The steps from VLC to NC?

[doglady]

I have posted in the past about the emotional abuse and neglect I experienced during my childhood and teen years and which extended into my adulthood in the form of scapegoating. I buried it for many years and tried to ‘be an adult,’ move on and forgive my parents, while also employing the necessary coping strategies of LC, MC, grey rock etc. These worked up to a point for many years but there was still a lot of dysfunction in my FOC as my uPDM and enD tried to maintain the fiction that ours was a happy family. Plus there was still the weight of expectation to conform to family roles and bizarre birthday and infantilising photography rituals.

It was all manageable enough until the year before last when I spoke to my parents (who are both elderly and ailing) about their unsafe and unsanitary hoarded house. My siblings, who did not attend the conversation but who had been decrying the date of things for years, said they would back me up, and a couple did. My parents predictably then subjected me to blaming/scapegoating, with mother saying I’d made her ill etc. One sis who is very enmeshed with them went silent on me and GCbro also accused me of bullying them (this from a guy who has physically and verbally abused my parents and myself).

Anyway, I decided I’d had enough and my next step was to go VLC. I also refused to visit their hoarded home as I was triggered every time I went there, or was photographed/videoed without my permission. I was smeared by some sibs about this. I was also smeared by friends of my parents who said my mother had told them ‘noone would help them.’ Such bullshit. They’ve been offered all sorts of help for decades with their mess. I was past caring what other people thought by this stage though.

However, my parents continued to rug sweep and visit me. My mother, during these painful visits, talked incessantly about people’s private health issues and the multitude of funerals they attended (because they are such saints in their community and need to be seen in that way) while my father was shut down with a death stare from her any time he tried to speak. I felt dread accompanied by major physical symptoms every time I saw them drive in. I continued to grey rock etc. They affected not to know what was wrong. It was affecting my health but I thought, Oh well, this is the price I pay for some modicum of peace and not to feel like a complete a-hole. In retrospect it was obviously unsustainable.

Then one day last year they turned up and berated me because I’d had the audacity to call my GCbro’s uPD partner out (via email) on her continued racism along with her unwarranted meanness to one of my sibs. I have since learned my lesson about not being triangulated. This woman contacted my parents telling them she would have the law on me (trust me, I’d only pointed out that she had been unpleasant, not threatened her with any harm). My parents, rather than telling her she was out of line, told me to pull my head in. I shook my head and said I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Except I could believe it. Of course I could. All too well. And yes, I guess I should’ve stayed out of it. But I’m also heartily sick of pricks getting away with saying awful things in our family. Anyway, my parents went on to say that I’d ‘caused a lot of trouble.’ When I asked how, my enF said basically that my challenging them the previous year over the state of their house had caused ‘all the trouble.’ I suddenly understood that I was being punished for having done that. I was livId. I told them to leave my house. They wouldn’t go so I told them to Fuck Off and locked my front door.

They next day I emailed (because they scream, cry or threaten if you actually try to talk rationally with them) and told them how I felt about everything, that I was sick of being the whipping girl for all our family’s problems and I also asked them not to visit unless they’d OKed with me by calling first and in fact not to visit at all if they weren’t willing to address some long-standing issues. Of course predictably they didn’t reply, because they just ignore and hope it’ll all go away. Only one of sibs showed any support. The rest went radio silent because they are basically gutless and we are now NC.

A few weeks later, however, my parents turned up on my doorstep and my husband told them to leave. They acted all wounded and professed not to know what they’d done wrong.  So I emailed them again, basically repeating my previous letter. Again, me doing all the damned emotional labour.

But, then they turned up a few weeks ago as if - I don’t know, new year, new slate? I was so gobsmacked I was caught in a Freeze reaction and - damn it - I let them in, which I know I shouldn’t have, but I was so shocked I literally couldn’t react. It was a very tense visit during which my mother predictably went on about other people’s health problems, and three times during the conversation mentioned how wonderful some various random church people’s daughters are because they’re going to be either moving in with their parents, or vice versa, to look after them in their old age. (Obviously this is a Hell to the No choice for me). I sat there grey rocking and internally fuming while they acted pretend wounded about my failure to engage. Plus I’ve had more than enough experience of her telling me how wonderful other people’s children are to their parents. And after they went I thought, My God, do they honestly think they can just rug sweep and I’ll let them in the door again just to listen to her mind-numbing shit? Clearly they do.

