No Contact blues

[stilltrying]

I lurked on this board for a while before and I'd like to start off by saying that I can relate to so many of the difficulties, frustration, confusion and myriad of other emotions and battle grounds so many of wrote about here and my heart goes out to all of you faced with the difficulties I know only too well. This is extremely painful and like a mind-tangling issue that just seems to twist more out of control the more you try to work it out.

I've been feeling guilty recently. I haven't spoken to PD my mum for over a year, not seen her for 3 years and had very little contact in the years before this. Same with the rest of my FOO. My youngest sister who was the last person I broke contact with, it has been NC for age, then LC, then NC for several years until 1 year ago when I had enough. She was the only one who had my new phone number, which she got from me 1 year ago after our LC was limited to via facebook messenger and she pulled a tantrum and she said she thought it was ridiculous she doesn't have my phone number and that if we didn't talk on the phone, she wouldn't continue communicating with me. Looking back, this angers me so much as it had taken a big step for me to get rid of my old number and start afresh with a number one, given only to people with whom I felt safe. But...I was in one of those awful sad/guilty/shameful spiral when she demanded it, and stupidly i gave it to her, making her promise she'd never give it to anyone.

After we spoke on the phone a year ago, the usual BS happened and we blocked each other. Haven't heard from her since. 6 weeks ago, i received a call from a number i didn't recognise, followed by texts saying it was my mum in english (she doesn't speak/write english fluently nor does she know how to use messaging apps) so i suspected it was one of my sisters texting on her behalf. Stupidly i answered the phone call and it was ...the usual narc manipulative apology and gaslighting and deflecting and all the rest of it. I was in a vulnerable place, facing moving cities and just wanted to believe i could believe her. She claimed she had decided to learn how to use translating apps and how to use phone and this was indeed her new number to contact me on (which she must have got through my sister who had promised not to give it to anybody!). I just wanted all this narc stuff to go away so after listening to her apology and 'explanations', i said i'd think about what i wanted to do.

Fast forward to last week, i messaged the number and asked if it really was mum or one of my other siblings. My other sister (E) admitted it was her number. This infuriates me. So it HADN'T been my mother texting me, everything she said was a lie (she has always found it very easy to lie easily and casually) and then my mum got on the phone and started talking as though everything is completely hunky-dory, like we are a loving mother-daughter unit, and she would love to come visit if i tell her where i live, and she would cook for me and help me with whatever i need. which sounds so nice, right? But when you know a narc, you know the lovebombing is just to preen you into a false sense of security. I felt numb - i would LOVE for a loving mother but have long since accepted this will never be the case. It was sad listening to her rail off a loving speech that i knew deep down is just a smokescreen. And nobody even addressed the fact that I HAD NOT GIVEN MY PERMISSION FOR MY NUMBER TO BE GIVEN TO HER. She even glossed over the police investigation that happened last year due to abuse from my siblings and said how 'beside himself and sorry' my brother was and how he tells her he really respects me, and that he was just a stupid kid when it all happened and he didn't know any better.

This is what angers me. The lack of boundaries, the lack of respect for me and my wishes and what i've been through - no 'sorry if you didn't want me to have your number', and no 'i'm so sorry about the investigation and i failed to protect you...' just this blitzing through to automatically wanting to come visit me, learn where my new life is, get involved as though nothing ever happened! At the same time, i received a message from my sister who i had originally given my number to stating simply, after 1 year, and after she lied to the police saying i made the abuse up,  her text said 'dont trust mum, she's psycho, i'm leaving soon'.

I was numb from all this and have been through so many emotions./ Anger at my sister for giving out my number then suddenly thinking she is OK to message me to 'warn me' (I'm guessing they had yet another cycle of narc rage etc etc and she was looking for people to be on her side) - no acknowledgement of the lies in the police investigation, or the fact we haven't even been in contact for a year or even that SHE herself had given my number to my mum just days before trying to 'warn me' about her.
After thinking about it, yesterday I sent a message to E saying 'i've thought things through and i don't wish to resume contact with mum or the the rest of the family, please respect my wishes' and blocked the lot of them.

I think its for the best but today...suddenly i felt guilty. For some reason, I feel sad that i just abruptly blocked them and remembered how happy my mum sounded talking about wanting to come visit, wanting to help me, even though i know its just fake lovebombing. She even peppered it with her typical narc prying 'so have you done your career exams?' (which she knows nothing about) and hinting at it being time for me to get pregnant and because i was just grey rocking, she said 'oh so you don't have any stories to converse and relay to me?' (i'm used to her saying this when people don't offer up titbits or personal information about themselves or other people).

Why oh why do i feel guilty?
There's so much i want to get off my chest and just type and type and type and get it all out. But i'm exhausted.

[Dante]

I'm so sorry for everything you've gone through.  We're trained to feel guilty when we do any sort of self-care or self-protection, because that's how we were managed, but what happened to you is not your fault.

[Papa Coco]

Hi Stilltrying

I blocked my family when I was 50. I'm 61 now. What I noticed was that as soon as I walked away from them, my lifelong therapy sessions finally began to work. I say that you can't start healing the victims of a train crash until after the train stops crashing. And you can't start healing from emotional abuse until the emotional abuse stops happening. COMPLETELY. The 30 years of therapy I'd been in only served to keep me alive and barely sane.  After I walked away, the next 10 years of therapy have moved me forward in life a thousand-fold.

