abusive parent wants a relationship TRIGGERS AFOOT

[Coco]

My mother keeps reaching out to me

She sends messages asking me to come for dinner, as well as messages saying she misses me and love me.

I know that sounds really nice, but to me all the "I love and miss you, let's just have dinner and pretend none of this ever happened" lines represent a lifelong form of something like gaslighting.

I have been frozen, in the freeze response, which translates to me ignoring her messages and not answering her calls.

I understand conceptually that alcoholism is a disease beyond her control, but I'm still heaving with CPTSD and decades of insanity, agony, heartbreak and abuse which have seriously distorted my development and capacity for a healthy life. I'm over here coming to terms with the severe depersonalization, dissociation, emotional and visceral flashbacks, inner and outer incredibly harsh critic, and child selves frozen in time. I'm trying to recover too, and it's very painful.

She is obviously a big trigger. I don't feel strong enough to betray myself by simply sitting down to a meal with her and pretending everything is OK, listening to her problems and her victimisation etc. My role as the eldest was a codependent hero/rescuer and I am afraid that will automatically kick in. I don't think it's appropriate or helpful for me to sit with her and go into detail about the effects of her alcoholism and abuse etc on me, which excludes total honesty. One of the biggest reasons I don't find that appropriate is that I know she will gossip about me and use it against me.

Neither am I comfortable with just ignoring her.

Meanwhile, I've been in this glorious thawing-out phase lately - very very painful but I am also so excited that my inner child is speaking with me and reminding me of things, both horrific things and lovely things about who the child is and what she likes. I like her!
For some context, my ACE score is 9.

I don't want to hurt her. I just want her to leave me alone. I have no capacity for a relationship with her. If I am myself with her and state what I truly feel, what my actual opinions are, we are immediately in conflict. I still have some stuff to work through about being responsible for her.

I have a very difficult time reconciling how she has actually acted towards me with her statements about loving me. This isn't some PTSD self hating haze of feeling unlovable - she has been incredibly abusive and manipulative. I don't think she can help it.

All those bizarre betrayals and events don't just vanish the moment she stops drinking, but I have never been allowed to feel or speak anything about them. She just wants to exude love and nurturing to silence me. I think she BELIEVES she loves all her children but actually we are and always have been a means to an end to her - an extension of her, to be controlled like chess pieces for her own ends. I know I sound really bitter and resentful and perhaps I am. I am also experiencing some new clarity and kind of enjoying venting so honestly!

I have often felt crushing shame even thinking things like this about my parents! It is actually refreshing noticing myself writing it without writhing under the weight of the oppressive inner critic who had an idealised self of someone who didn't acknowledge or identify anything negative.

I need a way to set a boundary with her that isn't overtly cruel but doesn't leave room for misinterpretation. It is important to me not to be nasty to her.

Any ideas? Anyone want to share? No pressure to solve my problem but opinions are welcomed.

I think one thing at the core of this is that I originally split from myself because I wasn't allowed to have needs, opinions, feelings or a voice. I was badly punished and shamed for saying I didn't like the violence etc. I was physically hit, dragged round the room, verbally abused, locked out of the house, not allowed to turn lights on in my room, not allowed to eat, and external family members would be bought in to shame me for saying the violence had to stop.
This was reinforced by extended family members and also siblings who call to tell me how bad I am when I hurt our mother's feelings by saying I don't know how to have a relationship with her. They all shame me for feeling pain, they minimise it, pathologise me for it. I KNOW it is all real because we have endless government and legal documents about it all.

This is about me loving myself enough to be able to say, "No, this isn't right for me"

OR, is it all an offshoot of a defensive personality who can't tolerate triggers and just wants to flee? Like, why can some of my siblings stand it? How do they just go to sleep like that and forget and pretend everything is OK or didn't happen? Am I faulty for not being able to do that?

Maybe I can say - I have told you many times I do not want a relationship with you. Please accept that and leave me alone.

?

I asked a person I know and they said they were like me and then their mother died and they saw her in the hospital and collapsed with regret. Pffft. I see that as more shaming, more guilt about our genuine feelings, more encouragement to split from the authentic self and be a good girl.

[Coco]

I have tried to rush forgiveness many times in the past, I've tried to plaster forgiveness over the top of the seething turmoil and confusion inside, and all of that was a disservice to me and others. All the festering pain and rage came out unexpectedly as passive aggression and god knows what else. I've been living largely dissociated and depersonalised for a long time and my family dynamics really heighten all of that because I'm powerfully encouraged to disconnect from the reality staring us all in the face and just be placated by temporary niceness, til the next storm explodes.

