Has anyone had contact with abuser after NC?

[bee]

Here's the situation.
I cut off contact with my parents. My M has some combination of BPD, npd, and sociopathic traits. My F puts her needs above his children's. My siblings still maintain contact, but keep me out of it.

Years passed and I made progress, mentally and physically.

A family crisis came up a couple years ago and I agreed to be in the same house as my M. I had been NC about five years. I thought I would be ok. I was scared yes, but I thought once I actually saw her I would find that things had changed. I didn't think she had changed, I thought I had changed. I thought that since I was an adult now, I would no longer be terrified, that if I saw her I would see that she had no power over me.

When I first saw her there was a greeting equivalent to how you would greet someone after a few days. M had been warned to be on her best behavior by my brother. My siblings both assured me that they would not tolerate any poor behavior from her. I saw her think about starting to cry, then decide against it. I know that sounds weird, but I learned early to read her every facial tick. I held it together about 24 hours. I ate lunch at the same table as her, watched a movie in the same room as her. Thinking the whole time how surreal it was. Wondering why I was the only one who could see how f***ed the situation was. Me sitting at the same table as my abuser. She hardly interacted with me. A good thing, sort of. My father tried hovering, really set my teeth on edge. I thought at least he would care how I was doing, but he was only interested in gathering info for M.

Then I broke. I went to the room I was staying in, went in the closet and sobbed. I was so overwhelmed. Since I had heard that I would be in her presence I had been on high alert. Like on red alert, when you've opened the cover over the red button and your hand is hovering over the button ready to push it. Just her presence made me feel that way. I cried for hours, trying to talk myself out of the closet. I called some people and they were very kind and helpful. I never do this, but i knew it was beyond what I could handle. I finally calmed down after I made the decision to not see M again. I stayed in the room until she was gone.

I feel like a failure. My T assures me that this was a healthy response. It feels weak. My M has taken another 2,3,4? years of my life, as this has set me way back in my recovery. I hate that. I hate that I consented to this. I can logically see that this kind of response is expected when the abuse is physical. My M's primary abuse was verbal and psychological. I have no frame of reference to how people respond when they had this kind of abuse.

Can anyone else relate to reacting so strongly when in the presence of their abuser?

[spryte]

I have not had to be in the presence of my M since I cut off contact with her. I was afraid that I was going to have to be, when my Uncle died last year, but for whatever reason she didn't show up to the funeral. I am absolutely positive, however, that I would have the same type of reaction that you had. Believing I had changed, that I was strong enough, and then having some kind of intense emotional reaction to work through. The thing is, I don't think it's possible to NOT have had what happened to you, happen.

The thing that I am learning the most about my triggers, and the emotional responses that I have had to work through up to this point is that the only way they get worked through, is almost by recreating them. I can sit all day and think about how I'm going to set boundaries, but I'm not going to learn how to set boundaries until I am put in * situations where I am forced to have to set boundaries. And it's darn likely that I'm going to fail the first handful of times. But...each time, I'm going to gather more and more data. I'm going to analyze the situation and look at it from an observational perspective. Questions you could ask specific to your situation...

"Where did I lose control?" "At what point was too much?" "Should I have set up emotional support before I went?" (could talking to someone in your support system every half hour or hour have made a difference?" Not that this situation is likely to happen any time in the future, but I'm certain that analyzing this data will help you in other difficult situations. And remember, if you chose to reframe in this way, there can't be any judgment in the analyzing. When a scientist runs an experiment, and it goes wrong, he/she doesn't beat themselves up for making mistakes...they simply re-calibrate and run the experiment again. So make sure it's a "what can I do for next time." not a "I should have done this last time."

Feeling the feels is important. But much of what I'm learning, now that I feel like I've delved into as much of the past stuff as I can, or want to, is that now I can see my defense mechanisms much more clearly and they are mostly behavioral. If there was an emotional component that wasn't clear, that would be one thing and might require further delving into the past but even if it seems irrational to you because you've set yourself up in a mindset of "I should have been able to do this thing." looking at it from the outside...that kind of reaction was almost inevitable. Or, SOME kind of reaction, even if it wasn't that one. You were put in proximity of what, to you, was a predator, or...because I like to think of things in superhero terms, your Arch Nemesis. It would be completely normal for you to be on hyper-alert, and it would be completely normal for that to become so overwhelming that your coping strategies failed you the first time.

