New and seeking advice on a way forward

[SaintBlackSheep]

Hello, I'm new but I've read so many of these posts and I am so thankful for this spot on the inter webs. I am copying and pasting my post in the Welcome Mat here, hoping to get some more targeted advice. I have added some details to this version of the post.
I am the only child of nMom and eDad. I'm in my 40s with 2 kids and a husband who also has an nMom and Dad--they are seriously the most malignant narcissists I've ever seen! We moved across the country after marrying, and credit that move as the best thing we've ever done. We've been in lots of therapy over the years, both individually and together so we could learn how to be functional married partners, because lort knows we never learned that growing up!
After the therapy, I learned a ton about setting boundaries with my parents, and we enjoyed 15 years or so of relative stability, visiting 2-3 times per year with them. One visit to their house, 1 to ours, and 1 annual vacation together.
My biggest challenge and the reason I came to this forum is that a few years back, my mom had a health crisis that caused reduced oxygen to her brain for a substantial length of time (think Covid, but not) and now she is her worst version of herself! She nearly died, was on a vent for a week or so, and I was unable to visit due to covid restrictions. My dad was also unable to go in with her or visit her at all, and it was terrifying because the only news we would get was a nightly call from the nurse.
When she got off the vent, somehow she got a hold of her cell phone. The meds from being vented make people confused and agitated as they wear off. She is already confused and agitated, so it made it worse. She called me and I felt so happy to finally see her name pop up, only to answer and her her horsely screaming at me a bunch of confused nonsense. She was mad at ME for her situation! Even near death with me 10 hours away, her bad feelings are my fault. :/ So I called the nurse right away to have them check on her. During that call, she must have called my dad and told him who knows what about me, because he called the house on Alexa and my youngest kid answered, who was 6 at the time. My 10 year old was in the room too. My dad proceeded to yell at me for "upsetting her." This sums up our family dynamic perfectly. I told him off briefly, something like "THIS is how you act during a family crisis?!" and hung up. Cue amnesia.
Anyway, since her health crisis, she has regressed back to the pre-boundary days, and worse. Every visit with my parents is a nightmare, and now I'm having heart problems because of it. I do think she has dementia or some other issue due to the oxygen loss. She is brain damaged, even more than normal   
They are in denial about that.
The first time I set all the boundaries, it was a yearlong process, and honestly I did a ton of the emotional labor for her. Still, she'd kick off every visit with some boundary crossing, I'd have to remind her, threaten to end the visit, and then she'd snap back in line. I 100% can't do that work ever again! I'm now middle aged, have my own kids to devote my energy to, and heart and other health problems to take care of, so I can't have those tough conversations with them, and I don't think it would work anyway.
I am in the process of being VVVVVLC with them after a disastrous summer visit to their house. I can never stay there again if I am to preserve my mental and physical health. Neither can my kids, who are 10 and 14 now. Both are excellent kids, very sweet and loving, but they both have ADHD and my oldest has severe anxiety due to having two rare diseases herself. During this visit, my mother would badger them to death then wait for them to tell her to stop, so she could play victim. When my teen asked her to stop asking so many questions and give her time to answer the first one before asking a second one, she blew up, then turned to me with "Aren't the teen years SO DIFFICULT?! Believe me. I knoooooow how difficult teens can be!"
She also is famous for telling people in crisis the worst thing possible, for example, my husband went to visit his malignant narc mom in the nursing home--she is doing terribly and prob doesn't have much time left. He only visits her once or twice a year for less than an hour. This visit was a horrible visit and left him feeling visibly bereft. At dinner that night, my dad asked about MIL, specifically if she can still move around or if she's in a wheelchair. Her mind is gone, but my husband said "oh yea, she can still walk with a walker." My dad said "oh that's good." Cue mom: "Yea, my mom was ambulatory in the nursing home too, until she slipped and fell, hit her head, and had a brain bleed and DIED." I swear my husband, who isn't super demonstrative with his emotions, almost broke down and cried! I said "Mom! That is not helpful or appropriate right now!" and she had another huff of "WELL. I just can't say anything right can I?!" We left dinner and went home the next day. She usually love bombs the girls while we're trying to leave and hands them each an inappropriate amount of cash, but this time, we got the silent treatment and no hugs, definitely no money!

