What's the worst thing your PD has done (that led to NC)?

[Stardust1982]

Hi, I've been meaning to ask you for a while, what is the worst thing your PD parent has done that forced you to go NC?
This 'worst' doesn't have to be a generally bad thing but bad enough for you.

The point of this post is to see why people here have gone NC and understand what kind of behavior justifies NC. And yeah, I know that if your intuition says you should cut ties with them, that is enough reason to do so. However, my analytical brain still needs to hear from you what bad behavior was just 'too much' and pushed you over the limit of what you can tolerate.

BTW, there is no physical abuse or even yelling between me and my PD but the emotional manipulation and guilt trips and her constantly controlling every single aspect of my life, plus the lack of interest and empathy for my own personal problems are things that I can't just tolerate anymore.

Anyway, I wanna hear from you.
Thanks

[BettyGray]

I am probably not alone in saying it was more "death by a thousand cuts." That's why when the moment hits us that we have reached a choice between our well-being or staying in touch, it tends more to be a "snap" in a moment, rather than an event/comments setting it off. The last straw for me was something somewhat insignificant, but at that point I had just had enough. Problem is, it took me decades to do it. I doubt I could have done it at any point before, but in the moment I decided, there was ABSOLUTELY NO DOUBT ANYMORE. I didn't lose much - my brothers and dad never even tried to have relationships or stay in touch. And my mom and sister, well....

My Nmom had been an issue for me for years- decades, ever since I moved away and got "brainwashed" by my therapist and DH. After I moved away my uBPD sis and mom got super close. It had felt like them against me for a lot of my life, with mom switching back and forth on who was the GC and who was the scapegoat. When I did something my mom didn't like, my sister did her bidding and bullied me, lectured me, and shut down any discussion of my side. As the years went on, there were so many things the two of them did.....too many to list. But here are a few:

- Minimizing my depression, not getting me help when I was younger. Showing no compassion when I was pleading for it. Asking me if I was still taking my medication when I challenged her on anything or appeared a bit too rational/didn't play her game. Told me my therapist turned me against her.

- Defending my pedophile dad (no physical abuse of me, to be clear), and lashing out at me when I dared be disgusted or show moral opposition to his actions. They defended him and kept trying to force me into a "relationship" with him through guilt (He's your DAAAAAAAAAAD). But mostly they acted like none of it ever happened while getting no therapy to get through such an atomic bomb of devastated trust, immorality, deceitfulness, or mental illness. I was the problem. Nobody defended me in my righteous anger. Not one of them. That hurt more than anything else. The sheer hypocrisy of it all. Making me feel like I was insane for having a perfectly reasonable reaction of shock and complete nausea. To me, they were normalizing the behavior. I mean, can you imagine?

- Telling my MIL to her face, after MIL graciously hosted her for a weekend, that she never liked her son, my DH. Who does that?

- Little things - judgy, passive agreessive comments, not using my married name on addressed packages, forgetting/not acknowledging (every year) my husband's birthday, not paying for services rendered (DH gave them thousands of dollars worth of legal advice, and some work. There was never an offer to pay). They also assumed that I would always work for free. Crappy birthday and Christmas presents - clothes two sizes too big, cheap gifts while buying each other expensive ones. Apparently my husband was not worth more than a couple of pairs of Costco socks.

- Offering financial help when I was having trouble with an a-hole landlord not wanting to honor a lease agreement. Then not mentioning it again until she revealed she gave the money to my brother. But I'm glad I never took money from them. They never did anything for me and I never asked.

- Sneaky behavior. Not necessarily involving me, but at one point, my sister and mom didn't like who my brother was dating, so they hired a private detective to look into her and her finances. They then found out she had a lot of debt, convinced my brother that she was a liar and a cheat, and he broke up with her.
This behavior was not uncommon - my mother destroyed all of my siblings relationships through manipulation, slander, sowing doubt and playing victim. Especially GC oldest brother - one marriage, then any other attempt to have a girlfriend until he gave up and is alone at almost 60.

- Showing no interest in my life or me. You get to the point of "why am I continuing this?" Not to sound transactional, but there was no benefit to my having them in my life. Only pain. I had simply had enough. No one can tell you when you will reach that point. You'll just know when it happens, because it will feel more right than needlessly suffering in the name of "family."

[Starboard Song]

We had a sudden crisis, capping many years of a slowly degrading relationship.

