No Contact Support Thread

[Deleted member 1860]

I'm struggling with having gone "No Contact" aka NC with my mother. I know it is what's best, but that doesn't make it easy by any stretch of the imagination. I know that others have gone NC as well, so I thought it would be good for us to have a place to support one another where we can post if we need to talk about our struggles.


So here's what I'm currently dealing with....

My lifelong very atheist mother forcing her way into my safe place church. Yes, the most UN-safe person trying to take away one of the few SAFE places I have. There's a lot more to this, but I've gone into it all in other threads so won't get into the details again as its a long story. I am fighting my way back and trying to find a renewed sense of spirituality, but I feel that it is a buried "emotion" (for lack of a better term) that won't emerge until it is safe again as I can't take another assault on my belief system at this time.

Last time I broke NC after six months, I had the worst self-injuring episode of my life, the only one that sent me to the ER. I don't blame others for my injuring, but at the same time, when someone can push me over the edge like that, it tells me this person is not a good person to have in my life.

The lifelong struggle for approval which I will never get from her.... She will never approve of me or anything that I do. I am working toward a new degree and won't tell her about it because she's already voiced her opinion about it (in the past) and said a lot of negative things about it. Her side of the family is not wealthy, but well off enough as to throw $$$ around as a sign of approval. Everyone else got $$$ for earning their degrees and getting married. Guess who got none? Yeah, the granddaughter who was by all accounts struggling more than the rest (by far). Yep, sends the message that you only get approval if you do what they want you to do, they don't care if you are really struggling in life. That whole side of the family sickens me and I want nothing to do with any of them. I don't care about the money, it would have been nice to have not been treated like an outcast. To add insult to injury, I'm the one my mother turns to for help with my grandfather's estate (yeah, the one who never approved of me). As if...

There's more, much more. I just needed to get this out and in the process, hopefully others will be able to post about their struggles with going NC. I know that for me, when I waiver, if I can see the reasons in front of me for going NC, I can resist the urge to reconnect. Yes, I am struggling, but at the same time I feel a LOT calmer. I'm not having nearly as many reactionary episodes.

 

[Kintsugi]

I went NC with my mother for eight months. Fortunately, she is not my abuser (but the mother of my abuser), and she actually came back to the table a more supportive, healthy figure in my life. I got very lucky. She started seeing a T and doing some more self-care. She has a long way to go, but I have no further plans to go NC with her.

I am NC with my abuser again. It went in and out for a few years. Now it's NC forever as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Casey_03]

I say do whatever you have to do to preserve the break in contact and your own sense of security, and if that means finding another church or being harsh with your mother, do it. Put that goal in front of you, know that it's for the best, and focus on that. And don't feel bad about it or beat yourself up for having to go to such lengths; ultimately, it's probably better for your mother as well, because she apparently needs to do some thinking about her relationship with you and how she's treated you. In my experience, cutting off contact with people who've hurt me or looked the other way when I was getting hurt has always helped me to forgive them, or at least to stop viewing their actions as malicious and start seeing them for what they were -- some personal weakness or flaw. In the end, NC can provide healing all around, and you should focus on that as much as you can, that and the calmness which the break will bring you.

 

[Recovery4Me]

Total NC is hard to maintain and often puts strain on other family members on how to navigate the new boundaries but it is a needed decision at times. Always good to have a therapist voting in that direction as well to secure the base line insofar as deferment until it solidifies into a living style "owned" by a clear decision making self.

I was reluctant to go in that direction and unfortunately it caused undue suffering had I decided quicker. Once established however, I had a sudden impact realization of how often I had been involved in a very slippery slope...known as my Mom.

For over 20 years or so...I only encountered her once during a family marriage. I had enough therapy and time under my belt that the dance initiated by her manipulation was transparent. I kissed her on the cheek, may have told her I loved her and walked away in a daze over the enormity of toxic feel.

Honoring my mother to me is not the same as throwing myself into danger. I admire quite honestly the beauty of the Lion Fish yet I have the common sense to not wade in the tank. There are times where I pray for her to have peace, love, fulfillment in contemplative prayer. I do not however, pray for a past I can not change nor for her to be someone else that fits my need sets. It is too late for that.

I have found forgiveness for her and the life she chose: I have found forgiveness for me in choosing my sanity & how that meant- I had to let go of that illusion of what 'might' be found in my Mother's offering of love, while accepting the reality of what her love was not.

Peace be with you in your journey to heal and your decisions in your path.

 

[user27357]

When the time that I had to break contact came, I knew it in the deepest fibers of my mind and body. I t was time and there was no doubt.

My biggest regrets in life concern the times I should have but didn't break contact.

My wife also broke contact with her mother and she also had no real choice as she was a physical abuser to our daughter. Allowing contact before her 18th birthday could have resulted in Child services knocking on our door and wanting to take her from us for allowing a dangerous situation to exist.

Even with such a clear need for no contact, my wife suffers guilt and sees a counselor over it now, her mother having died recently and her brother choosing to enforce no contact with us over what he sees as a lack of forgiveness.