They used to expect calls several times a week, and I've only talked to them twice in the past 6 weeks since we got back from that terrible visit, which I consider a victory, but they persist! Today mom called while she knew I was at work, then left several text messages about trying to reach us, and asked if our teen got her birthday card, which she did, and called to thank her last week. Mom is just grasping for reasons to contact us. The previous texts were weirdly asking for the contact info of our niece on my husband's side, which we did not give. I am trying to go low contact, but I hate the dreadful pit in my stomach I get when I see her name pop up on my phone. I hate that she calls on purpose when she knows I can't answer, and that she'll "try later," so she's looming over my head right now, like, wow I'd like to relax for the evening but now SHE MIGHT CALL BACK. I know this is stupid and futile. I just don't know how to ease these feelings I'm having, and I NEED to be at ease so as not to exacerbate my heart problems.

Has anyone ever had a regression like the one I'm experiencing, where you already had done a lot of the work to figure out how to maintain a safe contact with parents, things were stable for years, and then it all goes out the window?

[lkdrymom]

It is not out the window, you just need to know how to move forward. Visiting 3 times a year stops.  Visit once a year at their place AND YOU GET A HOTEL. How long were the visits?  a week?  Now they are 4-5 days.  Call once a week (or every other week), same time every week.  That is it. You have the power here.  You can dictate the relationship. If you don't like how she is behaving you can end the conversation or visit.  I'm glad you told your father off. Often people let things go and the elder on the other side then thinks their actions/behavior is acceptable.  I think these things are called 'flare ups".  They are trying hard to push back on a boundary.  Just hold steady and let them tire themselves out.

[SaintBlackSheep]

Thank you so much for the response, lkdrymom!
I definitely have no intentions of sleeping there ever again. We have long time friends and family there who know how much trouble I've always had with my parents and who always invite us to stay with them instead, but they just don't have as much space. But the lack of space is much less of a challenge than insane parents! And when we go visit, we will meet them for dinner, or do a short visit and that's it. My FIL is already getting that treatment when we go to that town.
nMom called me a bunch this week when she knew I was at work (during the day--when most people are at work, and I've always had the same schedule so unless she is more demented than I thought, I feel pretty sure she knew I wouldn't be able to answer.) She texted me a ton very sad that we haven't talked, she misses her granddaughters, and then threw a few flying monkeys in for good measure--she had to see the kidney specialist yesterday, and there was a terrible storm on Friday that caused a lot of damage that they have just finished cleaning up. So I texted back that I'd FaceTime them at a specific time, when I got home from my 9 year old's sports practice, and nMom confirmed that was a good time to chat. But of course, they did not answer at that agreed upon time! Then I started preparing dinner and she called in the midst of that, complained the whole time that I was distracted and that my husband and teen were not home (I was not distracted, all I did was stir a pot. Teen and husband were at teen's practice.) I asked about the doctor and the storm, and of course, despite the urgent flying monkeys, "oh, that. Everything is fine. We had a few sticks in the yard." 
Whenever I've put her in time out, when we finally do talk, she is sickeningly sweet, and this time was no exception. She uses this weird voice that's very sing song-y and adds odd suffixes onto words, like she'll call my kid weird made up nicknames like "sweetsie poopsie"and answer every statement with "okiddy dokiddey, honeypoopoo!" and responses that don't match the statement, like my kid will say "I like my teacher" and she'll respond "that's just wizzdilly wondrous!" So when she goes into that mode, it's like really bad acting, as if an alien who had no idea how to actually act loving or interested in our lives, was performing what it thought it should sound like to be loving and interested. My teen visibly cringes and shrinks away when nMom talks to her like this.
My 9 year old was telling them about school--it's been weeks since we talked 
and edad interrupted her to tell us how his friend accidentally threw his keys in the trash! I saw 9's face fall sad, and I said "I can't tell if you interrupted her because you can't hear due to the fact that you refuse to get a hearing aid, or because you're really that self-focused!" nMom pipes up with "No, he ALWAYS does that! He interrupts everyone with the stupidest stuff!" She will throw him under the bus in a heartbeat if she thinks her triangulation will deflect her accountability. I said "It's not just him, you've been doing plenty of things too that make it hard to have a relationship with you, and I'm having heart problems again. This is all really toxic, so I'm disengaging." As soon as I started talking though, she was trying to talk over me with victim-y things and whining. So I ended the chat.