The crisis was a perfect storm, reaching across four generations of the family. We respected a senior's brief request for privacy as they considered end-of-life decisions, which my MIL did not appreciate. Normally, we'd bend the knee, do a little recantation, and move on. In this case, the end-of-life decisions of a special person had to be protected. Before we knew what hit us, my MIL announced she no longer wanted to interact with either of us.

The anger levels were so high that their ordinary bellicose ways were left in the dust, but we couldn't just accept their demands without jeopardizing the well-being of our grandfather. Within a few weeks, MIL wrote that she had crossed a personal point of no return: she never again would ever want a relationship with us. This was in a six-page letter that enumerated lots of inflammatory reasons to dislike us. I didn't think this letter was so terrible, because I am an emotional dunce. It cut my wife to the bone.

We began learning, and reading. And erecting boundaries.

But she was not accepting it. And soon she told us that the only goal she had was to get us entirely out of her life. This was gold-plated with more outrageous criticisms of us: that we were deeply immoral and selfish, and so on. That was six months into it. At that point, we cut her mic. We announced that her unwillingness to have a relationship with us meant no relationship with our household: so no more contact with our dear son.

Down the road from this, she wrote a multi-page letter to a trusted member of our community smearing us: calling us terrible names, accusing us of terrible things like withholding customary care from an injured elderly man and purposely hurting a disabled child. It was batshit insane stuff. Her description of us read like a demon's resume. Fortunately, the recipient could tell how off it all was. She forwarded all of the communications to us and refused to answer the questions my MIL was asking about my son's schedule. I considered this last action, and my FIL's defense of it, to be the worst thing they did.

All along the way, my FIL's incoherent defense of absolutely anything his wife might say was stunning. He elided facts, dropped them, and made them up. When caught on a point he'd simply stop and stare and move on. I live in a world where words have meaning and they connect to one another. I was blown away.

I remain deeply desirous of vindication. I want to walk them through step by step what really happened and how it differs from their fever dreams. But I will probably never get the chance. They know I know the score, and have no interest in discussing it with me.

[Honey_B]

Hi, I've been meaning to ask you for a while, what is the worst thing your PD parent has done that forced you to go NC?

In my case it was years and years of abuse from my mother. Several times I tried to go NC but I ended up caving, when she suddenly acted all nice again. I was groomed from an early age to think that I was inherently selfish, too demanding and spoiled. So everytime I put up boundries for my mother, even in adulthood, I always ended up giving in because I thought of myself as being too 'tough' on her.

Just recently, the last straw came. My mother always had a way of controlling me and my sister with money.  She would give us or promise us sums of money and then act abusive. If I put up a boundry against the abuse, she would demand the money back and rage like a lunatic, calling me every nasty name you can think of.

The last time we spoke was the same conversation around money. She acused me of abusing my son and of stealing from her. She yelled and screamed and would not let me get a word in, told me I was stupid, irresponsible, a catastrophe, that I had always hated her from I was a baby (!), that I was responsible for my fathers death and much much more. Basically, it was a confession list of all the things she has done to me   

I am very determined that the NC will be permanent this time.

[DistanceNotDefense]

I'll focus on my M because F has been out of the picture for 20 years, whole other story. I'm not sure M is PD. I think covert N/tendencies, some childhood memories smack of BPD. NC with her for 4 months.

The real damaging PD in my FOO is sibling. GC, definitely uNPD, and very, very likely uASPD (psychopathic and sadistic behavior). Sibling has infected my whole FOO. My M enables the behavior and would have us other siblings do *anything* to keep PD sibling appeased regardless of how she treats you. ("Get her a job with your business!" "Please call her she's having a hard time." "She's damaged, you'll have to forgive her.")

I went NC with this sib over a year ago. I was just done. She seemed to completely despise me (and get pleasure from it) because I was seeing through her shenanigans, and there was no way forward with her, she relished hating me. She more or less told me I was an awful person and a burden to the family, ever since I was a baby, in our last conversation. My DH to her was poison, too. I was done, and for lots of other reasons too.

Since then (I think as sadistic punishment for cutting off contact) she's been hard at work weaving lies, rumors, and slander about me to my M and other sibling, who I was extremely close with. They took the bait hook, line, and sinker. For over a year, they tried whittling me down to a nub and as covertly as possible, and I just dealt with it while feeling guilty for something, I didn't know what, and I only had to keep putting up more boundaries.

