[Three Roses]

Huzzah!    you rock! That is awesome you're not allowing her to "hoover" you into further manipulation. Way to go! 

[Dutch Uncle]

Oh dear, these hoover-mails do get to me...

Here's a draft I might send after DramaSis' latest attempt... (For the content of the letter, see this in the 'letters never sent' section: A reply to your hoover, DramaSis.)

Name,

I don’t want to have contact with you. Your mails, phone-calls and our meetings are on the whole just like this one.
I’m done with the “difficult years” ⁽¹⁾ that your contact with me characterizes. The years have never become better, they do not become better and will not become better, as our long history has shown me.

I have not responded to your efforts for contact, nor will I.

Dutch.
⁽¹⁾: She did write "very difficult years". Maybe I should use the full quote.

I've been NC with her for 18 months now. (with a few bumps. I think I only wrote her 9 months ago I would not come to her birthday party. And she showed up at my dad's birthday party where I swiftly left).
But she keeps begging for a talk and/or explanation and somehow I think I should tell her I will not answer.
I think the above draft is a good no-JADE note.

What do you all think?
Somehow to keep 'ignoring' her doesn't sit well with me.
And what do I have to lose with this, really? Either she keeps sending me mails (which she already does), and I can keep on ignoring them, or she'll stop.
 
I'm in limbo over this.

[arpy1]

damn i just wrote a long post and then lost the lot! 
here is what i feel, in response to what you say. i will try to remember just what i wanted to say !

first, i am so sorry this is happening again, D/U. i am not surprised but i am sorry becos it's so triggering for you and so hard to deal with.
dramasis is trying so hard, isn't she? she is desperate to draw you back into the family dynamic, and to retrieve an important part of her narcissistic supply chain.  i feel that her repeated harrassment (it is that, i think) is all to this end.  her wish to 'talk about things', and 'sort things out' and her apparent willingness to 'acknowledge her faults', and her 'hurt feelings' are all techniques to manipulate you into feeling that you are the one who is being unreasonable/immature/cruel or whatever. she is using adult conflict resolution tools to guilt trip you into responding. i suspect if and when you do, she will use your response,  even if it is to say 'i won't respond', as a platform to re-open discussion. what are the chances of her just accepting it, respecting your wishes and going away?

imo she is pressing some well worn and proven buttons here. you've already told her you won't be in contact with her. and why.  is there any point  going over it again, from your point of view? is the triggering you get from being harrassed greater than the damage you'd get from responding? 

would you feel able to block her email address?  or to relegate them to Spam so that you don't have to read them? seems to me reading them is causing you pain. so why do it?

i hope this is not too pushy.  whatever you decide you know i support you anyway.

[Dutch Uncle]

Well, thank you arpy1 for your advice.
Asking myself what button’s she had pressed gave me a tough EF, more than one really. But I think I worked through it.
Things I realized:
- She will never stop, whatever I do. And this includes NC.
- Boundary busting is a sport pet peeve for her, so it’s probably best NOT to give her a ‘new’ stated boundary she can bust. Possibly even it's best to keep this boundary 'to myself', so at least I will not be confronted with her also deliberately busting that boundary. I'm not sure about this 'mechanic' yet, but possibly I'll find it easier to cope with her *cough* unwittingly *cough* busting my NC, than spelling it out to her. She will not stop anyway. She has such a habit of no respect for any boundary (of many people, not just in my case), that it's really naive, if not dumb, to expect spelling it out to her will be of any help to me. Rather the contrary...
- After one and a half year she now brings up mom’s jubilee. It’s a trap. She knows damned well how she discarded me there, and how she (emotionally) blackmailed me in the run up to it. It has all been so deliberately and maliciously planned, I’m still sick of it (when in an EF). And now, after all that time where she has not been able to trick me into responding to her petty pleas for “wanting a good relationship with you, Dutch” she is now finally bringing up the jubilee, with all plausible deniability with it, pre-emptive excuses (fauxpologies in fact) so that if she woud trick me into spilling my gut out, she has apologized already. She can always ‘fall back’ on her lame and non-specific excuses, in case she doesn’t have a ready answer already prepared to what she (in her mail) suggests might be some things I feel bad about.
- That same jubilee also made me go NC with DramaMama, so that adds to the stress, even if that has nothing to do with DramaSis.
- Bringing up dad, and her sneaky presence when I had arranged for a private meeting with dad. And so I get EF’s to his horrible Enabling behavior, and triggers memories to how he never has had my back when I was being beaten up, physically and/or verbally/mentally, by bro, sis, or ‘mom’. And I realized that he is as boundary busting as everybody else in the FOO. Boundaries have never been respected, not by anybody.
- Bringing up the “very difficult years” we have had, and bringing up the eternal difficult relationship she has with DramaMama makes perfectly clear that having permanent difficult relationships is what she does. Not having a difficult relationship, having difficult years is not something she is capable of doing apparently. And it does further prove that whatever the improvement might be be ‘today’, it will inevitably, deliberately even, revert back to getting “difficult years”.
It’s mindbogling, I cannot wrap my head around how a person can live that way, but she does. I’ve tried to ignore this fact so long now, that it’s very hard to stop ignoring what I now see.
- and even some other stuff is all tied to this. I guess any boundary bust of whatever kind nowadays triggers all boundaries ever busted. Sometimes it’s just so hard when the new knowledge I have gained over the past years on boundaries and abuse, trigger EF’s and how for such a long period this has been past of the course in my relationships. With my FOO first and foremost, but also elsewhere.

