I shouldn't have reached out.... but I thought maybe, just maybe they'd changed

[mimzy]

My paternal grandmother passed away two weeks ago today. She was in her mid nineties and ready to stop being old. I had said goodbye to her three years prior when she wrote me a letter explaining she could no longer have a relationship with me unless I began communicating with my parents . (Up until then I'd been no contact with my family for about 18 months.)

Last year, I reached out to my sisters and began texting with them, emailing, etc. I mailed one of my sisters a baby blanket that used to be hers when she was a newborn. The three of us met for a post-Christmas lunch when I was in the area. I guess I started getting false hope.

When my grandmother passed away, I began getting texts from my cousin pressuring me to call my parents, that my UBPD mother's voice was cracking when she asked my cousin to tell me that "She loves me."  One of my sisters began pressuring me to go to the funeral, saying that Mom and Dad were open to apologizing and that perhaps going to the funeral would be a catalyst for healing. DH kept warning me they were trying to manipulate me back in the fold. After much anguish I decided not to go to the funeral. But I wasn't completely at peace because I kept wondering what if they have changed? What if we could reconcile? I finally reached out to my father, after 4.5 years. He picked up the phone and I told him it was me and that I was sorry for his loss. I quickly cut to the chase because I was nervous and felt very uncomfortable since DH and I had had a terrible disagreement when I told him I wanted to reach out to them. Evidently, my grandmother left DH a painting that he always admired. My cousin texted me, "Did DH tell you about the painting? Your mom and dad offered to drop it off on the way back from the funeral... or my mother can ship it. It's up to you." Well, that was all I needed. I caved. What if this was their peace offering? DH was beside himself since Mom and dad had done quite a bit of damage five years earlier in terms of poisoning our marriage. But I became more determined to see this through. Obsessed, really.

So, I cut to the chase after my father answered the phone. I told him that if there was to be any reconciliation, he would have to apologize to DH for saying mean things behind his back and he would have to apologize to me for not protecting me from my UBPD mother whenever she'd go into her rages. He immediately started gaslighting me. ("She was a good mother, I don't know what you're talking about.") I quickly grew furious and began saying all kinds of horrible things to him, 4.5 years of me not having said anything to him and I guess it was easy to lose my cool. He ended up hanging up on me. I then proceeded to receive lecturing texts from my sisters the next day, the one from the second eldest was the most painful. Her telling me I need Jesus and how her DH was sexually abused when his parents weren't paying enough attention to him and therefore I should roll over and just forgive them because my story wasn't nearly as bad. I lost it. I texted my father, "You're dead to me." And then I texted my mother she was a poor excuse for a mother. Once I started texting her I just wasn't willing to stop. I was metaphorically twisting the knife into her back for taking all her frustrations out on me. It felt so so good at the time. But then, when the dust settled, I realized I had relapsed and needed to start counting days over again, days from being no contact with them. They haven't changed at all! And all the hunches DH had, about them thinking that it was all DH's fault, that he had brainwashed me, my father said all that to me. To which I became more and more angry towards him. I called him every name in the book. Called him a coward. Told him I'm surprised he could keep a job when he obviously can't take any feedback about his behavior.

Now I'm completely hung over. And I'm also falling prey into the trap of I'm the bad person. They abused me because I was a bad person. I deserved it. I also felt led to love bomb my dad the way my mom and dad used to do to me after raging against me. I'm all mixed up now.

Please do yourself a favor and don't reach out to your N parents. It's them that owe you an amends and they should make the first move. I became obsessed with "getting it over with", ripping off the bandaid so to speak, which goes to show that I don't think I really wanted to reach out. I think I was just people pleasing my cousin! I ended up really put my mental health on the line. I'm having to literally count days again from no longer being in contact with them. It's like it was when I first got sober from alcohol. 

[moglow]

Mimzy We've all been there and there's no need to beat yourself up for "going back" or anything else. All those things you said were still with you all that time, waiting. Beating yourself up for finally having said them doesn't make sense to me.

I hope in days to come you feel a lift, peace that you're not carrying all that around. It'll take time but know too it would have taken time had you not said but only thought those things.

You don't have to count the days or apologize for "letting yourself down" - you have a life to live!

[doglady]

 
I really feel for you, Mimzy.
Sometimes that stuff that we've been carrying around all these years just has to come out. Been there done that myself. And yes, we can all wish we'd 'handled it' differently, but one way of thinking about this is that maybe it's for the best that it's all out there now.

You're not the bad person here. Your parents abused you not because you're a bad person, but because you were the family scapegoat, the repository of all their crap, like so many of us here.

You didn't deserve it. No one deserves it.
You were their child and they should have known better.

I'm so glad you didn't go to the funeral. I can only imagine how difficult that would have been for you.

Please be very kind to yourself and, as Moglow says, try not to beat yourself up. It's hard, I know. We've been trained to blame ourselves for all the family problems. After all, that's what we've been told from knee high. Crazy, isn't it, when you think about it.

Please surround yourself with people you can trust and who have your best interests at heart. You need a lot of love and care right now. I hope you can treat yourself as your own best friend or to think of what you'd say to a friend going through the same thing.
Keep posting. We get it.

[NarcKiddo]

I totally understand why you did what you did.

Hugs.