Is NC justified? /Vent/Introduction

[benightedbug]

Hi everyone, first time posting here.
I'm struggling to figure out if going NC is the right call, a good idea etc.
Some background, I am a woman in her mid 20s, only child. My father was verbally and emotionally abusive to my mother and me growing up.
He liked to lecture, argue and rant for hours, sometimes he would physically block the door to stop my mother or me from getting away, would use guilt trips a lot, say very cruel and hurtful things eg yelling at my mother that she was weak, threatening to send me to a child psychologist, telling me that he wanted to "fire me" but couldn't because I was his child. Frequently he also sulked and did silent treatment. Generally once a week he would blow up at me or my mother.
When I was a teenager my parents got divorced (my father left in the middle of the night). He still wanted a relationship with me so I had to split my time between my mum's and his. During this time his verbal abuse of me and controlling behaviour got worse, so I started staying at my mum's more, but he would always come back and try and guilt me into staying with him again, doing schmaltzy honeymoon phase stuff like gift giving, being uncharacteristically nice etc. My mum would pressure me to maintain a relationship with him also. I used to idealize her but now I realize she also has some problems. Eg she says racist or homophobic stuff sometimes and bullying little snipes at me (calling me manipulative, rolling her eyes when I talk about depression, anxiety or trauma. whenever I do something she doesn't like she says I'm acting like my father). I think I got put into the only child position of being both golden child and scapegoat, since I was able to get good grades at school etc even though that didn't amount to much. Anyway I'm sure this all doesn't sound too severe, but I think it affected me pretty deeply. Eventually I got to being low contact with my father, only going to his house for one day on xmas.
But, recently (last 2 years) my dad has been in a new relationship with another woman and he's been acting nice. He bought me some things which I needed and asked for (but not most of the things I really needed, even though he could easily afford it). He says he's been to therapy and understands his issues a lot better, and uses cutesy emojis in texts and all the time says he loves and is proud of me. But I can't help but feel like all of this is just bribing me so that I'll play pretend that I love him and he was normal so that he doesn't look bad to his new girlfriend. He brought up one of the times he abused me to the point of tears as a child as though it was a fun memory, as though he was trying to control the narrative. He still makes snippy comments about my weight and how much I'm eating, even though I'm borderline anorexic. He still tries to push for me to stay with him for more days. One of his family members passed recently (last year) so I also felt that I had to be nice to him (roll over and indulge his version of the relationship, mirror his opinions back at him, fake like I respect him, divulge all information about my personal life to him etc). I know that I also personally am mentally ill, undiagnosed but I have behaviour/outlook/traits consistent with OCD, "quiet BPD", Autism, C-PTSD. When a text from him comes up on my phone I get my anxiety triggered. Often after a phone call with him I feel physically sick.  It's very easy for me to slip back into "playing along" on a phone call with him, but afterwards I feel like I've been puppeteered, feel hollowed out, disgusted with myself etc.
Am I just being melodramatic? I feel like anything less than no contact will mean he keeps casting a shadow and trying to worm his way back in and get more control and I'm sick of it, but at the same time it feels like I'm holding on to crap from years ago as an excuse for why my own life is a failure. I'm also scared to go NC since he is still literally more powerful than me and could fuck with me if he wanted. And also because despite everything there are good memories and we can have good times together as long as I act like everything was normal. But I'm also tired of being such an anxious wreck, and it feels like when I hold on to how bad it was, I feel stronger and braver and more self-possessed. It feels like every time he gets in touch all the healing I did on myself collapses.
What do I do?

[NarcKiddo]

Hello and welcome.

Only you can decide if NC is right for you. You worry about whether NC is justified or if you are being too dramatic. Is it? Are you? (These are questions for you - I'm not expecting an answer unless you want to.) It's clear you are struggling.

Some people point out that NC need not be forever - but to some extent I think that depends on how you go about it and how the other party feels about your decision. They may not let you back in should you change your mind.

Are you able to get therapy? Even if you can't afford it, is it something your father might pay for, given he has had therapy and made some acknowledgement of his failings regarding you?

Getting rid of contact with him because he triggers reactions in you might help you - but it may not be the cure you seek. I am triggered as much by other things as by my mother. Since I started therapy I am actually triggered less by her and am able to work on the other things while keeping VLC with her, using grey rock etc.

Hugs. These are not easy waters to navigate. It took me until my 40s to even start seeing what my problems stemmed from, so you are streets ahead of me.

[benightedbug]

Hi, ty for hugs. I have seen two therapists, one he paid for and one who acted "pro bono" (who tried some pretty shady stuff with me) since I can't afford it on my own. He hasn't really made any acknowledgement at all of his own failings, he's never apologized for anything, least of all the abuse.

