Low Contact: how does it work for you?

[Stardust1982]

Hi guys.

I'll start setting a LC boundary in December with my parents and then next year until I'll be comfortable going NC. However, I don't know too much about how would limited contact look like. That's why I am asking how does LC or VLC look to you? I know about Grey Rock and I'm using it daily. But how about phone calls? How often do you actually interact by voice (or writing) with PD parents? I know that LC should be instilled according to how we feel and know it's best for us. But I wanna hear from you, what did work for you in terms of communication?

If LC didn't work for you, I also wanna hear that.
Thanks

[DistanceNotDefense]

Hi stardust ☺️

I'm NC but started instinctually sliding into LC first months and months beforehand (without really realizing it) as FOO tensions and alienation were starting to mount.

It started with me just not really wanting to deal with the passive aggressive communication and confusion anymore about their lack of genuine involvement/support (or outright condemnation) - it would make me spin out and then, to be honest, it got straight up annoying.

While it's a half-truth (it would genuinely happen sometimes), I'd tell them I wouldn't get phone calls or voicemails right away because of where I live if I didn't answer. (Coverage is really funky here though.) I just wouldn't call them back. I'd stop replying to texts/messages as often, and be slower and slower responding, and moved into not answering at times altogether. Visits were already really hard because of my schedule but I made myself a lot less available in person/made other plans so they couldn't stop in. (Fortunately they live far, this was easy.)

They didn't like this and acted out both overtly and covertly about it (even though they were already doing the same thing to me in the first place - guess they didn't like the taste of their own medicine lol.) I got guilt from my M that's for sure (covert N tendencies/enabler of uPD sib) she even brought up COVID and protests against police to make me feel bad for not worrying about her or responding.

I eventually moved into blocking FOO group chats/texts (so annoying, what a narc playground!), unfollowed on social media, and turned off text notifications so I could have peace of mind not seeing or feeling compelled to answer right away (or to just have my brain back).

Things escalated though and I have them (M and everyone) blocked on social media now though. I am NC now. (Probably VVVVLC in some people's definition). P.S. I've been NC with abusive F (uNPD/uASPD) almost 20 years.

[GettingOOTF]

I'm another who tried LC and am now NC.

My experience was that my father used the shorter contact to hone his skills at getting digs in as quickly and ruthlessly as possible. He seemed to enjoy the challenge to be honest. The LC period was probably the worst in terms of how nasty he was to me.

[Sapling]

Hi Stardust,

I went from NC (2 yrs) to VLC (5 yrs) to LC (the last 3 years) over a period of about 10 years. This is what my LC looks like for me with my elderly parents. Obviously everyone's situation in different so this isn't a template by any means:

I call up maybe once a month and try to keep the conversation to abstract topics- politics, their holiday, their garden, their friends ie. anything that pertains to them and not me or my life. I do not answer any questions they ask me about my siblings (they try to get information out of each of us about the other) or about any difficulties I may be having.

I send cards on birthdays, xmas, fathers day, mothers day (always humorous cards, never sentimental stuff that does not reflect the nature of our relationship) and mostly because I will not actually be there. I posted them masks during Covid for example because I wasn't going to physically go round there and check on them. This gives them something  without giving them me.

I will go to family events IF there will be extended family and I won't be alone with them. If I see them and they say or do anything that makes me feel uncomfortable or upsets me I wind back the contact for that time. My LC has to be monitored and assessed regularly because old habits and dynamics can creep back in.

I had to reassert my boundaries over time as there was a lot of blow back in the beginning but this is what I've cut the contact down to as it causes the least amount of drama for me. I hope this helps... I also found it useful talking to a T about the LC because I really wasn't sure what was "normal" and my T helped me to understand how to set my own boundaries with them.

[SparkStillLit]

I'm very recently LC with pdM. Low-er contact? She bugs me several times per week, couple of times per day on the weekend, calling and leaving very long vms.
I couldn't deal with her at all during my recent mental health crisis and my ensuing attempt to heal. I'm still working on this.
I didn't answer any call. About once per week, I would respond in a kind of overall way via short text. She will read text, but not respond in kind. This would result in another bombing wave of vms. Got the same response from me. Maybe an email.
This has been going on for a few months. I've just now gotten the strength to extremelý occasionally do a voice call, but I keep them super short. No important info.
Just recently she turned up totally unexpectedly at my house (because I don't listen to all the vms). She brought groceries and stuff and I kept it short.
I am keeping it as limited as I can right now. Or as I feel like I can, I guess. There's quite a lot of pushback. I'm trying to make this the new normal, then drop it lower. She's not good for my mental health. Or anyone's, probably.