The last straw: a rumor came around to me from a close, trusted friend of many years (who has seen thru sib's PD mask, and wanted to warn me) that this sib was saying my husband was physically beating me and controlling me, and had intentions to destroy my family (her crazy way of explaining my boundaries). This idea was manufactured and obsessively talked about by my sib with her friends and FOO, anyone who would hear. Worse, friend said my PD sib was sleuthing hard to make her reality seem as real as possible: she was trying to get in touch with my husband's ex's to weave something together, and it was starting to get frightening. PD sibling was trying to get other FOO to believe her on this and "save" me. FOO had been "brainwashed" for lack of a better word, and it explained a lot of their behavior the past year trying to pick my life apart.

I was irate. My husband now heartbroken and riddled with his own guilt and FOG. My M pushed the idea of visiting me not long after I discovered this. Tired of the games and needing to protect my real partner in life and FOC, I confronted her about these rumors and said I didn't want her or any FOO anywhere near me or my home or my husband for a while, not until she and FOO figured out how to repair this damage with me and SIL. They threatened our safety and our trust.

I laid one final boundary: "Do not tell me that all of this is not happening or you have not heard this. I know you have heard this rumor. If you deny it and gaslight me, I will be forced to cut off communication even further, in the interest of protecting ourselves."

M's response: "This is crazy. (PD sibling) would never say anything like that. She cares about you. If we really thought that was happening we would have rushed out there immediately. This is insane."

I went NC after that.

[Blueberry Pancakes]

The worst thing that happened upon which I went NC was at the wedding of my GC sister's son.  Five months prior, I told my sister where my boundaries were with our relationship. She told me to "just deal with it". I explained I was then backing off and I did. So, I was NC with her for 5 months when the wedding took place. Leading up to it, my parents kept saying that I was causing my sister too much stress and I was ruining the wedding, It was a familiar routine that they all played during my whole life. My sister triangulated with parents. They accused me of something my sister made up and demanded I fix it. The three of them were united against me for something my sister fabricated. I had stopped JADEing by that point. My parents urged me angrily to make up to her, and got mad at me when I said that was not possible. They were the victims and I was the bad guy. 

The wedding occurred and I attended for my nephew with a smile on my face. All was going fine until the reception where my sister sat me at her table. She glared at me the whole time and I heard her complain to her husband that I had not even said hello to her yet. At one point, I got up to go to the restroom and her husband walked over and grabbed both my  hands and dragged me into a corner and asked me why I was not speaking to my sister. He got in my face so close I had to put my hand on his chest to get physical space. I was upset and felt assaulted.  I looked around the room and nobody was paying attention and if I screamed I knew they would all think I caused a problem, so I just calmly told him we would make amends in time and walked off. Fortunately, he did not go after me.  When I returned to my seat, my dad walked over and told me to say hello to my sister and waived her over. She came over and both she and my dad stood over me glaring. I told my dad to stay out of it. He angrily demanded I speak to my sister. I got up, grabbed my purse and walked out. As I did my dad yelled out to me that I had just ruined the wedding. I have not spoken to my sister since only only VVVVLC with parents.  That was 3 years ago.
   
This was the last straw, but the real cause is repeated patterns through your life that never improve and your efforts to resolve things only make you feel increasingly worse.     

[GettingOOTF]

The breaking point was when they refused to cut contact with my abusive ex who was using them to keep tabs on me because “we won’t take sides”.  I immediately cut contact with my siblings and then a year later with my father.  It has been a long time coming but he called me at work and said some incredibly inappropriate and hurtful things and then laughed. I cried at my desk.  The next day I blocked him and haven’t spoken to him since.

To add this was after a lifetime of abuse. I was in therapy at the time and had spent a couple of years working on my self esteem and the toxic behaviors I learned growing up. I realized I didn’t need to stand for their treatment of me and walked away. There was no blow up, no explanation, no calls or emails. I simply cut contact and I feel so much better for it.

[poetandpunk]

I decided to go NC when I got married seven years ago. There were dozens and dozens of incidents over the years that helped me to see that my parents are NPD and that our family dynamic is totally enmeshed. However, the clincher events that happened while my husband and I were engaged really pushed me to go NC when we returned from our honeymoon.

