How do you deal with being talked (badly) behind your back?

[MarlenaEve]

Hi guys.

How do you cope with your PD's incessant need to talk badly behind your back? This happens to me often, even when I go out and I may return earlier than usual, I find PD family around the table and sometimes I overhear how they talk about me (or others). Yuck.

I recently heard my PD father saying I am brainless because I refuse to eat his disgusting greasy foods (he cooks heavy pork meals and tries to convince me they are healthy for me). I eat healthy (chicken, grains, greens) but these sick people associate healthy eating with an offense addressed to them. I have noticed that any time someone in the family starts a diet, they get offended and put that person down as if healthy eating would be some sort of a toxic habit. BTW, both PD parents ARE overwheight.

These people are so ridiculous, it hurts.

Also, I just cannot humanely tolerate people who even when they get along with you, still talk trash behind your back.

When I was in LC, living abroad, PD mother talked about me negatively to other family members (she has zero friends so everything stays in the family). I know NC will be a pain for me because I am certain PD mom will launch a smearing campaign against me.
Although I know those things she says are not true, it still hurts.

How do you cope with this sick habit of theirs? Whether it is done to you while in contact, LC or NC?

[TwentyTwenty]

Hi, I'm sorry you are going through this.

How did I deal with it?

I left them. All of them.

Very very happy and joyful now, wish that I had done it years ago.

[GettingOOTF]

I am NC with my family and this is a large part of why. They say the most awful and untrue things both to and about me. Then they tell me the things others and they say to each other about me.

I have come to see that other people's opinion of me is 100% to do with them and absolutely nothing to do with me, so it simply no longer bothers me. I try to live by "what other people think of me is none of my business", while surrounding myself with people who aren't out to willfully misunderstand me and make me feel bad.

[Spring Butterfly]

So sorry you're going through this and I relate. One thing that helped me is I give them very minimal details. Everything is always great, nothing wrong, hardly anything new except for you know the weather or the grass is growing.

Check the toolbox medium chill because that outlines a way to provide the minimal amount of details if you are going to engage.

I'm not NC but I am super limited contact and when I do it's ultra limited details. Anything I share is by design and mindfully knowing full well if I'm opening up a can of worms and what my purpose is inn doing so. Needless to say it's very rare.

When I do have contact, I prepare mentally going into it and make sure I have reviewed  the medium chill topic. I make sure that I have planned time after to regroup and do some self-care. Another super great toolbox topic.

[moglow]

I have come to see that other people's opinion of me is 100% to do with them and absolutely nothing to do with me, so it simply no longer bothers me. I try to live by "what other people think of me is none of my business", while surrounding myself with people who aren't out to willfully misunderstand me and make me feel bad.

This is very much me now, but it  took me a long time to get there. A number of years back I started noticing how much and how often my mother said "don't tell..i told you but..." Or "you didn't hear this from me ..." then attempt to regale me with someone's very personal information. I learned to deflect and change the subject, but it still completely undermined any trust in her I might have had left.

I was never sure if mother's information were real or imagined, but I know how uncomfortable and dirty it made me feel. Calling her on it resulted in her tantrums or turning her wrath on me - and I realized the same was being done behind my back. I even set her up, told her something swearing her to secrecy - and it came back to me, only from a source i'd have never considered. Truly a lesson learned!


I suspect if you looked back at what's been repeated to you, you'd see some of the same. Sometimes we all have to put that crap in the "for what's it's worth" and consider the source. Let them talk, in other words. What they say, says nothing about you and plenty about them.

[Cat of the Canals]

I have come to see that other people's opinion of me is 100% to do with them and absolutely nothing to do with me, so it simply no longer bothers me. I try to live by "what other people think of me is none of my business", while surrounding myself with people who aren't out to willfully misunderstand me and make me feel bad.

This, and I'd add: I don't wish to surround myself with people who listen to and believe gossip/smear campaigns either.