I feel much calmer now, but it's been a * of a ride the last couple of days.

[arpy1]

this is so hard, D/U.    sending you a hug and  for all the wise, if painful insights that you have gleaned even from the flashbacking the last few days. i know it's so difficult to see it, but you get stronger and wiser each time you go through this. only hope i wasnt responsible for making it worse    much support to you

[Dutch Uncle]

only hope i wasnt responsible for making it worse    much support to you

No, it's hasn't been.
However painful and confrontational it is to look at my own 'buttons'/triggers, it's well worth-while, especially when dealing with types like the  's.
As the only way to learning to deal with them (as in: not dealing with them  ) is to know the buttons that so hurt when pressed.

Your reply has been very helpful, even if it meant for me to re-visit the painful buttons. But hey, I could have left your advice for what it was. It was me who picked it up and did what I did.
So please don't feel bad about it. 

[arpy1]

 

[Dutch Uncle]

And positive news for a change. 

A letter from DramaMama. The first half is a bunch of  , her usual tricks , doesn't know what she can to do get into contact, she doesn't know what's wrong  . That part was dated early June.
Then she added something more recently.
That's where the good part is: "I could have never have imagined a child of mine [ !! dead give away.    I'm hers.  Oh dear, once the blinders come off, one gets to see it...] would ever want to have no contact with me. Still, that is what it is now. I will have to respect that "    etc.
[ stuff in between brackets is mine ]
 

Yeah, she'll probably rescind, but with a little luck she really has seen the light: no more Narc supply to be had from me. With a little luck she'll now whine to others about how she could have never imagined this would ever happen to her child.
Which is complete nonsense (and therefor possibly a trap to get me to respond, ghegheghe  ) as my DramaSis has gone NC with her for a year (decades ago), I previously have been NC for a year (one decade ago) her DiL (from DramaSis) has been NC with her already decades long...

So I feel pretty good about this. The first signs of her capitulating. I know this probably will not be the end of it, but it's cause for a small celebration today.

edited to add, for my own benefit: this video I only saw the other day, but it fits so well this situation. The situation of te stubborn boundary-busting, and the stubborn "I don't know what's wrong by I'm going to accept (boohoohoo) my child doesn't want to have contact"...
The Narcissist Excessive Stubbornness Tactic

[Three Roses]

That's great to hear, DU!

[Dutch Uncle]

Well, I’m still a bit elated over my DramaTherapistMama’s letter.

I try to get not too happy, as I know this will be far from over.

I don’t know if I have ever shared this on this forum, but my ‘mom’ is capable of being full of understanding with “I hear you”, “I understand”, “I will respect this” and other 'magic spells' like that, and then in the very next sentence start again with what I had just told her i didn’t want her to do. And what the 'magic spells' were supposed to address.
Since I started coming out of the FOG a few years back, I began to see and hear the ridiculousness of it, and called her out on it. With laughter I must add. The anger, the confusion, the FOG usually set in later, yet slowly but steadily my boundaries improved.

So, this will most likely be just one of those. It’s her efforts to lull me into a false sense of security, only to strike back immediately after.
Like I said, this could happen in the very next sentence she uttered.
And there wasn’t even a pause. Just right on after. In fact I should doubt it was even a next sentence, LOL.

Still, I feel good. It IS a first crack. I suspect (and silently hope) that I will now get the Silent Treatment from her.
She did write that she respected this, that I had every right to be the man that I am, but so had she to be every right to be the woman she is. Ergo: she is of the opinion she has handled everything wonderfully, and will continue to do just that.
And I know very well how boundary-busting she is, so this boundary that she supposedly acknowledges will be stormed again.
Oh well, I think I can wear her down, in time.
But a bloody nuisance it is, and will forever be. I can only hope the frequency will tone down, and perhaps the intensity as well, but it will not be over.