The first incident was at our 'family engagement celebration.' At this event my mother pointed her finger at me in front of everyone and said she wanted 'to have a discussion with me' in the other room, like I was four years old (I was 32 at the time). This was so normal to me that I actually followed along. She proceeded to confront me about something hurtful I had done. What was it? What was so hurtful that I needed to be confronted at my engagement celebration? I had invited my sister and brother in law over for dinner and hadn't invited my OTHER sister and brother-in-law. My mother was upset that I had done this. The reason I had invited Sister A and her husband over for dinner was that she was leaving the state and moving all the way across country, and I wanted to spend some quality time with them before they went. This apparently was unacceptable. Sister B (who is also NPD) felt 'left out' and 'really hurt' that I had done this, told my mother, and my mother proceeded to attack me. At my own engagement dinner. Because Sister B is always right and her feelings are always more important than mine. Even when I was engaged and the celebration was supposed to be for me.

The second incident was on my wedding day. My mother showed up at the church and she was frowning and in a nasty mood because she couldn't figure out the parking system at the church. I was standing there with my wedding planner, and my mother was frowning and snippy and rude to me, on my WEDDING DAY. The wedding planner was watching this unfold and looking at me like 'what the hell is going on?' and I could actually see the event unfolding as an outsider looking in and that did it, I realised right then and there that there were no exceptions or exemptions from the dysfunction in my family, not even my wedding day was protected from my parents acting selfishly and only concerned with their own feelings.

Those seem 'mild' incidents to me now compared to my entire life history within my family - I was beaten with a belt as a child and hit with paddles, my parents screamed and cursed in front of us or at us (my mother loved to call me a son of a bitch, which makes no sense considering I am female), yet my parents also put on a good show at church, etc. etc. However those two incidents around my engagement and wedding day pushed me over the edge.

[Jolie40]

past year was a "crisis" year
not just with PD parent but ALL siblings

this led to high levels of stress causing me to sleep only 3 or 4 hrs/night
with my physical health being affected, it just had to stop!

feeling so much better after going NC & back to sleeping 7 hrs/night
NC definitely worth it for me!





fyi-forgave PD parent before becoming a parent myself & that was freeing
however, this past yr so much happened with parents/several siblings
it was a new crisis practically everyday

[Amadahy]

Although Nmom and Endad did LOTS to warrant NC (falsely telling college Dean my fiancee had a gun and was threatening me, writing slanderous letters to my in-laws, conspiring with others in my losing a job, etc), what finally sealed it (temporarily) was when. Nmom went after my sons with lies, gaslighting, rage, etc.  I even gave her a specific warning and she couldn't wait to dig in again. I went NC for five glorious months.  She's declining and I'm in touch now, but it is exhausting.  If I were thinking solely of my own well being I'd still be NC.

[Stardust1982]

@Liz1018 our experiences are similar! Thanks for sharing.

'- Showing no interest in my life or me. You get to the point of "why am I continuing this?" Not to sound transactional, but there was no benefit to my having them in my life. Only pain. I had simply had enough'-THIS!!! This is a VERY good reason to go NC with them and I am starting to think the same way. Why continue a relationship that brings only pain and no emotional benefits?

[Stardust1982]

@Honey_B your mother sounds like a nightmare! Good for you for cutting ties with her. I hope all is well now
Hugs

[Stardust1982]

@DistancenotDefense your mother is truly narcissistic. That's how narcissists are, they just gaslight everyone who doesn't agree with their version of the story. Good for you for leaving them for good.

[Hilltop]

Death by a 1000 paper cuts yeah that had a lot to do with it with both FOO and inlaws.  Lots of disrespect and belittling behaviour.  Its the same as everyone else, it wasn't just one incident, these are the final straw moments after years of toxic behaviours.  There are other stories however this is when I went NC.

With my inlaws there was constant drama and disrespect leading up to the final straw moment.  I came home and MIL was in our house cleaning.  I told her it was unnecessary and went to leave the room.  As I went to leave the room she blocked me from leaving, physically blocked me in my own house as she tried to argue with me.  I was shaken by this, really shaken with this physical confrontation.  A couple of weeks later I went to talk to her and was calm and completely respectful to her.  She said nothing to me during the talk, told me everything was fine from her end, a few insults were thrown my way but after I left she called my husband and lied about me and lied about what I had said.  I went NC in that moment.  I knew how I had acted, I knew what I had said.  During the talk I didn't even bring up the physical incident with my MIL, I actually brought up other stuff which I believed were issues with the intention of asking how she felt or if she thought there were issues between us, I was genuine in my approach to her, it was my last ditch effort to try anything to get the relationship back on track.  To me what happened was over the top crazy and I felt it was time for a talk, I wasn't even angry with her, I just wanted to really talk to say what is going on.  I couldn't believe what had happened.  However when she lied, I knew there was nothing I could do and left and have never regretted NC.  I am now VVVLC after being NC for years I only see them twice a year for an hour and can manage that.