[Hilltop]

I went NC a few years ago with PD parents after a particularly bad incident however broke that to go back to LC with periods of normal contact however the relationship has always been strained.  My mother loves to put me down mostly in person/over the phone so I put a stop to phone calls by getting rid of the home phone.  My LC was still visiting in person once a month and text messages every couple of weeks.  Visiting for birthdays and holidays. However I found that the games and the put downs continued and have moved to VLC this year.  I have overlooked some horrible incidents of being snubbed by the family and treated not very nicely to try to get along and its quite frankly exhausting.  I was so stressed and down about it.

VLC for me has been visiting in person a handful of times this year (4-5).  Conversing otherwise solely through text about once a month.  I am noticing that the reduced visits have them ramping up their behaviour.  I am not responding at all to their behaviour, if they are acting weird I just give them plenty of distance, I don't comment on it, I act pleasant with them and then see them in 3-6 months, this works well for me however I am noticing that the more I don't react to them, the more obvious and bizarre their behaviour has become.  I won't be seeing them this holiday as my father is over the top with his rudeness at the moment.  My mother is good one visit and horrible the next, putting me down endlessly, you don't know what you will get. I feel so much better with the distance.  I will probably move into VVLC next year if their behaviour continues, seeing them 2-3 times during the year with a text every 1-2 months.  I live 15 minutes from them so that says everything.  I no longer see them for birthdays or mothers day or fathers day.  The only holiday I do see them is Christmas, that's their choice really.  Really every thing has been whittled down over the years to almost nothing.

The way I see it, if they have a problem with it they can talk to me but they are incapable of that and I give up, so I accept how things are. If another incident happens like before I will go NC for good however it's less stressful for me being VLC or VVLC so I am hoping to manage and stay with that.

[Stardust1982]

Hi guys and thanks for sharing your LC and NC experiences.
From what I see here, LC sounds really stressful and emotionally demanding. I'm not sure I'd be able to do LC for long so will be looking into NC

[Hepatica]

For me it has been a pretty long process of waking up over time. One really good thing is I chose to only have a flip phone for years bc I was trying a Mr Money Mustache budget. (Google Mr. MoneyMustache if wondering...) The flip phone sucked. It had reverb so I told everyone I hated talking on it and wouldn't pick up.  People/FOO got used to that. When I finally did get a smart phone I didn't tell my FOO. I was already distanced from them so that was easy.

I started to back away seriously as the politics began to get weird in 2016 and a bunch of my relatives began to get really mean on my FB page. I was so disturbed by it that I blocked them. Then I closed my Facebook. When I re-opened FB, I had them all blocked. I keep my FB really really small and barely use it now.

The process to NC was very similar to GettingOOTF. Once I started going LC with my visiting of my elderly parents, my father began to drop his mask and try to get his digs in and he became his worst self, really the monster I recall from childhood that he had hid for many years. He knew he had little chance to get me, so he finally went too far in August and my anger finally FINALLY set in and I was just done with it all. I am now NC.

If I tried LC every single interaction would be painful and potentially dangerous bc my father gets into my head and I spin out. I have to stand by myself now. I feel better not having them around and not seeing them, but I do struggle with it and have to keep reading here and watching Youtube videos so as not to sink into FOO amnesia and forget how bad they can be.

[Blueberry Pancakes]

For me, VLC with parents initially was a phone call once a week and an in-person visit every 6 weeks. I really wanted to go NC,  but thought I would attempt VLC first.  What I found was that my dad called me every single day. He had never done that before. I did not answer his daily calls since I was only going to talk once a week. His anger toward me seemed to grow exponentially with each unanswered call. I would listen to his voicemails to clear out the mailbox, and was shocked at the utter disdain he hurled at me.  When I did call after the week long boundary I set, he began refusing to talk to me and handed the phone over to my mother. I would hear him in the background telling my mom he was done with me.  My mother dragged him over to the phone a few times to say hello, but he would eventually end up just telling me he did not understand me, did not think I loved them anymore, told me how much I hurt everyone by distancing myself.  I never engaged with that argument.  I just backed off further to only calling once a month and an in-person visit 3 times a year. It got worse, and my dad recently told me he was having a lawyer write me out of the family. Again, I did not argue and just backed off further, recently just ended a No Contact period lasting six months. They do not think they what they said or did was wrong. 
       
My thought is that boundaries are for you - not your family. It is about what you can tolerate. It might look different for  everyone. What is consistent though is that it does not seem to change your family's behavior toward you or solve the dysfunction. The same stuff still happens. Actually, it might get worse. Make your decision of LC on what you want and what you need . It is alright to start LC, keep assessing how you feel, and adjust as needed.   

