Ragey Guilto-grams Incoming

[DreamingofQuiet]

Hello everyone!

Well, I just typed out a nice long post, and it wouldn't take. It was therapeutic to type it out, so there's that.

Anyway, anyone else's relatives melting down and leaving nasty messages, who will then turn around and expect holiday visits? I can't be the only one, lol.

I just blocked my PDmom's number for the first time ever and am trying to figure out how to block her email. She's in rage mode right now, but the waif/I'm sorry will follow, and I really don't want to hear it this year, as crappy as that makes me feel as a person.

Feel free to commiserate/share, etc.

DoQ

[SunnyMeadow]

Very typical! I get those messages too. Guilt inducing, woe is me emails of how I don't visit, I visit others more that her...you know, the usual. When I read those messages or hear her saying these things, this is what I now envision    She's a whiny, angry, moaning, sad face emoji to me in my head. It makes me chuckle inside. She's so predictable and it seems they all read the same handbook how to act and get narc supply.

Do a search how to block email on your email platform, they're all different.

I blocked my mom for the first time ever several months ago, it was wonderful. Let your anger help you with the inevitable guilt that will be coming. Moms shouldn't act like this, it makes me sad and angry. Sorry we have the same type of mother. 

[DreamingofQuiet]

Thank you so much, Sunny Meadow. I like the emoji idea. It's weird, at first when I get these messages I kinda roll my eyes. But then shortly thereafter I'll find myself getting really irritable and then feeling depressed. I want to believe I'm more detached than I really am. I have more work to do.

Thank you for the reminder about the anger. I do get angry, but as you say, it slips away, and then when she comes back sounding all sad and remorseful, I turn into goo. On the plus side, that tells me that I'm not a chronically angry unforgiving person. But then that gets used against us by the person with the PD.

As I said above, the anger can turn into depression also. I think that goes back to my childhood and never being allowed to be angry at my mom, even though her behavior often justified it. All the fight goes out of you when it's hopeless. I have to remind myself I'm an adult now and can look out for myself and make different choices.

Part of me really wants to go no contact, albeit probably only temporarily. But now she's an old lady, and so that generates all sorts of guilt and fear (and she's using that to her advantage). I don't know how much longer she'll be here. She has some serious health issues. At the same time, she's like a roach, bizarrely indestructible, and I'm convinced she'll outlive me.

I thank you for your feedback and the virtual hug. 

DoQ

[Adrianna]

Learn from me. When you say she's an old lady, how long will she be here, please realize it could be a very long time. My grandmother is 97. I too kept going with the guilt, thinking she's old, any day now she could go, I should do this thing for her, and that thing, and put my needs aside. All twisted pd gilt induced thinking! All for nothing! There is a never ending pit of need that you cannot fill. Nothing you do will be enough. You want her to be cared for which is great but there are services she can get. Meals on Wheels, housekeeping, home health aide, companion services. Are you in the US? Her local senior center should be able to direct you to the closest senior agency that handles these.
Before thinking she won't accept the help, think again. It's attention. They love attention. Nana loves to be served and waited on. It's all she cares about really at this point. No attention is too much.
Nana would love a live in servant, who she can boss around at will. Someone she can get angry at, tell to leave, and the person will come back time and time again out of guilt to serve her. That's a life of misery for the non pd person. I knew of a woman who I believe may have lived that scenario and she ended up committing suicide. She did everything for her mother, lived with her, was middle aged and was completely enmeshed. She's gone but the elderly mother is still alive last I heard. No one should ever feel that it's their duty to fix the pd person, although that's exactly what they want you to think. They want you to think it's your job to make them happy. It's not. Never was.

[DreamingofQuiet]

Adrianna,

Wow! 97. It sounds like you are well Out of the FOG, but you were initially caught up in the, "but they're elderly," guilt. I am indeed trying to learn from all of you, and I really appreciate you sharing some of your story.

At the moment my parents are fine, but they're starting to experience some senility, my father mostly. He is her lifelong (50+ years) live-in caregiver and somewhat of a whipping boy.

I understand her anxiety and grief about getting older. How could I not? It can be brutal, and she's my mother. I am not this uncaring ogre that she's accused me of being. But her idea of 'help' is coming from a place of narcissistic enmeshment. I believe she would like one of her adult children to step in as caregiver if my father can no longer fill the role, but to her, caregiver = surrogate spouse. Needless to say, I don't care to assume that role.

After her last irate message in which she essentially told my sibling and I that we'll just all be dead to each other (without using those exact words) I wondered just how long before we heard from her again. About a week. Yesterday she forwarded an email to my brother and I that she'd gotten from extended family in which one of my cousins was being praised for what a wonderful son he is.  :roll.

So yeah, I gotta plug the email hole as well. I'm thinking of going dark on social media for awhile. She has an FB account. I could just block her, but I think I might just shut the whole thing down for a bit and that way I don't have to worry about hearing from her or any of the rest of the extended family.

DoQ

[Adrianna]

Believe it or not I'm still working my way Out of the FOG but I'm almost there. Read my past posts and you'll understand. I truly think the only way to get there is through very very very low contact or no contact. It's hard to see how anyone can have peace with the drama caused by the pd person.
My father has npd traits as well and I have very low contact with him. I see his manipulations for what they are though and put a stop to them quickly. I told him you're not putting me through what your mother has. I won't allow it.

[DreamingofQuiet]

I hope I can get there with my unBPDm eventually. At the very least, I want to learn how to detach and become less reactive. I don't do or say things externally, but I have a huge freak out inside. Not pleasant.

My father called me yesterday at work. Then I get an email from my mother this morning using words I used in my conversation with him. I got a fauxpology and also her claiming that it was really my brother she's angry at. Even if that were true, he's done nothing to warrant this level of anger and the berating she's doing of him. And one of the things she's upset with him for is that he's not checking up on me. I made the mistake a while back of admitting I had gone thru a hard time recently, and she decided he's supposed to be my keeper now. Yeah, that's really going to help our relationship.  Other folks talk about PD Parents trying to drive a wedge between their offspring, but she's obsessed with us being "close." She and her brother weren't, so we are supposed to make up for it I guess?

She's such a weasel. I block her phone number, so she gets my dad to make some sort of weird conciliatory phone call. And then to top it off, he had this almost gloating tone in his voice about her and I having issues but he and I getting along.

It's all so effed up. I'm pretty disgusted with the both of them right now. I wish there was something equivalent to the witness protection program but for people wanting to get away from their crazy relatives. But I know this is an inside job, and I have to work on myself, regardless of what I do in regards to my relationship with them.

DoQ