A few years ago I had a minor political disagreement with my uPD mother. And I do mean minor... she put forth her opinion on something, and I disagreed with her. It wasn't heated. I thought nothing of it, but found out months later that she'd gone around telling my brother (and probably my dad) that I was crazy and brainwashed. Thankfully, I have a good enough relationship with them that they didn't believe that and probably thought my mother was the one acting crazy.

But if they had believed her, I would have known then that they'd made their choice to participate in the dysfunction. There wouldn't have been anything I could do, anyway. How do you convince someone you're NOT crazy, other than just being your normal self (which is what I was doing all along)?

[theonetoblame]

If I dwell on this type of back channel behavior it is still upsetting to the point of anger where I begin to imagine confrontations of various forms. Not good.

As others have mentioned, there is nothing I can do about it. Over time, I also came to understand that the people who participate in this type of dialogue without me present are themselves unhealthy and part of the problem. It can get tricky when everyone around me is like that, holding my ground as being the only person in a group behaving reasonably can be difficult.

Switching my attention to move off of the topic and onto something else has been an incredibly helpful skill. It's one that took practice, but I'm so much better at it now. Now, if I get pinged by some weird back story nonsense or other historical trigger the moment my physical arousal starts to escalate I take notice, engage in some mindfulness and intentionally switch my attention to focus on something productive. Shortly after the arousal the dissipates and it is much easier to remember that none of that stuff matters anymore. It's like an off switch for me.

[Call Me Cordelia]

Yup, I also went NC with them and their whole audience. I built a completely separate life. We no longer have any mutual friends. I dumped social media. Perhaps I'm still the scapegoat in absentia. But that's not actually me, just their imaginary version of Cordelia who surely gets less and less like the real version.

That was definitely my best option, but I do feel sad about having to burn all my bridges like that at times. It's not fair that I did nothing wrong and yet in effect I ceded 100% of "their" territory which is by rights my home too. But then again, home was always enemy territory.

[BefuddledClarity]

I'm mostly LC with my family, close to NC. Only LC, because I don't mind my brothers, they're alright in small doses. I feel indifferent to my parents now that I'm older.

My mother is very passive-agressive. She would say something she didn't like about me to my brothers within my earshot...on purpose knowing that I'm there. Things such as "She's stubborn, she thinks she knows everything, she doesn't know how to do XYZ etc etc".

At first, when I was young, I'd get very irritable hearing this and upset that she would say such rude things. But as I got older, I tuned it out and don't care. Whatever negative things she says is a reflection of her, not me. That's her problem.

A phrase I used to repeat to myself when I was young:

"Those who matter don't mind, and those who mind, don't matter."

The only relevant opinions to me about me, are people who care for my well-being and are supportive. Those who don't care and merely wish to tear me don't, I don't pay any mind to, because it's just their projection of their own issues.

Also, just want to say good on you for eating healthy! Its definitely worth it and feels good eating healthy foods vs junk. You have a strong fortitude. Good luck on your health journey! Perhaps surround yourself(whether in real life or online community) with those who are interested in healthy eating for some sanity? So anytime your parents complain about your diet, you do have a support group letting you know it's okay, and have people who understand you.

[MarlenaEve]

Thanks for all your lovely responses. I'm gonna try to answer all of you.

@TwentyTwenty

You are my role model. I will follow in your footsteps hopefully, in the near future.

@Getting Out of the FOG
Yeah, I agree with you. People who talk badly about us shouldn't be in our lives. If our parents who gossip about us were friends or acquaintances, we wouldn't stay in contact with them. True?

@Spring Butterfly
I like your name. It makes me dream of a warm spring. The weather in my part of the world is kind of stubborn.

Thanks for the tip about the Toolbox section. I'll need to check it out.

@Moglow

"...how uncomfortable and dirty it made me feel"-THIS! My PD mom is constantly talking badly about, let's say, her siblings. If she receives negative news about them, she directs this information towards PD dad and me. One time when my boundary was kind of meh (I have better boundaries now), she started trashing her sister and everyone could hear her in the house. I thought there was something serious going on so I went and ask what happened to aunt. Apparently, it was just my PD mom criticizing the fact that aunt has a bigger debt than her and what a loser she is..
Just like you, I felt so dirty and so uncomfortable listening to that trash..I never allowed her again to spew this kind of info on me and she doesn't. Haha. I guess for her I am a boring person.

