Why Do I Keep Feeling Guilty?

[makingachange]

Hi Everyone!

I have been no contact for 1 year, but about a week ago I broke contact with my mother and father through text messaging.  I told them that I would be willing to text a bit on Sundays with them.  I left it very open....so, the next Sunday after saying this my mother didn't text me at all, and then that Monday sent a text saying she was confused about what we were doing. 

Leading up to this scheduled text time (Sundays), I had horrible dreams all week long with the topic of "being trapped"...I felt worried, on edge, just very nervous about the idea of this at all.  I was honestly at the time relieved to know that she didn't text me that Sunday...and I never responded to her text on the Monday.  She knew it was my son's birthday on that Monday, but didn't say anything about that.

She then texted me on this past Sunday saying ..."Hello how are you doing?" ---I didn't say anything, and she hasn't said anything after that either.  When I got this message immediately felt dread in the pit of my stomach, worried, and on edge.

So, after all of this, I am left feeling guilty...I am feeling sad...I feel like I scratched open an old wound...and now it is painful all over again. 

Our relationship has not been good...but for some reason I pretended in my little head that it was great...it wasn't until my mothers rage fest that I realized...WOW....this is not normal at all, and this led me to figuring out there has to be an issue.

This past rage fest was the icing on the cake...the mean and hateful things said about me through text to me and also my husband...(This rage fest was a result of me not bending to her will...not doing what she wanted me to do...)  She had asked to facetime/chat with me and my kids...but had not seemed interested or ask about us in months really...only talking about what she and my father were doing and daily updates about their life...

I told her ..."yes, sometime we could do that..."  Her response was "I will see those kids even if you don't want to see us."  After this, she then started saying things like it is me with the problem...that she knew I would cut her out of my life that it was just a matter of time...that this isn't fair...how I treat them horrible...that I am a cruel person...then came up with a really strange story that me and my infant are missing...that this isn't really me texting her? 

I guess, I am just at a loss...I wish I had something else ...I am sad for not having the parents I wanted or needed....

My father left me a voicemail many months ago...first time he has ever really called me in over 12 years...to say..."How long are you going to keep cold shouldering your mother and father?"  - in a cold stern voice - taking me back to my childhood days.

Right now my mind goes back and fourth between..."Was I just weak...could I just have withstood this and just kept in line to keep the peace and be able to say I have a relationship with my parents?"  and "I couldn't take anymore of this...it had been years of stuff that led up to this point and my decision to cut contact."

My parents are getting older...and this has me at times in a panic...that we never got it right after all these years....

The thing here is that my parents refuse to see that they hurt me with all the mean comments...they have no clue of all the years of stuff that led up to this...and think it is me with a problem...I tried to tell them how I felt a year ago...how they had hurt me...and its a blanket apology of ..."Sorry for everything I ever did to you."  "Even people in jail get a second chance."  ---or the "well, you don't know what we are going through..."  No sympathy at all for anything said...and just..."me, me, me."

It feels so uncomfortable feeling this way...feeling like..."should I just deal with it..." or "I feel better staying away...but it also feels weird."

Does anyone else feel this way....what did you do to feel better relief about this?  Does this guilt/ever get better?  Any advice/insight/or thoughts on my situation or what you did would be appreciated greatly!

Thank you so much!

[moglow]

Makingachange, what if you responded along the lines of [and admittedly passive aggressively on my part]: I'm doing well, thank you, and so is my family. I'm hurt that you didn't contact DS or even acknowledge his birthday last week. I don't understand simply glossing over his day that way, whatever differences between you and me. That's your grandson and I thought better of you, it's no way to have any kind of relationship with my family.

Yes, it would open a door, but is it helping you by keeping it closed? That's where my focus is here, whether it's okay for that elephant in the middle of the room to sit there unacknowledged and eat at you or if you have things you need to get out so you can put them down. What I've had to do more of the past few years is ask myself, who is being served by me sucking all that poison up and turning it on myself? Is me staying quiet going to magically help in some way? It's not so much a matter of dishing back what we've been served, but rather sitting up and saying No. That's not right and I'm not going to pretend to be that person any more!

I ask this because I've been asking same of myself, believe me. Things changed - and most assuredly not for the better - when I refused to be her  sponge anymore. Md claims this or that particular situation but no. Everything between us changed when I dug down and found the strength to sit up straight and say No More. No contact is opening my eyes more every day, and I don't like what I see at all. Right now I'm just angry that I let it go for so many years without a word.

[donutmoonpanda]

I go back and forth, too. It's not like I just decided to go NC and everything went swimmingly. Literally, I wake up in the morning with great resolve, feeling so good about my choice. And then each night (or if I wake up in the middle of the night) I'll feel like "I should just give in and give her what she wants. Keep my mom in my life any way that I can." Like my resolve wears down and I remind myself every time that this is the right choice. Also, I remind myself to DO NOTHING. If I'm feeling guilt or regret, big feelings, I just do nothing. Wait it out. It goes away. I'm not actively hurting anybody if I'm doing nothing, just waiting for my feelings to settle and my head to get clear.

I dunno if this is helpful, but I have PTSD. I remind myself that I am in recovery for my PTSD, which was caused by my abusive and neglectful childhood. Just like an addict in recovery, it's dangerous to be around people who don't even believe I have a condition to recover from. My mom doesn't believe I have PTSD. She doesn't think my childhood was that bad, and whatever I did get I deserved it. She'd say "Donut doesn't have PTSD." If you asked, "So Donut is fine?" She'd say, "Donut HAS a problem. But the problem is Donut." I'm the problem. I've always been the problem ever since I was born. It wasn't the abusive, dysfunctional, emotionally immature parents that controlled my life. It was me. She's always believed this.

When I remember that, it becomes very clear that mom can't be in my life. This is why has never worked out with us.

Find those truths with your own parents. Things you can hang your hat on when you feel like selling out your own mental and emotional health to let your parent(s) have what they want.

You feel guilty because you were trained to feel guilty. But deep down you have your own needs and they are more important than the guilt you were trained to feel every time you considered your own needs or put yourself first. Maybe it's time for you to focus on yourself.

For me, NC still feels weird. My mom could be around another 20 years. I guess I'll just have to get used to it because whenever I re-examine it, it all amounts to a very abusive and unloving situation for me.

[footprint33]

Hi makingachange and all,

Many of us were also engineered from a young age to feel guilty and self-blame. One of the things that has helped me is to just acknowledge this when I feel guilty. I step out of myself and say, "footprint, you were engineered when you were very young to feel guilty no matter what the situation." While this thought process doesn't solve all of my problems, it actually helps and I think reframes the situation for myself.

makingachange, your parents might be different from mine. Yours might be capable of apologizing. If they are like my parents, however, then they will not truly apologize and waiting for an apology can be agonizing. Once I realized that they won't apologize, it helped me to move on. It's hard for us to understand because we children of NPD and PD parents are often the first ones to reach out and apologize, often even if we have done nothing wrong. But these parents are not hardwired like us. From what I've seen, many of them are just not "human" in the sense that we understand it--they don't experience empathy or remorse like we do.

The positive thing here is that you have a son and are not treating him in the same way that your parents treated you. There is a beautiful justice in that. I have two children who are now 13 and almost 11. They have had minimal contact with my parents (no contact at all since they were 2 and 4) and are raised in a very loving way, so different from how I was raised. I've found that raising them in this way also heals me. As you say, you did not get the parents that you deserved, and that is sad. But you can be the parent that you wanted for yourself for your son, and this might help you to heal too.

footprint