I'm not sure if anyone here is also a superhero geek, but I'm really integrating the entire superhero mythos into my healing journey. There are these superhero's called X-Men. The X-Men have a training room that they call the "Danger Room". It's a room where they go to hone their super powers, and train for battle. It's a super serious room. You can die. Every time I find myself in a really hard situation where I am being forced to practice my coping skills in real time, my cousin and I now call it going into the Danger Room. It's basically immersion therapy. The key to immersion therapy though, and dealing with the Danger Room, is that you have to determine the proper "setting" for the situation. Immersion therapy doesn't work when you are thrown into a tank full of tarantulas right off the bat, instead of maybe...sitting outside the door of a room that happens to have tarantula's in it, getting use to the very idea of going in there. It's baby baby steps. Your Danger Room setting was 11. Family crises tends to do that.

Please, please don't be too hard on yourself for reaction the way you did. ANYONE would have. Ask yourself how much of you feeling like you've been "put back" in your progress is because you feel like you failed in the Danger Room and are now being really hard on yourself.

"I can logically see that this kind of response is expected when the abuse is physical. My M's primary abuse was verbal and psychological. I have no frame of reference to how people respond when they had this kind of abuse."

That's a really typical response of emotional abuse survivors. Downplaying it's seriousness against physical abuse. You didn't do anything wrong, even in consenting to trying. You tried, it was too much, and now you know. You got a LOT of valuable information to use going forward, but it's only going to be useful if you forgive yourself and let go of the guilt and weak feelings.

[Ferzak]

Spryte-great and articulate response.
I could not have said it better-just wanted to add for bee a few things..

What you describe bee is not at all weak or a setback...in fact, it can show how healthy you have gotten....how hard you have worked.  When we are immersed in the abuse/neglect and dysfunction, it is sometimes hard to see what is going on.  In order to survive, we have to numb ourselves and/or engage in other defense mechanisms because the reality of the situation is way too much for any child to bear or even understand. Many of our defenses were brilliant survival mechanisms for the time and situation.  The problem is that these behaviors stop working and sabotage us in later life.
Once we start on the road to recovery we begin to see clearly how awful our childhood situation was and we begin to learn new ways of living.  For many of us it become MORE difficult to spend time with our abusers.  I know that is true for me.  When we encounter our abusers from a more healthy perspective, we see how badly we were treated and how sad it was that the sweet and innocent child that we were was treated the way we were treated.  Why would a healthy person who loves themselves or is learning to love and take care of themselves, choose to spend time with someone who abused them as a child? Just because that person is biologically related is not a good enough reason.
also
Sometimes when we are strong enough, we are able to let go and grieve.  That may have been what was going on with you that day.  Tell the internal critic to SHUT UP and leave you alone.  You handled the situation just fine and the grieving will prove healing in the long run.  There is no reason that you need to spend time with your Mother again. She doesn't deserve your presence. 

[Boatsetsailrose]

Thank u for sharing what u describe is my biggest fear and one I may face when the day comes that my grandmother dies. .. My fear of seeing m ( bpd ) and her acting normally - remember this disorder will manipulate us in all its glory -- no one else sees it but for us we feel it -- deeply --
Control -- psychological and emotional -- facial expressions - what's not said -- I could always tune into m so acutely because that's what was delivered to me -- the 'you are not here but I am 'message -- it's all about me
It used to be that just being in the same country as m was toxic for me --
I tell myself that 'now as I'm older, 7 yrs nc and more developed that I could handle it - but the reality is this personality disorder took me to the depths of psychological * -- and being in the same room of course is going to affect me -- how could it not --
Toxicity of shame - bad person - abnormal - weird-- not relavent -- dismissed -- blamed -- and bullet holed right through my spirit and all the other messages I received in various forms - yep if her presence didn't bring it back to me then well I would have imagined it all -- and if there is one firm thing I know now is that it wasn't made up it was fully real --
I am sorry you went through this experience and believe me it makes u very brave not wrong -- it's over now and u never have to do it again -
God knows I want to be brave I want to have my integrity but if I know another thing it's that bpd has no boundaries it casts a dark shadow ---energetically these people are very sick and are highly toxic to the people they 'live off
Do all u can to just rid yourself of the emotional impact -- do not beat on self ( the self u have built up and is still there ( even if it doesn't feel that way --
I imagine that the feelings of loss of control were massive for you and I can see that's how it would be for me -- all that I have worked so hard to build being violated just through presence --
But the recovery is still there it is just a full realisation now that abusers can not be neutral to the a abused - they are mentally disordered people who are highly unwell -

Safety is our only sanctuary - never to return --
I thank u so much for this post u have helped me a lot process something which has prayed a lot on my mind for a long time --
We deserve to be safe and we deserve to be kind to ourselves