With my parents I went NC for a couple of years after my mother contacted my sister and outright lied about me.  My mother was upset with me because my husband called her after my surgery rather than me, I was still waking up.  She called my sister and told her that I was refusing to talk to her and had told the nurses that I didn't want to speak to her.  She never spoke about this with me, she contacted my sister and spoke to her about it and did a smear campaign against me.  My sister then sent me abusive text messages telling me how horrible I was.  That was the only way I knew what was happening behind my back because of my sisters text messages.  My mother had been talking to me just fine as if nothing was wrong at the same time she was complaining to my sister.  I eventually re-established contact however more recently have taken a break.  This is due to ongoing belittling behaviour and insults throughout this year.  I am just tired and don't know how to deal with it, so I am taking time out to work on myself and see how I feel.

[Hepatica]

I am struggling these past few days, moving into guilt and doubt. I'm glad that I have a therapy appt. today bc I am feeling really shaky about all of this.

What I am struggling with is that I set all of the family difficulties off by saying no to it. My father and sister are so covert. This is very confusing to me. Both of them have done and do kind and valuable acts in the community. My father used to go to old folks homes and play music for the people and do sing alongs. Both he and my sister are very jolly and warm.

This is really hard for me. I appear to be the pent up, quiet troll in the family. (See: need to see therapist today badly. )

Death by a thousand paper cuts for me as well. The childhood experience of growing up in extreme rageful fighting, hitting, degrading family dynamic. My father had a hair trigger temper on a bad day but those bad days came far and few between. However, when they came I truly believed he hit to kill, and there was no apologies afterward to tell us he lost it and felt bad. My mother was just unstable and seemed to hate my sister. (My sister was an unwanted pregnancy and my mother never stopped blaming her for ruining her life.)

Because I was so much younger than my sister I was like these big eyes watching everything like it was a horror movie. When I moved out and moved far away, the once a year visits to them all were fine. They were happy to see me and had their best faces on. But when I moved back to the shared home town it began to fray. My mother never once helped me with my baby at the time, when I was even just needing a half hour of care between me going to my job and my Dh getting home. She never called to see how I was. My father would offer but he creeped me out and I can't figure out why.

My sister suffered from health issues and was prescribed opiates. She began to go downhill by her mid-thirties with up and down behaviour and found a sanctuary in a fundamental religion that I thought helped her, but in many ways it told her that she merely needed to pray the addictive behaviour away and she'd be cured and she's still taking percocet and have up and down behaviour.

My father's hoarding went from basement to three paid for barns and garages, the family cottage and then the entire upper level of his home with my mother. My mother and father fight about it in front of everybody continually. Nothing changes.

I began to be left out of things as my sister began to get closer to other aunts and uncles who shared her form of religion and I'd find out later I'd been left out of family dinners and get togethers. I never judged her for her choice of worship. I just didn't feel drawn to it myself.

It didn't get strange until her kids became older and she began to complain about them to me constantly. I love her kids and I hated hearing the horrible things she said about them. She seemed to want to control their every move and talked all the time about her son's drug problem, her percocet issues and her daughter's bad choice in a boyfriend. I brought her pamphlets and I asked her to get help. I also asked her to stop talking behind her kid's backs (she once spent an hour telling my husband's mother about it - his mother who barely knows them) and that is when my sister went really dark. She became pouty and petty because I'd set a boundary. People dropped off our shared social media. She had confided in them I guess, framing me as a problem.

When my uNPDmother got deathly ill, my sister's controlling got worse. She tried to schedule my time at the hospital (using her migraines as reasons she was struggling - completely ignoring i was barely able to walk, much less sit for hours due to a severe back issue I had that was flaring up then) so this did not work for me. It was also important for me that I had Dh with me to buffer my mother's rage, as she masked up when he was there.) I had to again set boundaries and more people dropped off my sister and my shared social media. She must have painted me as selfish and unloving. But for me, I was having flashbacks to my childhood and I was falling apart and trying to keep my head above water.

