If you are VLC with parents, what stops you from going complete NC?

[Blueberry Pancakes]

For those who are VLC, what are the reasons you still hang onto a relationship with your PD parents?  So far, is it worth it?   
       
I have three flimsy reasons. One is that when they die I might want to know. Second, by having some contact I might keep a hint of reputation and not look like the crazy nut who abandoned everyone. Last, I want to prevent my GC sister from getting the gratification of thinking she "won" by inheriting their entire estate. I know I cannot control how others may view me, and my parents can still write me out regardless - actually and my dad already threatened to disinherit me because he does not like my attitude.   
                                 
So how do we benefit by allowing any contact?  What is in it for us when it still takes so much effort?  ...  Thoughts? 
 

[Starboard Song]

We are NC, not VLC.

But the crucial day, when we made the decision, I hit send on a carefully crafted email and said out loud: "well, we just lost a million dollars." I normally wouldn't have inheritance top of mind, but for unimportant reasons an estate discussion had just occurred, and so it was an obvious thing to be aware of.

The only thing that made us stay VLC while we did was that we believed it would provide the most long-term peace and stability. When that was no longer true, we had to change course. It was an expensive course correction, but it was the right thing to do.

[Blueberry Pancakes]

The only thing that made us stay VLC while we did was that we believed it would provide the most long-term peace and stability. When that was no longer true, we had to change course. It was an expensive course correction, but it was the right thing to do.

Thank you Starboard. I think the aspect of what "provides long term peace" is very good. I suppose we get more clarity on what that is after trying a few things and assessing how we feel, then make adjustments along the way.  Tnx. 
         
 
 

[ShyTurtle]

That is a very good question. I guess for me it has been a soft close of the door because I have never actually stated that I don't want her in my life. During the periods of time when I never hear from her, my life is so peaceful. I have space to heal. When she reaches out, my mind and body always go on high alert as I navigate grey rock communications. She doesn't reach out very often though, (like maybe once every 3-6 months) so I am able to live in relative peace. I think she's finally gotten the hint that I really can't stand her and that has helped.

[Sneezy]

I still maintain contact with my covert NMom, and have been thinking about your question.  Why?  I think I've gotten it down to a few reasons, some of them not really good reasons, but they are what they are.

1. I care too much about what others think about me.  Working on this, but the truth is I can't stand the thought that anyone would think I'm a bad daughter.  Although the more difficult Mom gets, the less this reason persuades me.
2. Guilt.  I would feel awful limiting contact with Mom during a pandemic, after I encouraged her to move near me, and after I also encouraged her to give up her car (believe me, the world is a safer place because of this).  I'm also working on this, because too much of my life is driven by guilt.
3. Pity.  I truly feel sorry for her, even when she is being awful.  What a life she leads, always miserable, always convinced that everyone is against  her, never comfortable in her own skin.
4. Family duty.  This may sound like a bad reason, but it's probably my most compelling reason.  I loved my grandmother (my mother's mother).  In many ways, she was more of a mother to me than my own mother.  And my mother is her daughter.  So for the sake of the grandmother I loved, I will take care of her daughter the best I can, within reason, for as long as I can, again within reason.

[carrots]

One is that when they die I might want to know.

 

My other reasons:
1.  I'm still getting money from them, which I see as compensation because I can't work on the normal job market due to cptsd caused by their treatment of me. What little work I can do isn't enough to live off.

2. If at all possible I'd like to inherit for the reasons given in 1. and also because my sibs and families all earn good salaries, will have adequate pensions etc. They do not need the whole inheritance. They have gone back to more contact since I have been drawing back into more and more VLC but it's not as if their treatment of our parents is impeccable or anything. SIL2 is in fact downright nasty sometimes, instead of saying 'No', setting a limit or those sorts of things we learn about here. She does it to M, she did it to me too, but I'm now NC from her. OK, all a long way of saying: my sibs and families are all part of the dysfunction without having to work on it the way I do (recovering from early childhood trauma is hard work, which I have been doing for years) , without having to change their behaviour for parents because it is simply accepted e.g. "That's just the way SIL2 is, she's rude to everybody."

