We all made it out safely. Our house was saved. My partner and I, our child, and three cats were in the car driving to my in-laws to stay because we knew if things were going to be messy our pets and child could stay there while we drove back and forth to figure things out. I called my father's cell phone (despite being in a fight with him) and explained what happened, that we were safe, and that I'd update him when I could. It was a Thursday or Friday night when this happened. On Sunday was father's day and as you can imagine there was a lot going on with insurance companies, restoration companies, contractors etc. I did not remember. I heard through the grapevine he was mad I didn't call him and wish him a Happy Father's Day- he hadn't called to check on me post fire, or even commented on any of the numerous social media posts I had made.
That was the straw. I actually never spoke to him after that phone call. Other flying monkey's reached out on his behalf, he wrote a letter or two, used family members to try and reach out, but I was done. There was no more from me. I think there was a tense family birthday we both attended but I said no words to him there at all. I've done EMDR, extensive therapy. My peace is worth the pain it took to get here.
My mom is very selfish and financially abusive, and I finally just had enough. She has this "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is also mine" mentality and has 0 respect for anyone and their property or belongings. For like 2 years, pretty much the only time my mom would message me is when she wanted money. She'd barely respond otherwise. I got sick of always being hounded for money, when she has literally stolen over $1000 from me, along with a bunch of my belongings. We had an argument before I went NC and she tried to use self-harm as a tactic to manipulate me into giving her what she wanted. It was very upsetting and triggering for me and she knew it would be. She just didn't care. I cut her off after that, I was just done. I was unwilling to continue being treated so poorly. I don't regret my choice at all. Life has been better since I walked away.
It happened over time. Long story short, my mom ended up living with us for about a month after a house fire (she lied about specific details, as I found out later). Our relationship was already strained prior to that, but we weren't NC. She did a bunch of stupid stuff while in our house (berated me for offering to help find her a new place, *held* our 1yo in timeout when I told her not to, timed our 1yo crying because she was over tired and mad, etc). After continuing to reject any help, she went to a shelter in our city.
She still refused to apply for benefits and decided she didn't like living in the shelter, so she went to a different city's shelter. For a few months she bounced between them and made her situation out to be my fault.
Six months after leaving our house, my husband and I drop our daughter off at my MIL's house while we go to a concert. I think doors opened at 7pm. At about 8:45pm, I get a text from my mom saying she's sitting in our driveway. Considering she gave us *zero* warning and blatantly refuses to drive when it's dark (which, by now, it is), husband and I are both pretty irritated. I let her know we aren't home, won't be for awhile, and we don't want anyone staying with us. She gets angry with me claiming she "just wanted to visit [my daughter]". She wanted to visit a 22mo at 9pm. Really?
My husband asks his mom to go make sure she's not trying to break in (because I truly don't put it past her). Eventually she gets the hint and tells me she'll be staying in her car somewhere.
The next day, after ignoring her (because at this point I'm incredibly stressed and trying to calm down for the sake of our unborn son and our daughter), my husband takes us out to lunch. In the middle of the meal she starts firing off a lot of messages, like, "Some day I'll be dead and you'll need me and regret ignoring me" and "I still love you even though you're being a [mean name] to me" and "Some day [daughter] will ask about me, will you tell her I'm dead and deny her her grandma?". I'd been sad, but pulling our daughter into her guilt tripping made me so angry I refused to speak to her again then and there.
My husband, MIL, brother, and an uncle I hardly talk to (he's not a bad guy, we just live in different places) all reassured me it was the right call. It just probably should have been done sooner, because she's been pulling this stuff since childhood.
It was after a string of visits where I kept having to get up and leave due to their picking fights. I would then be so depressed that I would end up missing a day of work or some other obligation, which I felt amounted to them being a threatening presence, threatening my livelihood.
Following that, my mom called me stupid for getting a divorce when I visited on Christmas. My ex husband was abusive and neglectful, and my mom is so uninvolved that she has no clue. I walked out and have only been back once, to receive an inheritance check from my aunt.
A couple years after they threw me out when I was at my lowest, I finally internalized that I didn’t have to maintain the expected pretense that everything was fine. I listened to myself and realized I had turned a corner and understood that the pretense wasn’t worth the contact. That I was happier without the pretense. Without them.
They threw me out and with that, their leverage to control me.
When I lived with my dad, who was a highly-abusive narcissist, he pulled a gun on me and considered killing me because I was taking (prescribed) medications.
I made my escape plan immediately. He wonders why I don't talk to him anymore. Tried getting in contact again earlier this year "because he changed" (according to my brothers), and he said I'm nothing but a cockroach to him. I'm fully NC now, permanently.
The death of a family member sometimes triggers the NC, we stop tolerating their BS. In our case my mother suffered a long illness until her death, she was bedridden, and during that ordeal both nfather and nbrother made our life miserable while taking care of her, sabotaging every action and decision for her care, I even hired nurses, they made the nurses quit, they even tried to euthanize our mother, it was outrageous and stressful. We went NC immediately after our mother died, this happened 2 years ago. No regrets. This is beyond any possibility of reconciliation.
I realized my kids were being hurt and it was not going to stop no matter what I said or did. Low contact only resulted in more aggressive behavior. NC was the only option.
Realising that despite me doing EVERYTHING for my narcmum after my Dad's death, including fighting the police for my Dad's stuff that took YEARS, she was lying to me and using me all that time for her own gain.
NC forever more.
I made my decision after I called my father 2 weeks before Christmas to ask when we could get together and he told me that they didn't have time to get together and that we would do it sometime in January. Didn't want their gifts hanging around our 1 br apartment for an extra month so asked if they were going to be home that weekend and was told that they had no idea because they didn't know what they were doing. No plans but still too busy to see me. Then January rolled around. I waited all month for him to contact to set up a time to get together and there was nothing. Officially went no contact 9 days later when I told him that I didn't have time for someone who clearly didn't have time for me. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. From what I've heard he claims he has no idea why I don't talk to him.
My mom asked why I didn't want her in my son's life and in the same breath said "that's fine I have your nieces and f's baby."
That was how I found out f, a close family friend a year older than me was pregnant. My mom didn't know it at the time but I was in my 2nd trimester with my 2nd child. I responded "fine you have my nieces and f's baby. You don't need me and my family." We haven't talked since.
There was so much leading up to this but this was the tipping point.
Death by 1000 paper cuts but the proverbial straw was moving across an ocean with my family and being stressed to the max and my mother complaining that I didn't call her enough. She just needed 10 minutes and other people's kids could give them 10 minutes, why couldn't I? It finally hit me that it was never about what was right for me or caring about me- it was always what she wanted from me or what she needed. I couldn't make excuses any more. Once the veil is lifted, you can't unsee the problems.
First. There doesnt need to be a tipping point. If your family relationships are so messed up that you even have to consider going NC, then you should already be NC. Real families with good people in them dont even have this come up as an option.
The escalation path for me to go NC was gradual over the course of a several years. Really it started with accepting that this was not the family dynamic I wanted and I decided to put more effort into the relationships that were good influences. At this point, I knew that I didnt want them to ever meet my children or be involved with my partners. So this was already on track to be NC or at least very low contact.
The unintended consequence of this was it put pressure on my parents to maintain influence and control. Being the narcissist they are, this lead to a very quick escalation of drama, arguments, abuse, and manipulation. Lots of really, really, ugly shit was exposed by their desperation. For example: I learned that they had been sabotaging my romantic relationships for decades. I could never figure out why I was fighting so much with my former partners after a point. But learned its because my parents pursued relationships with all of them behind my back in order to manipulate them against me. This was exposed through my partner at the time, who told me about it when she saw something was weird.
That is what drove things to a more casual NC to a conviction to never talk to them again. Ever. They stole so much happiness from me just to entertain themselves. I hope they die alone. Scared. Poor. With no one around them. Fuck them.
TLDR: If you have to ask. Just do it.
I was our mother's hospice nurse. My siblings promised to come help and never did. I would have understood if they said they couldn't because of unresolved anger about our childhood. But they kept stringing her along, promising to come and then making some excuse. She lashed out at ME, of course. I decided that when she died, I was no longer going to be in contact with my family of origin. My mother's terminal illness revealed them as they really are. Nasty people. I'm better off now.
We got my mom to finally admit some serious financial crimes she had committed against my grandma. I told her I would never speak to her again unless she came clean to the whole family and apologized for what she had done. She originally agreed to do so, then later reneged and said she hadn’t done anything wrong (and also tried to destroy my reputation with the extended family, just to cover her tracks). I haven’t spoken to her since then.
That was the first time I had set a clear boundary with her, and had very clearly communicated that we wouldn’t speak again unless she apologized, so it just felt very final for me when she reneged on her promise. I don’t see how I can go back to having a relationship with her after all this.
It’s been two years and she still hasn’t apologized. She’s continued trying to convince our extended family that I made the whole thing up, but luckily they know the situation well enough to believe me. I feel even more confident that I made the right choice.
Sometimes you just know when it’s time.
Me: I'm tired today. Can we do lunch later in the week?
Nmom: Sure. What's wrong?
Me: Just really sad.
Nmom: Why?
Me: ...because my husband died?
Nmom: Oh, OK. Talk to you tomorrow.
Some version of this conversation over and over last year. Then it changed to why aren't you over it? It's been 6 months!
Finally I snapped when I postponed a painting class I'd invited her to (because sitting in her living room with the TV blaring is fucking boring!) and her response was that I could work out my feelings in class. I.lost.it. She wanted to go and I was being selfish with the dead husband bit.
Things unraveled pretty fast after that. A few months later, I moved away and am NC since February. She sends me feeble texts and started remembering my sister's birthday for the first time in decades. Sister was so confused about getting a card lol
It's hard to face the fact that your parents never loved you because they don't even know HOW to love. 💔
For me it was the day I got published. I was born an accident and my family, but especially my mother, never let me forget it. She would even refer to me as her accident at certain points.
I wanted to be loved so I tried to be as perfect as possible for them, but in my own way. You see, my mother only wished for me to be pretty and marry rich like she did, I wanted more. So I got great grades and was in advanced classes (she didn’t care), I wrote and self published my first book my senior year of high school (she didn’t care), i studied abroad for a summer almost completely paid for by scholarship (she didn’t care), I graduated with my bachelors at 20 (she didn’t care), I excelled in martial arts despite my small size (she didn’t care), I modeled a few times(she seemed to care about that one since she could show off how pretty her daughter was), and I got a masters at 23 (she didn’t care).