[DistanceNotDefense]

Hi guys and thanks for sharing your LC and NC experiences.
From what I see here, LC sounds really stressful and emotionally demanding. I'm not sure I'd be able to do LC for long so will be looking into NC

That's how I felt after a while. What works personally for each person is different, in my case the LC communications got weirder and more passive-aggressive, not having to get those really freed my mind from over-analyzing what they'd say and doubting myself. Now with NC I feel more clear and happy on average except for the "What ifs...?" that creep in (and the grief), which are difficult in their own way, but there's a lot more peaceful intermissions in my life compared to LC. I can really say I feel better overall. But that's just my situation.

If I tried LC every single interaction would be painful and potentially dangerous bc my father gets into my head and I spin out. I have to stand by myself now. I feel better not having them around and not seeing them, but I do struggle with it and have to keep reading here and watching Youtube videos so as not to sink into FOO amnesia and forget how bad they can be.

Same! And for me this cuts down on the influx of "self-doubt" material they send your way, for lack of better words. I spin out a little with every communication, so with less from them that I can work out in my head (with help from this forum) what they've already communicated to me in NC. With LC, there's always the risk they'll shift their strategy and send you spinning out over something completely new with new information. Again, everyone's different but that definitely applies to my situation.

[Hilltop]

Stardust, work out what is comfortable for you, what boundaries work for you and go for it.

I have found it so interesting reading everyone's replies because they are so similar it's eerie.   It's interesting that as people have reduced contact that the behaviour has worsened.  I have found the same thing this year after I went  VLC.  I only went VLC after a particularly bad insult from my mother.  Last visit my mother didn't put me down at all although was slightly distant but my father is acting really over the top, openly showing his disdain.  He would walk into the next room and laugh out loud and then come back, he did that about 4 times, it was bizarre, there was no TV or radio on, the conversation wasn't amusing I felt it was to mock me or make some point, he then refused to sit down at the table with me and didn't say goodbye, just over the top stuff.  I felt really uncomfortable, I really feel like he is trying to get at me.

After reading everyone's replies I now see there will probably not be much hope for my relationship with my parents in the future.  If my father keeps up his behaviour I either have to sit there and take his rudeness or leave and if every visit turns out to be the same I can't see there being any future but NC.  It seems to be this is common with everyone.  Thank you for the insight as I really thought things would settle with more distance but sounds like as others have said, they have a short amount of time and use it to their full advantage.

[Hepatica]

Hilltop, it is eerie and strange isn't it, the similarities? Your father is definitely trying to bait you. He's angry that you've changed the arrangement with them, narc wounded, and can't figure out how to directly attack you. My father was so similar. Nearly every visit he'd pout in his living room and not join us in the tv room where my mother was. When we'd walk by him he'd sneer at me or not talk at all. He was so angry about not being able to make me into my mother's caregiver that he carried on like until one day he couldn't hold it in anymore and he verbally attacked me.

All of it is so uncompromising and unloving. They do believe they own us and own their "get out of jail parental thing" of letting them behave as badly as they like while holding their children hostage to it.  They are like adult sized toddlers whose parents did not set limits with them and teach them honourable behaviour.

[GettingOOTF]

The abusive objectively got worse for me at LC but at the same time I also started losing my tolerance for it.

As I came Out of the FOG I started to see the abuse for what it was and I started to see that I really did not have to tolerate it.

I think lower contact helps with these realizations as it gives us space to allow more healthy behaviors into our lives which highlight the severity of the abuse.

I wish I'd know this and gone full NC years ago, just like I wish I'd left my ex years ago. The peace that has come from both is impossible to articulate. My life did a 180 in all areas once I realized that I didn't exist to be an outlet for other people failures and frustrations.

[blues_cruise]

I'm another who tried LC and am now NC.

My experience was that my father used the shorter contact to hone his skills at getting digs in as quickly and ruthlessly as possible. He seemed to enjoy the challenge to be honest. The LC period was probably the worst in terms of how nasty he was to me.

I found phone calls too nasty and anxiety inducing to cope with, so tried communicating by text message or email, the latter of which he flat out refused to do. I would have been ok with the occasional visit too as long as my husband was present.

My father agreed initially but then ended up having a tantrum and calling me rude for not wanting to speak to him on the phone. It just didn't work unfortunately. His main source of supply from me was passive-aggressive, snide remarks on the phone and I took that away from him. He chose to go months without making an effort to contact me at all rather than trying text messages or emails, both of which he was entirely capable of doing. I'm glad I at least tried low contact though as it showed me how valid my decision to go full on no contact really was.

Last visit my mother didn't put me down at all although was slightly distant but my father is acting really over the top, openly showing his disdain.  He would walk into the next room and laugh out loud and then come back, he did that about 4 times, it was bizarre, there was no TV or radio on, the conversation wasn't amusing I felt it was to mock me or make some point, he then refused to sit down at the table with me and didn't say goodbye, just over the top stuff.  I felt really uncomfortable, I really feel like he is trying to get at me.