Her thing with the phone tag is new, and I feel like it's an attempt at hoovering, to make sure I feel her impending return call looming over me all evening. So I need to put a stop to that. My life isn't structured enough to allot a specific time for a weekly call, and even though they're accustomed to calls 4-5x a week, I already broke that norm during the past 6 weeks, and I'd really like to do a monthly call, but that feels unattainable for some reason.
More importantly, I NEED to keep them away for Thanksgiving. They used to expect us to load our kids and pets into the car and drive 10 hours to spend every holiday with them, and it felt like moving mountains to put a stop to that. Now, they drive to our town and stay in a hotel during every single holiday lately! I can't cope with that. nMom can't sleep anywhere besides her own fortress of solitude, so she's an overtired grump, and then they show up at the buttcrack of dawn wanting to be let in, even when I say "please come at 10 or noon." She "helps" around my house in intrusive ways that get worse every visit--this past Easter, 2 days before Easter actually, she purposefully waited until we went for a walk outside, and when we returned she said "I hid easter baskets for all of you!" I thought, ok, kinda weird, but maybe she's trying to be nice. Well, she told the kids she hid the baskets in their rooms. Both kids played along even though they're getting on the older end for this kind of activity, they looked high and low before coming out of their rooms frustrated. nMom gave hints, saying to Teen "I hid your's in one of those bins in your closet!" It was her bra and underwear drawer! Teen is a younger teen and very private about things like her lingerie, as a normal person is, so she felt violated as heck. I tried talking to nMom about how that made Teen feel, and nMom would hear none of it. She laughed and actually tried to gaslight us and tell us it was not actually her underwear drawer! As if we'd be like "oh yea, you're right! We don't know the contents of our own home, BUT YOU DO!" 
Then, she told 9 that her basket was hidden in a specific piece of furniture that isn't even in her room! 9 was perhaps the only one among us who wouldn't be mortified by a 75 year old woman snooping through her things, and it wasn't even in her room as nMom had stated. Next up, I go looking for mine. Our bedroom is very minimalistic and literally only has a bed and our dressers. I saw nothing sitting in plain sight, but I found loose candy shoved in my lingerie drawer! WTF! And not bras and underwear, but actual lingerie that a married woman has. I told her to never violate our privacy like that again, and she just giggled at me. This whole time, eDad is just sitting there like a lump. I said "I'm serious. What would you have done if you found our giant dildo collection?!" At that, she finally stopped giggling and was rendered speechless, which was my intent! 
That disaster was their last visit to our home, and I'm not interested in another visit. Teen says to say we're camping for Thanksgiving. A friend and nmom survivor told me to fake an illness, like "sorry! Don't come! We're all sick!" That would stress me out because there'd have to be a premise that they were coming down, only to pull the rug out at the last minute. Even the IDEA of them visiting right now gives me palpitations. What would make me feel better is knowing they're not coming, and knowing they know they're not coming. I don't know how to do that in a way that preserves my sanity.

[NarcKiddo]

I am sorry you are having to deal with this. My mother does the sickly-sweet voice thing, too, and it is horrendous.

My advice to you is to enforce your boundaries but without doing so in a way that gives her a chance to push back.You don't need to JADE (check the forum glossary or toolbox if you are not familiar with this term - I forget exactly where it is). Telling her she is toxic and is disobeying agreed boundaries gives her a chance to argue. Just invoke the consequences. She is rude on the phone - end the call. She is invading privacy - forbid her from the bedrooms. Obviously you have to convey that to her. Or you could just install locks if you are likely to be prepared to have her visit again. Mostly they like to violate boundaries and test you, so the fewer opportunities they are given, the better.

As for Thanksgiving - faking an illness is a last resort and you are right to be very reluctant. It seems easy but it's not very fair on anyone, especially if people are making plans round a premise you have no intention of fulfilling. If you can't stomach simply telling them they can't come for Thanksgiving then by all means use the teen's suggested excuse. In your position I would probably contact them soon, say that you are giving them plenty of notice so they can make other plans. And then brook no argument. Your plans are made and do not include them. End of story.