It can be tough. I think we are hard-wired to seek approval from our parents and it is tough to get those thoughts of not measuring up out of our heads. No one wants to get exiled from any group, especially our families, especially our parents. Even when it has to be done, when no other possible outcomes are possible, when a failure to do so could lead to a bad situation legally, when continued contact will cause us monetary loss or the loss of a job or an important contact or just cause us personal misery, even under these extreme conditions it is difficult to rationalise and the feelings of having failed will ride around with you for awhile, maybe forever.

I have to wonder if actual physical harm and threat of more physical abuse could be the line that once crossed allows some of us to break contact with absolutely no regrets and no self-blame. Not all of the abused but some.

My parents crossed that line but I was too young to realise what it was and it was the sixties and early seventies, lots of us, especially my peers that were suffering having religious parents were being beaten pretty regularly and it seemed pretty normal. Looking back, it was pretty messed up. I remember seeing female 6th graders being spanked by a male teacher in front of the entire class in 1973, and not thinking anything more about it than "I am glad it wasn't me". If I heard about the same thing happening today I would be dialing 911, calling the local news, and driving to the bastards house hoping I got there first, all at the same time.

I should have broke contact at 14, when I left home. I regret not doing it then and blame myself for every lousy thing they did to me and my family since.

If the time is right, make the cut. I will support you as much as I can from here on my end.

Great thread.

 

[Friday]

The two hardest groups of people I cut off are
- People I like / love and want to be in contact with but shouldn't be
- People I'm angry with and want to fight & or prove something.

I start arguments with them in my mind, I see something beautiful and want to share, I see their profile in a crowd (not them), I run smack dab into their real self (whoops) and need to turn heel, I come up with the perfect explanation that even they couldn't be so dense as not to understand, I achieve something, I'm hurting, I really... Really... Really want a target, I'm sick & forget they're dead to me. Ad naseam. All kinds of emotional responses I have linked to them in my mind.

Essentially, both groups seriously rent a lot of space in my head for the first few months. Sometimes longer... As in years. Especially if they go out of their way to remind me they're still alive. Vexing.

One thing that helps is putting a reasonable (to me) time limit for their banishment. 1 year, say. I'll revisit their expulsion from the human race in a year, and decide whether to parole them, or no... They can stay as far away from me as humanly possible for another _______ (6mo., 1, 2, 5 years). That way, because I've put a limit on, it doesn't matter all the lovely arguments I come up with. Anyone worth arguing with now is worth arguing with a year from now. Save it, breathe, revisit the topic in a year. Most of the time? By the time a year has gone by I have no idea why I was so keen 9 months earlier to argue with an idiot, or share something beautiful with someone who'd mock it. Nope. Not gonna do it. Breathing space. Ahhhhh.

 

[Recovery4Me]

@FridayJones ...remind me never to challenge your Latin.;)

 

[Friday]

@Recovery4Me Semper ubi Su ubi!!! :D rofl... that's bad Latin, too... But 'Don't let the bastards grind you down' is a WWII bastardization. Case endings? Declination? Nooooooooooooooooo. Run, run for the hills!

Nah. I only cut people outta my life for things that are capital crimes in reasonable parts of the world (my exMIL sells children to pedophiles for example), or that are way too alluring for my resolve not to participate in. With both feet. Or to stick with zeh Latin: It is easier to exclude harmful passions than to rule them, and to deny them admittance than to control them after they have been admitted. - Seneca

I usually fall on the mastering myself side of that quote, but it's just sense to use an easy button from time to time. Exclude it is!

 

[Philippa]

I'm lucky in that I have had support groups like this thread for the last year or two, throughout the entire time I've been no contact with my parents and brothers, so for me, the need for support here is less so than for you solara, or anyone just fresh to the experience. It is still nice to stumble across a thread like this though and feel like I can contribute in some way.

I understand how difficult it can be despite it feeling both wrong and right at the same time. I still do struggle with guilt and the feeling of failure, despite having received empathic support telling me I can let go of guilt and that I haven't really failed. It is hard to still not feel these things, so I just allow whatever feelings surface to pass through me, so as to move past them. I hope you are able to do the same.

It is still a battle to not turn around and decide to drop them a line, and even today I was wanting to contact my mother. In truth I have been considering it most of this last week...but I'm stubborn as well and so I haven't. Intellectually, I realise that they will never change...least of all for me. I also realise that they don't really have my best interests at heart. I have worked out that in the scheme of things it is a waste of my time and resources to even try with them anymore...but I still want to. The hardest part, for me, has been the minimising and second guessing of my decision as well as all the things they did that lead me to make this impossible decision in the first place. I talk myself out of it and then have to talk myself back into my reasons being valid again. It's exhausting.

The last 2-3 weeks there has been some "progress", as I received a message from my middle brother saying he misses having his sister and wants to resolve things. After much consideration I decided to give him a chance (on the prompting of a new woman who has been supportive of me on social media). So far, he has been respectful and even thoughtful in his reply. People grow eventually, and though I am not convinced he is really any different, as he claims he has had some "profound changes" in his life the last 2 years, I do believe that going no contact gives everyone a break and I sense that my mother has reflected on her own behaviour and knows where she may have gone wrong. At least, that is what my intuition tells me and I would like to believe. Whether that is the reality or not remains to be seen.