That's EXACTLY the kind of weird, unnerving thing my F would do. The whole fake laugh thing.  He used to do it if the family was watching television and something slightly amusing happened, we would all smile or laugh appropriate to whatever was being shown whereas he would do a really loud, obnoxious, obviously fake laugh to drown us all out and leave us feeling uncomfortable. I think that's the point of it, your father knows it's socially inappropriate and creepy and he wants to make you feel uncomfortable. Proper weird.

[GettingOOTF]

His main source of supply from me was passive-aggressive, snide remarks on the phone and I took that away from him.

This 100% describes my father.  I cannot tell you how awful I used to feel during and after those call. He made me cry at work more than once.

[DistanceNotDefense]

I have found it so interesting reading everyone's replies because they are so similar it's eerie. It's interesting that as people have reduced contact that the behaviour has worsened.  I have found the same thing this year after I went VLC. 

Oh gosh yes. Reading others' stories, NC with my covert uNM and other FOO is happening in an almost text book way and precisely like in their case. It's very similar. The flailing is frantic.

I heard from a close friend recently that my M and FOO were trying to get information from them about me, something, anything so they don't have to look at themselves now that I don't respond and they have no one to blame. My friend told them nothing and thought they came off as insane. How desperate they are, how vicious they're becoming, just like so many people have related here on this forum about their LC/NC and the aftermath. The mask is slipping and it makes me feel sick to think that this is who they really are, and what they become, when you refuse to be what they want you to be, and when they refuse to apologize for how they hurt you.

[Hilltop]

Thanks Hepatica and blues_cruise, I almost responded to the baiting by sending a text but didn't which feels better. 

GettingOOTF, I hadn't thought about it like that but it is so true, VLC has happened because I don't want to tolerate it and with so much time between each visit the behaviour is quite obvious and over the top because as you say, you get use to not seeing it in your life that when it happens its quite blatant.  Its funny to think that they are operating how they always have and yet when you start to change and see it for what it is, it all seems so crazy.

DistanceNotDefense - I am so sorry you are going through that with your friend.  At least your friend didn't fall for the smear campaign and was wise enough to see it for what it was.  My mother has done a smear campaign in the past simply when she was upset about something, I should have stayed NC after that.  There is only one friend I have who lives near them and I am a little worried about the trouble my mother will try to cause.  I have kept all other friendships from her.

[DistanceNotDefense]

DistanceNotDefense - I am so sorry you are going through that with your friend.  At least your friend didn't fall for the smear campaign and was wise enough to see it for what it was.  My mother has done a smear campaign in the past simply when she was upset about something, I should have stayed NC after that.  There is only one friend I have who lives near them and I am a little worried about the trouble my mother will try to cause.  I have kept all other friendships from her.

Thank you Hilltop I'm lucky to not have  friends overlap with FOO relationships, and the only one who really does has stuck up for me and is incredibly trustworthy. (I mean if you can call it lucky compared to the FOO I ended up with!)

I've receive baiting texts too, and I just don't respond. Oh yes it feels better. Tempting, but no. I'm considering blocking again, but I'd rather see for myself how much they ramp things up....or keep things open to that smallest of smallest hopes, that they see the light and I can and will respond to that if they do.

[Stardust1982]

@Blueberry Pancakes, you said that your father changed after VLC. That he became more abusive. That's how my mother is actually. If she feels as if I am pulling away just a little bit (for ex, I once tried to ignore her calls and only called her once or twice a month-she was furious, she acted as if I destroyed her confidence and I was such a bad child because of it-a real pathetic victim), she lashes out and becomes more abusive.

I read this is very typical of Borderlines, they are so needy that once the adult child pulls away, they become abusive-since they make you responsible for their happiness. Taking away the reason to be alive and be happy results in serious consequences (emotional abuse and manipulations). And I don't think I can tolerate that crap, my life is precious and I have a lot of things to accomplish. The last thing I need is for my head to be filled daily with my mother's drama and her terrible opinions of me.

And yes, I believe it is textbook. Many here have experienced similar treatment after going LC. I think they're incredibly damaged people so they cannot live on their own, they need sources of comfort (their children) to survive psychologically. I'm really glad I am the black sheep of the family and can live my life without these individuals. Unfortunately, my brothers cannot do that.

Thanks, guys.

[SparkStillLit]

I just talked to DD who is in the military, about this last night. She said she has 23 vm from Grandma.
DD is NC with her right now, just by general circumstance and partly by choice, she calls us when she has time.
YIKES.
Talk about just massive entitlement and ZERO grasp of peoples' time and committment. TWENTY THREE vm bugging someone in the military. UNbelieveable.