Feeling thrown away again - I need to vent and cry and need support

[nanotech]

Agreed too about the threatening suicide. It  is emotional abuse.
I had a toxic ex boyfriend who used to do this  regularly, to keep me with him, and to keep me being abused by him.
It finished (I'd had enough) and surprise surprise, he didn't kill himself.
They say it to try to press our guilt buttons and to try to control us.

[Sidney37]

Hi all.   Thanks.   I'm feeling better and worse all at the same time,   I've been emailing telehealth therapists to find one that is a good fit, so that helps and feels like I have some control over it.

I'm not sure if I was specific even in my original posts about the suicide threat.   Here's a longer explanation.  Earlier in my process of going NC, I was vague or made the description just different enough not to be caught here.   Now I no longer care if they find me here.   What can they do to me if they do?

Trigger warning : suicide threat with description


Back when I was trying to go VLC and then NC, PDm sent me and DH texts and emails one afternoon that enD was going to shoot himself in the head and it was all my fault for not being "kind" to them.   If I would talk to them this wouldn't happen.  Kind was the word i kept using to and about her.   The things she said to me weren't "kind".  She turned it on me because i wasn't giving her the daily phone calls and total enmeshment she insisted on.  She described In the text and email that he had a gun to his head and it was all my fault.

DH and I called them immediately and found out that he really did put a gun to his head 30 minutes to an hour earlier.   The whole situation was resolved by the time she sent the messages and he was outside doing work on the lawn or house.  I spoke with him.   Told him if this happened again that i would be calling 911.  They flipped out at how mean that was to them for threatening to call 911..  They weren't mean for what they did to me.

He claimed he did it because she wouldn't stop harassing him and yelling at him about me and my decreased contact with her.  He said it was her fault that he made the threat.   I had been talking to him multiple times a week and he was lying to her about it.  He felt caught in the middle.  He had spoken to someone for help about the  situation and PDm was picking and picking relentlessly at him to tell her exactly what he said to this person and exactly what this person said to enD.   He couldn't take her constantly yelling at him about me not talking to her and her demanding to know the exact details of his conversation and it resulted in the threat!

He's really not able to have a conversation with anyone without giving her exact details or there are consequences.   I get it.   She doesn't tell anyone they can or can't do something but there are consequences.   She expects to know everywhere you go, everything you think, everyone you talk to, etc.

The worst part is that I had a boyfriend commit suicide when I broke up with him years ago.   I spent years in therapy learning not to blame myself.  She knew this and didn't care. 

So that's the suicide threat and the reason I can't go back to having contact.  It was the last straw.   I tried to have contact with him for  a few months after , but he posted pictures of my kids on social media with exaggerations and untruths about why I was VLC and saying i was keeping my kids from them.  His church friends took screen shots of the posts and posted it themselves.  I had to contact the company to have the pictures and lies removed. 

[Andeza]

Ah heck, that's awful. The threat, the fact that he went that far, all of it. I can't believe your M would blame you, when it was clearly her fault. But then, pwPDs are often irrational.

You did the right thing, both in telling them you'd call 911, and in going NC in my opinion. An attempted suicide/ threatened suicide is ridiculously damaging, and when added to your past experience, it's beyond unconscionable.

I'm so sorry this has been a part of your life, and that you're having a hard time now. The therapist thing is facepalm worthy. I hope you are able to find one that can help you on your road to healing. And I do hope you can find healing, and peace.

[nanotech]

I'm sorry you've been through so much. I'm sending hugs ❤️
PS I think when they talk about 'kind' they meant they want you to return to being  'compliant.'
It's gaslighting.

You ARE being kind.
Being kind is calling 911 when they've indicated an emergency. But  they don't want that!
I had to tell my sister that too. She's threatened it on and off for years. It kept me enmeshed with her for decades.
Then I started reading about NPDs. I put up a boundary and told her that I would call emergency services if she threatened that again. She upped her game and wailed that she would be sectioned. I told her that I would have a duty to inform emergency services, it was that simple. Some more whimpering followed.
Then, no more threats of that kind.
But it was the last straw for me too -I couldn't risk her swinging back to her old form. Far too stressful.
So I'm NC with her now. 4 years of peace.

[WomanInterrupted]

I'm so sorry, Sidney - and your parents sound like truly horrible people, *knowing* what happened to you in regard to your boyfriend, yet *CHOOSING* to bait and goad you in this manner.     

I really hope there's a special place in hell for people like that.

Oh yeah - you used the word "kind."  I had the word "busy" thrown back at me like a brick, because that's what I kept telling Didi when I wouldn't give her the level of enmeshment she demanded.   

I saw it for what it was and really didn't care.  She could have said anything she  wanted - all she did was seal her own fate and if she hadn't  died, I'd have been NC.

Your father is absolutely reprehensible - you are NOT his sacrificial pawn and if he can't handle her, he needs to get help, not threaten suicide  in a manner *he knew would affect you and be triggering* to *enable* your mom's agenda.   

She may have even suggested it to him - who knows?   But he didn't threaten/try to eat his weight in worms or sit outside in the sun until he fried like bacon, turned the color of a baseball glove and got melanoma (I'm trying to keep it a little light  ) - he used the *exact* manner he knew would  prompt a VERY pronounced, visceral response in you. 

UnBPD Didi was bad, but in some ways, I think unNPD  Ray was worse - because he knew what he was doing and chose to hurt a little girl  to make his wife happy.  Then he chose to hurt a young woman to make his wife happy, and could only hurt me with words when I was an adult - all to make her happy, because that's just what nasty, scrappy junkyard dogs like Ray do - there's too many years of conditioning and no, I don't excuse it.   He still had a BRAIN and *free will.*

I cut him NO slack - if he was unhappy, he could have come up with his own solutions instead of taking it out on me - and your father is the same.

