Hoarding

[Hepatica]

Nanotech,
Oh yes. Regarding their concern for our sanity.  My uNPDf showed up at my house a few months ago. He does this. He shows up uninvited. He was in a state of mind I've probably never seen him in bc he prefers the ultimate steely control manner and feeds off unsettling others. But he was unsettled. I was out in my garden so could not do my usual routine of running straight to my bedroom while my Dh tells him that I am out. He had already seen me, so I was caught and I pulled up a garden chair and sat down. Thank God my Dh was there.
uNPDf begins a tirade about a family drama back at our cottage - where the entire disordered family have plots on the lakeside. They are all fighting, which is cyclical and I have stayed out of it for years. I sit there and listen to him. Just uhhuh, yep. I don't ask questions. I am as quiet as can be. He talks and talks about how he is turning everyone against his own sister who is an environmentalist and he doesn't agree with her, people should do what they want.
And after about 20 mins, his head turns to me and looks at me. The entire time he has been talking into the air like he's on stage but finally he looks at me and says:

"Heptatica, you need to go see a shrink,"

Just like that. I have not said one word. I am not involved in the lake/cottage drama. I have kept to myself for months specifically for that crazy little thing called PEACE. 

He is mad at me bc I am VLC with my sister so he throws in that zinger about my mental health. I am the sick one. I guess that was my last straw. It was the low blow of all the low blows equally as bad in my opinion as the time when I was nine and he hit me in the head so hard, my head flew into the wall. He and my mother have driven my sister crazy, he's dangerously corrosive to my mother (who gives it back to him but bc he cannot feel pain, she always loses) and now he's going for me. I couldn't fake it or take it any more.  I stood up, put my hand up and said, "You need to leave now,"

I walked into the house, into my bedroom and put head phones on so I couldn't hear his triggering voice, which merely continued his tirade about the cottage for about another 1/2 hour as my Dh tried to tell him he had crossed the line.

Now I don't go out in my garden if my Dh isn't home. I keep my curtains closed just in case he decides to drop in and drop another toxic bomb.

I haven't talked to any of them and I feel such anger even writing about this. But that is ok. I realize that I am working hard thru this and coming here is immensely helpful to read other people's stories and understand that this isn't me being crazy. If I had had the inkling and was a more confrontational person, I may have looked right at him when he said that to me and said, "Funny thing is dad, I do see a shrink and she advises me to have no contact with you... so BYE."

But I can never do this bc I get too emotional and I cry or I say it in an angry tone and he loves that. It gives him supply. The more emotional I get, the more steely happy he gets. He doesn't feel pain.

[nanotech]

What I think is that they are all imploding without you there to dump everything on.
You've sensibly detached from all of the chaos.
You're no longer playing your role. I'm no longer playing MY role of scapegoat.

My brother needed me in that role. So much so that he called me insane when I removed myself from it. Sound familiar?

All you have to do is to keep doing what you are doing. Stay away. Hold your nerve. Eventually they have to find someone else to dump on. And they generally do find someone.
My BPDmum used to ring me up whenever she quarrelled with UNPDBrother. It was the ONE  time she would criticise him. I would listen to her ranting, and I'd say my opinion. I usually agreed with her. He's very narcissistic and entitled. But I would also try to be fair. Mum could say some very vindictive things, and I could never go as far as that. I was punished for that lack of vindictiveness.. At other times during these calls, I was punished for agreeing too much with her! I just couldn't win.
  She would suddenly take offence at what I'd said about him ( whether good, bad or in between) and then she'd shout and slam the phone down. 

This was when I was in the FOG. But even then I came to see a pattern, and I realised that she was using me as a sort of whipping boy to dump the anger she dared not express to her golden child.
Your dad argued with his sister. So your dad came looking for you. Maybe for you to take his side on it all.
When you didn't comment, he tried to  drag you in and invalidate you. But even if you had agreed with him,  I've a feeling the outcome would still have been the same. They turn in us.
Your family have to do some unlearning. Like mine did. You're not responsible for  regulating the emotions of all of your family. And you are not a dumping ground for your dad's anger and frustration.

My dad had to be told by me that I wouldn't listen any more about family squabbles. He kept insisting that I HAD to listen while he listed the faults of my  UNPDsister. Ermmm, nope. We were all so enmeshed. They think it's normal.
I thought phones being slammed down, then mum ringing a few days later as if nothing had happened, was normal. It isn't. It's childish crap at best, dangerous manipulation at worst.

I'm glad your hubby was there and I'm glad he told him off. They need telling. My hubby's had to do it several times. He's always done it politely. But they've backed off. They are not enmeshed with our husbands and so they don't know which buttons to push! ( If any!)

I'm sending hugs. I'm sorry you got hit hard as a child. That is horrible.