Grandmother and low contact

[Ladymm]

[more]
Hi all,

I am low contact with my gm and lower contact with parents and sister.

I was feeling guilty for not calling my gm, yet something in me which felt like raw energy didnt (and doesnt) want me to have contact with her.

In the past i was detaching and then calling. I thought that if i call her sometimes it is something normal. But i was calling her out of guilt. My wish really is she wouldnt be my grandma. Tje guilt is from this inner critic saying i will miss her and that my own guilt in regret will destroy me when she dies, but i recognized this is just my motheraa wy of mnaipulate which was instilled in me. Last year a youmg person whom i knew and i kind of spent time with because he was part of a circle of friends died in an incident. I think he was narcissist and he had this charisma and many ppl saw him as a god. Even though he left two small children and a wife in a difficult situation i didnt feel what o should feel. I felt there is one narc less on the planet and sincerely felt a silent feeling of being freer. This person when they died wasnt close to me anyway, but i feel i will feel freer when my grandma goes. I will keep it for me and those who understand.

Last time i called grandma she made me a guilt trip like how she has to go to the doctor and no one can take her, and that she will fall in the street if she goes alone. This was a lie ad my mom woukd take her and they set it. I am a calm person but she made me upset and i answered in uoset tones in the sense that she is telling bullshit. She hasnt called me since this iis almost 3 months ago.

In these 3 months we didnt speak. But i feel less guilt. I think only now my detachment is starting to be successful, becuse i fee less guit nd more of her harmful ways. I see how my gm instilled in me that i shoud feel guilty if i enjy life too much. In these months i started learning  a new language and enjoy it. I feel guilty tho sometimes and her image comes in my mind like the hard life she cried bout etc. But im no longer reactive to it and i want maximum from life. I serve as much as i choose and enjoy life as much as i choose to. This is my choice and im not a victim of this. I am very angry this kind of feelings were driving me. I am angry at her and that she made me like her toy. When i was happy as a child i saw always her victm face or my mothers. I think killing the joy in a child is something that can awake feelings of hate in a child. I will not deny this anymore just fr the sake of i dont know what.

I decided i will talk to my gm just if we meet at some family meeting. I will not reach out for her anymore. I have no wish for that.

I wish you all a day full of good energy.

[xredshoesx]

sounds like you are making a huge step forward in your growth!   

i know in our family the uPD unhealthy relationships are between  mother/ daughter and i feel like i was in a similar position with my biological mother and her mother-  at some point my mother gave me up to her parents and it caused similar problems for me when i moved back home at 20.

for the folks that get all 'but she *raised* you after your mother took off' with me i also remind them that while my grandmother was raising me, her husband was abusing me..... that usually ends that line of discussion.

stay strong and keep us posted !

[Adrianna]

You know that feeling that you get of not wanting to see her, call her or have contact with her? That's there for a reason. I had it too and pushed it down for 20 years. It's your internal guidance system and it's there to protect you. I truly believe it is a gift from God. Don't ignore it.

I had a lot of resentment and built up anger because I felt forced to call my grandmother every day for many many years, when I didn't want to. She used me as an emotional dumping ground, whined often about how no one does enough (including me), no one cares (including me), she has it worse than anyone else, she hates living alone, etc.  She definitely has Borderline personality traits as well as narcissism. Very Dramatic and manipulative. Expected to be treated like a queen. Lied, guilt tripped, threatened suicide sometimes when I set a boundary, and saw no use for people apart what they could do for her.

It was draining and I became bitter. I didn't want to talk to her every day. I did it for years until I finally learned boundaries and my self worth. She of course didn't like boundaries (those who are emotionally abusive never do). It took time but I don't regret it.  It was hard because although I had plenty of help for her coming into the house, I myself these past few years was only was there one a week. I literally couldn't stand being around her for very long. I would be physically exhausted in her presence. I would go home and it would sometimes take me 3 hours to get my energy and motivation back. It was that bad. I dreaded seeing her and was bitter that I had that responsibility forced upon me (my father told me years ago that she was my job not his. I don't see him much either for my own well-being as he too is narcissistic and possibly sociopathic, without the BPD traits she had.)