So I wrote yet another email, pointing out three things: 1. I have not budged on them seeking permission before they visit; 2. They have still not addressed any of the issues that I have previously brought up with them [which I don’t expect them to]; and 3. That events of the past couple of years have simply brought back to the forefront how much I have always felt they disliked me.

Of course I have not received a reply, and I don’t expect one as this is pretty their standard MO whenever I have written to them: to ignore, to critique the length of the message, to pick holes in my grammar, or to just generally lie and gaslight, all ably abetted by my GCbro.

So this is where I’m at. I’m thinking they will turn up again, pretending nothing has happened or they’ll simply lie about not having received the email. My dH is going to tell them to leave if they do, which I am obviously fine with. Or I will do that. Or just lock our front door.

I guess I just wanted to lay this all out. Am I missing something here? I tend not to burden others with this. My husband and a close friend really get it, thank goodness. I’ve had therapy and my therapist said she would never want to meet someone like my mother. There’s so much more detail I could go into but this is very long already. I would welcome some feedback. Has anyone else proceeded along similar steps to NC, and if so, how did it go?

[Oscen]

HI doglady,

I just want to reassure you, this all sounds very relatable and I don't think you've missed anything. Their patterns of behaviour - of not respecting your boundaries, not taking no for an answer, not caring about your feelings, and engaging in petty, vindictive acts as punishment for breaking their "rules" - are all clearly toxic and are more than enough for you to say, as you have done, that this relationship is not good enough for you. Their tactic of ignoring communication they don't like is really nasty - I have been on the receiving end of this for the last year or so myself. Not good.

No matter how right you know a decision is intellectually, it's hard to feel completely comfortable emotionally when your whole family is a circus of flying monkeys and enablers.
The feelings will catch up with the thoughts. You are in the process of reprogramming your mind/way of thinking and creating a new path for your life - it takes time to feel right.
Stick to your guns, keep cutting out the crazies.
Well done for doing all that you've done.

[doglady]

Thanks so much Oscen for your kind words. I often feel very alone and don't want to burden my husband and friends so it's good to come here for some understanding and reassurance.

And yes, the toxic patterns you've highlighted have been in evidence for decades now, since I was very young. And the flying monkeys continue to abound.

I Iive in a small community and it's hard to totally avoid my parents, some siblings, various relatives and family associates. Two particular factors make the experience of this all the more difficult: The first is my mother's dogged commitment to pretending none of this is happening, to the point where it almost feels like she is living in Groundhog Day (although unlike Bill Murray'S character, she refuses to learn and grow). This 'Reset' strategy has been one of her many bizarre coping mechanisms for maintaining her fictions of the happy family and she seems to completely dissociate from the reality of how dysfunctional it really is. And of course if I point it out, I'm evil and she stares upwards into space like she's praying for divine guidance while my father rages and blames and does her bidding. My mother can then still appear saintly and without sin in the whole fiasco. The other (not unrelated) issue is that my parents are religious and loom very large (literally in the case of my mother) in our small community so virtually every where I go I am regaled with reports from all and sundry about what wonderful people my parents are, in the face of which I find it nigh on impossible to disagree. I Just smile thinly and say little and end the conversation as soon as possible, but still often feel like I'm the only 'bad' one around here. Although I know my truth, I know what it's been like being part of this family, where their insides don't match their outsides (If that makes sense). It's even reflected in their hoarding: the front of the house looks pleasant enough with some pretty flowers planted by the doorstep and then the further you go in to the lair the more horrifying and toxic it becomes. A more obvious metaphor would be hard to find. 

I do plan to move away. I really need to for my continued mental health. Just waiting until my kids are finished school which is only a couple of years away now.

I'm sorry to hear you're going through all this too. Wouldn't life be so much easier, and less exhausting, if our parents were reasonable and rational people? Not that I ever had any hopes there!

You're right, it's so important to keep on with journey of reprogramming and maintaining boundaries. My feelings are gradually catching up. But some days are so hard.