3. Complete NC from parents would likely entail complete NC from the whole of my FOO, even the whole of extended FOO. Emotionally I don't feel up to that yet. I've only just been able to take a final step to protect myself from retraumatisations although it will probably mean no more contact with my little niece/goddaughter. That's sad and painful enough. Probably I haven't loosened the trauma bond enough yet. When I try to take huuuuge healing steps, I destabilise myself completely and land on my nose in a huge EF that can go on for weeks or even months. That's just not worth it. So I avoid that kind of thing now at all costs and just take the steps that seem manageable, gradually.

[moglow]

Hmmmm. My underlying sense of obligation still lives within me unfortunately. The sad fact is there's nothing I can do for mother and I don't want her involved in my life either. I step back, step back some more, resent any contact from mother because I fail to grasp her point (it's very rarely pleasant or productive on any level) then I step back yet again.

I stopped reaching out to mother some time back. What I get from her are sniping texts or occasional VM msgs about not contacting her. She claims to not get my responses, doesn't answer when I call. She's busily picking up sticks as one brother describes it, something to throw at me later. Ammunition for her next attack.

But yeah: obligation. And even that admittedly makes no sense at this point.

[Spring Butterfly]

Personally for me I have no reason to take the formal step of NC because neither my parents nor my disordered sibling reaches out to me unless I reach out to them.

Since learning healthy boundaries they want nothing to do with me. No matter how kindly or gently PD people don't like boundaries of any sort. I've turned into a very open and honest person, very much in touch with my own personhood and still very kind and gentle true to my moral compass.

My boundaries are as the illustration goes a fence with a gate and occasionally I'll walk out to the gate to greet them or say hello being my warm and open self but they're not allowed inside because they're not safe for me. Under those conditions they don't really want anything to do with me.

[daughter]

I failed to go NC until my mid-50s, for similar reasons to those you identified. That said, I've yet to encounter a NPD parent who doesn't insist on a published obit in local paper. I know plenty of folks estranged from difficult parents and/or sibs, which gave me the courage to do so myself. And finally, even while still engaging as SG dutiful-daughter, I discovered I was already disinherited.
My "mortal sin" was moving my family away from parents' immediate neighborhood, to a much nicer home, much-needed better school special ed services, and shorter work-commute for us -  only 15 minutes drive from their home.  Ridiculous, but considered as my extreme betrayal of my SG "dutiful daughter" role.

Ndad accidentally disclosed this deliberate punitive disinheritance, immediately enacted after our move, a year later.  He shrugged it off as "that's what your mom wants".  Ndad said he thought it shouldn't matter to me. My parents are wealthy. "Princess" nsis stands to inherit Big Bucks.  Their plan was I wasn't to know.  Worse, nsis knew, had signed their trust papers, etc. 

I've never made a formal NC statement.  My nmom was disdainful and shunning, and I was obligated to call her at least every second day. I had a routine phone conversation with nmom shortly after some particular awful preplanned npd bad behavior by nmom, ndad, and nsis, at a family dinner at my home, then didn't initiate any more calls. Nmom never called. Ndad cajoled, bullied, and lectured me to "toe-the-line", meaning continue to bide by my nparents demands and expectations. Nsis remained aloof, silent, and "princess".  I'm now approaching 9 years of tacit NC, content, but obviously won't inherit $$$$s.  Probably never would have, no matter how compliant, how grovelling, how abjectly SG sacrificial on my part.

I recommend living life to its fullest, in acknowledgment of your own truth, in pursuit of life, liberty, and justice.

[Hepatica]

Dear daughter,

I'm sorry that happened.  Wow. A small move was enough to be defined as a betrayal by your N parents.    That is horrible. I'm glad you did what you needed to do to disentangle from that level of disorder. Rather than "daughter" I think of you as "independent woman." And that is worth a lot more than $$ (although the $$ would also have been nice.) What bitter, awful people. Makes me think of Gilmour Girls. I loved that show, but always thought the writer took a very mediocre stand on the NPD abuse Loralie subjected herself to. 

[frogjumpsout]

Hepatica, agreed about Gilmore Girls! A lot of TV shows soften up N-abuse, I think.

[anita]

I have been no contact since I was 21. I am now 53 its been hard and I have been through a grieving process that feels so strange. Part of you wants them to love you and part of you wants out. I decided out was the only way I would truly be me. Escaping  like the black sheep I had been dubbed. The truth teller that I was. chucked out for it. But now more than ever better for it. Truth and honesty  are always the best policy in my book. My mind is free to concentrate on things I love instead of worrying about BS and the madness that NPD parents rain down on you. Your mother gave birth to you she does not have the right to highjack the rest of your life take it back and do something with it before your life is over and you wonder where all the time went. Be free, be strong, be happy. Ps I have no contact with any of my family.

