Has anyone’s PD parents asked what happened?

[Rocketman]

For a while now I've had a lot more distance from Nmom and by proxy the rest of the family (severely enmeshed) so the narrative that somethings wrong with me and I'm inconsiderate of my FOO is well established.  But recently my sibling went through something that drove them to tell my mother to her face that they are tired of her emotional abuse will be having none of it anymore. 

There's a good chance none of it sticks and it's dismissed as another emotional outburst (in the past they'd just been the one capable of standing up for themselves) but in the event Nmom and Edad actually believe they did something wrong, has anyone else been asked by their parents where they went wrong?

For context: We were provided for and had a good upbringing but when something about us wasn't "approved of" it was roundly invalidated. We weren't locked up and started of food and friends, because being skinny introverts was unacceptable. We had to be strong social butterflies who ended up with good careers. Imagine a fully independent adult casually mentioning they were leaving for a road trip to visit me at a certain hour and their mother saying "no." And convincing them to leave at another time! Point is there was perpetual invalidation and after 2/3 kids putting their foot down and a marital problem, the "perfect little family" facade  has run its course.

So...if asked, and that's a BIG if, is it even worth being honest? Has anyone genuinely been asked about this? On one hand, we all know the classic N apology or E apology on behalf of the N, no need to elaborate. On the other hand, I will not pretend that they didn't negatively affect me even though I was taken care of and provided for as a child. Then again I recently responded to some unnecessary drama that I will not be participating in chaotic situations created to feed my mom's narcissistic supply, so maybe I'd just refer them to my previous statement....thanks for any input.

[Maxtrem]

Narcissists automatically blame others as a defense mechanism to protect their fragile egos. Personally I don't think it's worth being honest, it will only add fuel to the fire in my opinion. Reality will be distorted, manipulated and nothing positive will come of it...

[Blueberry Pancakes]

I'm sorry this is going on Rocketman. Yes, my parents have asked what they did. They also asked how they can make it better.  Bottom line, it was dialog that just circled around and went nowhere.     
     
I picked up the cue, and told them. Unfortunately we have had this dialog a few times, and each time I gave specifics about the recent episode. I really believed telling them would be enough for them to not do it again. For what they could do, I asked specifically that they "stop blaming me for XXX and stay neutral among the family". The craziness is that everything I said, they had excuses such as "I did not really mean it", "they were drunk when they called", "dad is depressed since retiring, so please brush it off", or "Oh that little comment meant nothing". I began seeing the repeat pattern, and told them it was not one event, but rather several things over time. All they said was I was holding onto grudges for things that happened over 10 years ago, so I was the one with issues.   

I tried several approaches to that question. I even told my parents that I already explained, I was not going to rehash it again, and to refer back to our prior conversation on this topic.  I thought I was not expressing my boundaries clearly enough, so during the latest blow out, I told my dad "I told you to stop doing XXX and you are doing it again right now. If you continue, I am backing off and you will not see me." My dad told me to go ahead and back off while swearing at me. Three months passed, and he started calling my phone (I blocked him) leaving voicemails asking what he did wrong and why am I not returning his calls. I explain all that because I think sometimes whether we answer that question or not, they have a predisposition to not understand it and never change regardless. 

[Blueberry Pancakes]

Personally I don't think it's worth being honest, it will only add fuel to the fire in my opinion. Reality will be distorted, manipulated and nothing positive will come of it...

Totally agree.   

[Sidney37]

Hi Rocketman

My parents definitely asked what they did the first time we were NC.  They think that they were kind and loving parents who had done nothing wrong.  DH and I attempted to tell them by setting a list of boundaries for future visits.  We did this with the help of a therapist many years ago.  Within a few years, they started violating every boundary.  We reminded them.  They insisted that the boundaries were unfair, the fact that they violated them was all my fault, etc.  The boundaries were things like not threatening to leave and making my kids cry every time something doesn't go their way, not calling people names when they visit, not showing up days before their scheduled visit without any notice. 