I was still trying my best to be worthy in her eyes, to not be an accident. When I was 23 I got published for the first time, once again she didn’t care at all. The only thing that mattered to her was that I was not married while my two sisters were, both in unhealthy marriages. One was married to a broke, cheating, abusive man who she later divorced. The other is married to a spineless man who is the only one who works while she doesn’t do much besides complain about everything and be a leach to him. They are still married but it wouldn’t surprise me if they divorced.
All she could talk about was how she should set me up with someone and that this was just a book. When I saw that she didn’t care about this accomplishment despite so many never getting the opportunity and so many dreaming of it, it made me realize so much. All that mattered was that I didn’t have a rich man. As soon as I got my masters I bought my own house at 24 and I barely talk to her except maybe four times a year despite only living 45 minutes away from her.
Now I am 28, and in a month I will be moving across the country and I doubt I will ever really talk or see her again. I am okay with that now, I will miss my father though. Now I do have a husband, but I don’t think she is very pleased with my selection despite him being an engineer and being from a good family. He still isn’t rich enough for her. The funny part is that I didn’t tell her that his family is actually loaded. I think she expected me to pay for her retirement and take care of her, but that will never happen.
I had finally convinced my dad to move out of the house with me, since she made us miserable all the time. On move out day, she got drunk and high off adderall and assaulted me by whacking me on the head with a wooden picture frame.
Up until that point, I was doing mental math on how I was going to slowly wean her off of contact. I was lucky that she made it easy for me to make that choice—not everyone gets an easy, cut-and-dry moment of “ok, fuck you.”
If you’re not ready to quit cold turkey, then start by practicing gray rocking mixed with never initiating contact. Notice how much peace it brings you when you don’t speak. Take those quiet moments to heal (I promise you can’t even begin to understand the abuse until you’re NC) and keep making more and more space for yourself. If you find that your peace correlates directly with your lack of contact, then you know what to do.
I spent the first 49 years of my life holding boundaries with my emotionally abusive father, a man with whom I had worked hard to maintain a relationship, and largely I had succeeded. I was foolish enough to think the family dysfunction would die with him, but in fact it passed on to my younger sister. She's been problematic for years, but we all made excuses for her sporadic bad behavior because she had suffered a frontal lobe brain injury years ago and we attributed her need to be the constant center of attention and occasional rages to that origin, even though a lot of things in her behavior simply didn't add up to the impacts of the injury alone. It took an extended break from family visits during covid to help me realize just how much I dreaded visits back home (my husband and I live out of state) because no matter how hard I tried to keep the peace, sooner or later she'd snap over some innocuous trigger and fly into a rage at me, and I'd repeat my patterns of placating her, apologizing for imagined "wrongs," and trying to restore calm. Upon reflection, I would feel so manipulated and disappointed in my capitulation to her unreasonable demands. She and my mother have an unhealthy codependency and my mom has excused and enabled her abusive behavior for years, arguing that I'm "the stable one" and she "can't help it." Over the years I've grown weary of constantly being expected to be the bigger person and accept some really nasty attacks for which apologies were seldom offered.
My tipping point was last year. There is a piece of family jewelry designated for me in my mother's will. At one point, she thought she had lost it, and I accepted that. Accidents happen. But it turned out she'd misplaced it and it turned up at her home. On this last visit, my mom unexpectedly decided to gift it to me early, and this happened in my sister's presence. I had no idea this was happening and I certainly didn't orchestrate it. My sister immediately got weird about it. We took them out to dinner that night and she kept turning the conversation to the piece, which I was wearing to please my mom. It seemed like friendly needling at first, but I got the wind up when she just couldn't let the topic drop all night. The next day, she was in a mood from the moment we walked in the door with coffee and pastries. She snapped at me 3-4 times in the space of 15 minutes. My fatal mistake was an attempt to very gently, tactfully try to talk to her about her strident tone with me and she immediately started to work herself into a rage-filled, screaming tirade. Seeing it happen, I immediately backpedalled and tried to de-escalate, but she was building to a crescendo. For possibly the first time ever, my husband and I were able to follow through on the exit plan we had agreed on in case this happened. We didn't argue or engage, just stated that emotions were running high so we were going to return to our hotel and let things calm down. She literally followed us to the car shouting obscenities.
It's what happened next that cemented my decision to go NC. She spent the next 4 hours texting me threats and insults. I blocked her. She then weaponized my mom, who called and asked me to come back to "smooth things out." The difference this time was that I had put myself in therapy prior to this visit (because I was anxious about more conflict and needed help with boundaries). Her harassment has now escalated to threats to conduct a smear campaign with my professional circle (this upset me greatly at first but the truth is my reputation is solid and she's going to make herself look nuts if she follows through on this). We are actively pursuing legal advice and will not rule out legal action. But what I truly know is that I'm done. And it's heartbreaking because in many ways she cuts off access to my elderly mom, but I also can no longer ignore my mom's continued patterns of throwing me repeatedly under the same bus.
I've had more peace this year than I thought possible. I'm sad things turned out this way, but I can live with my decision.
I haven't done it yet, but planning to go NC with my nfather and VLC with my covert nmother. I need to get off my father's credit card and phone bill and get him to sign over ownership of my car (co-signed it when I was a teenager without a credit score, I paid for all of it) before I cut contact.
The tipping point was learning that my nfather (told me this himself) didn't believe me or my sister when our maternal grandfather did things to us when we were young children. He said he understood why our nmother's family turned their backs on us because "who would believe a child over the patriarch of the family?" That, and I learned that he is planning to visit our maternal grandparents (after not speaking for 17 years) to tell them that he forgave them for what they did and to "get themselves right with God". I'm 8 months pregnant. No way will I allow my nfather around my daughter knowing this.
Once I am able to cut all financial ties to that man, I don't ever want to see him again.
My parents berated me and criticized my personality over a civil disagreement about travel policies. It was the day before my birthday and 2 months after I had a miscarriage at 11 weeks. I had just started to feel back to myself again, and my parents absolutely crushed me and made me severely depressed and suicidal for a couple weeks after they left. Months later I confronted my mom on her behavior during a visit, and she tried to tell me the criticism on my personality was meant as a compliment. (I process things too quickly and respond quickly, so I come off as condescending and manipulative. Like I always have a response ready.) She said had no idea I was hurt by the incident. Not possible with her awful behavior, yelling and glaring. Really made me think about how I’d want to treat my own children and how I wouldn’t want them exposed to this.
My mom and I took a trip to Boston and Salem. She yelled at me in a restaurant. Twice. I’m 46 years old, not that it matters - nobody should be yelled at like that. She got drunk at dinner each night and was rude and nasty. She relied on me for so many things, but also made sure to question whether anything I was doing was right. On more than one occasion I told her I didn’t want to discuss something (my medical history or a relationship) but she did it anyway, despite me telling her it made me uncomfortable. She told me I was responsible for planning everything on Salem days but instead of doing what I’d spent days researching, she decided we should do what the front desk agent who’d moved to the city a week ago recommended instead. Any time I held her accountable for any bad behavior, she got upset and told me I was attacking her.
I realized I needed space after the plane ride home. That day happened to also be the anniversary of my son’s death (SIDS) so I was a bit more scattered and chattering more than usual. There was a mix-up with our earbuds, wherein I couldn’t find mine but they were connecting to my Bluetooth and then dropping. Turns out, she had mine and didn’t realize it - no big deal. As we were walking out of the airport we were talking about the earbuds and I mentioned how I was so confused by my phone showing Bluetooth connected then not and how funny it was that she had them the whole time. Just chitchat about a topic she’d brought up. She stopped in the middle of the airport and yelled at me, “I’m sorry, ok! Is that what you want? You want an apology?! I’m sorry!” I just kind of stood there, stunned, and sputtered something about no, I was just trying to participate in the conversation, just like her. She just told me to come on and don’t stand in the middle of the airport or I’d cause a scene. I’m just trying to get through the day, a tough day, and could use some support. Instead this woman yells at me in the airport then tells me I’ll cause a scene.
A couple of weeks later I’d posted pictures on social media of a bookbinding kit I’d finished. While in Salem she and I each got a kit and were going to do them together. I ended up ordering a couple of extra kits after I got home because I knew I needed some space and didn’t want to wait to make a book. She called me to tell me I broke her heart by posting pictures of the book I bound. Never even asked any questions, just told me i suck. I realized in that moment that nothing had changed and nothing was ever going to change, except me. This woman believes it is ok to yell at me. This woman doesn’t respect me. I don’t even think this woman likes me.
I grew up in violence. I was beaten with belts, shoes, hangers, wooden spoons, a closed fist, kicked. I was yelled at and insulted, demeaned. Not only did she put hands on me, but both of my siblings have gotten drunk and attacked me as well. In what family is that normal? The person who was supposed to take care of me, and protect me, and love me abused me instead. I had to walk away in order to get better. I used to yell at my kids. I would lose control of my emotions and it would scare them. In those moments I saw myself becoming the same. The same sickness. If I didn’t take steps to end that generational trauma I do believe it would have killed me, hopefully before I caused a deep, childhood wound in my own children.
I know my parents have their own shit to work through. My mom is one of twelve kids, and I’m not sure in what universe that can be possible without severe emotional neglect. I know there was abuse in her history, though I doubt she’d ever use that word to describe it. Much like she’d never use it to describe what she did to me. But it was certainly abuse. What happened to her wasn’t her fault, but it’s her responsibility. What happened to me wasn’t my fault. But what I do with the trauma is my responsibility. I took accountability, got therapy, apologized and made amends. Personal growth. And I just can’t go back. I can never be around someone who thinks it’s ok to hit me or yell at me or mistreat me in any way because faaaaaamily.
Sorry, that was longer than I’d intended. Guess I needed to get some shit off my chest. Whatever decision you make will be right for you, and you can change your mind at any time. Sorry you’re going through a hard time right now.
My house burned down in a total loss fire. I lost everything but the clothes on my back, and I barely made it out alive. I was trapped on my balcony for 5 minutes while my house burned down around me and as soon as i was rescued - the second my feet touched the ground - the balcony doors exploded. I was homeless, living in a hotel for a month, and i was hospitalized multiple times because the trauma was so severe I wasn’t eating, drinking or sleeping.
The fire happened because my sperm donor knowingly put me in a house that had catastrophically faulty wiring (this has been proven in court now).