If your father was sick of your mother's yapping, he had OPTIONS - even in a pandemic.   

Things got a bit more difficult - but weren't impossible.  If your father needed a  way out, or an ear to listen, he'd have  found it.

If, for some reason, either of them get through to you and throw out another suicide threat, CALL 911 - even if you suspect it's complete BS. 

Some of my earliest memories involve Didi threatening suicide  - many of ways weren't realistic, but when  you're a   small child, you don't know that and you freak, panic, cry, beg and console your mommy not to do that - mind you, this was often after she'd beaten the hell out of me for nothing or over-reacted to some "look" on my face and turned herself into a victim for hurting me.   

I'd wind up in  hysterics consoling her and begging  her, promising to be good, make her boss listen, make Ray listen - anything! - I'd do the impossible - and THAT all stopped when I finally got a real bed, IRRC.

I was FIVE.  I slept in a crib until then.   

I was going to be in kindergarten and I overheard them talking.   They were concerned I might say something  about it - and I think that lit a fire under Didi's butt that I could possibly say something about her threatening to kill herself at least once a week, just to provoke some kind of emotional reaction out of me that she could *feed* off.

She'd offhandedly mention killing herself as I grew up, but in that way you know nobody means, "If it's a choice between waiting in line at the DMV or killing myself, rather kill myself."

Not a danger.  Poor taste, but not a danger.

And she'd still come after me like the wrath of God over nothing, but she stopped threatening to kill herself.

But when Didi got older and started losing her grip on me (boundaries ROCK!  ) and I refused to take her to play Queen for a Day because Ray had a pacemaker put in, she wailed, "Oh, oh!  I don't know what I'm going to DO!  I'll drive off a bridge!  That's what I'll do!  I'll drive off a bridge!" 

Now, what I *felt* like saying was, "Hey...drive off the bridge after you're done visiting Ray."   

But what I DID say was, "If you EVER threaten suicide again, I'll call 911 and you can explain it to them. "   

Dead silence.

I said, quite angry - and starting to remember why that rankled so damned much - "Do you understand?"

Crickets.

I said, "This requires an answer.  Do you understand?"

She roared/snotted, "Yes, MOTHER!"   

And she never did it again - that's the important part.  Once you call them out on it, it loses  its effectiveness as a weapon because it's no longer a dirty family SECRET - you'll be involving the authorities, who will NOT be as cavalier as your parents!

You deserve FAR better than these "parents."

Be well. 

[Psuedonym]

WI, this: She roared/snotted, "Yes, MOTHER!" Someone really needs to find whoever publishes the script they all read from and beat them with it.

Sidney, what you describe is so dysfunctional, familiar, and such a perfect example of PD projection. Your mother badgers/harrasses your father into making a childish/dramatic show of threatening to kill himself to make her stop. (Because as an enabler, he has no boundaries and can't say, you know, stop it) and then she turns around and blames YOU for it.  Richard Grannon has this excellent video where he said that living with a PD is like being in a gulag where the guards come around and beat you with their rubber hoses every day, but while they're doing it they say 'Ow! Why are you hitting ME?'

My M would have done exactly the same thing to my dad, except he had already died so she spread the badgering around to everyone else (including my H). She'd just work her way through the phone book and dump all her nastiness/self-pity on whoever picked up. They really both are so toxic and I"m so glad you have finally gotten away from them and are getting some peace.

[Sidney37]

Thank all.  WI, I remembered that story about  Didi threatening to call 911.  It was in my head when I told them what was going to happen.  I knew from reading here that I was doing the right thing when the words came out of my mouth.  She flipped out, screaming to my dad in the other room about how terribly i was treating them by threatening them.  How dare I threaten to call 911.   

It is exactly like being beaten by someone who asks why you are beating them.   She blames others for exactly what she does sometimes within seconds of doing it.  When i told her that I wasn't going to continue to talk to her when she spoke to me in an "unkind way" and then didn't, she accused me of holding a grudge. 

Of course she did.  She holds grudges for years.  Last year when I was starting my NC process, she mentioned a trip she was taking to see a relative.  For one day of that trip  She was going to have to see an old friend of that  relative.  She went on and on about how she hated him.  I found out that she has only met him once, 40+ years ago when he was young and barely out of school.    He attempted to play a practical joke on the relatives who were his close friends and inadvertently embarrassed my easily embarrassed grandmother.  So my NPDm has hated him since.   She's convinced he upset grandmother on purpose.  He's now old and quite ill.  She didn't care.  She hated him and didn't want to see him for the few hours he was in town.   

I had no idea how awful many of these situations were when knee deep in them.  Typing them out makes me realize how toxic they are. 

[Hepatica]

Sydney37 - I am so sorry for what you have been though - and so grateful that this forum exists to give us space to cry and seek support. We all need it because it seems the outer world has not yet received the education about the extent of psychological abuse and the effect of personality disorders in familes.

I am so proud of you for caring for yourself and breaking the pattern by keeping yourself and your family safe. This is such a great example to your children. I would feel exactly as you did after receiving that message from your parents. I too have a set of parents similar to your mom and dad. My mother is overtly abusive and my dad continually sacrifices his two daughters to her, knowing what she is. I can't stand it.

I hope you, with time, ca look at it this way: your parents revealed themselves to you at their absolute worst. You need only walk away and work on a safe and peaceful, hopefully happy life. You are SAFE because of your strength. I am so proud of you.

I know this is hard but you are so better off without these people anywhere near you and your family.