Other Being told have to be play nice and keep in touch with toxic family members is wearing me down

[Luna_Moth]

Last week I had two family members tell me that I had to make up with another member for basically hinting at the fact that I don’t want to talk to them. I denied wanting to wish them a happy birthday, because they deny my trauma existing despite only being part of a fraction of my life.

I am referring to this post I made earlier:
I need to rant about my family and the dynamics that are going on. Also, am I wrong to want to cut off my enabling grandmother?

I just feel like this has caused me to spiral and be unable to incorporate the homework that my new therapist has given me. I did not practice self-care because my body and mind felt overloaded with stress, so I resorted to doomscrolling throughout the days. Severe somatic responses are what have kept me from sleeping well last week.

I think it has caused me unnecessary guilt that I shouldn’t have and now I have to pick up the pieces and start over again.

 

[gorgonzola]

I don't know much, but it does strike me that self-care includes identifying the people in your life who purposely do nothing other than stress you so that you can remove them and the toxicity they visit upon you.

Self-care of course covers much more than that, and you'd need to actually take the step of cutting them off in order to get the stress reduction to happen, but this is an important pillar that you have successfully built the base of.

 

[parrotthepolly]

Many people's family members do that cause people who haven't been through trauma can't imagine the consequences.

Healing isn't linear so you're not starting all over if there were times that you experienced anything better than this episode.

 

[In the weeds]

That sounds very stressful. One family member and I cut off all contact five years ago and it's been so much less stressful not having her in my life.

No one else in the family has told me that we should "make up and play nice". Everyone either took her side or mine and agreed fully with whichever side they took. So I lost a couple family members who took her side. Good riddance.

It would be very stressful to me if anyone told me we should "make up" thankfully. I'm sorry you are going through this.

 

[Movingforward10]

It sounds like them not hearing and believing you is a trigger.

We can't stop people behaving in certain ways but we can work on our triggers and make decisions about the types of relationships we have.
All of which is hard hard work.
It's natural for us to want family members to understand and support us, and it's hard accepting that they won't/can't. And then working on that not impacting us as much. All really hard stuff. But doable. With practice and self care.

For me, realising that this sort of stuff was triggering and what the trigger resulted in for me, really helped. Just building that awareness. And then working on it.

 

[captain jigglypuff]

My dad’s sister has become rather toxic ever since Grandma died. She keeps trying to meddle with my life and criticizing me for everything and won’t listen to me when I tell her that I’m fine and don’t need her advice. She actually made things even worse for me to a certain degree. I actually found the perfect excuse to avoid calling her or answering when she tries to call by claiming that she keeps calling me while I’m at work and I cannot answer my phone. I also pretend that I’ve tried to call her when my dad asks me about it and say that she never picks up the phone. It has been successful for me for the past few years. An example of how toxic she’s become is that she blamed her own mother for how I turned out because she “spoiled [me] too much.” Uh yeah. Of course she did. She’s a grandma. It’s what they do. Everyone knows that. Also it’s disgusting how she bad mouths Grandma for just being a normal grandmother who had a favorite grandchild. No one else holds Grandma babying me against me. My sister and cousins all knew I was the favorite because I was the only grandson but knew she still loved them in her own way. It’s not like she completely ignore them whenever we were all in the same room together. They spoke Taiwanese better than I could and my sister even learned how to make Taiwanese bread.

My advice is just come up with plausible excuses to avoid toxic family members and try to keep you distance as much as you can.

 

[Luna_Moth]

It sounds like them not hearing and believing you is a trigger.

It is very triggering, especially since I’ve been gaslit to oblivion by my own parents. Having my own grandmother take her narcissistic, abusive daughter’s side is a slap in the face. I hope she dies realizing her first grandchild wants nothing to do with her.

I’ve also been having somatic responses and have been having a hard time staying in the present moment.