What % of time are they toxic?

[RavenLady]

When you communicate with your PD parents, how much of the time do they hurt you, and how much of the time is it okay or even positive? What is the acceptable ratio for you personally?

For example, does the PD parent seem to need to tear you down (or whatever their shtick is) with every conversation, or is it more like everything seems food enough for a while and then they blindside you with something devastating once you've let your guard down? Maybe the former is easier to walk away from than the latter?

[SunnyMeadow]

My pd-mom does the blindside thing when I've let my guard down. In fact, she's been relatively normal in the limited communications we've had. I'm waiting for the punch in the gut that usually follows the calm.

[Andeza]

I'm gonna lump enD in there too and say maybe 5-10% of the time for him, because he has issues seeing me as an adult. This may come from him hardly seeing me at all growing up so he kinda missed... well the whole thing. So we'll be talking, either on the phone or in person and he'll totally beat down something I did or decided, treat me like a kid over it. Like my washing machine. He hates my washing machine for some weird reason? Oh, and my car. I love them both and they're paid for that's what matters and I heavily smacked him back into the role of father of ADULT daughter over that one. I guess that's a blindside? Doesn't really get to me though, I'm used to him doing that sort of thing.

As for uPDM? Let's call it 80-90% of the time while I was growing up, but she's backed off a lot so we're down around 30% now. The high rating is mostly in regards to the endless lecture cycle, plus unjust spanking, plus infantilizing, plus parentification.... Ugh. These days some days are better, some days are worse of course. I can only get it around 30% or less when I dominate the conversation because her thing isn't so much tearing me down although she does question my choices and tries to make me feel bad about some of them, but rather how much doom and gloom can she shed onto me before I practically run from the phone call. Her big thing since I moved across the country is waifing and wanting attention and sympathy for situations she has pretty much caused or allowed to happen. She also wants solutions to these problems but everything I suggest she's already tried. Hah! Yeah sure. She would still keep me on the phone for three hours or more easy if I let her, but I have better things to do. I suppose the percentage would be higher if I let her run roughshod over me the way she did before.

So no to the blindsiding, and I'd agree more with the tearing down during every conversation at least to some degree, but I've stopped allowing that to the best of my ability. Acceptable ratio? There isn't one. I'm tired of it, all of it, and I nip it in the bud now. Dad's easy. I can say to him "Look, you may have forgotten, but I'm an adult, about to be a MOM for pity's sake, and I get to make my own decisions including mistakes. You got a problem with them? Keep it to yourself, thank you. Now leave my washing machine alone." Not a peep about it since... It's harder with M, but my DH also has a "No waifing" meter, so I chat with her for a few minutes then put him on the phone to finish up. Works every time! So yes, when they're constantly trying their nonsense, you get used to it and get used to escaping. I haven't tried the "cat's on fire" excuse yet, I think that was WomanInterrupted, but I've used just about everything else.

[JustKat]

With my Nmother it was about 80-90% of the time. The only time she behaved like a normal parent was when we were around other people. Those people saw a perfect mother, but when it was just the two of us or the FOO, there were ALWAYS digs coming my way.

When I was young, my enFather hurt me only about 20% of the time, but that got a lot worse when Nmother got cancer. He went on the attack to protect her and became as bad as she was. Nmother has since passed away and I've gone NC with enFather.

[practical]

I go with 100%, not because something toxic is said all the time and never anything normal or even nice, but because I never know when something toxic will be said, so I have to be on guard 100% of the time and that in itself isn't healthy either.

[RavenLady]

Thanks everyone. I think practical kind of nailed it for me. My uBPDm and uNPDf can both play nice some times and when I'm strong and/or indulgent enough to play along conversations can be pleasant enough and even enjoyable. But in the background for me, always, is this sense like sooner or later the other shoe is going to drop. Because it always does. Always. Sooner or later they'll need to put me in my place. The haughtiness will come out. The devastating dismissals or wholesale denigration of my character. The undermining and belittling of my decisions. The exhortations to be stoic and invulnerable like they think they are. And they can only play nice so long as I stay small, demure, compliant, superficial, non-threatening in any way...when my big, confident, independent, unafraid adult self is front and center, the reactivity and destruction must commence. Down, girl! And it cuts me to the bone.