@Cat of the canals
Thanks for your input.

@The one to blame
I need to remember what you just said that people who gossip are unhealthy. Because growing up thinking that gossiping is absolutely normal, it really twists your thinking and forces you to accept gossiping as a needed leisure activity. For PD family, gossiping is truly a hobby-it's all they do. It was certainly done to them too by their own families, so they grow up thinking that it's OK to talk trash about others when they're not present.

BTW, because I grew up thinking gossip is normal and acceptable, I did this to some people in my life, that is not something I'm proud of. I'd do it with roommates and friends too (talking with friends about those who are not present in a critical way) but I stopped it ever since I've learned about the law of attraction and how important it is to think nice thoughts about others.

Also, your method of deflecting the attention from a negative topic of discussion is great-I haven't practiced it, I think it takes time to learn how to do it. Good job.

@Call me Cordelia

Wow,I love how you separated yourself completely from the FOO. I think this is needed in order to start from zero with our lives.
Someone told me once that we, adult children of narcissists need to unlearn many things we've learned as children. I think burning bridges, like you said is a crucial step in this process of unlearning. I'd like to do that as well.

Quitting ocial media..I don't have any of the FOO people on my social media. Yet I'm still in touch with them. Facebook, Instagram for example, are sanctuaries for me now. I don't wanna feel as if someone watches what I post every damn time and tries to undermine me that way.
PD mom used to do that. The very feeling of logging into Facebook, knowing she was there, lurking in the darkness (she didn't post anything there, didn't have photos, only used Facebook to monitor what her family was saying..lol, what a sorry person she is), terrified me. I blocked her many many years ago and, although she tried to ask me for friendship, again and again, I refused.

But quitting social media is also a good thing if your FOO are there. Social media is also not the healthiest environment, especially nowadays with the pandemic and all. I took a one-week long break from it because I was tired to read those covid-19 posts. People really have nothing else to do on Facebook but express their fears and insecurities. (I know it's not true in general but it happens often as I see it)

You said you feel sad about burning bridges..As I mentioned earlier, burning bridges is important. Starting from scratch, building new relationships with normal people who truly care, seeing what normal really is, unlearning bad behaviors and learning good behaviors..That's why burning bridges is great. It paves the way for a better life to come.

"home was always enemy territory"-you described the feeling I get every time I think of home or of my FOO. Home is the thing we should stay away from.

@Befuddled Clarity
Yep, we should know that people who talk badly about us do that because they have major issues. I think the recipients of the gossip will know that who talks badly about someone will eventually talk badly about themselves as well.

I see that both my brothers were really brainwashed in the years I've spent living abroad while they were still home. When I finally came back from abroad and saw my brothers, I realized that something terribly wrong has happened to them. In the sense that, they looked like exact copies of our mother. They talked and walked like her, they have the same habits. So, point is that, whenever mother is gossiping now, my brothers gather around her and supports all her statements. It's like they're trying to get her validation by agreeing with this toxic habit of hers. I've once heard one of my siblings talk trash about me while I was home. I was deeply deeply shocked about this because..well, no one has ever talked badly about me (calling me mentally unstable for example) while I was few inches away. But these siblings are what PD mom wanted them to become (copies of her), so I'm not really surprised that they participate and enjoy gossip-and even do it actively to other people in their lives (siblings, girlfriends, bosses, friends).

"The only relevant opinions about me, are people who care for my well-being and are supportive."
Beautiful sentence. I'll take this as an affirmation to repeat to myself often.
This is what we should all aspire to here. To only believe in people who care about us and support us and love us unconditionally. Others who are not able to do so should mean nothing to us.

Great discussion, guys. Thanks, again.

[MarlenaEve]

Also, about the eating healthy support group that's a great idea! I'll try to find like-minded people. I'm tired of being gaslighted by physically unhealthy and overweight people who have no clue what they're doing with their bodies.