The unspoken understanding was just that since he's buying stuff and being nice again, and since I'm playing along, we're both over it, it's as though the abuse never happened etc. Him paying for a therapist would be on the basis of me being crazy, not healing from the ptsd he infilcted. I worry that any therapist he was paying would ultimately align with him, and advise against NC because then they'd lose money, and could also be bribed to report back to him- would be "working for him", basically.

And if I went NC - something I've wanted to do most of my life (ran away as a child, ran away as a teen, ran away as an adult lol) then I wouldn't have that therapist to help me cope with the fallout. And everything he pays for can be used to control me more, too. But, I know that I could use some therapy, since a lot of bad stuff happened to me besides him (couple instances of sexual assault, getting robbed, getting hit, hazy maybe-csa memories (not of him) which might also be the OCD trying to trick me...lol...). I want to get myself some once I have a bit more money.

Mainly I don't want to repeat my mum's mistake and just passively tolerate the abuse/keep silent about it out of a combination of fearing and wanting his money and attention. I like the person I have to be in order to cope with that much less than the person who is just free of it. I don't think it'd cure me but I think it'd help repair my relationship with myself and help me have more self-respect

[Spring Butterfly]

Welcome and no you're not being melodramatic.

It feels like every time he gets in touch all the healing I did on myself collapses.
What do I do?

The key is to dial back contact so your healing outpaces the incoming damage.

This was a great book that has a roadmap of sorts to healing and how to outpace the damage. The key first step is to dial back contact.
https://www.outofthefog.net/forum/index.php?topic=29251.msg568720#msg568720

Wishing you peace.

[benightedbug]

Thank you Spring Butterfly, I'll give it a read. I don't feel confident diagnosing either of my parents with anything, and it's definitely always been my father that was the abusive one and my mother that was just enabling it, but the roadmap should apply anyway, right? I think I already came up with the sort of "Internal Mother" concept based on what a friend told me they did, sort of adapted it to myself. I usually use it for like, making sure I ate, brushed my teeth, am safe and warm etc., and also for checking my mood- like, noticing that I'm anxious or unhappy and pointing it out to me.

[Starboard Song]

Some people point out that NC need not be forever - but to some extent I think that depends on how you go about it and how the other party feels about your decision. They may not let you back in should you change your mind.

This is so important. Even healthy people don't react well to NC. Truly being NC is fighting words, and shouldn't be undertaken lightly. Some people use the term to only mean "taking a break," but in those instances, one would explain yourself. Like, "hey I need some space for a while to work out some things." That's no problem. But if you suddenly cease all communications with a family member it is perfectly normal of them to feel like they are the victim, and that creates its own challenges.

We are 7-Years NC with my in-laws, so I support NC where it is needed so that any of us can thrive.

[benightedbug]

I sort of feel like even asking "could I have some space for a while, and I get to decide how long that while is, and I'm not committing to how long it will be right now, so don't bother me once you feel that enough time has passed if I haven't gotten in touch with you by then" would get taken as "don't ever speak to me again" lol. Especially because I tried doing exactly that many times as a teenager and he would always get to me through my mother (even though they were divorced), pressuring her to let him see me, and she'd start with the whole "you need to have a relationship with your father" thing, and he'd argue and schmooze me back into spending time at his house again. Eventually I got to stay at my mum's full-time though, and only go over for one day on xmas (how I hate that day lol). I guess that's part of why part of me now just wants to say, hell with it, no contact, no crack in things for him to get in through lol.

[benightedbug]

Honestly, starting out reading this book i feel like lots of the narcissistic personality disorder criteria describe me, or at least inclinations, tendencies and thought patterns I have in myself much more than they do my mother. I don't really know what to make of that.

[benightedbug]

Sorry Starboard Song, I just realised I forgot to thank you for your guidance as well.

[NarcKiddo]

Honestly, starting out reading this book i feel like lots of the narcissistic personality disorder criteria describe me, or at least inclinations, tendencies and thought patterns I have in myself much more than they do my mother. I don't really know what to make of that.

I have similar fears from time to time. Since you are exploring the possibility it is unlikely you are a narc even if you have some tendencies. You might also have "fleas" to deal with.

[Spring Butterfly]

I don't feel confident diagnosing either of my parents with anything, and it's definitely always been my father that was the abusive one and my mother that was just enabling it, but the roadmap should apply anyway, right?

