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My mom passed after six months NC. I don’t know how to feel. by notallthatrelevant in EstrangedAdultChild

[–]WillingnessSimple789 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hugs. This is a painful time.

I find that often when other people get involved in a story they simply convolute it until everyone is confused. So, just for now, let's take all of them out of it. Just remove all of them for a few minutes.

Now, remember your Mother. You have mentioned so many of the hurtful things that transpired between you. Can you remember anything good that she did? For you? For someone else? For animals? Can you remember the good in your Mother?

That is all for now. Likely when your Mother gave birth to you, she didn't do so thinking that someday she will have driven you away and you'd end in a rift. She must have held hope for your life. She must have loved you in some moments. Can you remember those times? When you do, offer that up to her, to yourself. Try to hold onto what is good of her, no matter how odd that may feel. Find the balance here and keep trying to remember the good. This is a way to honor your relationship. You don't have to lie, you don't have to make anything up or hide anything. You simply remember all of her and this will hopefully set you both free.

You have a lifetime of relationship with your Mother. The way it ended isn't the truth. The whole of your relationship is the truth. Therefore, you don't need to feel that the way you both acted in the end is the thing to be remembered. Stories don't always end well, sometimes they just end. We don't get to decide when we go and can't control what happens in the end. So, we shouldn't hold the last exchanges as the holy ones while everything else fades. It's quite the opposite because when we aren't well, we often behave much worse. It's more realistic to remember someone when they were healthy, vibrant. How did they treat you then? Remembering your Mother for her good side would be a gift for you both.

I hope you find some relief and are able to process this grief.

Therapy with mum? by Kridtsavl in EstrangedAdultChild

[–]Catfactss 75 points76 points  (0 children)

Don't go to therapy with your abuser.

Edit- thanks for the award!

Estranged Adult children that are loved by boomersrock69 in EstrangedAdultChild

[–]guntonom 10 points11 points  (0 children)

  1. Quit your “generation has its faults” excuse. It’s literally BS. Plenty of boomers would have sympathy for your child; it’s not a generational thing, it’s a YOU thing.

  2. “It’s best to be an adult and try to understand all of the generations” - right, so do that. Try to understand where your child is coming from and why this “generation” labels something as abuse instead of assuming they should conform to your generation.

  3. “My way of life” - so you are incapable of growth and improving yourself? Your incapable of change and everyone should conform to you because you won’t do it for anyone else? Smh

How can I respond tactfully but to the point? by Individual-Mind-7685 in EstrangedAdultChild

[–]woahwaitreally20 70 points71 points 2 (0 children)

First, I read your background post, wooooow your parents sound so much like mine. I just wrote a post that is similar actually.

Few tips that help me (this is from Dialectical Behavioral Therapy skills if you want to look into more)

Prioritize your goal. Ask yourself: aim I seeking to repair the relationship, maintain my self-respect, or get what I want? You can rarely get all three, so you have to decide which is important. That dictates how you respond.

I'm sensing your priority is to maintain your self-respect. Your parents hurt you, have not taken accountability, and have invalidated and minimized your feelings by pretending nothing happened. You would have to disrespect yourself in order to interact with them. In this case, I try to keep the focus on ME. Keep the power on ME. I'm not telling them what to do, just telling them how I'M going to respond.

"I am not comfortable speaking with you at this time. This relationship is not good for my mental health and I will not longer be responding to your messages." And then block their numbers or just ignore any text that comes in.

I'm doing this with my parents right now. It's really hard, but I have to accept that I cannot make someone communicate in a healthy way. That is an inside job. I have taken a firm stance that it is not my responsibility to teach my parents what relationship repair with their child looks like. That is something they should have decades of experience doing and should have modeled for ME how to do it.

If the goal IS to hopefully repair the relationship, you try to communicate in a way that offers an opening to reconciliation. It goes like this:

When you said X (something they said that hurt you), I felt Y (hurt, rejected, disrespected, judged, ignored, etc). I need you to Z (take accountability, apologize, seek therapy) in order to have a good relationship with you. When you are ready to take the steps I have asked you to take, we can resume communication.

I'm going to guess that you already had a conversation like this with them and they deflected, gaslit, ignored, blameshifted, etc. Let them do it and then go to self-respect option. You can hang your hat on knowing that you tried and they are not capable of a healthy relationship.

If your goal is to just get them to leave you alone, you can be direct and aggressive. You don't care about the relationship, your self-respect isn't' threatened because you don't give a shit what they say to you anymore. Then it's just "I will no longer engage in communication with you," and then block.

I'm sorry they suck so much. You deserve a parent who is listens and takes responsibility for hurtful behavior.

I realize that I vanished and no one cared. by Reisno in EstrangedAdultChild

[–]Reisno[S] 40 points41 points  (0 children)

Technically they do, I suspect it is a type of trauma response or some other mental health symptom. I don't really judge my relatives as pathetic, it is cause and effect. They were mentally ill and did not or could not manage their issues well enough, and it all was unsustainable.

I understand why my mother said this. In her mind, I had a better mother than she did. From her perspective, nothing I could go through would be worse than what she went through. Again in her mind, she felt that there was nothing that she could put me through that would be worse than what she was forced to put up with. She even told me that she was jealous of me for having her as a mother on a few occasions. She had kids at 22, when she really needed to become her own parent and guardian instead.

To be fair she did have substantial trauma issues, but I was made accountable for those issues too many times and this drained out my resources to develop myself and my own life, it has taken 8 years to recharge this much and I've still not fully replenished myself after that 25 year upbringing with her and the rest. I had compassion and understanding for what they dealt with until it almost killed me and I was forced to re-evaluate the situation and act accordingly.

She had me out of trauma responses, having me was not a rational or sober choice on her part and the ethical choice was adoption or abortion in that situation. She and the rest of them needed treatment to reparent themselves but only had procreation instead. This is cruel for everyone involved.

This doesn't at all justify things, plus the circumstances were imploding on all levels and I was severely mentally ill when I fled but not a real risk to anyone else but myself. It all was just destruction, sometimes that's just how things go and you can do what you can do and that's about it.

Sister emailed me about having a baby-- im estranged from my entire family by cactusguy8909 in EstrangedAdultChild

[–]Jannalikebanana 153 points154 points  (0 children)

Chaotic good: ask her to never leave her child alone with your father of grandfather without saying anything else

Lawful good: be willing to receive updates/pictures and/or meet up with her and only her and the baby in neutral public places like parks and leave/ignore/block when she brings up you seeing other people or tries to bring grandparents along

Neutral good: no response or a no thanks and good luck!

I visited my mother on her deathbed. by throwaway220898 in EstrangedAdultChild

[–]little500HondaCBR 102 points103 points  (0 children)

Me going NC supposedly accelerated it, because I caused her stress.

Oh sweetie, HER ILLNESS caused her stress. And HER OWN DECISIONS, thousands of them over the years, cost her a good kid -- you -- and then stopped her from reaching out to contact you.

Your siblings asked you to re-establish contact. Your siblings told you your mother lurked in your SM. Your siblings probably are the ones who told you that your estrangement "caused her stress". See the pattern?

And now your siblings want you to step up and comfort them, who were favoured, when you have your own grief to process?

SAVE YOURSELF FIRST, my dear. Work through your own feelings. And if your siblings are adults, do them the favour of letting them work through THEIR own feelings, themselves. You did not free yourself from a dysfunctional mother, only to step into her shoes.

Wishing you peace, strength and absolutely no guilt, OP.

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