When I started setting boundaries the second time, about 2 years ago, they flipped out.  They were very minor boundaries including the ones above and no longer calling twice a day every day as demanded.  After she flipped out my enD wanted a list of what PDm had done other than me saying that she is unkind and is very critical on those phone calls.  I started listing out the punishments she doled out when I was an adult (over the course of 20+ years) for not calling her at the exact right times twice each and every day for her to insult me and insult my family - threatening to stop paying her small portion of my college tuition when I was 20, threatening to have my car repossessed (I was paying the payments in full and on time), not telling me when a relative passed away until 2 weeks later because I didn't call her for 2 days, threatening not to buy my kids Christmas gifts or visit them ever again, demanding back money and gifts she had given years before, calling me and others in my FOC names, insulting me and everything about my house, threatening not to tell me if my grandmother passed away, etc.  I could go on and on.

I verbally gave these examples to my father.  I reminded him that she is not kind and doesn't ever speak to me in a kind way.  She makes threats every time I don't call twice a day at the exact time she wants to talk to me. He insisted that he had never witnessed any of these examples.  So I gave him two examples he had witnessed in the previous few weeks.  When I mentioned to her that a friend had lost her job because they wanted people with a different level of education, she spent 10 or more minutes lecturing me about how every choice I had made from the time I graduated high school, to my college choice, choice of major, choice of graduate degree, choice of grad school, etc. were all terrible.  It was really mean and she was shockingly hateful about the way she said it and what she said. It included a bunch of gaslighting because I ended up at one of the schools because she forbid me to go anywhere else.  She denied it completely.  A few days later she made some very unkind remarks to me and my daughter over the telephone in my car because I mentioned that I had to go to gas up my car before I picked up my son so I didn't run out of gas.  She used that as an excuse to light into me about how I wait to long and can I not see the gas gauge and what is wrong with me.  She was screaming this in the background of a call I was having with my enD. 

I pointed out these two examples of things that enD actually witnessed and said that this was how she talked to me in every conversation.  These two examples are now being used to make me look crazy.  She is telling everyone that I am not speaking to her because she told me that I should have picked a different major in college and that I should fill up my gas tank more frequently.  This is their example of how petty I am.  How could someone stop speaking to their parents for years over these petty things?  She was just trying to help and these were kind, helpful suggestions.   

Because I wouldn't provide them with a written list, this is what they have resorted to.  I considered writing them a list.  I actually wrote it.  It was ten typed pages of examples of things she had done over the course of 20 years.  People here talked me out of sending it.  I think they were right. 

I guess this is just a really long way of saying, that sending the list of examples most likely would have made the situation worse.  They took the two examples I did give to make me look petty. 

[moglow]

My experience is similar to others here - you may try. Be prepared to have them shoot holes in any/everything you say or possibly just hone in on the one or two they can "defend" (justify or excuse in their minds) and disregard all else. Or, you'll leave something off and be told "well what about xyz, seems that was such a big issue to you before ..." (Full on sarcasm and disdain is how mine delivered that last one).

Mine had also brushed it off with "you said we need to move forward, that was in the past!" Yes, and yet you continued with more of the same. No changes, no apology, no remorse to be seen. No recognition that a lifetime of abuses can't be answered with just one incident that pushed it over. SSDD in your world.
You have to understand, people who are being held accountable either WILL BE or they'll downplay and disregard, very likely laying it all back at your feet. I'm not saying don't try to say your peace, just be realistic and willing to find a peaceful space between what you truly want and reality.

[Cat of the Canals]

For context: We were provided for and had a good upbringing but when something about us wasn't "approved of" it was roundly invalidated. We weren't locked up and started of food and friends, because being skinny introverts was unacceptable. We had to be strong social butterflies who ended up with good careers. Imagine a fully independent adult casually mentioning they were leaving for a road trip to visit me at a certain hour and their mother saying "no." And convincing them to leave at another time! Point is there was perpetual invalidation and after 2/3 kids putting their foot down and a marital problem, the "perfect little family" facade  has run its course.

This sounds so much like my FOO.

I have made space for myself in the last few years. PDmom has said nothing to me about it, but I know she periodically complains to my brother (and probably enDad) that she "wishes we were closer." But she's been saying that for years, even before I was consciously making a choice to distance myself from her. The fact that she's never broached the subject with me says two things: 1. She doesn't actually want more closeness. She only wants to stir the Flying Monkeys up in hopes of gaining more resources (from me or them, she's not picky). 2. She believes the problem lies with me and doesn't at all see our relationship as an exchange. The notion that my distance might be a result of her behavior doesn't occur to her (or is quickly dismissed, as it would wound her ego too much to ponder for any length of time).

Early on, I considered trying to explain it to her. My husband wisely convinced me not to do it. My hope was that I'd find the magic words that would transform her into the mom I'd always wanted. But if she were capable of the level of empathy and thoughtfulness that required, we wouldn't be here in the first place!