I mostly type this to let myself know I should not let my guard down.
I’m on to you DramaMama! Never again wil you surprise me. And I will not fall for your fake New Age Psychobabble Therapies. They have taught you how to say just the right words, the right magic spells to let others lower their guard so you could strike all the more destructively. It's p(r)etty disgusting really.

[Dutch Uncle]

I received an invitation for a Birthdaybrunch by sis.

I send a "reply to all" (to sis, mom, dad, bro, bro's wife, and his two kids (a bit odd to send each member of bro's FOC' a separate invitation, no. I mean, his kids are teens...?)) :

I'm not coming,
[my first name]

Apart from the obvious hoover, and the 'let's pretend everything is fine', it's again at noon, which is an impossible time for practically each and all invitees. Me and bro would have to start traveling at 8 o'clock in the morning. Mom and dad around 9.
She knows this! Her wedding-brunch/party was at noon too, and I could only arrive at 12:30 at the earliest if I took the first train out. (which I did)

Oh well, I mostly post this as a matter of record for myself.
Why did I reply at all?
It's a small effort, and I reiterate the message to all of my FOO I will not be seeing DramaSis ever again, and things will not go back to the way they were.

And I reiterate the same message to myself as well this way.

A big thanks for all the support I already received in this loooong thread about the NC-hoovering.
I love you all.
 

[Three Roses]

We love you back!   

[sanmagic7]

love you, too.  i'm so glad for you that your boundaries are so strong.  that's great!

[Dutch Uncle]

I have strong boundaries? Thank you.
It's hard work! Gut wrenching.

[Dutch Uncle]

DramaMama is back. Just a few months ago I got a mail where she sort of acknowledged I had gone NC. (here).

***posible triggers on life threatening conditions and anger issues of me***

Today I received a new mail of her, addressed to DramaSis, bro and me, that a friend of her has had a stroke, and is a "lost cause". This friend of hers is one of her 'disciples' as I like to call them nowadays. She met this friend in a mothers-who-find-it-o-so-difficult-to-accept-their-daughters-homosexuality-group my sis did with DramaMama (and friend's-daughter.) They have been best buddies ever since.

Apparently my mom was out camping, and the header says: "Going home".
Actually, this is a positive sign in some sense, as DramaMama used to mail me (us) everytime she went out camping with details on how to contact her in case of emergency.
So obviously she has ditched that, I'm of the e-mail list for that anymore. Yay! 
Which also is 'proof' this is a hoover. She needs to get the pity! Not mailing me about te good stuff (=holidays) is easy. To pass on the opportunity to be needy: not so much.
DramaMama writes she's "so upset, I want to be at home so much, staying at the camping site is not an option [ BooHooHoo!] and I'll go packing right now. [Yeah, RIGHT NOW, you all hear! I'm in misery now!  ] Kisses [and you all better send some back! ], your mom. [Yep, you better know this is your MOM, mailing you. Not just anybody! ]

I will not send her a word.
I'm almost happy I have got a reminder of what friendship means to my DramaMama a few days ago with the funeral of the-friend-who-dared-to-question.

I can't say I feel too proud about me writing all this, I feel a bit bad/guilty about the resentment to my DramaMama I express here, the lack of compassion I show her when a friend is about to die, etc. etc., but I've come too far in my recovery to not see this for what it is: a pity-party hoover, which in all likelihood (or dare I say: certainty?... Ehrmmm, no, I'm too chicken to say that) will only result (If I were to answer and show my compassion) in her dragging up ALL the hardship she and friend endured and how much support they have been able to give each other in the difficult period of working through accepting my sis being a lesbian. Which in the good tradition of a  is of course still a sour spot, to be displayed like a stigma (DramaMama's stigma of course: way worse than the stigma homosexuals are confronted with...) 4 decades after my sister 'coming out'.

A sardonic part of me wants to write to her (I realize this very moment I'm typing this): "Happy pity-party mom! May the decision to take your friend off life support be a long and difficult one, and may you be witness of all the gut-wrenching agony your friend's family will be going through in that process, and don't forget to put your agony paramount to all when telling about it! Hang in there! I know you can do that!"
(I have had stories about that when other friends of her have died. Disgusting stories really, where it all was about her as well.)

Of course I won't, I'll stick to my NC, but possibly for my own recovery it's a good thing to acknowledge I have that sardonic part in me.
And give it all a rest.
Perhaps an opportunity to lay that part to rest, together with DramaMama's DramaFriend. (Who, like my mom (and lets not forget: my sister's 'mom'...) has probably never passed an opportunity to be still 'upset' about her daughters homosexuality, and all the rest of her being her.)

*** end of triggers ***

It never stops, now does it...
Good Grief...