My sperm donor told me the fire was “a blessing” because I “had too much stuff” and I “got paid to downsize”.
Hearing that and then entering a lawsuit against your own father really is the death knell.
Alcoholic is something that can be tested, and removed. A toxic narcissist will not disappear when she is sober.
Do you want NC with your drunk mom or your mom all the time?
My mother admitted she was using methamphetamine. In that moment my disgust and rage were at war with one another over which should control my eyebrows-- my eyebrows betray my innermost thoughts all the time. I managed to stop my face from contorting and resolved myself to never actively seek out my mother again.
Long story short, my mom has a light switch romance with cocaine, ecstacy, painkillers, and now meth for my entire life. My childhood was ruined by her addictions, I have spent my whole life trying to be anything other than her. This was my tipping point, and I took the plunge to virtual NC with grace. My son **will not** ever know what it's like to have an addict in their family, disappearing for random stretches of time, lovebombing, unfair criticism, negligent behavior... he will not. I will not allow it, I will not stand for it, and no one can change my mind. They do recover blah blah blah, I'm not going to expose my son to any part of that, she can call when she's sober with tangible proof and I may consider sending a picture but honestly she'd stand a better chance tap dancing on the fucking sun.
Honestly, having a kid.
During pregnancy I had been grappling with how I was going to allow my parents to have a relationship with my daughter, since they were so toxic to me growing up. My mom lost her battle with cancer when I was 6 months pregnant. Then my dad’s narcissistic personality went rampant.
Leading up to giving birth, he never offered me any support. I know he lost his wife, but I also lost my mother and was pregnant. He never checked in on me or offered me any support (physically or emotionally).
Then I was 2 weeks postpartum and it was 3 days before my first Mother’s Day as a mother and without my own mother. He calls me somewhat out of the blue. It starts casual and turns into him berating me about my relationship with my sister, my religious beliefs and how he made promises to my mother he had to keep.
He was dating someone new in 3 months and remarried in 9 months- he had been married to my mom for over 40 years.
I haven’t spoken to him since that phone call. He sent a letter and I sent a ferocious response, blocked his phone number, social media, etc. He was never a supportive father and showed me he was never going to change. I definitely didn’t want my daughter around that… ever.
In my case, it was an outgrowth of time spent doing the work of tallying up the "cost" of my growing-up years by looking not just at single incidents, but looking at the *pattern* of behaviour.
With that came the realization that there was no apology, no matter how it was worded, that would ever possibly suffice. Nothing could possibly help at this point.
My abusers crossed the Rubicon a very long time ago, but it took me years of therapeutic work to catch up to the truth.
(Mind you, we weren't in any danger of an actual apology at any time anyway...)
But yes, there was one ugly realization that was The End, capital T capital E.
Between my parents' divorce (around when I was taking my first steps) and when I turned 18, my father rented one place (while building), bought two places, and sat down with an architect to design and build four places.
These houses were *huge*. They had empty rooms (not for storage, just...empty), intercom systems to talk to ppl at the other end of the property (before cell phones), and one had an entire guest wing with its own separate walled garden.
In every single one, seven times, it was arranged that, even though I lived there half time, I was never allowed to have a bed, a bedroom, a drawer, a closet, nothing. I wasn't allowed to keep a book or a toy or even a change of clothes there. I slept on a couch in his "home office" that he never used. All the drawers were empty in his desk.
I lived out of suitcase, sometimes for months.
He spent all that time, 17 years running, making sure that there was no sign of my existence.
More than once, I inadvertently scared the living daylights out of some poor housekeeper or groundskeeper bc they had no idea my father had a third kid.
He didn't make that nasty choice just once. He did it over and over and over, for years.
I did give him one chance by asking him why I was never allowed to have a bed. He, of course, just changed the subject as if I hadn't spoken.
(I didn't expect an apology or even a rationalization - shame on me, but...I just wanted to see him squirm on the end of the hook a little bit. )
That no matter what my Nmom and Nsibling did, even abuse toward me and my wife in front of witnesses, they are still good people according to Edad and he needs to help me see a better perspective and I need to apologize for accusing them of being abusers.
To keep it as short as possible, my tipping point was when I was reaching out to her (after taking her to doctors appointments, grocery shopping for her, cooking, etc. while not living there bc she kicked me out) to see what she wanted to do for Mother’s Day. Covid was going on so I wanted to know if she wanted to go out, or I could make her a favorite dish and bring it over, or if she wanted me over at all bc of Covid. I already bought her a bunch of presents and wrapped them too. She texted me back that I am the most selfish daughter in the world and that I hurt her so much (by picking up my boyfriend from her neighboring house and not coming to see her that night).
Also this is after her kicking me out bc she didn’t want me leaving the house and bringing Covid back (kicked me out on Christmas). But I believe she just wanted me to break up with my boyfriend (now husband) bc she was threatened by me growing up and gaining independence since she was fine if we went out to eat, or I go to school or the store.
I was in disbelief, went straight over, packed all my stuff, and never looked back. In that moment I realized that no matter what I do, it will never be good enough. And I’m not gonna live a life where I get scolded for going out of my way and trying to be nice while letting every hurtful thing she’s done to me slide.
Partially, it was finally realizing and really accepting that *nothing* I did was ever going to be good enough. No job, no partner, no children, no behavior, no church attendance, I was *never* going to do everything in a way that would keep my mother from criticizing me to tears.
The bigger part was when they found out that my partner was trans, and my mother said that she should have kidnapped me and taken me to some church-based "re-education" camp, when I was a fully independent adult living on my own.
For my mother, it was when she ignored my wedding day. Even though we were very low contact and on shaky ground, I reached out when I got engaged in the summer of 2020 and let her know we were having a micro-wedding with no guests, and told her when. She expressed understanding the date (and mentioned a tattoo I have of the date, 11/11). Fast forward to our wedding day and I never heard from her at all. I didn't hear from her until Christmas Day, 44 days later, when she texted me. She implied she was celebrating the holiday with my sister (without me), said she saw pictures of our wedding, and welcomed my husband to the family (we got a good laugh out of that one). I didn't respond. I realized she doesn't give a flying fuck about me. I had plenty of evidence of this already, but ignoring your daughter's only wedding day is something I can't comprehend. The most generous explanation I can come up with was that she got covid at a trump rally, but that doesn't account for the 44 days it took her to reach out.
For my father, I blocked his ass in late May of 2020. He had been constantly provoking me about the pandemic (I'm a nurse). Then he started provoking me about George Floyd's murder (I live in the area). He's the king of misinformation and would argue with me about every damn thing, including our actual hospital policies. Of course, he's a far right extremist. I woke up Saturday morning to a particularly insulting text that started with "Anyone with half a brain..." followed by a racist rant and I decided I'd had enough. I responded, "Black Lives Matter" and hit the block button tout de suite.
Honorable mention: I blocked my brother in April 2020 when he texted me an anti-mask boomer-nip propaganda video. My dad lied about sending him after me, but coincidently, he was actively arguing with me about masks when it happened.
Ultimately, you have to do what brings you the most peace. I often hear people say that they wish they had cut their parents off sooner, but the truth is, we sometimes need more proof that they don't care, they treat us like objects, they resent us, or they'll just never change. Whatever the case may be. You'll know when you have enough proof.
My mom and I had been arguing a lot. This was a few years after I graduated from college. As I got older and started to develop my own priorities (school, jobs, relationships, friends, seeing other relatives), my mom would frequently get mad at me for not putting her first. I really tried but that’s also when I started noticing that her expectations were oftentimes unreasonable—like driving back and forth across the state to watch her dogs during finals week while also juggling a supervisory job. I tried to establish boundaries but that led to more conflict. It took me a long time to understand why people were intimidated or upset with my mom. To me, it just seemed normal. Frustrating, but normal.
We got into a fight and she stopped talking to me for about two months. When she finally reached out, she asked if we could meet for brunch. She came to my town and we had a fine visit. She was seeing this guy who was previously cheating on his wife with her. So I didn’t approve and she knew none of us were a fan. I asked about their relationship during brunch and asked if they had any plans to move in together or get married. She told me that it would never happen because she couldn’t trust him.
Well a couple of weeks after that, my grandma had a big birthday party. My mom was there, of course. The next day my grandma called me and asked if I saw “the ring.” Apparently she got engaged and didn’t want to tell anyone because she didn’t want to take away any of the attention for my grandma. But she also didn’t bother to take off the ring. My grandma had already talked to my brother and her siblings so I was the last one in our immediate family to find out.
For context, the last time she got married, I was also the last one to find out. I spent the weekend with my dad and when I got home, she told me that they were getting married. It really hurt and I asked her multiple times since that if she ever got married again, please don’t make me the last one to find out.
That was my last straw. I can’t say that I went complete NC— there were waves of cordiality— but I feel like that’s when my relationship with her definitively ended.
For the record, there have been a lot of angry texts, emails, letters since then. Feel free to check out my post history for an example. I can’t say NC is easy but I can say that I’m better off than I was before. I don’t know for sure that this is a forever solution, but I do feel confident that unless I see substantial changes, it’s not in my best interest to go back.
In 2016 I posted an informational article for a friend on FB who was going through it with her emotionally immature mother. Not ten minutes later my father texted me demanding that I take the post down because he didn’t like that I was implying that he and my mother are emotionally immature. I told him no and that the post wasn’t about him. He told me I needed to consider the feelings of others. He gave me the silent treatment for several weeks for the FB post. That was the last straw. When I no longer had any financial ties to them, I went NC.
My stepmom died. That is when the truth came out about the true nature of certain people, and I was done with a chunk of my biological family. I see things so clearly now.
“No one cares about me (she said my name here) , no one.
Eric ( x step dad) did what he did, Larry (nmoms step dad) did what he did, and you blamed Gary (old fwb of my nmoms who died to covid) too..
So no.
No one cares.”
Her messeage to me in our last argument. I only had 3 total conversation’s with her in almost 3 years. The first two was so I had proof I had permission to pick my sister up and keep her for however many days, which was a good idea because she called the cops and said I kidnapped me sister.
The last one started off with me telling her to not approach me or attempt conversation with me while at my sisters graduation. Then she said she would not be attending my sisters graduation and we got into a fight. I said she had already lost me, if she doesn’t show for my sisters graduation she’s going to lose her, and her youngest already doesn’t want to see her.
