How can you interact with family after years of gaslighting

[Kia1212]

How can I interact with any of my siblings after recognizing the extent of their gaslighting, emotional, and verbal abuses. I could never feel comfortable in their presence again. Shame on me for not recognizing how evil this was. But I am not the abuser, I would never hurt someone to the extent they have hurt me. Now they want me to do birthdays, xmas, etc. I don't think so. This is really sick. For over 30 years I have been begging, pleading and asking to stop the abuse. I thought after I divorced in 1999, my family would stop, but my mom and siblings continued for all these years. My family told my kids I was mentally ill and they grew up with that, me always being sad and angry at the abuse. Now my kids are all adults and finally realize what I have been saying all along. My family literally thought they were so mentally healthy compared to me, which is a joke. Narcissists psychopaths straight down the line. I can not imagine having a relationship with any of them. My whole life has been my family. I married a malignant narcissist at 17 and he initiated that whole gaslighting thing and my mom and siblings ran with it. They have told all of my relatives, including aunts, uncles, cousins, etc how sick I am because I was defending myself every day against their abuses. How do you ever get over this? The only way I realized it is when I developed Complex PTSD. Apparently I repressed a lot of memories associated with this. I do therapy but it never goes away, especially the major betrayal of people that I thought loved me, like I loved them.

[Kizzie]

Most of us here are in the same boat Kia, we went through so much abuse and/or neglect and really how can anyone get over that? IMO we can learn to manage it though by stepping away from those who hurt us as it sounds like you have, putting solid boundaries in place, and working on living our best life through therapy, connection with safe, decent people, receiving and giving support from fellow survivors and so on. We only have one life so we need to try and live it as well as we possibly can.

Now my kids are all adults and finally realize what I have been saying all along.

That is absolutely awesome to hear!

[AphoticAtramentous]

As Kizzie recommended, I find the best solution to this is taking a step back where possible. Some people are simply not worth talking to, and for many of us, it's not worth talking to our families. Gain distance, limit contact, establish boundaries, and focus our time on people who actually respect us from the start!
Not forced of course, just my own recommendations.

Regards,
Aphotic.

[Kizzie]

 

[Kia1212]

That is what I did last Sept 2024 went no contact. It definitely helped my anxiety. But now my birthday and xmas are coming up and they are all messaging me, I love you, miss you, etc.
How can I be in the same room with them when they have never ever acknowledged anything and they think they don't have to. I know they don't have to and I am fine with that, but I can't pretend that these people love me, in any way, shape or form. It's goes against everything I've ever believed in. They just need me to appear normal to others, typical narcissists.

[Phoebes]

It's like once you see it, you can't unsee it.

I know that's a tough spot to be in. It's totally up to you how you handle it. My first year going NC, I agreed to Christmas morning by the tree because the kids were little. NM managed to get in her usual delusional gaslighting. I have not spent the holidays with her since then, but do find time separately with the kids when I can. It's never easy but it was to the point I could not ignore it.

[Blueberry]

That is what I did last Sept 2024 went no contact. It definitely helped my anxiety. But now my birthday and xmas are coming up and they are all messaging me, I love you, miss you, etc.
How can I be in the same room with them when they have never ever acknowledged anything and they think they don't have to. I know they don't have to and I am fine with that, but I can't pretend that these people love me, in any way, shape or form. It's goes against everything I've ever believed in. They just need me to appear normal to others, typical narcissists.

It's tough one. I'm VVVLC, have been for a good few years now. Because I can no longer tolerate listening to their denials etc or even comments out of the blue on the past, never mind being in the same room as them. But I still miss them in certain ways or more like grieving I suppose.

Love is just a word they use, my FOO too. It doesn't mean much if they don't act as if they do. My FOO certainly doesn't. Their actions made that clear last time I saw the whole bunch. As for missing me, my FOO misses somebody to dump their garbage on. They don't even really know me because I'm a shadow of my real self around them, tiptoeing around trying not to exist figuratively speaking, sometimes even literally.

Before that I was in and out of contact for a while or in contact with some FOO mbrs, out of contact with others. Now it's VVVLC with everybody. I allow emails, that's it. And I try to employ Medium Chill and Grey Rock https://outofthefog.website/what-to-do-2/2015/12/3/medium-chill (out of the Fog is our sister website). I admit, I'm better at Medium Chill, than Grey Rock but even Medium Chill took me a while.

Shame on me for not recognizing how evil this was.

There's no shame attached to not recognising. It's a process for most of on here, I think. That's my impression anyway. Like healing, it goes down deeper and deeper layers. And learning new ways of being and acting and especially feeling and believing can take a long time. May not, but can. Like me above with Medium Chill and Grey Rock.