I think genuine forgiveness will only happen when I allow myself to genuinely feel and acknowledge. I think the inner parts of myself who are frozen in trauma, really do deserve me to honor them and listen to them and relive it with them and give them space and respect and acknowledgment. It's 20 yrs overdue as it is. I don't think it's fair for me or others to judge those parts of myself or tell them they shouldn't be there and don't have the right to exist. That's madness, really. They DO exist, no getting around it. They demand to be heard and if I won't hear them consciously, they manifest as flashbacks and adrenaline and emotional numb paralysis all the other symptoms.

I think if I am not ready to be in my FOO's life, I have to allow myself to feel that and be real about it and respect it.

I think that is self love. I'm going to begin to own who I am, and accept who I am, AS IS! I'm going to commit to standing by myself and nurturing myself. I can't force the kind of healing it would take for me to be able to sit with those guys and enjoy it. And I'm no longer willing to sell myself out to fit other peoples' expectations. I can't make them feel anything - that is theirs to own and be with. I can't prevent everyone's pain. I do have a right to my perspectives, even if they don't suit the narrative.

[Candid]

I don't think it's appropriate or helpful for me to sit with her and go into detail about the effects of her alcoholism and abuse etc on me, which excludes total honesty.

AND

If I am myself with her and state what I truly feel, what my actual opinions are, we are immediately in conflict. I still have some stuff to work through about being responsible for her.

Would you consider talking to her on the phone? You could then practice expressing honest feelings.

Obviously this has to be your decision. I miss my toxic FOO so much that if one of them tried to contact me I would respond as I saw fit, which definitely wouldn't include being in the same space. But that's because I have so much anger towards them and would like an opportunity to express it.

If she pulled the "can't we just put it all behind us?" card, you could remind yourself you're not responsible for her actions or her feelings.

Whichever way you go will be right for you.

[Coco]

My dad was also very violent and abusive, and he doesn't pretend to love me. He never reaches out for a relationship and he never pretends anything at all. When we bump into each other, we are pleasant, but there is no pretense of closeness or belonging together or owing each other anything. I LIKE THAT. It is honest. It is better than this merry go round. It's clean and authentic and real. It is what it is. He doesn't make us responsible for each other and there is no expectation there. We both remember what went down and we both know it destroyed any chance of bonding, and there is this bizarre mutual acknowledgment and respect of those facts that I find very liberating. We don't care what each other thinks and there is freedom in that. Strange, huh?

Hi Candid. I've expressed a lot of my anger and pain and various feelings directly to my family, and it was an important step for me and I'm glad I had the experience, and I must say the parent in question did try to be open and listen and respond. Unfortunately her own pain and denial and shame is visceral and I become stuck in a compassion-empathy-anger dance with her. None of this is black and white and I think that is another issue: ALL of this originated from the intense pain and trauma of my parents themselves. Inter-generational. It makes it hard for me, in all good conscience, to be truly clear about them. I know what it is to be in pain and to be disconnected from yourself. I know what it is to act in ways you can't understand or control. I know what it is to be sorry.
But there are addictive and codependant components and dynamics I'm not sure how to navigate.

Maybe another angle is just to let it play out and see what happens, rather than having to have it all analyzed and comparmentalised and decided upon. I like to make final stances so I feel some ground is beneath my feet, but these final stances become limiting and stop sponteneity.

Thanks very much for your response, appreciate it.

[Candid]

All the festering pain and rage came out unexpectedly as passive aggression and god knows what else.

Yes, I have that too. I can't put the anger where it belongs so it's festered to the point that all my emotions seem frozen.

I think the inner parts of myself who are frozen in trauma, really do deserve me to honor them and listen to them and relive it with them and give them space and respect and acknowledgment.

It's tough when we're NC or LC and still care about Them.

I don't think it's fair for me or others to judge those parts of myself or tell them they shouldn't be there and don't have the right to exist. That's madness, really. They DO exist, no getting around it. They demand to be heard...

Nice, strong statement here!

and if I won't hear them consciously, they manifest as flashbacks and adrenaline and emotional numb paralysis all the other symptoms.

I'm right with you there.

I think that is self love. I'm going to begin to own who I am, and accept who I am, AS IS!

Wow! Thank you for this. Now to sort out what's Really Me and what's Damaged Me...

I become stuck in a compassion-empathy-anger dance with her. [...] there are addictive and codependant components and dynamics I'm not sure how to navigate.

This sounds way more complicated than my situation. I agree with your last paragraph, that it's probably best to let it unfold and then respond from the new, authentic you.