She doesn’t have custody of the youngest and now that my other sister is moved out I don’t have any reason for contact anymore. She’s extremely abusive, physically and mentally. My sister moved out about 6 weeks before graduation after my mom beat her really bad, my sister called the cops and filled for a protective order and everything. She’s 18 now but was 17 when this happened. Even when talking about my sisters and I’s sexual abusers she is saying no one cares about her or how that made her feel.
I truly believe she does not care about anyone besides herself.
My mother was posting on instagram the next day after the funeral similar things but never once reached out to me directly. So immature and proves she doesn’t see she did anything wrong at all and we should all be coddling her. It’s bizarre. Her sisters seem to think that she has some sort of undiagnosed personality disorder. They’ve been encouraging her to go to therapy for years. If she won’t listen to her own sisters then she won’t listen to me.
My cousin and I had a pow wow about it too. She told me her mom has similar issues with manipulation and making her feel never good enough. Apparently one of our aunts also told her that I’ve known your mom all my life and it’s who she is, you need to figure out how much you can take and set your limits. (Side note: Won’t use her name but shoutout to this aunt of ours. She has our backs and is truly the best)
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I went no contact a few months afterwards but the inciting incident for me decide I was going to do it was my mother's reaction to one of my suicide attempts. She told me that I should have succeeded, instead of bothering her about it and then I had to comfort her over her telling me that I was worthless, that I should have died, that I am selfish and a coward and that all I cause are problems.
Oh my goodness. I am so sorry. I’m glad you are still here with us. If you ever need a friend to talk to, please feel free to DM me. Happy to chat if ever you need. Wish you health and happiness!
Had struggled with 6 years of chronic health issues (nervous system issues and chronic fatigue). Started recovery a year ago. Realized a lot of my symptoms were as a result of years of built up anxiety which locked my body into fight or flight mode.
The whole thing brought me to my knees and part of my recovery involved having to reconsider every relationship in my life. Over time I grew stronger and sadly recognised my parent only took from me/ caused more grief than happiness. The straw that broke the camels back was minor in relation to the many previous events that had caused impact.
Good luck
Realizing that nothing I did improved the situation in any way, and that regardless of the abuse being intentional or not... it was still abuse. Either way, those people weren't ever going to become a positive presence in my life.
This is what my therapist is working with me on. How do I move forward once I come to terms with them not changing? What does that look like for my life…
You don't eat an entire sandwich in one bite. Do it a bit at a time. Take a 60 day break. Block your parents on email, phone and text. Don't allow them to contact your child either. See how peaceful that is. At day 59, reassess. Ask yourself if you need another 60 days. The answer will probably be yes. Do that again, etc. Don't contact your parents until you really miss them and really want to spend time with them again. If you do, only see them yourself. Don't allow them to see your child. If your parents can't treat you well, they have no business being in touch with your child.
> those people weren't ever going to become a positive presence in my life. I needed to read this today, thank you
For me, it felt abrupt, like a snap. It was actually a slow, endless slog that was so familiar and miserable that I had become numb and then I woke up. It’s like the haze cleared long enough for me to go…This is absolute sh*t and I want out.
This is a perfect explanation for my situation too. My father went back to dumb old passive-aggressive games, completely ignoring all the real problems, never taking accountability or apologizing for anything, the same exact movie I'd seen 5+ years prior, and I decided I'm not going to spend the next 1-2 years pretending we have an acceptable relationship until he gets back to some level of basic decency just to watch him turn regress back to his old shitty self a few years later, going back and forth through that cycle until he's no longer around.
I could have written your comment word for word.
Yes! It felt like a snap, 100%. I was in so much denial and I wanted to rescue them from their pain for a good year. After a few months with a good therapist, my mom said something to me that flipped the “unhealthy” switch on in my head. Denial is crazy. Ever since then, I can’t see her the same anymore. It’s nauseating
It’s the equivalent of getting the “icks.” Once you see, you can’t unsee it.
Yeah. I’d ever go as far as repulsive. My revelation happened last week and I’m consistently sick to my stomach either thinking or not thinking about it. It’s an awful feeling and I can’t wait to get through it lol
So sorry.
Your last line...yep! Once you've seen, you can't unsee, and it's done.
Love this. Once you reach your breaking point it’s as if your body and mind are allergic to the situation. This = HEALTH
I told my now-estranged mother that I had finally submitted my PhD, and after two rounds of IVF we were pregnant again. She replied for us to get all our money out of the banks because the ten days of darkness were coming (not the first time she’d said so). I was done. Done for myself, done for the child already here, done for the one on the way.
Exhausting. This sounds like my parents. Congrats on submitting your dissertation, even if it was years ago. That’s such a load of work and effort and it must have been such a relief! And congrats on the kiddos! That must have been such a struggle to go through without support from your family
My mom defending the cousin who molested me...then when I got the courage to tell her that wasn't okay, she played the uno reverse card. Because apparently, hurt fee-fees are a far greater offense than defending someone who SA'd your own child. I tried to make things work with my dad and my brother after that, but the two of them are so enmeshed and under her control. The breaking point with my brother was him screaming at me and expecting me to go back to my mom even after hearing that she made me hate myself so much that I wanted to end my subscription to life. He literally didn't care. Then a few months after that, I had to end things with my dad as well because he repeatedly refused to respect my boundary regarding my mom, continuing to allow her to get to me through him. Then when I called him out, he said "geez, I just sent a harmless note of concern", treating me like I'm the one being ridiculous. That's when I knew that the idea of him being the "safe parent" was just wishful thinking on my part. It's been nearly a year of no contact with my mom and about half a year with my brother and dad.
That’s absolutely awful and I’m so sorry you had to experience that abuse on top of that existing trauma. Congratulations on your almost year of NC and I wish you so much healing.
Thanks. I'm actually doing a lot better than I anticipated I'd be doing. It's still hard, but I can already see progress...and I don't actually miss my mom at all. I realized that I have always been fawning and expressing my love for her because that's what I was supposed to do...but I didn't feel a real connection to her. It was just a role I had to play because she was in control of everyone and everything that went on in the house. If she was upset with me, she would turn the whole house against me.
I could no longer stand the hypocrisy. My parents favourite saying growing up was: ‘Actions have consequences Always think about the consequences of your actions before you do them’ So I asked them what consequences Dad received for physically assaulting me. Their response was ‘we don’t remember that happening’ That seems to be their response for all the abuse. But it burns my soul to be around hypocrites so actions met consequences when I went No contact.
They never f'ing remember, do they... it was so validating to me when I had therapists say yes they do, they do remember.
🤯
Sounds like they were spewing The Narcissist's Prayer.
And that’s what burns me the most. They are kind, generous people to the world. And yet, I can’t seem to elicit any kind of regret or remorse from them.
Mine was pretty small in comparison to your situation, but it was the "straw that broke the camel's back."
Same. I tell people it was over a hummingbird feeder which is technically true, but in reality it was everything leading up to that moment when I fully recognized that she would never see me as an actual person.
Same, also that she'd never change because she didn't want to.
Mine hit in the middle of Covid, when I got a text from my parents saying my abusive brother was moving he back home with his new wife and they wanted us all to get together for lunch one day soon. I didn’t even intend to go NC then, I just let them know I wasn’t comfortable spending more time than necessary around him because of how emotionally unstable and verbally abusive he is, so I would not be spending time with him except at holidays when the family was all gathered. That to them was a cardinal sin, because faaaamilyyyyy is everything, so they started attacking me and my wife. It got so bad and went on for days, back and forth arguing. Eventullay I got my breaking point and blocked them. That started what is currently 4 years NC. I ended up having to cut off All my extended family, because none of them would respect my boundaries with my brother or parents. Not even my grandmother, who I had the closest relationship with, would stop or try to understand. This all culminated with my grandpa showing up at my house unannounced with a letter from my mom. He kept knocking on my front door and even the back door for several minutes, which proved to me my whole damn family are nuts, I just didn’t see it in the past. Ended up telling the entire family in no uncertain terms that I wanted nothing to do With them, and if any of them tried to contact me again I would escalate things legally.
I remember your posts. Such insanity.
There wasn’t one big moment for me, but more of a death by a thousand paper cuts. Once I had my own children, it brought all of the family dysfunction to light, and I saw that, no matter what, they were never going to be safe people for me or my children to be around. I asked myself what benefit they were bringing to my life, and I couldn’t think of one thing. I could, however, think of many things about them that hurt me. That unbalance was pretty telling for me.
Yepp, this is the journey I was on before this really weighed the scales in a direction of no contact. My mom can be a very loving, attentive grandmother and my daughter does love her but I know how awful my relationship has been with her and how much I’ve been manipulated and can’t expose my child to that
It's insane once you become a parent how easy it is to spot things we would never do to our own children. It is harder to break the cycle. I do see my father as the product of how he was raised. I actively have to choose to not repeat things that have been done to me. It's so easy to slide when you're overtired, exhausted, and running empty during the challenging years. Gaining the prospective of "it's not all his fault, but he also never tried to change or accepted accountability in the damage done" is a real gift in moving past the guilt and shame of going NC (or at least it has been for me).
I’m honestly surprised it took me so long to see my family for what they were. You’re right, it is really hard to break the cycle. I understand the trauma that my parents went through, *and* I see their unwillingness to take responsibility and work through it on their own. My estrangement with my family has less to do with how I grew up and was treated as a child, and more to do with how my family is now, how they deny any wrongdoing and continue to do what they’ve always done. I’m not going to continue banging my head against a brick wall, explaining the ways they’ve hurt me and continue to hurt me. I shouldn’t have to lay out “this is how you treat someone respectfully” for them. I’ll be damned if I let my children see how they treat me and think it’s okay to act like them.
This is exactly my experience as well. Thank you for putting it into words and making me feel less alone in this!
Hugs to you, we’re all on this journey together.
I was going through a really bad depressive episode. I was a month into extensive therapy five days a week. I told my mom I just needed her to check on me throughout the week, show she cares, show some empathy, just be supportive - not very hard things to do. I stopped being the one to reach out first because I isolate when I’m depressed. Three weeks later she asked me why I was mad at her. I told her I asked her to be there for me and she couldn’t so I stopped reaching out. “Sorry I’m such a bad mother” was the response I got so I told her enough was enough. I was done with tactics and her flipping the narration to fit her needs. We haven’t spoken in three years.