[moglow]

Joining the don't invite them [or possibly outright lie if you have to] brigade here! But I'd let them know in advance so they don't just show up again. Fact is, normal people don't invite themselves or show up without notice. Yes, even family or for a holiday. Have you considered meeting for a meal somewhere - finite time outside your home where there's no snooping to be done? Possibly make plans that don't include them and then *don't include them*. You can start your own traditions. Talk it over as a family and seeing what the kids might enjoy, maybe that mention of camping is a large hint that's what they'd like to do.

My gut still says your home is your fortress, and you get to let the gates down when you choose. And you get to enforce those walls in whatever way you feel is best.

[Cat of the Canals]

Whenever I've put her in time out, when we finally do talk, she is sickeningly sweet, and this time was no exception. She uses this weird voice that's very sing song-y and adds odd suffixes onto words, like she'll call my kid weird made up nicknames like "sweetsie poopsie"and answer every statement with "okiddy dokiddey, honeypoopoo!" and responses that don't match the statement, like my kid will say "I like my teacher" and she'll respond "that's just wizzdilly wondrous!" So when she goes into that mode, it's like really bad acting, as if an alien who had no idea how to actually act loving or interested in our lives, was performing what it thought it should sound like to be loving and interested. My teen visibly cringes and shrinks away when nMom talks to her like this.

Ugggghhhhh this gave me goosebumps in a bad way because my PDmom does this exact thing, right down to the term "honeypoopoo."

My enDad also has terrible hearing, and she throws him under the bus at every opportunity!

My life isn't structured enough to allot a specific time for a weekly call, and even though they're accustomed to calls 4-5x a week, I already broke that norm during the past 6 weeks, and I'd really like to do a monthly call, but that feels unattainable for some reason.

Once a month is too big a change all at once, then. No big deal. It's OK to take baby steps!

When I first started reducing contact, I was coming off a long stretch of dutifully calling a couple times a week and constantly hearing from every flying monkey how it wasn't enough... though, ironically, calling more often just led to endless stretches of PDmom whining about how she's so BORING and has NOTHING NEW TO TALK ABOUT. Then WHY ARE YOU COMPLAINING TO EVERYONE THAT WE DON'T TALK ENOUGH?!!??!. 

Anyway, I set a few rules for myself. One was tossing out any notion of a "weekly call." Mom always talked to HER mom on Sundays, and I had started doing that, religiously. So that was the first thing out the window. I decided I was available to talk when I have time AND have the mental capacity for it. Otherwise, she could wait.

I stopped running to the phone when she called and started letting it go to voicemail. She would also do this annoying thing where if I didn't respond to her, she'd leave a VM, then email, then send a chat message, then a FB message. I blocked her on some platforms and just started ignoring others. The only reliable way she can get a response to me is by phone.

Do some level of all of this for a month or two, and you'll probably be ready to ramp it up another notch. I went from multiple calls a week to one. When that became comfortable, I stretched it to 10 days. Then two weeks. I am now at a point where we talk once every 3-5 weeks. I also set a 25 minute timer and end the call when the time is up. The funny thing about that is that she's started naturally running out at about 25 minutes and now she's often the one who ends the call.

Re: Thanksgiving. I think your health issues are your golden ticket here. I'd say, "Hey, I'm feeling really run down lately. For my health, I can't host or travel for Thanksgiving." (If you also want to avoid Christmas, make it "the holidays.") Anything she says to try to get around this, become a broken record. "Sorry, but that just won't work." Will she throw a tantrum? Probably. Even easier to stick with your "no." Never reward a child throwing a tantrum. 

[SaintBlackSheep]

Those are all really helpful tips, NarcKiddo, Moglow and Cat! Thank you. I'm not afraid of confrontation, I'm pretty used to it with them, yet I was still really struggling to "picture" a new way of being in relation to them. I guess thats The Fog I keep reading about here. It makes total sense. and your suggestions all really helped.
Regarding health issues, it's so fascinating/frustrating/sad to read how the physical health stuff manifests from the emotional and mental experiences we endure. When I was a teen, I used to have claustrophobia. As a young adult when I first left home, the therapist pointed out the connection between my upbringing and my literal fear of being smothered to death! My husband still refers to my mother as my Smother.