[sanmagic7]

hey, coco,

it sounds like what your mother is doing is 'hoovering', trying to suck you back in.  the only thing that comes of that is an opportunity for more abuse toward you.

one way i've set a boundary with someone to whom i've spoken many times about the same stuff, only to get attacked somehow for having my own feelings was to tell them in an email that i'm working on some of my issues, i need some space right now and will get back to them when i've sorted things out.  i did an email because i didn't want to hear any words from them like i might over the phone. 

i made the mistake when i did this of reading their email responses.  they were horrible, vicious, angry, and were loaded with lies.  i won't do that again.  i also decided that if they ever phone me (i don't have caller ID), i will simply say that i'm hanging up now, (while they're speaking, if need be) and do so. 

this stuff isn't easy by a long shot.  i give you a lot of credit for holding on to your convictions, listening to the loving part of your self, and contemplating what is the best route for you to follow.  you're in the midst of turmoil, and that's always a difficult place from which to be and think.  you're doing a really good job, tho, and i hope you can acknowledge that.  it won't be perfect, but perfection isn't expected.  just being you is good enough.   big hug.

[Coco]

Hey san. Yes, hoovering!

One of the syptoms of my mum's trauma is that she is codependent and literally doesn't comprehend that her children are external entities to her. Without knowing any better, she has always viewed me as a tool to be used for her means and benefit. She has an extreme terror of abandonment and one of us (me) breaking from the ranks and saying 'no', puts her in a spin of feeling personally rejected. That pain seems to blind her to rational thought, which is understandable. But what I am sensing is that she doesn't love or value us as people, but as pawns. She just needs us lined up in a row unconditionally loving her so that she doesn't feel like a bad mother. I have not been willing to play that game for over a decade now but couldn't articulate it and felt crushing shame whenever I tried to extricate myself from it, as part of this family dynamic is that mum and her feelings have to be coddled and protected at all costs.

If any of us are upset with her or not talking to her, she experiences a profound sense that part of her is missing.

Thanks for allowing me the space to process this out loud for the first time in my life. This is very healing.

It's INCREDIBLY healing that you all know the exact right words of encouragement and support and honesty to say! INVALUABLE!

[Coco]

UGH, she did it again tonight.

Why won't she just leave me alone?

How many times is she going to make me say the hard thing?

[Three Roses]

Codependency is a form of addiction in itself. The codependent person is not addicted to a substance or behavior, but a person.

It may be that your M is incapable of stopping herself. If this is so, then sadly it will fall on you to put measures in place for limiting contact. Good luck with this!

[jennyjenny]

Hi Coco,

I really relate to your experience of your FOO and your 'role' in your FOO.   

My life got better when my FOO went NC with me. I was very very sad. I still feel sad a lot. My M passed away 3 months ago. I had not really communicated with her since I set a boundary 3 years ago after my F died and my siblings went NC with me, short of an email from her on my birthday for the last 2 years.

I am still shocked of the facts / and reality of what happened, that my mother had cancer and did not tell me and none of my siblings told me.

What helps me is stating the facts to myself, over and over again. Because of the mind twisting / fact twisting etc in my FOO - I was constantly confused about reality and feelings. Especially when they would add that they love me in the mix. I thought they did really love me. I found that I would get confused about reality  when I attached feelings to the facts of reality.

However - if I just stated undeniable facts - there was no way for me to get around that within myself. Since I value honoring the truth as my highest priority, this really helped me- to know that facts are just facts. Not debatable and not good or bad - just what is / what happened / what was real.

Perhaps you can make a list of facts that are true about your FOO / M?   That way when the emotions and guilt start distorting things in your mind, you can look at the list of facts to help remind you of what is yours vs. what is hers or theirs / and what is the truth. 

Making these lists really helped me separate what was theirs vs. what was mine, what I was responsible for and what I was not, and then decide what I wanted in my life moving forward.

I wish you good luck in your choices with your FOO and hope you find what you feel works best for you!

Great work walking through this challenging situation.

[sanmagic7]

the list idea sounds terrific. 

i agree with 3 roses that it may be up to you, that your m will not stop.  i've often asked myself that same question - why do i always have to do the hard part?  i think it comes under the heading of self-care.  i have to take care of myself because the other person just isn't going to.  sucks, but there it is.

hang in there - hangin' right beside you.

[alchemist]

 
I can tell you what works for Me. When I was in contact with my family of origin and my mother would pull her" "let's have fun and forget that I am a psychopath who abused you and failed miserably at my job" routine, I always put my needs first. I told her directly, "Mother, What are you accountable for; what are you guilty of?"  If she brushed away the abuse, I hung up and did not contact her until she was willing to accept responsibility which she never will definitively. She only did that "temporary amelioration" to benefit herself, whatever psychopathic agenda she had in her bizarre mind at the time.
The biological bond you have with your mother is normal every species has it and we cannot just make it go away it takes so much time and so many trials and betrayals to break; it literally takes years , decades for some.  Every one is different so whatever you need is okay you need to tell your inner child that because she is the part of you your mom hurt. 

My Inner child is afraid of my mother and I protect her from my mother and will not allow that psychopathic witch in my or my Inner Child's life. I am a wonderful mother to myself.

[sanmagic7]

and congrats to you, alchemist, for being your own best mom.  i'm going to remember that.  it's a great concept. 

[alchemist]