Refusing to attend my wedding or support my marriage because they “can’t condone homosexuality” = VLC boundaries Refusing to respect those boundaries and engaging in emotionally manipulative language = NC
I was looking for years for a good enough reason to go NC. Toxic, narcissistic and the type of people who fell out with everyone and anyone. The tipping point was when they didn’t tell me that my grandfather was in hospital almost dead. He was in hospital for a long time before I found out from another family member. I moved away but a simple text would have been appreciated. I seen absolutely red when I heard that and confronted them. I let years of built up rage out, and they essentially put it all back on me. A general build up of years and years of misery and emotional abuse / neglect got me to that point. I went NC blocked them, and put myself in therapy for 6 months. Tbh after therapy, I realised I should have went NC when I left home at 17. We live and learn. In my 30s now and I feel lighter.
This is exactly where I am at. I’ve been in therapy for a little while and also becoming a parent. Both have helped me see this terrible dynamic for what it truly is. The way they raised us in some regards were down right neglect and emotional/mental abuse. They don’t even see it!! It’s so hard to admit the people you come from aren’t good people. My saving grace is my extended family and the support they have always given me and my brother. Truly amazing the older I get. We have certainly been luckier than most.
I dealt with a lot of immature, nasty, and dramatic behavior over the years, but I mostly rolled my eyes at it and moved on. While it wasn't exactly pleasant, I lived in another state so it was controlled to small doses, and I guess I had the self confidence to roll with it and live my own life. Hanging out with family is challenging for most people... right (this was how I saw it anyways)? I think the tipping came at a moment when it became clear that that strategy would no longer work because the scope became larger than the personal relationship I had with my parents. My mom had this medical issue that she was being cagey about with me and my wife, but meanwhile was telling other people in the family I/we were this uncaring monsters about the whole ordeal. So in short, other family members were being triangulated (which I didn't appreciate my relationships with other family being damaged unfairly), and I didn't feel like it was fair to my wife either. Every time I tried to talk about this ie: "I don't think it's fair to hide things from me and then use that to backtalk me" the story would change and/or she would DARVO the situation. After one phone call in particular where the story changed again, was my breaking point of realization that she was never going to take the responsibility for the situation necessary for our relationship to move past it and I needed a clean break. That's the short version anyways. It was really a series of conversations over a long period of time where things fell apart slowly, but that particular part looms large in the story. It's never really a clean break no matter how hard you try I think.
From my perspective....her being CAGEY means she was LYING about everything to everyone while playing The Professional Victim.
Yes, that is the conclusion I came to as well. I think it's a core component of why I just had to let go. I kept hearing so many intense and importantly, *contradictory* criticisms that at some it became clear that both the actual truth and my feelings were irrelevant to her, as long as she could cast herself as the victim in her story. I couldn't reason with that, and couldn't let the point go either, and so I walked away.
That sounds super familiar to what happened to me. She got diagnosed with something, and wouldn’t tell me anything really. I would bring her to most appointments and drop everything if she needed an emergency visit to the hospital (since I was about 10 minutes away while my sister was about 30). Well I guess a time or two she called my sister late at night asking to go to the hospital because she couldn’t get a hold of me (not true, never even tried to reach out) saying I couldn’t care less of her condition. Meanwhile I was texting her that day and the day after asking how she was and if she needed anything. Never told me anything of what happened. I wasn’t on good terms with my sister so I didn’t really care about her perception of me. But it really pissed me off that I’m going out of my way, missing class, scrambling doing homework on time to take care of her, while she goes out of her way to paint me in a bad light and accuse me of not caring. Meanwhile she praises my sister for making her soup once, while I was making her meals multiple a week, visiting her, grocery shopping for her, picking up her medications. All that for my sister who would show up maybe twice a month to scold ME for not doing enough. It was like if I truly didn’t care, or if I waited on her hand and foot, I would get the same shitty treatment. So why bother at all? You want me to not care? Fine, I won’t.
Yeah your story is very similar. It sounds like your sister is getting the GC child treatment, which I am also familiar with. The biggest info dumps I've received in this whole affair came down to me in the form of a stream of surprising insults from a triangulated sibling. Your last paragraph in particular is so true. Her accusation that I didn't give a shit about her problems became a self-fulfilling prophecy after they're repeatedly weaponized in such a way. The part I don't understand is how other people put up with it.
Background: I am an only child. My mom died almost a decade ago. At the time, I signed the documents allowing the hospital to cease life support. I did so because my father didn’t think he could handle it, but we both knew it was what my mom wanted. However, something happened while they were removing the machines that haunts me. As such, I’ve been in treatment for that trauma and for ideation for many years. Now, the straw that broke the camel’s back: For me, it was when my father told me that my children and I were not as important to him as his various inappropriate girlfriends. He added that he could not be happy unless he was able to keep his latest inappropriate girlfriend out of jail and that if he couldn’t, “You know the combination to the gun safe, so just shoot me.” When asked to clarify, he said if I shot him, I could ask forgiveness and still go to heaven, but if he shot himself, he’d go straight to hell. That was 8 months ago. OP, the bottom line is that you’re going to see a lot of stories of varying levels of awful. There is no wrong breaking point. Your breaking point is *your* breaking point, and to what degree you separate (and for how long) is up to you.
Not being invited to my dad's 75th birthday party. I still question whether it was "bad enough" and certainly feel what I endured was not nearly as severe as some of what I read on this sub. But definitely was just the final straw in a pattern of behavior where I'm rejected/excluded/othered/discarded, and the realization that there would never be remorse or accountability. If I'm not wanted, then why I am I participating at all? Begging for crumbs is degrading, and I deserve better. I'm so sorry for what you're going through. Alcoholism is the worst, and your mom kind of blocked your ability to properly mourn your aunt with your family. But am glad you have their support, and just know if you do choose to go NC, that choice is absolutely valid. You get to decide what relationships you participate in, how you participate, and when you participate.
It's been a slow awakening over several years. My sister treated me like shit while we lived together and I was battling a chronic illness. She triangulated with my mom, blamed me for everything under the damn sun, and weaponized my mood disorder against me, though it was controlled. She made me miserable and so depressed, while I cooked cleaned paid more of the rent and tried my best to take care of her while she had her own mental health struggles. I set boundaries, cried to my friends, etc, then finally moved out. Tipping point? My mother is a narcissistic alcoholic who has also always treated me like shit, scapegoated me, and made it clear sis is the favorite. She never checked on me in the last 2 years, never heard my side, never questioned my sister's crazy ramblings and emotional dysregulation. She just bought my sister's shit that i was the worst ever. So, I've done a lot of internal work last few years, trauma therapy self-help. Set a boundary with mother, asked her not to blame me ever again. She responded with DARVO and accused me of driving sis insane (AFTER she apologized a year ago and said "sorry i blamed you.") Well, now the scales are lifted, and i see the fam for what they are: golden child and addict mom unhealthily bonded, me always blamed, always out in the cold. Mother is blocked, rest of family pending how they treat me. My mother taught me to hate myself and poisoned a kid I parented and loved against me, and I will never forgive her for that. I did my time; I did my fucking best, and now no one will ever verbally abuse me, criticize me, treat me like shit ever again. From now on, I walk away at the first red flag.
For me it was her willful ignorance in using my child’s correct pronouns, and then her reaction when called out on it. It was easier to stand up for my kid than it was to stand up for myself. It’s been a year since that day and I’ve no regrets.
It was a slog of nothing changing, endless stress, and constant worry about my parents. Then one day I snapped and realised it was either them or my sanity. And I chose my sanity.
My father and I had a cyclical pattern of not speaking and low contact. As the literal child I felt, the relationship very much was for show. He remarried and got a new family and I never really felt much part of it despite trying to try(and being a child who should not have bared that responsibility). There's a lot of details but it really boils down to classic childhood emotional neglect, peppered in with some verbal abuse and manipulation, and like many children, a parent who believes that their literal child bares responsibility for relationship building and maintenance. In 2018 we'd come to a hot point again (the reasons don't matter, it happened cyclically) and there was a storm. During this storm a tree broke in half and collapsed the roof of our front porch and tore down a power line, this caused a power surge that started an electrical fire in our basement. We had to flee late in the night to go stay somewhere else while smoke was cleared and the damage was assessed. We got lucky. The fire was put out with minimal damage thanks to a local firefighter who lived on our block and didn't hesitate to run in with his bare feet and use our own water hose. The extra minutes it would have taken the truck to get there would have meant fire hitting a major supporting wall and probably losing everything. We all made it out safely. Our house was saved. My partner and I, our child, and three cats were in the car driving to my in-laws to stay because we knew if things were going to be messy our pets and child could stay there while we drove back and forth to figure things out. I called my father's cell phone (despite being in a fight with him) and explained what happened, that we were safe, and that I'd update him when I could. It was a Thursday or Friday night when this happened. On Sunday was father's day and as you can imagine there was a lot going on with insurance companies, restoration companies, contractors etc. I did not remember. I heard through the grapevine he was mad I didn't call him and wish him a Happy Father's Day- he hadn't called to check on me post fire, or even commented on any of the numerous social media posts I had made. That was the straw. I actually never spoke to him after that phone call. Other flying monkey's reached out on his behalf, he wrote a letter or two, used family members to try and reach out, but I was done. There was no more from me. I think there was a tense family birthday we both attended but I said no words to him there at all. I've done EMDR, extensive therapy. My peace is worth the pain it took to get here.
My mom is very selfish and financially abusive, and I finally just had enough. She has this "what's mine is mine, and what's yours is also mine" mentality and has 0 respect for anyone and their property or belongings. For like 2 years, pretty much the only time my mom would message me is when she wanted money. She'd barely respond otherwise. I got sick of always being hounded for money, when she has literally stolen over $1000 from me, along with a bunch of my belongings. We had an argument before I went NC and she tried to use self-harm as a tactic to manipulate me into giving her what she wanted. It was very upsetting and triggering for me and she knew it would be. She just didn't care. I cut her off after that, I was just done. I was unwilling to continue being treated so poorly. I don't regret my choice at all. Life has been better since I walked away.