Then I found out thru a cousin and friend that my father was saying horrible things about me to the extended FOO and that they had to defend me. I felt so so so betrayed and vulnerable.

I began to back away last year when I tried to LC with my parents and very minimal contact with my sister. My fathers's sneering and pouting when I went to visit became really uncomfortable. I still had a lot of love for them at that point and I was trying to solve some of the issues they were having. Money was bad. The began to ask me for money. The hoarding was bad. The gambling was bad. It was so dark and miserable. My mother called me fat countless times. My father began to do weird things where he was writing little letters accusing me of taking advantage of them - when I was only trying to help them. Last fall I decided to take care of myself during the Christmas season and tell them via letter that I was struggling with anxiety and depression and my doctor had told me spend time healing and avoid stress.

That break from them lasted until spring where I made a few attempts to go see them, but again my mother called me fat and my father pouted and it was awkward. I had distanced completely from my sister and they brought this up every time I went. They shamed me and rubbed in that I was missing out on the FOO get togethers. In August my father did the final action that made me feel anger. He told me to go back and see my shrink after showing up uninvited to my home and gossiping this entire drama about his brothers and sister. He said some bizarre things, like he was as smart as a lawyer, as smart as a psychiatrist, that he was shrewd and in charge of everything and my Dh and I just sat there listening. When he said I needed to go see a shrink I stood up and told him to leave.

First time I've ever stood up to my father in my entire life.

I just cannot see this getting better. I feel terrible about it all. It breaks my heart daily. I'm willing to look at myself and admit to my failings but they are not willing to look at how much their behaviour hurts others.

Being near them is so painful for me. And yet, still I tend to think if only i could just accept their failings I'd be a better person.

[Danden]

well, to be honest, I have sometimes felt I don't belong on this forum, when I read all the very terrible experiences others have had with their families.  In my case, I have had some bad experiences to be sure, but it is more of a death by a thousand paper cuts.  Then it is the concrete bad experiences that put it into focus for me. 

I have felt like an outsider in my family all  my life, never being accepted or loved for myself.  My mother puts me down and talks bad about me, both within the family and to other people.  Or she ignores  me.  She has succeeded in placing me on the outside in this way.  Whenever she feels angry, frustrated or sad about something, it is always somehow my fault, because I am not a "good" daughter.  She never seems to be pleased or proud to have me as her daughter.  Even though I have had some exceptional achievements in my life and there is a lot to be proud of.  I am a good person, but she seems to think I am the devil.  She accuses me of being selfish and ungrateful.  I have come to understand that I am just not what she wants in a daughter, so there is really very little in this relationship for me, because she doesn't accept me.

I went to LC after my father died.  At that time, she decided to float the idea of an unequal inheritance, where I would receive less than my sister.  I said I was opposed to this, and she paid no heed.  For me It is important that things are done fairly, but she wanted to do things her way, even though it was unfair to me and my children, and had no understanding whatsoever of how I would feel.  If she wanted to have a good relationship with me and my children, she would at least pretend to listen and care about how I feel.  But she was oblivious.   As if I didn't matter.  At that time she also blamed me for unduly influencing my father when he made his will.  This was completely unfounded and untrue, and there was nothing at all unfair in how my father made his will.  He was an extremely conscientious and fair-minded individual who would never hurt anyone.  But she saw an opportunity to make some drama, draw attention to herself,  and blame me for a crime, so she did.  Things continued at LC, with intermittent attempts at a relationship, and arguments/discussions about how I would get less and my sister would get more.  She would always try to frame this in such a way that I am being selfish for insisting on fairness, and why don't I understand her point of view.  It was just very offensive to me.  At some point I just stopped talking to her.  Then about 7 years after my father died, she and my sister decided to disinherit me from the remainder of the family estate (her estate), without telling me.  We were already not speaking at this time.  About a year and half later, I found out about this, and I started action with an attorney to reclaim at least what my father had left me, which had been under her auspices until then.  So I did that.  That was 5 years ago and now I have no contact with them.   

