nMom is obsessively texting me

[SaintBlackSheep]

I am trying to reduce contact with my nMom and enDad. Dad won't be a problem because he NEVER calls or texts--he can't hear, won't get a hearing aid (even though my whole life, he made fun of my grandma for being deaf and not getting a hearing aid, said how annoying it is, made fun of all the things she misheard, and said that's why she was so selfish was because she couldn't hear what was going on around her! Now he's doing the same to me and my family, about 15 years EARLIER than grandma did!) But nMom has no life, no hobbies, no friends, no interests. She just sits at home and watches TV, and wants me to FaceTime her every night. I have stepped back from that considerably, and have talked to her 3 times in 7 weeks. 
So in my last post here, I shared a lot, and our last communication was a FaceTime few days ago, in which I told them I was "disengaging" from these constant calls. That was my mistake, I should have just disengaged without telling them. Years of conditioning are hard to undo. BUT now nMom is texting me obsessively. Seeing her name pop up exacerbates my health problems.
I can't mute my phone because I have kids who need to be able to reach me. I don't want to block my parents completely. I don't seem to be able to find a way to mute her texts until I am ready to see them. I'd like to experience her texts like I experience her emails--when I'm good and ready.
I'd like to hear if anyone has been able to do this, or if anyone was able to reduce the frequency of texts from their nParents.

[Cat of the Canals]

You should be able to mute text notifications from a single sender in both iPhone or Android.
iPhone: click mom's Contact name and then "Hide Alerts."
Android: click the three dots at the top of the screen on the conversation, and "Mute Notifications." On some versions you need to pick "Details" and then you can choose "Silent" under Notifications.

[SaintBlackSheep]

Thank you Cat! I just did this and I'm a bit embarrassed by how long it's taken me to figure this neat trick out! I feel my stress level decreasing already. I knew these texts were impacting me which is obv why I wanted them to stop, but I'm kinda blown away by how much better I already feel, just knowing I can go about my Friday night, my ENTIRE WEEKEND, without the constant reminders of how toxic my mother is and the feeling like I had to do something. It feels sort of like that time I quit a highly stressful/toxic job and got to go home without all that stress looming over me! Like a free woman with a new lease on life! Dramatic, but true.

[moglow]

Saint, baby steps!! In addition to the mute conversation/notifications, I also set mommie dearest where all calls go straight to vm. Kills off the impulse answer where I was caught off guard and fell off in a viper pit. Rarely did she ever contact without an agenda, and even more rarely was it anything good. Or positive. Or remotely helpful. 

[SaintBlackSheep]

UGH That didn't last long! I was in the bathroom when nMom called our Alexa and 9 year old answered! nMom "was sooo worried about us!" and was chatting up 9, which is fine (as long as it's fine) but then she kept asking her where I was, and I was tempted to keep hiding like a coward, but I yelled across the house "Can't talk! I'm about to get into the shower!" (Still a coward, I know. I was not in fact showering. ) Knowing how she can go from sickeningly sweet to rotten in one breath, I kept my ear open.
She kept pressing 9 to get Teen, then wanted to know where husband was. WHY? Then 9 said she was about to go to her friend's house so she had to go, and cue drama!
"I SEE YOUR SISTER!" Teen said "We're trying to get out the door! We've got to go!" Which was true. "I thought your mom was in the shower? She's staying home? She can just call me when you all leave." Teen is a total badass, an assertiveness idol for her age lol, and she says "I don't think so. She wants to
 wait until you and Papa settle down for a while before she talks."
THIS is where it gets even weirder: nMom says "Now wait a minute! She can't just go setting the terms for everything here! What about what everyone else wants? 9? NIIIINNNNEEEEE! You still wanna talk to Gwammie, right, Sweetsie Poopsie?"
Teen got mad and said "I'm pretty sure that's how life works, Gram. We ALL get to set the terms of our relationships! Even kids! Gotta go! Love you!" and hangs up. So now Alexa is unplugged and I'm looking up how to screen calls via her. 

[moglow]

Betting you can disconnect her from your Alexa quick sharp. That's intrusive as hell.