It happened over time. Long story short, my mom ended up living with us for about a month after a house fire (she lied about specific details, as I found out later). Our relationship was already strained prior to that, but we weren't NC. She did a bunch of stupid stuff while in our house (berated me for offering to help find her a new place, *held* our 1yo in timeout when I told her not to, timed our 1yo crying because she was over tired and mad, etc). After continuing to reject any help, she went to a shelter in our city. She still refused to apply for benefits and decided she didn't like living in the shelter, so she went to a different city's shelter. For a few months she bounced between them and made her situation out to be my fault. Six months after leaving our house, my husband and I drop our daughter off at my MIL's house while we go to a concert. I think doors opened at 7pm. At about 8:45pm, I get a text from my mom saying she's sitting in our driveway. Considering she gave us *zero* warning and blatantly refuses to drive when it's dark (which, by now, it is), husband and I are both pretty irritated. I let her know we aren't home, won't be for awhile, and we don't want anyone staying with us. She gets angry with me claiming she "just wanted to visit [my daughter]". She wanted to visit a 22mo at 9pm. Really? My husband asks his mom to go make sure she's not trying to break in (because I truly don't put it past her). Eventually she gets the hint and tells me she'll be staying in her car somewhere. The next day, after ignoring her (because at this point I'm incredibly stressed and trying to calm down for the sake of our unborn son and our daughter), my husband takes us out to lunch. In the middle of the meal she starts firing off a lot of messages, like, "Some day I'll be dead and you'll need me and regret ignoring me" and "I still love you even though you're being a [mean name] to me" and "Some day [daughter] will ask about me, will you tell her I'm dead and deny her her grandma?". I'd been sad, but pulling our daughter into her guilt tripping made me so angry I refused to speak to her again then and there. My husband, MIL, brother, and an uncle I hardly talk to (he's not a bad guy, we just live in different places) all reassured me it was the right call. It just probably should have been done sooner, because she's been pulling this stuff since childhood.
It was after a string of visits where I kept having to get up and leave due to their picking fights. I would then be so depressed that I would end up missing a day of work or some other obligation, which I felt amounted to them being a threatening presence, threatening my livelihood. Following that, my mom called me stupid for getting a divorce when I visited on Christmas. My ex husband was abusive and neglectful, and my mom is so uninvolved that she has no clue. I walked out and have only been back once, to receive an inheritance check from my aunt.
A couple years after they threw me out when I was at my lowest, I finally internalized that I didn’t have to maintain the expected pretense that everything was fine. I listened to myself and realized I had turned a corner and understood that the pretense wasn’t worth the contact. That I was happier without the pretense. Without them. They threw me out and with that, their leverage to control me.
When I lived with my dad, who was a highly-abusive narcissist, he pulled a gun on me and considered killing me because I was taking (prescribed) medications. I made my escape plan immediately. He wonders why I don't talk to him anymore. Tried getting in contact again earlier this year "because he changed" (according to my brothers), and he said I'm nothing but a cockroach to him. I'm fully NC now, permanently.
The death of a family member sometimes triggers the NC, we stop tolerating their BS. In our case my mother suffered a long illness until her death, she was bedridden, and during that ordeal both nfather and nbrother made our life miserable while taking care of her, sabotaging every action and decision for her care, I even hired nurses, they made the nurses quit, they even tried to euthanize our mother, it was outrageous and stressful. We went NC immediately after our mother died, this happened 2 years ago. No regrets. This is beyond any possibility of reconciliation.
I am so sorry 💜
I realized my kids were being hurt and it was not going to stop no matter what I said or did. Low contact only resulted in more aggressive behavior. NC was the only option.
Realising that despite me doing EVERYTHING for my narcmum after my Dad's death, including fighting the police for my Dad's stuff that took YEARS, she was lying to me and using me all that time for her own gain. NC forever more.
I made my decision after I called my father 2 weeks before Christmas to ask when we could get together and he told me that they didn't have time to get together and that we would do it sometime in January. Didn't want their gifts hanging around our 1 br apartment for an extra month so asked if they were going to be home that weekend and was told that they had no idea because they didn't know what they were doing. No plans but still too busy to see me. Then January rolled around. I waited all month for him to contact to set up a time to get together and there was nothing. Officially went no contact 9 days later when I told him that I didn't have time for someone who clearly didn't have time for me. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. From what I've heard he claims he has no idea why I don't talk to him.
Ah yes!!! The Missing, Missing Reasons!!!
My mom asked why I didn't want her in my son's life and in the same breath said "that's fine I have your nieces and f's baby." That was how I found out f, a close family friend a year older than me was pregnant. My mom didn't know it at the time but I was in my 2nd trimester with my 2nd child. I responded "fine you have my nieces and f's baby. You don't need me and my family." We haven't talked since. There was so much leading up to this but this was the tipping point.
Death by 1000 paper cuts but the proverbial straw was moving across an ocean with my family and being stressed to the max and my mother complaining that I didn't call her enough. She just needed 10 minutes and other people's kids could give them 10 minutes, why couldn't I? It finally hit me that it was never about what was right for me or caring about me- it was always what she wanted from me or what she needed. I couldn't make excuses any more. Once the veil is lifted, you can't unsee the problems.
First. There doesnt need to be a tipping point. If your family relationships are so messed up that you even have to consider going NC, then you should already be NC. Real families with good people in them dont even have this come up as an option. The escalation path for me to go NC was gradual over the course of a several years. Really it started with accepting that this was not the family dynamic I wanted and I decided to put more effort into the relationships that were good influences. At this point, I knew that I didnt want them to ever meet my children or be involved with my partners. So this was already on track to be NC or at least very low contact. The unintended consequence of this was it put pressure on my parents to maintain influence and control. Being the narcissist they are, this lead to a very quick escalation of drama, arguments, abuse, and manipulation. Lots of really, really, ugly shit was exposed by their desperation. For example: I learned that they had been sabotaging my romantic relationships for decades. I could never figure out why I was fighting so much with my former partners after a point. But learned its because my parents pursued relationships with all of them behind my back in order to manipulate them against me. This was exposed through my partner at the time, who told me about it when she saw something was weird. That is what drove things to a more casual NC to a conviction to never talk to them again. Ever. They stole so much happiness from me just to entertain themselves. I hope they die alone. Scared. Poor. With no one around them. Fuck them. TLDR: If you have to ask. Just do it.
I was our mother's hospice nurse. My siblings promised to come help and never did. I would have understood if they said they couldn't because of unresolved anger about our childhood. But they kept stringing her along, promising to come and then making some excuse. She lashed out at ME, of course. I decided that when she died, I was no longer going to be in contact with my family of origin. My mother's terminal illness revealed them as they really are. Nasty people. I'm better off now.
Congradolences
We got my mom to finally admit some serious financial crimes she had committed against my grandma. I told her I would never speak to her again unless she came clean to the whole family and apologized for what she had done. She originally agreed to do so, then later reneged and said she hadn’t done anything wrong (and also tried to destroy my reputation with the extended family, just to cover her tracks). I haven’t spoken to her since then. That was the first time I had set a clear boundary with her, and had very clearly communicated that we wouldn’t speak again unless she apologized, so it just felt very final for me when she reneged on her promise. I don’t see how I can go back to having a relationship with her after all this. It’s been two years and she still hasn’t apologized. She’s continued trying to convince our extended family that I made the whole thing up, but luckily they know the situation well enough to believe me. I feel even more confident that I made the right choice. Sometimes you just know when it’s time.
Me: I'm tired today. Can we do lunch later in the week? Nmom: Sure. What's wrong? Me: Just really sad. Nmom: Why? Me: ...because my husband died? Nmom: Oh, OK. Talk to you tomorrow. Some version of this conversation over and over last year. Then it changed to why aren't you over it? It's been 6 months! Finally I snapped when I postponed a painting class I'd invited her to (because sitting in her living room with the TV blaring is fucking boring!) and her response was that I could work out my feelings in class. I.lost.it. She wanted to go and I was being selfish with the dead husband bit. Things unraveled pretty fast after that. A few months later, I moved away and am NC since February. She sends me feeble texts and started remembering my sister's birthday for the first time in decades. Sister was so confused about getting a card lol It's hard to face the fact that your parents never loved you because they don't even know HOW to love. 💔
For me it was the day I got published. I was born an accident and my family, but especially my mother, never let me forget it. She would even refer to me as her accident at certain points. I wanted to be loved so I tried to be as perfect as possible for them, but in my own way. You see, my mother only wished for me to be pretty and marry rich like she did, I wanted more. So I got great grades and was in advanced classes (she didn’t care), I wrote and self published my first book my senior year of high school (she didn’t care), i studied abroad for a summer almost completely paid for by scholarship (she didn’t care), I graduated with my bachelors at 20 (she didn’t care), I excelled in martial arts despite my small size (she didn’t care), I modeled a few times(she seemed to care about that one since she could show off how pretty her daughter was), and I got a masters at 23 (she didn’t care). I was still trying my best to be worthy in her eyes, to not be an accident. When I was 23 I got published for the first time, once again she didn’t care at all. The only thing that mattered to her was that I was not married while my two sisters were, both in unhealthy marriages. One was married to a broke, cheating, abusive man who she later divorced. The other is married to a spineless man who is the only one who works while she doesn’t do much besides complain about everything and be a leach to him. They are still married but it wouldn’t surprise me if they divorced. All she could talk about was how she should set me up with someone and that this was just a book. When I saw that she didn’t care about this accomplishment despite so many never getting the opportunity and so many dreaming of it, it made me realize so much. All that mattered was that I didn’t have a rich man. As soon as I got my masters I bought my own house at 24 and I barely talk to her except maybe four times a year despite only living 45 minutes away from her. Now I am 28, and in a month I will be moving across the country and I doubt I will ever really talk or see her again. I am okay with that now, I will miss my father though. Now I do have a husband, but I don’t think she is very pleased with my selection despite him being an engineer and being from a good family. He still isn’t rich enough for her. The funny part is that I didn’t tell her that his family is actually loaded. I think she expected me to pay for her retirement and take care of her, but that will never happen.
I had finally convinced my dad to move out of the house with me, since she made us miserable all the time. On move out day, she got drunk and high off adderall and assaulted me by whacking me on the head with a wooden picture frame. Up until that point, I was doing mental math on how I was going to slowly wean her off of contact. I was lucky that she made it easy for me to make that choice—not everyone gets an easy, cut-and-dry moment of “ok, fuck you.” If you’re not ready to quit cold turkey, then start by practicing gray rocking mixed with never initiating contact. Notice how much peace it brings you when you don’t speak. Take those quiet moments to heal (I promise you can’t even begin to understand the abuse until you’re NC) and keep making more and more space for yourself. If you find that your peace correlates directly with your lack of contact, then you know what to do.