Definitely yes it still applies. Here in this community we focus more on behaviors than diagnosis so you're on the right track!

starting out reading this book i feel like lots of the narcissistic personality disorder criteria describe me, or at least inclinations, tendencies and thought patterns

these are passed along and we refer to this as "fleas" and you can read more here:
https://outofthefog.website/what-not-to-do-1/2015/12/3/fleas

I sort of feel like even asking "could I have some space for a while, and I get to decide how long that while is, and I'm not committing to how long it will be right now, so don't bother me once you feel that enough time has passed if I haven't gotten in touch with you by then" would get taken as "don't ever speak to me again" lol. Especially because I tried doing exactly that many times

same thought here and multiple times through life I explained we just wanted to be on vacation as a couple or we wanted to eat out with our friends just us, basically have our own life along with time with them. It lead to magnificent eruption of tears and drama of epic proportions.

Since I had tried to communicate openly and it wasn't something they were open to, this time around I chose to own my time, decline individual invitations to things that didn't fit my schedule. A simple "that sounds like fun but I can't make it this time" was viewed as an insult. The result is they chose to back off so it was a win for me!

[benightedbug]

Reading more of this book I am recognizing my mother here and there, though she's definitely not as bad as the examples given. A couple of my friends have talked to me about my mum, saying stuff like "she wasn't that much of a mother to you" and that I'm doing that thing where you want one parent to be "the good one".

Now that I'm sort of letting the concept of "my mother didn't/doesn't love me" into my conscious mind to take a look at it I'm remembering other times I had this thought and blocked it out, things I said to people (eg, literally "I don't really think my mum loved me"), trying to find mothers in other people my age, getting attached to friends' mothers, female teachers etc. Some of the behaviours like bragging about contact with famous people, being preoccupied with me putting on a good show, seeming unhappy with my accomplishments and appearance, are definitely her. She also expected me to help out with her emotions after the divorce, I think, and it seemed to make her really happy when I talked bad about my father to her, like it was a way to bond.

NarcKiddo, I guess it might be fleas though I also might just have a PD. It seems like PDs kind of slide into each other? I definitely have OCD traits, NPD traits, DPD and quiet BPD traits, all of which seem to cluster around a "fear of abandonment/shame/guilt". I definitely related to what McBride talks about as the profile of daughter of narcissistic mother; ie "something missing" emotionally, tyrannical inner critic, unable to trust own perception, struggles to maintain relationships.

The only reason I'm really even digging this stuff up, besides having a lot of time on my hands, is that I don't want to abuse myself, or abuse anyone else, or be abused by anyone else, ever again (edit note: I realised the wording here makes it sound as though I've been abusive in the past, I have checked with everyone I was close to because I have a phobia/OCD fixation about "being abusive" and they have all said that I was not abusive).  I'm scared of becoming like either of my parents. One of the friends I've had for a long time stopped talking to me because I was too preoccupied with my own mental issues and didn't show enough of an interest in them, which sounds like an NPD thing. Though, I was also sort of a codependent type carer for them, since they never did chores or cleaning or cooking when we lived together.

It's possible that when we stopped living together, I just stopped being useful and they were looking for an excuse that would stick. But I don't think people are really like that, I think I probably drove them away, since that generally seems to be how my relationships end. Either I end it because I'm not able to feel what the other person seems to want me to feel, and I get this suffocating trapped feeling, or the other person drifts away and I try to hold their interest or attention and fail.

Spring Butterfly, I'll try declining on grounds of busyness next time and see what happens. Thank you.

[benightedbug]

Just remembered a couple more things about her I remembered/realised last night and then forgot, she would rummage through stuff in my room when I was out and occasionally confront me with stuff she found while "cleaning", like some (useless btw) supplements I was taking for better breast development. The latch on my room's door handle broke so that the door never properly closed, and even though she would pay to have anything else in the house fixed right away, that one was always somehow "unfixable".

I get the same uneasy feeling being back there that I do at my father's house. When I moved into my current apartment, I was struggling a bit with living alone for the first time, and she came to visit, but then all she did was talk about how much potential it had and decorate it according to her tastes and put down all the things I picked out, and then berate me for feeling lost and directionless. I've had a couple friends comment that it's weird how close she is to me and how much she expects me to share details of my life. She seems to hate all her friends and lots of other people and is constantly making judgemental comments about other people in public.

Hm, I guess noticing this stuff and saying, "it's not just the way she is, it's wrong" even if that's painful it's necessary to not repeating the behaviour. I did have a mildly verbally abusive ex, who was sort of in a stoned dissociative daze all the time and was probably not intentionally abusive, and sometimes when I quoted put downs back to him he'd say "god that's harsh, sorry" and he also helped point out to me how cruel I was being to myself, and seemed to genuinely care for me on some level, he said to me that I'd be "a terrible mother" and it sort of stuck with me. I'm infertile anyway and never used to want kids, both my parents talk about how much they hate them and how awful and noisy and annoyng they are. But, I don't want to be the sort of person who would be a terrible mother, even in a hypothetical.