Sigh. Probably gonna need to stay NC awhile yet. At least until I have some reason to believe their sickness *won't* be cutting me to the bone next time they lash out. I've got a pretty looooong checklist for my own healing before I can get to that point. By then, I suspect, I will be so utterly discarded there will be nothing left in the relationships to return to.

Sometimes, in spite of everything, I just really really miss having parents, even abusive ones, y'know?

[Duck]

Yes, sometimes my sister get tricked by pdF being pleasant and I have to remind her - this is a temporary pleasantness that will abruptly end the moment he thinks you are non compliant with his program. If you speak up for yourself, if you act independently, that's it. He is toxic 80-90% of the time.

[Blackbird11]

My mom has gone a few weeks with pleasant behavior at times. In fact we just closed a two-ish week period this week and she's back to it. Just right now I came on here to write that after a period of calmness she called me up to see if she could visit her grandkid and showed up at a time that wasn't what I told her (was to prevent her waking up kid which she has done before). She also just tried to start an argument with me and is making passive aggressive comments about uPDh. Im medium chilling. It's always nice when there's an extended calm period but it doesn't last.

[Twinkletoes88]

Good question. And interestingly, the answer doesn't immediately spring to mind. Hmmm...

It's hard to say now because I've cut contact down so much that I only see her once every 6 weeks or so and that's for about an hour for breakfast or coffee or whatever so not a huge change for her to behave badly. She seems to have learnt to hold her tongue these days but I think that's bevaise she knows I wouldn't stand for it anymore like I used to. Plus let's be honest, how hard is it to bite your tongue for an hour once every 6 weeks?

On the other hand, I am on my guard the entire time and feel nervous. I try to stick to certain topics and veer conversation away from any direction that may end badly.... and there is the fact that she doesn't acknowledge my husband or stepchildren anymore so if I happen to say any of their names, she will pull a weird fake smile and look down towards the table/floor with a "mmm" noise which means "I don't care".

I guess there are still hoovers and guilt-trips but I'm learning to handle them better. Her real problems seem to come to light when she's drinking (which is why I don't drink with her anymore) - that's when she gets really nasty and that's when she feels she can say anything she likes - and then she is horribly abusive.

[StayWithMe]

My mother will ut down the peripherals.  If she knows I like soemthng, whether a TV show, a dress, etc, she will find negative things to say about it no matter irrelevant the remarks are.

[blacksheep7]

Too often, to provoke or confront me because I was her scapegoat.  Used sarcasm to criticize us for not getting enough attention, practically every call  when we were young adults.  And the "paper cuts".

When your're in your fifties or 60's and had a life of that and come Out of the FOG, well, I just couldn't take it anymore.  Her revenges killed me, not the action in itself but the intention to harm.

[Indivisible]

I agree with Practical, too.  With disordered people I think it's 100% of the time. If they are nice, or generous, or charming there is a reason behind it; they are that way in order to fulfill one of their needs. They are not nice or generous in the same spirit of human kindness that a normal person would be.

[eternallystuck]

For me there is always a sense of great underlying tension and seething anger behind my m even when she's trying to play nice- in that she's happily dominating the convo and dipping when she feels like it/isn't interested. You can get into an argument in 0.2 secs

But a good %90 of the time she is rude and an unbearable loose canon I can't wait to get away from . And boy does she like to gas on about her 'achievemenrs' At work and how she's better than all her colleagues. How her timid mopey enabling partner copes I don't know but the signs he's miserable and cracking are definitely there.

On special holidays this improves greatly but only as it's false and she doesn't want u telling any hometruths for her sake that day.

But yeah getting on quite the struggle 

[Call Me Cordelia]

One more on Team Practical. The reason is the hyper-awareness required to maintain boundaries and grey rock. Whether the pwpd is psychopathic or just your garden-variety narc, it's exhausting to be around them on a good day.

Maybe some of us can see the code and fairly effortlessly anticipate the PD's next move/respond appropriately without it costing our sanity. Like in the Matrix when Neo can suddenly fight with one hand behind his back in super fast motion haha! (NB: That series is essential watching for people who have PDs in their lives, imho.) But for me, if I have a choice, I prefer the safety of non-engagement.