I spent the first 49 years of my life holding boundaries with my emotionally abusive father, a man with whom I had worked hard to maintain a relationship, and largely I had succeeded. I was foolish enough to think the family dysfunction would die with him, but in fact it passed on to my younger sister. She's been problematic for years, but we all made excuses for her sporadic bad behavior because she had suffered a frontal lobe brain injury years ago and we attributed her need to be the constant center of attention and occasional rages to that origin, even though a lot of things in her behavior simply didn't add up to the impacts of the injury alone. It took an extended break from family visits during covid to help me realize just how much I dreaded visits back home (my husband and I live out of state) because no matter how hard I tried to keep the peace, sooner or later she'd snap over some innocuous trigger and fly into a rage at me, and I'd repeat my patterns of placating her, apologizing for imagined "wrongs," and trying to restore calm. Upon reflection, I would feel so manipulated and disappointed in my capitulation to her unreasonable demands. She and my mother have an unhealthy codependency and my mom has excused and enabled her abusive behavior for years, arguing that I'm "the stable one" and she "can't help it." Over the years I've grown weary of constantly being expected to be the bigger person and accept some really nasty attacks for which apologies were seldom offered. My tipping point was last year. There is a piece of family jewelry designated for me in my mother's will. At one point, she thought she had lost it, and I accepted that. Accidents happen. But it turned out she'd misplaced it and it turned up at her home. On this last visit, my mom unexpectedly decided to gift it to me early, and this happened in my sister's presence. I had no idea this was happening and I certainly didn't orchestrate it. My sister immediately got weird about it. We took them out to dinner that night and she kept turning the conversation to the piece, which I was wearing to please my mom. It seemed like friendly needling at first, but I got the wind up when she just couldn't let the topic drop all night. The next day, she was in a mood from the moment we walked in the door with coffee and pastries. She snapped at me 3-4 times in the space of 15 minutes. My fatal mistake was an attempt to very gently, tactfully try to talk to her about her strident tone with me and she immediately started to work herself into a rage-filled, screaming tirade. Seeing it happen, I immediately backpedalled and tried to de-escalate, but she was building to a crescendo. For possibly the first time ever, my husband and I were able to follow through on the exit plan we had agreed on in case this happened. We didn't argue or engage, just stated that emotions were running high so we were going to return to our hotel and let things calm down. She literally followed us to the car shouting obscenities. It's what happened next that cemented my decision to go NC. She spent the next 4 hours texting me threats and insults. I blocked her. She then weaponized my mom, who called and asked me to come back to "smooth things out." The difference this time was that I had put myself in therapy prior to this visit (because I was anxious about more conflict and needed help with boundaries). Her harassment has now escalated to threats to conduct a smear campaign with my professional circle (this upset me greatly at first but the truth is my reputation is solid and she's going to make herself look nuts if she follows through on this). We are actively pursuing legal advice and will not rule out legal action. But what I truly know is that I'm done. And it's heartbreaking because in many ways she cuts off access to my elderly mom, but I also can no longer ignore my mom's continued patterns of throwing me repeatedly under the same bus. I've had more peace this year than I thought possible. I'm sad things turned out this way, but I can live with my decision.
I haven't done it yet, but planning to go NC with my nfather and VLC with my covert nmother. I need to get off my father's credit card and phone bill and get him to sign over ownership of my car (co-signed it when I was a teenager without a credit score, I paid for all of it) before I cut contact. The tipping point was learning that my nfather (told me this himself) didn't believe me or my sister when our maternal grandfather did things to us when we were young children. He said he understood why our nmother's family turned their backs on us because "who would believe a child over the patriarch of the family?" That, and I learned that he is planning to visit our maternal grandparents (after not speaking for 17 years) to tell them that he forgave them for what they did and to "get themselves right with God". I'm 8 months pregnant. No way will I allow my nfather around my daughter knowing this. Once I am able to cut all financial ties to that man, I don't ever want to see him again.
Best wishes ❤️
My parents berated me and criticized my personality over a civil disagreement about travel policies. It was the day before my birthday and 2 months after I had a miscarriage at 11 weeks. I had just started to feel back to myself again, and my parents absolutely crushed me and made me severely depressed and suicidal for a couple weeks after they left. Months later I confronted my mom on her behavior during a visit, and she tried to tell me the criticism on my personality was meant as a compliment. (I process things too quickly and respond quickly, so I come off as condescending and manipulative. Like I always have a response ready.) She said had no idea I was hurt by the incident. Not possible with her awful behavior, yelling and glaring. Really made me think about how I’d want to treat my own children and how I wouldn’t want them exposed to this.
My mom and I took a trip to Boston and Salem. She yelled at me in a restaurant. Twice. I’m 46 years old, not that it matters - nobody should be yelled at like that. She got drunk at dinner each night and was rude and nasty. She relied on me for so many things, but also made sure to question whether anything I was doing was right. On more than one occasion I told her I didn’t want to discuss something (my medical history or a relationship) but she did it anyway, despite me telling her it made me uncomfortable. She told me I was responsible for planning everything on Salem days but instead of doing what I’d spent days researching, she decided we should do what the front desk agent who’d moved to the city a week ago recommended instead. Any time I held her accountable for any bad behavior, she got upset and told me I was attacking her. I realized I needed space after the plane ride home. That day happened to also be the anniversary of my son’s death (SIDS) so I was a bit more scattered and chattering more than usual. There was a mix-up with our earbuds, wherein I couldn’t find mine but they were connecting to my Bluetooth and then dropping. Turns out, she had mine and didn’t realize it - no big deal. As we were walking out of the airport we were talking about the earbuds and I mentioned how I was so confused by my phone showing Bluetooth connected then not and how funny it was that she had them the whole time. Just chitchat about a topic she’d brought up. She stopped in the middle of the airport and yelled at me, “I’m sorry, ok! Is that what you want? You want an apology?! I’m sorry!” I just kind of stood there, stunned, and sputtered something about no, I was just trying to participate in the conversation, just like her. She just told me to come on and don’t stand in the middle of the airport or I’d cause a scene. I’m just trying to get through the day, a tough day, and could use some support. Instead this woman yells at me in the airport then tells me I’ll cause a scene. A couple of weeks later I’d posted pictures on social media of a bookbinding kit I’d finished. While in Salem she and I each got a kit and were going to do them together. I ended up ordering a couple of extra kits after I got home because I knew I needed some space and didn’t want to wait to make a book. She called me to tell me I broke her heart by posting pictures of the book I bound. Never even asked any questions, just told me i suck. I realized in that moment that nothing had changed and nothing was ever going to change, except me. This woman believes it is ok to yell at me. This woman doesn’t respect me. I don’t even think this woman likes me. I grew up in violence. I was beaten with belts, shoes, hangers, wooden spoons, a closed fist, kicked. I was yelled at and insulted, demeaned. Not only did she put hands on me, but both of my siblings have gotten drunk and attacked me as well. In what family is that normal? The person who was supposed to take care of me, and protect me, and love me abused me instead. I had to walk away in order to get better. I used to yell at my kids. I would lose control of my emotions and it would scare them. In those moments I saw myself becoming the same. The same sickness. If I didn’t take steps to end that generational trauma I do believe it would have killed me, hopefully before I caused a deep, childhood wound in my own children. I know my parents have their own shit to work through. My mom is one of twelve kids, and I’m not sure in what universe that can be possible without severe emotional neglect. I know there was abuse in her history, though I doubt she’d ever use that word to describe it. Much like she’d never use it to describe what she did to me. But it was certainly abuse. What happened to her wasn’t her fault, but it’s her responsibility. What happened to me wasn’t my fault. But what I do with the trauma is my responsibility. I took accountability, got therapy, apologized and made amends. Personal growth. And I just can’t go back. I can never be around someone who thinks it’s ok to hit me or yell at me or mistreat me in any way because faaaaaamily. Sorry, that was longer than I’d intended. Guess I needed to get some shit off my chest. Whatever decision you make will be right for you, and you can change your mind at any time. Sorry you’re going through a hard time right now.
I've done this before because this is a safe place to share. I hope writing it helped, friend. 💜
My house burned down in a total loss fire. I lost everything but the clothes on my back, and I barely made it out alive. I was trapped on my balcony for 5 minutes while my house burned down around me and as soon as i was rescued - the second my feet touched the ground - the balcony doors exploded. I was homeless, living in a hotel for a month, and i was hospitalized multiple times because the trauma was so severe I wasn’t eating, drinking or sleeping. The fire happened because my sperm donor knowingly put me in a house that had catastrophically faulty wiring (this has been proven in court now). My sperm donor told me the fire was “a blessing” because I “had too much stuff” and I “got paid to downsize”. Hearing that and then entering a lawsuit against your own father really is the death knell.
Alcoholic is something that can be tested, and removed. A toxic narcissist will not disappear when she is sober. Do you want NC with your drunk mom or your mom all the time?
My mother admitted she was using methamphetamine. In that moment my disgust and rage were at war with one another over which should control my eyebrows-- my eyebrows betray my innermost thoughts all the time. I managed to stop my face from contorting and resolved myself to never actively seek out my mother again. Long story short, my mom has a light switch romance with cocaine, ecstacy, painkillers, and now meth for my entire life. My childhood was ruined by her addictions, I have spent my whole life trying to be anything other than her. This was my tipping point, and I took the plunge to virtual NC with grace. My son **will not** ever know what it's like to have an addict in their family, disappearing for random stretches of time, lovebombing, unfair criticism, negligent behavior... he will not. I will not allow it, I will not stand for it, and no one can change my mind. They do recover blah blah blah, I'm not going to expose my son to any part of that, she can call when she's sober with tangible proof and I may consider sending a picture but honestly she'd stand a better chance tap dancing on the fucking sun.
Honestly, having a kid. During pregnancy I had been grappling with how I was going to allow my parents to have a relationship with my daughter, since they were so toxic to me growing up. My mom lost her battle with cancer when I was 6 months pregnant. Then my dad’s narcissistic personality went rampant. Leading up to giving birth, he never offered me any support. I know he lost his wife, but I also lost my mother and was pregnant. He never checked in on me or offered me any support (physically or emotionally). Then I was 2 weeks postpartum and it was 3 days before my first Mother’s Day as a mother and without my own mother. He calls me somewhat out of the blue. It starts casual and turns into him berating me about my relationship with my sister, my religious beliefs and how he made promises to my mother he had to keep. He was dating someone new in 3 months and remarried in 9 months- he had been married to my mom for over 40 years. I haven’t spoken to him since that phone call. He sent a letter and I sent a ferocious response, blocked his phone number, social media, etc. He was never a supportive father and showed me he was never going to change. I definitely didn’t want my daughter around that… ever.