And yes, you can set the terms for what goes on in your house with your family any time you want. AND you don't have to explain it. That IS how that works.

Also, you may want to consider the children having a stock answer so they aren't in the middle. "Sorry gram you'll have to talk to mom about that. Did I tell you about the program at school the other day?" But she won't talk to meeeee. "Anyway, the teacher told us ..." Teach them boundaries too.

[SaintBlackSheep]

Moglow, I agree. I realized my husband has to do the Alexa-ing because it's set up through his account. I am sure he will be happy to mute/delete certain callers when he has a minute! My kids picking up on all the weird behaviors of my parents is my #1 motivation to NOT keep going with the status quo where my parents are concerned. I'd gotten so used to the dynamic that I am able to tune out WAY more than I realized, but my kids have thankfully never had to develop that maladaptation, and now they are old enough to pick up on lots of stuff, so I know things need to change. When I turned 13 is when nMom became her worst version of herself, and she was very abusive to me throughout my teen years. Now, both my parents have started making unwanted comments to my teen daughter, and my mom's behavior is really triggering Teen's anxiety. When my mom sees someone having the beginnings of an anxiety attack, she doubles down on her awful behavior. She will never back off of someone having a rough time. She needs to get in there to slurp up all that cortisol that she caused. It's gross.
My husband's parents are 100x worse narcissists. I am sure there's some BPD with his mom, and his dad was inappropriate with one of his older sisters when they were growing up (he is her stepdad, not that that makes it any better.) so our kids have zero relationship with them. So I'd hoped they could have some sort of grandparent relationship with my parents.

While my parents respected our boundaries, my kids were able to have a distant but positive relationship with them for all these years, before Mom's illness and resulting dementia + forgetting every boundary or speck of self-control. Since then, the kids have noticed a big shift in their relationship with their grandparents, and they have negative feelings about it, understandably. I've been honest with my kids about what they've observed about their grandparents. I don't want to gaslight them. But I haven't sorted out my own feelings enough to form a clear plan to share with my kids. I was proud of my teen for saying "That's how life works Gram! We do get to set our own terms!" But I also don't want her to every HAVE to say anything to a narc! I just want to insulate them from their toxic grandparents. I hate that they feel like they have to fight any part of an unwinnable battle, especially on my behalf. It's not Their Stuff. So I'd rather just eliminate all the ways nMom can insert herself into our household from 10 hours away and protect my kids. IDK if that's realistic though.

[Cat of the Canals]

But I also don't want her to every HAVE to say anything to a narc! I just want to insulate them from their toxic grandparents. I hate that they feel like they have to fight any part of an unwinnable battle, especially on my behalf. It's not Their Stuff. So I'd rather just eliminate all the ways nMom can insert herself into our household from 10 hours away and protect my kids. IDK if that's realistic though.

I don't think it's unrealistic, as long as you understand that it's still going to take work on your part. I would expect a big burst of continued attempts at getting a response from you. She's already moved from texting to calling the Alexa. Once you block her there, it'll probably be calling your husband or one of the kids. And on and on until she's threatening to "show up on your doorstep!" (This from my mom when I once didn't respond to her phone call within 12 hours, BECAUSE I WAS ILL.) Or threatening to call the police to do a wellness check. Or manufacturing a health crisis that makes it sound like she's DYYYYYYING and you need to call her immediately!!!

There's a classic Skinner experiment where they set pigeons up with a dispenser of birdseed. The pigeon pecks a button and some food comes out. The bird quickly learns to hit the button whenever it wants food. Eventually the food is taken away, so that when the button is pressed, nothing happens. But the bird has been conditioned to expect the birdseed.

The first thing the pigeon does in response to not receiving the reward is to peck the button again. And again. It will furiously peck the button over and over and over, hoping the birdseed will magically appear.

This is a classic PD trait. You are the food dispenser. The narc resources she gets from your attention (positive or negative) is the birdseed/reward. You have taken that away, and now your mother is furiously pecking at you, trying to figure any way possible to get that reward again.