I suggest a very, VERY well written book: The Sociopath Next Door by Dr. Martha Stout. It set me free of so much self doubt about whether I'd done the right thing or not. I am #4 of 5 children. #'s 2 and 3 were horrible people. #2 is a Narcissist/Sociopath who used tricks exactly like the ones you are describing used on you. She was 11 years older than me. During my lifetime, I'd tried many times to cut her out of my life, but each time, our mother would set a trap and bring me into family interventions, treating our relationship like it was MY fault that "her kids weren't getting along." No kidding: I was constantly being told to forgive #2, so that #2 could just start abusing me again!!!!

I finally figured out for myself that I couldn't block just one member of the family, and then when I read Dr. Stout's book, I discovered that walking away from everyone is often the only way to be set free from the one toxic one. Like you, if I stayed in contact with ANYONE from my family, somehow they'd conspire together to trap me back in, OR they would tell so many lies about me behind my back that everyone would end up judging ME as the bad person.

I admit, total estrangement was a big, big decision. I wanted it starting at 11 years old and did it at 50, when, after the worst tragedy of my entire life so far, they exploded in dysfunction and became so ugly that even I couldn't love them anymore. Once they were blocked and gone, it took over a year for me to get their haunting voices of shame and judgement out of my head, but eventually I found freedom. I've not communicated with anyone in my family for over 11 years now and I'm very, very happy about it.

When I told my therapist that I wished I'd done it when I was younger, he told me it was an unrealistic fantasy, because when I was younger I hadn't yet evolved into the kind of person who could block his family. What happened at 50 me was I'd finally reached my limit!

No kidding, Dr Stout's book is very eye-opening, and very well written, and very easy to follow. It might really help you come to terms with whatever decision you need to make.

I know how hard it is to be in your position. I nearly went crazy (That is NOT just words: I was very nearly insane, and very, very, very suicidal because of them). It was one of the most difficult decisions of my life, but now, 11 years later, I'm still alive and surrounded only by people who love me ernestly, rather than with some sort of an ugly trick up their sleeve. I can trust the people who are now in my life. I never trusted anyone when I was still surrounded by the narcissist and her army of flying monkeys. (ie; the rest of my siblings and parents).

Like you I could write a novel right here about how insane they'd made me, but this isn't the place for that so I'll make myself stop writing now. 

[Kizzie]

I'm so sorry stilltrying, it's just really hard not to feel normal human feelings when we think we might be hurting someone.

How I deal with my guilt is to remember and reinforce when it pops up (not all that often anymore) that relational trauma is abnormal and the people who abuse/neglect me are not normal/healthy. It's sad and a huge loss to go NC/LC but we have to look out for ourselves because they won't, in fact they will often try to hurt us either knowingly or because their PD doesn't allow them to be reflective and see what they are doing/not doing.  It came down to making a choice between them or me and I chose me.

Hope this helps 


 

[stilltrying]

It hurts so bad today. I've been frozen with the pain, guilt and overwhelming sadness for my siblings, my mum, the trauma THEY went through to become how they are and how my siblings also suffered, just like me, except they're all still (admittedly voluntarily) in the midst of it all...I've tried to just sit with it and process it, because distracting and doing, doing, doing has become too exhausting but this pain is just awful.....

I wish I could just pick up the phone and speak openly and honestly, in a 2-way conversation, where feelings are aired, apologies made and resolution sought.
I wish I could apologise for my transgressions, without fear of then being seen as weak and available for manipulation.
I wish I could talk it all out, tell my scapegoat sister that i witnessed all her pain and all that was done to her, and though her behaviour itself is awful, I'm so sorry for what she went through that caused her to become the way she is, and what she has missed out on and how much better she deserved....
I wish I could tell my mum that if she just accepts and validates her horrific behaviour towards us growing up, we can resolve it and move on but she must not behave in the same way, and I'm sorry for her upbringing full of pain too.

I miss them all. I'm so confused. I'm so angry at what they did to me, how they interact and choose to live life and not choose to be better, do better...they just want it to continue like that and reject healthy relationships.

I'm face to face with all the difficulties, hardships, emptiness, terror, helplessness, horror of what I went through and witnessed and endured and its scaring the life out of me.

I'm starting with a new therapy treatment this friday. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about. I hope to get some solace, at least even for a few hours.

[Kizzie]

I wish I could just pick up the phone and speak openly and honestly, in a 2-way conversation, where feelings are aired, apologies made and resolution sought.
I wish I could apologise for my transgressions, without fear of then being seen as weak and available for manipulation.
I wish I could talk it all out, tell my scapegoat sister that i witnessed all her pain and all that was done to her, and though her behaviour itself is awful, I'm so sorry for what she went through that caused her to become the way she is, and what she has missed out on and how much better she deserved....
I wish I could tell my mum that if she just accepts and validates her horrific behaviour towards us growing up, we can resolve it and move on but she must not behave in the same way, and I'm sorry for her upbringing full of pain too.

Amen stilltrying, amen. I would give anything to be able to do this with my family too.

I have to say that your compassion for your family is what makes you human and humane. It may be small comfort right now but it's what I hung onto when I was trying to get through the pain of realizing I had to let go of my family and give up trying to find them in storm of trauma they had succumbed to. It means you aren't absent in the way they are and able to recover and live more authentically than them.  FWIW my pain, guilt and fear lessened over time. 

So glad to hear you have a T to help.