Current bf is a self-declared alcoholic who also does mild putdowns and ignoring, had BPD but he got DBT for it. He made me cry the other night with a put-down but I don't think it was on purpose and he said sorry. His flatmate has a sick-type abusive bf who's always round and makes their flat a horrible messy place to be. He has another girlfriend who's sort of his main girlfriend, a lot of the time when I'm over he'll call her about something. I sort of want to break up with him but he has a lot of history with the current group of people I managed to find to hang out with, so it'd be tricky. I just sort of want someone to hold me, I don't know why I can't get that without the fear and abuse, so I guess I must have a PD too that I can't recognise that makes me unappealing to healthy people.

[NarcKiddo]

I also recognised parts of myself in the McBride book. And yes, I might have a PD and so might you. But equally, we might not. We might simply be playing the cards we have been dealt as best we know how and maybe finding out more will make us understand more/do things differently as we grow.

I also realise (now) my mother does not love me in any normal or supportive way and my childhood was very emotionally abusive. I thought my father was an enabler but I now think he might have a PD too. I have yet to explore that with my therapist.

My therapist recommended "The Emotionally Absent Mother" by Jasmin Lee Cori and I am reading it at the moment. It is, according to my therapist, one of the best self-help books for my situation and I think it is very good and very helpful. From what you are posting here you may also find it good.

As for being unappealing to healthy people - have you turned that around and considered why you may not gravitate towards healthy people? It's common for people who grew up with PDs to gravitate towards PDs. This is unconscious but PDs have behaviour patterns we are familiar with and are conditioned to respond to in a way which the PD likes.

[benightedbug]

Sort of get why I resisted internalizing this thought for so long, it's absolutely terrifying. Makes it sort of hard to do anything at all.

Agreed that I gravitate towards other people with PDs, I guess people who are healthy have always seemed sort of scary and hard to relate to. I had to leave another relationship recently because I could feel myself getting slotted into the abuser role where the other person is always caretaking, telling me to eat, telling me constantly how cool and special I am but then occasionally totally undercutting it, gave an immediate declaration of love a month or so in which I reciprocated out of fear and my own people-pleasing instincts, phone calling an hour a day every day, saying I'm the only thing keeping them sane and other love-headlock type behaviour that just ended up making me start to hate and resent them and I had to cut it off before things got worse because I couldn't see any other way things would go, just a big codependency spiral. It makes me sad because I was alone for a while before that, and my current bf is maybe not so great for me either.

It's hard, but I guess I have to get better on my own and be my own friend for a bit before I can start getting involved with people who are also PD/from a PD background. I have a couple of friends, but what really calms me down and soothes me is being physically held by someone I trust, and my friends aren't the kind of people who can do that except on special occasions of extreme visible pain and it's not good for anyone to fake that pain just to get a hug. I guess this is the absence these books are describing. I was doing better for a bit, but then this visit from my dad and my bf getting weird (he just started a new job, and his ex came back into his life, and I don't know why else) has thrown everything out of balance again.

[benightedbug]

NarcKiddo, thank you for the recommendation. I'm reading "The Emotionally Absent Mother" now and find it lines up quite well with what I experienced. Thank you also for the advice about playing the cards that we're dealt. Hopefully I can work through this now and find some kind of peace and carry on with my life. I feel as though the search for a mother has already consumed so much time and energy that I would rather have spent on other things

[benightedbug]

It's weird, more stuff has been making sense. I always thought my mum was protecting me somehow, but she didn't really. She didn't even leave him, he left her. Doing the exercises in the book, I mainly remember her as an absence or as a blank face, or as a facial expression without anything behind the eyes. No wonder on another forum someone called me an orphan like it was the most obvious thing (("ignore her, she's just a traumatized orphan lashing out" was what they said, lol). I think both of them were unmothered as well, my mum grew up without a dad and being forced to work from an early age, and she doesn't seem to love her mother much, and my dad grew up adopted, in another house with an abusive father and an emotionally absent/dissociated mother. It feels like all the attachments i've thrown myself into have been trying to make someone else my "foundation", since I don't have one of my own. It's kind of freeing to be able to see the pattern. I remember staring on "the drama of the gifted child" years ago and not getting too far into it, maybe because it was asking me to break this wall and I was scared