[SaltwareS]

I was VLC then was completely NC for five years and then returned to VLC or LC.

I think I went full NC because I was tired of doing things out of fear. Fear that if I engaged with life in a way that pissed them off -- and there was no predictable pattern to what would piss "them" off -- that they'd cut contact. That fear was keeping me from thriving. So in a way it's an unconscious reaction to being controlled: grab control by cutting contact with them before they can cut contact with me.

But that's not the entire story. NPDs exist on a spectrum. And with my NPD parents, one is more pronounced severe NPD than the other. And I felt like it was such a tragedy because I knew the less severe NPD parent could be reached. I could get through to that parent.

But finally, complete NC is not natural. I'm not saying nobody should ever go NC. I'm saying we need a way to acknowledge the severity of the exercise the way we acknowledge people who had lost both parents and some siblings in a car accident.  It does strange things to your muscle memory and requires a period of adjustment. After years in groups like this, and my own journaling, I concluded NC was sort of a means to an end, not the end. It was a timeout for me to build muscles and decode what had happened. And if I had known that when I went NC the first time, I would not have needed to go NC. I could have maintained VLC.

When I resumed contact, I had better self-concept and better boundaries. It still took a lot of time to get through to the one parent, and that parent got through to the more severe NPD parent. But the more severe NPD parent, like many NPDs, may experience a brief moment of reckoning, which quickly dissolves. Severe NPDs are so prone to letting themselves off the hook and resuming business as usual that it's destructive to the people around them. But it isn't fatal if you keep boundaries between yourself and the NPD.

[feelingandhealing]

Although I am currently NC with my uNPDM, I have only been NC for six months. Prior to that I was VLC for years. So, I am answering from the point of view as to what stopped me from going NC in the recent past. At least three things stopped me and they are the things that comprise the FOG.

I was raised in a single parent home (by my uNPDM) and have always had a strong sense of obligation to help her emotionally and financially. I think deep down, I really did not want to have that sense of obligation, yet it was what kept me in an emotionally abusive relationship that involved sacrificing when my DW and I would go on vacation, who we spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with (we spent them with uNPDM who always sabotaged them), etc.

I also had an incredible sense of guilt that a good son should call their Mom and visit with their Mom and help their Mom. The older my Mom got (she is now 86 and has had multiple health issues) the stronger the guilt became. Sundays where always the worst. It was instilled in me that Sundays were and are Family Day. Thus, since I don't have any kids myself and since I live in the same city as my uNPDM, I would visit with her roughly every two weeks. I was doing that for her and to relieve myself from the guilt. I remember the Sundays that I didn't visit her where always filled with a tremendous amount of guilt for me.

I also was scared to go NC. She lives alone and depended on me to assist with things around her house. How could I abandon her and go NC?

Prior to going NC, I thought I was benefiting myself by satisfying my guilt and for being supportive to her and providing her with someone who she could sound off to and dump her problems on to. It was not actually benefiting me at all. Instead, it was just more and more weight for me to bear. It was ongoing trauma. It was a death by multiple wounds.

I am fortunate to have a supportive sibling who is VLC with our Mom. If something tragic where to happen to her, I know that he would let me know and then I will decide what I am going to do when the event happens. I try very hard not to think about all the many things that could happen to uNPDM as she continues to live on her own like having a fall, etc.

Have I dealt with the F, O, and G since going NC? No, of course not, that is why I am here.  As time continues to go by, since going NC, and I continue with therapy, reading self-help books and participating in online support groups, the guilt has become less and less from what it once was.

[Cat of the Canals]

Honest answer? Because unBPD mom hasn't ever *quite* crossed the line. She's one of the more socially aware PDs I've ever known, and she has a good sense for pushing things just to the line without going over.

She's also very involved in my brother and sister-in-law's life, and while I don't think they would really take sides, I guess there's part of me still playing peacemaker. I don't want to make it awkward for everyone else. 

My unBPD mil, though... we're on the cusp. The next time she crosses a boundary, my husband is probably going to initiate NC.