They get worse with age, not better, so good for you to do this now. You don't want to suffer like I did, for years visiting and calling due to the massive guilt trips she put on me. Time wasted. She had been telling people for years that I don't do enough or help her, even going back to when I was calling her daily, listening to a half hour or more every day of her whining because I felt it was my duty. The don't appreciate what people do for them as they feel entitled to it. They don't know how to love because they don't see people as actual human beings apart from what they can do for them. It's a sad way to live but oh so damaging to those still caught on the FOG.

My grandmother is in a nursing home and I haven't seen her since November. I know people think I'm horrible for not going. Oh well. I've even had a few say "well you'll have to go see her eventually." Says who? My therapist was the one who said I don't have to. No one can force me. What good would come of it? So she can emotionally rip me to shreds? I know what people think of me for not visiting and I'm getting to a point where I don't care. No one understands it until they have lived through it, and even some who HAVE  lived through it are still in the FOG themselves and will judge us. Let them. It just shows they haven't done the work to understand what emotional abuse is.

[Ladymm]

Dear xredshoesx and Adrianna,

thank you both for your answers. I read your stories and feel now more confident in the fact that listening that "don t go" in my soul is the right thing to do and that it has a place before certain social expectations.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Ho boy, I understand this! Your grandma sounds similar to mine. All woe is me, nobody cares, even as I was calling her. She did truly have a hard life in her younger years. War and poverty. Probably full of abuse, although she would never talk about it. She got visibly frightened when as a child I asked her about her childhood for a school project.

So yes I feel sad for her, but she was abusive in many ways. She was so wrapped up in her pain that she never really saw me anyway. She didn't even remember my children's names and she was NOT going senile. Having another sounding board to voice the same old complaints to really didn't do her any good. And that's all I ever was to her.

She rarely picked up the phone once I started deflecting the complaints. So I stopped calling. She never called me. And that was that.

She died about three years after. I was NC with the whole family by then but I felt almost zero guilt about not going to her funeral.

Regarding social expectations: So what? It's also a matter of etiquette to mind your own business and keep your opinions to yourself. For me it never came up socially except with those friends I chose to confide in.

[Ladymm]

Call me Cordelia, thank you for your reply.
I am sometimes wondering if i will feel some negative stuff or regret when her life will come to an end. But something in me says i will not. So knowing that others, like also you share in your post, didnt experience anything horrible feels like some kind of guidance to me. My mind wants to trick me tthat i will feel an emotional collapse, regret, realization of how much she loves me etc..but i ignore it. What i expect do is some last bout of guilt tripping and devaluing from her or my mother on the subject of me being detached and one day maybe in her last days. Its the kind of people who would use their last energies to make you feel shit before they go.

[Adrianna]

What you'll grieve is the relationship with her that you wish you had, if she did not have a personality disorder. You're likely grieving that already though, so I don't see how it would be any different. You know she's not going to change. There aren't a lot of fond memories of her that you can fall back on. It's not the same grieving process that someone with a normal, loving, kind grandparent would have. You know in your heart there's nothing you could do to please her so your responsibility is to yourself. Her responsibility is to herself as well and that's on her that she puts it on others. It's not your job to fix her and never was.

People die as they lived, apart from an act of God. She will likely go to her grave feeling angry at people for not doing enough for her. I know exactly what you're feeling though and you're not alone in this.

My grandmother is 98 and I still wonder how I will feel when she goes. I have no desire to see or communicate with her. Very very very low contact has saved my life and my sanity. I thank God often that she's out of my daily life.

I am enjoying the peace. And that's ok. It's ok for you too.

[xredshoesx]

if nothing else, participating here over the years has taught me it's ok to listen to my gut and that i can say no.

take care- it's a whole mess out there in the world right now