Other concrete examples occurred throughout my life.  She tried to prevent me from going to graduate school, on a full scholarship including room and board, because it was inconvenient for her.  She harassed me to get married to different men of her choice, even though I was in school and not looking for that (another way to control me).  She blamed me for her medical problems, because of the stress I cause her.  She threatened to report me to the police for child neglect, because she disagrees with me on child care.  She tried to influence my husband and in-laws against me with her innuendo.  She speaks bad about me and my husband in front of my children.  She tells me she "has done everything for me" when actually I have done a helluva lot for myself, and she doesn't acknowledge this at all.  She told me she should have aborted me.   

So it was all of these things together; the general way I feel, the smaller things and the big things that, over time, led to LC and then to NC. 

[DistanceNotDefense]

@DistancenotDefense your mother is truly narcissistic. That's how narcissists are, they just gaslight everyone who doesn't agree with their version of the story. Good for you for leaving them for good.

Thanks! To me, it's really hard to see her as narcissistic because she is so covert, and because I love her and have good, warm memories of her too. But maybe she really is narcissistic (tendencies, definitely...PD? Dunno) and I need to see and accept that.

That is such a common theme in this thread: minimizing the abuse we've experienced, thinking it's not that bad, comparing it to others' and thinking we don't belong here.

Like Denden: your mother said she should have aborted you...how horrible!!! Anyone who told me that IRL I would say "that is awful and abusive." Whether it was a friend, neighbor, relative. But you don't think you belong here. I disagree!

Everyone's situation is unique, but no matter the details, each of us built up a thick skin and lots of denial to survive our families. I have a lot of denial to unwrap.

[Andeza]

Same as many here, death by a thousand cuts. However, having a baby kinda opened my eyes to realize how bad much of the past behavior, the previous cuts, had actually been. Hindsight became suddenly very powerful. NC almost a year now.

[Sidney37]

Death by 1,000 cuts for 30+ years here, too.   The issue that finally blew it up started when I read the book "Boundaries" a few years ago.  I started enacting some basic boundaries and she flipped out.  Her normal controlled, waify, victim self, got angry when I stopped calling daily and put her on an info diet.  It took me months of her escalating behavior to finally go NC.  I felt so guilty and afraid. 

The info diet caused her to spiral like an addict without their drug until she started sending me and my DH texts and emails that my enD was threatening to commit suicide and it was all my fault because I wasn't being "kind to" them.   The emails gave a description of how he was going to do it. It sounded immediate and urgent, so DH and I called them right away and said that we were calling 911.  She got her phone call which is exactly what she wanted, but by the time she sent the texts, he was off doing some household chores.   He told me that he made the threat but it was because she was verbally abusing him, and he could no longer take it.  It was no longer an emergency, and it had nothing to do with me. 

To put it in my perspective, my college boyfriend committed suicide in the same way many years ago.  His parents blamed me and I spent years in therapy after to accept that it wasn't my fault.   She knew this, but sent the texts anyway.      I was furious and I told my enD that I would no longer communicate with her other than by emails that included him so he could see what she was saying.  Of course, she refused. 

I told my enD that I needed an apology, or I was done.   She eventualy sent me an apology that blamed her boss for teaching her how to talk to people in a critical way and then told me that all of the critical (abusive) things she said to me for 30+ years were for my own good and I was just overreacting (the "too sensitive" line from a narcissist).  I should do what she says, understand that she is only trying to be helpful and then we wouldn't have a problem.  I didn't accept her fauxpology.  Then she started texting my teen daughter guilt trippy things about how she might never see her again because I am so mean. 

I blocked my PDm from all devices and the NC with her started then, but left my enD able to contact just me.  He started posting on social media about how mean I was and how terrible it is when adult children take grandchildren away for no reason.  He asked for people to pray for him because of what I was doing to them. It included lies, exaggerations and pictures of my kids!!!   His church friends took screen shots of his post and started posting it, too.  I had to contact the company to have the posts removed because they contained pictures of my children!  Then he was blocked.   I was then NC with him as well.

Later he found a way to contact me to let me know that I was removed from their POA and all other legal documents.  (Hooray!  I didn't want that responsibility anyway).  They got another communication to us demanding back financial gifts that they had sent to us many years ago. 

I'm now totally NC and just waiting for the next attempt to contact me.  I'm guessing it will be from them or a flying monkey when one of them gets sick or dies. 

[Kiki81]

Going on 7 years of NC (real NC). It was a last-straw ragey meltdown 100% same as how she scared me when I was a defenseless and vulnerable child.

Now she's 90 and has outlived all the people she loved/treated So well.