My understanding of going no contact was and is that it gives space for the people who have hurt me to look at themselves and really check in with their own behaviour, and whilst I think my provider will always be in denial, and he feels dead to me by now...and has for the 2 years since I told him we were done, I think it has impacted the others in an ultimately positive way. How can I know for sure though unless I get in contact with them again to find out? I can't. This is what I am dealing with now.

Peace is something that descends upon me occasionally, and I can go for days without thinking of any of them. Then it's back to churning over things again and again and getting all wound up about the past. I feel that I have started to really let it all go, and I am in the process of forgiving them only now. I have given myself time to rage and be in a place of unforgiveness, which I felt was authentic and necessary for me to heal, regardless of what they wanted or needed for me to sweep it all under the rug with all the rest of their stuff they don't want to look at...but I refuse to do that. That is what allows abuse and bad behaviour to go unaccounted for and I am not about that.

Remembering that focussing on meeting my own needs, rather than theirs is the challenge that I constantly need to check in with myself to make sure I don't slip back into feeling like I have to take care of their needs first...as both my parents had managed to change the family dynamic around so that I was in the role of being parent to them, instead of them meeting my needs when I really needed them.

So, yeah...I know where you are at with this and I wish I could say it all goes away. It does get easier to cope with, after a long while. The last 6 months have been much easier for me to cope. The emotional pain of the break affected me most in the first year and that was on a daily basis where I thought it would never get better. That's about the best I can offer in a realistic way.

 

[Deleted member 1860]

Thank you for all of your replies.

I'm to the point where I notice that I'm not constantly being upset or triggered. Its nice to "flatline"! Of course I still have my moments where I think I can reconnect, but I remember all the horrible things my mom has done for me. And then I realize how much more optimistic I am about my future, finishing school, having a partner....and I know its all worth it.

As for the awkward situations created by my NC.....my brother and sister are my only two concerns, and they know how crazy my mom makes me. The family is already fractured, so I'm not really creating a lot of bad situations here. My brother can barely stand my mom at times, and the same goes with my sister. Both of them tend to stay out of it all, and we don't pressure each other to have connections with anyone else. It was hell for all three siblings. I don't care if I never see anyone on my mom's side of the family again.

I am really loving this feeling of calm. I am not reacting as much to other things in my life, which is good for all of my other relationships. Now that the triggering is gone, I can really work on my issues. Before it was all a matter of constantly putting out fires, so I didn't have the time or energy to really work on therapy type things. This is nice.

 

[Powder]

I'm no contact with the toxic family. This was entirely needed for me to become more in line with who I am, which is strong and loving and sensitive to the needs of others. Since I went no contact, my ability to see who I am, how I truly feel, and to assist other people in non-superficial ways has deepened.

It'll be 4 years no contact for me this March. I had one talk in person and one phone call to my mother to share or ask for specific information. Like @Recovery4Me, I could feel the poison of both of these for weeks after. So this shows me how right I was to go no contact.

The less of my energy is used up in self-defense, the more I can use in self-repair.

Similar to @Solara I come from a long line of narcissistic people who used money and "gifts of royal approval" in lieu of actual love to reinforce the legacy of narcissism and their approved values, gracing their favorites who made them look good with rewards and scapegoating and punishing those who do not act how they want until they "Shape Up!" They value: physical beauty, deception, wealth, power, control, total lack of empathy (which is seen as a weakness) and the ability to be whatever they want . They like to pretend to care and be very generous when anyone they want to impress is watching. They make sure to let you know, after you get a gold star, that you are insignificant in the galaxy of stars competing for their royal attention. No matter how many kindness visited upon me, the upshot was always to devalue me further and curse me to being less than human. In fact, I needed to be broken. I think they wanted to deform me to make me fit with them. I never could.

After studying narcissism and borderline personality, I see my mom was raised by a narc mother, and mom was borderline. She developed into a full narc with my malignant narc father. They have really done a number on each other, and their kids, as neither worked on their childhood wounding issues or the root. My father severely abused us, and my mother shamed us when we reported. We were totally unsafe, but the whole family passed as upstanding to the world they created to show it off in. They only allow people who appear to be unable to see past their disorder around them. They stay away from people healthy enough to see them as narcs.

I'm often worried that I still have what they call "fleas" from being raised by narcs. So I have worked to find areas where I didn't develop good boundaries, respect for others' boundaries or feelings, and self-awareness or assertiveness. Within all my many issues, one of my greatest concerns is that I still have some behaviors that resemble my parents and abusers. This is distressing. Like Solara, I have tended to almost self harm or self harm when these surface. But I'm seeing less and less as this is starting to lose its hold on me.

Any narc I run into is hugely triggering to me. At work, there are always borderlines and narcs, so I'm wary.

 

[Ladyghosthunter]

Besides Latin this is what I tell my family:
Vade Retro Satana, Ipse Venena Bibas.

(Get behind me Satan, drink your own poison.)
It speaks volumes...