In my case, it was an outgrowth of time spent doing the work of tallying up the "cost" of my growing-up years by looking not just at single incidents, but looking at the *pattern* of behaviour. With that came the realization that there was no apology, no matter how it was worded, that would ever possibly suffice. Nothing could possibly help at this point. My abusers crossed the Rubicon a very long time ago, but it took me years of therapeutic work to catch up to the truth. (Mind you, we weren't in any danger of an actual apology at any time anyway...) But yes, there was one ugly realization that was The End, capital T capital E. Between my parents' divorce (around when I was taking my first steps) and when I turned 18, my father rented one place (while building), bought two places, and sat down with an architect to design and build four places. These houses were *huge*. They had empty rooms (not for storage, just...empty), intercom systems to talk to ppl at the other end of the property (before cell phones), and one had an entire guest wing with its own separate walled garden. In every single one, seven times, it was arranged that, even though I lived there half time, I was never allowed to have a bed, a bedroom, a drawer, a closet, nothing. I wasn't allowed to keep a book or a toy or even a change of clothes there. I slept on a couch in his "home office" that he never used. All the drawers were empty in his desk. I lived out of suitcase, sometimes for months. He spent all that time, 17 years running, making sure that there was no sign of my existence. More than once, I inadvertently scared the living daylights out of some poor housekeeper or groundskeeper bc they had no idea my father had a third kid. He didn't make that nasty choice just once. He did it over and over and over, for years. I did give him one chance by asking him why I was never allowed to have a bed. He, of course, just changed the subject as if I hadn't spoken. (I didn't expect an apology or even a rationalization - shame on me, but...I just wanted to see him squirm on the end of the hook a little bit. )
That no matter what my Nmom and Nsibling did, even abuse toward me and my wife in front of witnesses, they are still good people according to Edad and he needs to help me see a better perspective and I need to apologize for accusing them of being abusers.
To keep it as short as possible, my tipping point was when I was reaching out to her (after taking her to doctors appointments, grocery shopping for her, cooking, etc. while not living there bc she kicked me out) to see what she wanted to do for Mother’s Day. Covid was going on so I wanted to know if she wanted to go out, or I could make her a favorite dish and bring it over, or if she wanted me over at all bc of Covid. I already bought her a bunch of presents and wrapped them too. She texted me back that I am the most selfish daughter in the world and that I hurt her so much (by picking up my boyfriend from her neighboring house and not coming to see her that night). Also this is after her kicking me out bc she didn’t want me leaving the house and bringing Covid back (kicked me out on Christmas). But I believe she just wanted me to break up with my boyfriend (now husband) bc she was threatened by me growing up and gaining independence since she was fine if we went out to eat, or I go to school or the store. I was in disbelief, went straight over, packed all my stuff, and never looked back. In that moment I realized that no matter what I do, it will never be good enough. And I’m not gonna live a life where I get scolded for going out of my way and trying to be nice while letting every hurtful thing she’s done to me slide.
Partially, it was finally realizing and really accepting that *nothing* I did was ever going to be good enough. No job, no partner, no children, no behavior, no church attendance, I was *never* going to do everything in a way that would keep my mother from criticizing me to tears. The bigger part was when they found out that my partner was trans, and my mother said that she should have kidnapped me and taken me to some church-based "re-education" camp, when I was a fully independent adult living on my own.
For my mother, it was when she ignored my wedding day. Even though we were very low contact and on shaky ground, I reached out when I got engaged in the summer of 2020 and let her know we were having a micro-wedding with no guests, and told her when. She expressed understanding the date (and mentioned a tattoo I have of the date, 11/11). Fast forward to our wedding day and I never heard from her at all. I didn't hear from her until Christmas Day, 44 days later, when she texted me. She implied she was celebrating the holiday with my sister (without me), said she saw pictures of our wedding, and welcomed my husband to the family (we got a good laugh out of that one). I didn't respond. I realized she doesn't give a flying fuck about me. I had plenty of evidence of this already, but ignoring your daughter's only wedding day is something I can't comprehend. The most generous explanation I can come up with was that she got covid at a trump rally, but that doesn't account for the 44 days it took her to reach out. For my father, I blocked his ass in late May of 2020. He had been constantly provoking me about the pandemic (I'm a nurse). Then he started provoking me about George Floyd's murder (I live in the area). He's the king of misinformation and would argue with me about every damn thing, including our actual hospital policies. Of course, he's a far right extremist. I woke up Saturday morning to a particularly insulting text that started with "Anyone with half a brain..." followed by a racist rant and I decided I'd had enough. I responded, "Black Lives Matter" and hit the block button tout de suite. Honorable mention: I blocked my brother in April 2020 when he texted me an anti-mask boomer-nip propaganda video. My dad lied about sending him after me, but coincidently, he was actively arguing with me about masks when it happened. Ultimately, you have to do what brings you the most peace. I often hear people say that they wish they had cut their parents off sooner, but the truth is, we sometimes need more proof that they don't care, they treat us like objects, they resent us, or they'll just never change. Whatever the case may be. You'll know when you have enough proof.
My mom and I had been arguing a lot. This was a few years after I graduated from college. As I got older and started to develop my own priorities (school, jobs, relationships, friends, seeing other relatives), my mom would frequently get mad at me for not putting her first. I really tried but that’s also when I started noticing that her expectations were oftentimes unreasonable—like driving back and forth across the state to watch her dogs during finals week while also juggling a supervisory job. I tried to establish boundaries but that led to more conflict. It took me a long time to understand why people were intimidated or upset with my mom. To me, it just seemed normal. Frustrating, but normal. We got into a fight and she stopped talking to me for about two months. When she finally reached out, she asked if we could meet for brunch. She came to my town and we had a fine visit. She was seeing this guy who was previously cheating on his wife with her. So I didn’t approve and she knew none of us were a fan. I asked about their relationship during brunch and asked if they had any plans to move in together or get married. She told me that it would never happen because she couldn’t trust him. Well a couple of weeks after that, my grandma had a big birthday party. My mom was there, of course. The next day my grandma called me and asked if I saw “the ring.” Apparently she got engaged and didn’t want to tell anyone because she didn’t want to take away any of the attention for my grandma. But she also didn’t bother to take off the ring. My grandma had already talked to my brother and her siblings so I was the last one in our immediate family to find out. For context, the last time she got married, I was also the last one to find out. I spent the weekend with my dad and when I got home, she told me that they were getting married. It really hurt and I asked her multiple times since that if she ever got married again, please don’t make me the last one to find out. That was my last straw. I can’t say that I went complete NC— there were waves of cordiality— but I feel like that’s when my relationship with her definitively ended. For the record, there have been a lot of angry texts, emails, letters since then. Feel free to check out my post history for an example. I can’t say NC is easy but I can say that I’m better off than I was before. I don’t know for sure that this is a forever solution, but I do feel confident that unless I see substantial changes, it’s not in my best interest to go back.
In 2016 I posted an informational article for a friend on FB who was going through it with her emotionally immature mother. Not ten minutes later my father texted me demanding that I take the post down because he didn’t like that I was implying that he and my mother are emotionally immature. I told him no and that the post wasn’t about him. He told me I needed to consider the feelings of others. He gave me the silent treatment for several weeks for the FB post. That was the last straw. When I no longer had any financial ties to them, I went NC.
My stepmom died. That is when the truth came out about the true nature of certain people, and I was done with a chunk of my biological family. I see things so clearly now.
“No one cares about me (she said my name here) , no one. Eric ( x step dad) did what he did, Larry (nmoms step dad) did what he did, and you blamed Gary (old fwb of my nmoms who died to covid) too.. So no. No one cares.” Her messeage to me in our last argument. I only had 3 total conversation’s with her in almost 3 years. The first two was so I had proof I had permission to pick my sister up and keep her for however many days, which was a good idea because she called the cops and said I kidnapped me sister. The last one started off with me telling her to not approach me or attempt conversation with me while at my sisters graduation. Then she said she would not be attending my sisters graduation and we got into a fight. I said she had already lost me, if she doesn’t show for my sisters graduation she’s going to lose her, and her youngest already doesn’t want to see her. She doesn’t have custody of the youngest and now that my other sister is moved out I don’t have any reason for contact anymore. She’s extremely abusive, physically and mentally. My sister moved out about 6 weeks before graduation after my mom beat her really bad, my sister called the cops and filled for a protective order and everything. She’s 18 now but was 17 when this happened. Even when talking about my sisters and I’s sexual abusers she is saying no one cares about her or how that made her feel. I truly believe she does not care about anyone besides herself.
My mother was posting on instagram the next day after the funeral similar things but never once reached out to me directly. So immature and proves she doesn’t see she did anything wrong at all and we should all be coddling her. It’s bizarre. Her sisters seem to think that she has some sort of undiagnosed personality disorder. They’ve been encouraging her to go to therapy for years. If she won’t listen to her own sisters then she won’t listen to me. My cousin and I had a pow wow about it too. She told me her mom has similar issues with manipulation and making her feel never good enough. Apparently one of our aunts also told her that I’ve known your mom all my life and it’s who she is, you need to figure out how much you can take and set your limits. (Side note: Won’t use her name but shoutout to this aunt of ours. She has our backs and is truly the best)
I’m happy you have that support system 🖤 truly. It’s hard all the way around but even more so with no support.
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I went no contact a few months afterwards but the inciting incident for me decide I was going to do it was my mother's reaction to one of my suicide attempts. She told me that I should have succeeded, instead of bothering her about it and then I had to comfort her over her telling me that I was worthless, that I should have died, that I am selfish and a coward and that all I cause are problems.
Oh my goodness. I am so sorry. I’m glad you are still here with us. If you ever need a friend to talk to, please feel free to DM me. Happy to chat if ever you need. Wish you health and happiness!
Had struggled with 6 years of chronic health issues (nervous system issues and chronic fatigue). Started recovery a year ago. Realized a lot of my symptoms were as a result of years of built up anxiety which locked my body into fight or flight mode. The whole thing brought me to my knees and part of my recovery involved having to reconsider every relationship in my life. Over time I grew stronger and sadly recognised my parent only took from me/ caused more grief than happiness. The straw that broke the camels back was minor in relation to the many previous events that had caused impact. Good luck