The good news is that this phenomenon is called "extinction burst." The "burst" is the flurry of activity where the animal peck-peck-pecks in a desperate attempt to get the reward. "Extinction" is when the bird stops pecking, after resigning itself to the fact that the button no longer produces food. And your mother will do the same. If you continue withholding resources, she's bound to go find them elsewhere.

The not-so-great news is that the extinction doesn't usually happen all at once. It is a slow fade. In the case of PDs, the conditioning has probably happened over the course of your entire life. Decades of pecking at you and getting what she wants. So she is going to be very reluctant to give up on those resources completely. It might mean that she'll never truly stop trying to get them back. And if you give in and give her the reward she wants, you're telling her the button works again. Back to pecking. But if you hold firm to your boundaries, the frequency of her attempts should decrease.

Lean into that urge to protect and insulate your kids. Because you're right: they shouldn't have to be the ones to set these boundaries.

[SaintBlackSheep]

Thanks Cat, I am already experiencing that extinction burst--all day yesterday! It was crazy! I woke up feeling like I was getting sick, and I had a fever. 9 was sick last week so I figured it was inevitable and I really needed to rest. I was in bed watching a movie on my laptop, and even though I muted nMom's texts, the notifications still popped up on my laptop. She continued to "accidentally" text Jan, their next-door neighbors adult daughter, who as I mentioned in a different post, my mother always "accidentally" calls my kids-her only grandchildren-by Jan's name. Their town, my old hometown, is having a huge festival this week, and they live right next to the main hub of activity for it. It's always big news there, and we've visited a couple of times with the kids for this event, but considering its 10 hours away right after the kids go back to school, we can't usually attend, and definitely would not attend this year due to my parents' behavior.

Anyway, I was "accidentally" getting all kinds of texts supposedly meant for Jan about how fun the festival is. Then I got several hang up phone calls from my dad's cell, which he literally never uses and has never called me once from, so I think its safe to assume it was mom making those calls. Then I got several "worried" texts, so my husband texted "she's caught 9's cold and has been trying to rest, but her phone keeps going off. If you absolutely NEED something, text me instead, but the rest of us are going hiking and won't have a cell signal." Which wasn't true but he was really just trying to get her to leave me alone. She would not. So I blocked her completely just to get some peace, and then she started texting my husband. He muted her and checked at the end of the night and there were 11 more texts from her! He said they were nothing important and doesn't want me to worry--she thinks there's something wrong with her/my phone because none of her texts are getting through to me. My husband has ADHD and can ignore texts like a pro, so maybe he's better cut out for screening all these flying monkeys than me! 

I am feeling better today but resent that she couldn't even let me rest after she was told I was sick. I hope this extinction burst fizzles out sooner than later, but I know my mom and have my doubts that it'll be remotely easy.

[lkdrymom]

Just want to say I love your Teen.  She knew just what to say and wasn't afraid of repercussions.

[SaintBlackSheep]

I am so proud of her every day. And 9 honestly. Both kids have seen us set boundaries with our insane families (literally insane, not being dramatic here!) their whole lives. They are great at setting boundaries with their peers and sticking up for themselves even to adults. I absolutely HATE that they ever need to do this, but Teen especially is a total rockstar because she has made super tough decisions in her personal life to set boundaries that ended up costing her entire friend group. A friend $exually assaulted another friend, and Teen said "NOPE!" All the friends wanted to forgive and forget, even the victim. These were her lifelong friends. She said no way. They all acted like she was the problem and ostracized her. The principal at her school said she was the problem, because even the victim didn't want to make a fuss! She is confident enough that, although it made her very sad, it did not make her waver in her decision. She doesn't speak to them anymore, and two of them are in serious trouble for other incidents now. She went to the school board with reports of how the principal tried to pressure her into remaining silent, and now the principal is under review. I am so glad she never considered going along with the crowd and is not afraid to speak up when necessary! 

[Cat of the Canals]

That's amazing, SaintBlackSheep. Clearly you're doing something right to raise a kid with boundaries like that.

[Dragonfly]

  I am totally impressed by your daughter as well.