Choosing one uPD AC for unilateral contact

[AlisonWonder]

Hi everyone, very happy to find this forum, here is my introduction.
I am remarried with more than two adult children.  They are most definitely not "young adults" anymore.  One, or possibly each of them seems to have a PD, like their father.  I think I will never know for sure.  They usually don't communicate with me in any way which I attribute to parental alienation.   This is decades old.

I have other family but am NC with them because they also seem to have PDs.  They would not relate to me normally because my children were expressing such grief to my family about having "lost their mother".   So I went NC with my family of origin in order to work on restoring my relationship with my children.  I had to stop the "hall of mirrors" effect that was  happening.  Following guidelines from people with experience, I began contacting my children on a schedule and taking better care of myself emotionally.

Death shakes things up in these situations. I had two elderly relatives that were important to me.   The first one died and no-one told me, so  I missed the funeral.  Eventually I found out because one child contacted me.  They seemed so shocked that I did not know and said how sorry they were.  We resumed a relationship and it was a very touchy difficult thing.  I saw them once in person, and it was very hard to get them to talk on the phone.  There was a lot of standard PD abuse, hard but not the worst. Eventually they cut me out again so I left it alone for a while.  I don't know why they did that. It sure hurt and my health suffered so I have to be cautious.

The second elderly relative died, and I found out quickly because "something" prompted me to check the obituaries.
No-one had told me, including the child I mentioned, so I had to reflect on that, and also the fact that still, no-one knows I know.
Now it feels like a standoff.  I want to know what any of my family is going to do next, so that I can assess their current attitude and toxicity.  So I am not doing anything that might reveal that I know this relative has died.

It's obvious to me that a child, even an adult child, comes first before a sibling.  But what happens when you have more than one adult child?  My children have this thing going where, if I start to get closer to one, another one will push them "back into line".
So I thought I should choose one and focus on them, which would give the others no fresh informational ammunition about how "abusive"  I was being towards them or anyone else  or how "crazy" I was currently being.  You know how it is.

That is where I was at when this person died.  I was unofficially NC with my relatively-closer-but-abusive child and keeping up one-way contact with another who has not responded.

Now I am concerned.  A death in the family makes it likely that one or more of my children, and also my other family, will want to reach out to me, even though I know it won't last.  Should I:

1.  stick to my plan of focussing on one child and stay NC with the others regardless
2.  respond to my relatively-closer-but-abusive child in a "medium chill" way , revealing much less information than I did the first time
     around because I matter too
3. other thing I have not yet considered

Questions welcome, I am well aware that I can't tell a story well, thank you for reading to the end.

[notrightinthehead]

Welcome!
Gosh, that must be so hard and I hope you have real life support from a counsellor or a therapist.
As for your questions,  I can only say what I do in my situation,  I keep communication open to my children.  If they want to have contact with me I am available. However, I would not allow them to abuse me in any way.  If they started to abuse me, I would remove myself from the situation calmly and politely,  let things cool down and try another time.
Good luck to you!

[AlisonWonder]

Thank you for the support, Notright.  Yes I am getting support at the moment but no-one in my area seems to know anything about PDs, let alone parental alienation.

I see you said you wouldn't allow them to abuse you in any way, but it sounds like you mean verbal or textual abuse.  Do you have a different response to other kinds of abuse such as backstabbing or lying?  I ask because it's hard to know if they have stopped.
Unfortunately for example I believe one of them has started talking to my stepdaughters and now they won't speak to me either.
I have watched this spread like gangrene over the last 2 decades.

Yes I would almost certainly reply to any my children if they emailed, but I have been sending short emails ("in my thoughts" or something)  to only one of them. 

Thank you again and sorry for the late reply.

Welcome!
Gosh, that must be so hard and I hope you have real life support from a counsellor or a therapist.
As for your questions,  I can only say what I do in my situation,  I keep communication open to my children.  If they want to have contact with me I am available. However, I would not allow them to abuse me in any way.  If they started to abuse me, I would remove myself from the situation calmly and politely,  let things cool down and try another time.
Good luck to you!