So if she's not in a position to hear and take in what I'm saying, what's the point? I know the likely result of a confrontation with her: she'll cry to my brother and my dad about how "nasty" I'm being to her. She'll tell anyone who will listen that she thinks I've been brainwashed and that I'm crazy. She's done these exact things over far less.

I understand the predicament of wanting to speak and live your truth and wanting to be honest and transparent... but honesty and transparency have frankly NEVER worked with PDmom. I have come to think of these things as being a privilege and not an entitlement. If someone has shown themselves to be trustworthy and mature, I consider them worthy of my confidence. If they haven't... 

[Writing My Own Story]

My PDMom wrote me an email "apologizing" for things like yelling at me to brush my teeth. At the end of it (swear to God) she wrote "I have forgiven myself." They can't really see the way that the repeated slights build up to a reality in which you are not valid as a person. As such, they can't really understand why each piece is related. So I mean...they ask...but it's always dismissed as "that was just the one time" or what have you.

[sonofanarc]

Similar expereince to others that have posted from me as well. My father has asked only once but it was indirectly in him relaying a conversation with a friend and each of them asking where they went wrong in raising their children. His interest goes no deeper and the few times ive got caught back on the drama triangle to try and rescue him, it goes nowhere. Actions speak louder than words and I can only surmise he has zero interest in changing despite saying he wants to.

I've worked with many clients in helping them break away from PD parents and have yet to see an outcome where a parent goes into T to better understand themselves and to hold themselves to account.

[Tribe16]

It's like walking on a mine field to bring this stuff up. It doesn't end well. Not in my family anyway.

I had your basic middle class southern California upbringing. Girl Scout leader, Dodger games and Disneyland, Room Mother. Clean clothes, meals. Made sure we did our homework.

We also had parents who were in a volatile marriage, a mother who from preschool age started using the silent treatment on me. She could go for days. A mom who rarely hugged or kissed. A mom who I don't think has ever given me an apology for anything in my life. There may be a few "I'm sorry but", but nothing sincere or repentant. Hairbrush spankings up to the age of 12 that left speckled scabs on my butt. After 12, privileges were taken away on whims depending on her mood. Earlier this year I made the mistake of saying something so benign, seriously, I said "You have unrealistically high expectations that nobody is capable of meeting." World War 3 ensued from that one statement. The resentment, sarcasm, gaslighting, victimhood went crazy.

What I did do, like Sidney37 was write down the laundry list of just the stuff that's gone on in the past 2 years. That list was 3 pages of single spaced 11-point Calibri. The childhood list was assigned by my therapist as a "Dear Mom" letter, never to be mailed. It was good for me, because to see that stuff, you know it happened. Even when I felt petty in the moment due to the gaslighting, I know what really happened. The aggregate total of "death by a thousand paper cuts" is staggering.

I have to accept that for the rest of Mom's life I will probably have a LC medium chill relationship with her and it isn't worth telling her why.

[doglady]

My mother's standard question is a variation on that, Rocketman. She would ask (back I used to listen to her at all): 'But what is it that we are supposed to have done wrong?'

This was always said rhetorically -  because let's face it, she never really thinks she has done anything wrong - and always with a performative, martyrish, weirdly soaring, operatic tone.

Anyway, I agree with everyone here. We've all tried telling them. It simply doesn't work. Because they. Do. not. Want to know.

Over the years, I tried telling and resorting to writing to them. They repelled my concerns in every way possible. Invalidating, gaslighting, crying, screaming, swearing, justifying, minimising, outright denying, becoming ill, lying to extended family about the real reasons, pretending they haven't heard, criticising my grammar... and that's just for starters.

I mean basically, we need to remember that every last one of us here is dealing with people who are simply big toddlers encased in adult bodies. Quite frankly, I wouldn't have been surprised if one of my parents had resorted to sticking their fingers in their ears and going Lalalalalalaaaaaaaaaa.

I haven't spoken with my parents for...I don't know how long now. I simply gave up trying. I gave it my all and then one day just dropped the rope because nothing worked and I was just making myself ill trying to get through to people  who'd proved themselves time and time again as being uninterested or incapable of listening.

Giving up trying to get through to them helped me to be so much healthier - emotionally, physically, professionally, socially and spiritually. I can't recommend it highly enough.