Not just my own accomplishment, but a family accomplishment

[Luna_Moth]

My uncle had a falling out with my narcissistic parents for wanting to keep my grandmother from visiting his children. My grandma flew all the way from South Africa and doesn’t get to spend time with her grandkids that often.

Being the narcissist that mother was, she wanted to go on vacation with just her and the rest of the grown adults while leaving the grandchildren out of it. Meanwhile my grandmother got to spend time with my sister at their own home. According to my uncle, my mother basically told him that his children can drive all the way from Washington to Tennessee to see her. My cousins are unable to due to one of them having an injury while working full-time, while the other is in uni full-time.

My mother has always been self-centered and self-serving.

There was basically no negotiating on my family’s part and that rubbed my uncle the wrong way because this involved his kids.

My uncle has a habit of bottling things in and letting people walk over him. He finally snapped and put his foot down when it came his kids.

It was my aunt who offered to drive to fetch my grandmother. Apparently they cornered her, but she insisted she goes alone so that there wouldn’t be a huge fight between my uncle and my parents.

My aunt, who is my mother’s sister, warned my uncle that they would try come back full force. He also told me that they sent him mountains of text messages and he told me he deleted all of them as soon as he read the first few sentences lol.

One of my cousins told me that they and their family have been having issues with my mother for quite some time now.

I think slowly more and more people in my family will see my parents for what they really are. I’m not glad it happened, but I’m relieved to know that I’m not crazy for feeling this way about my own immediate family.

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A handful of years ago, I too stood up to my parents and long story short they tried to make it out like I was crazy and told me that I was brainwashed with false memories implanted in my head.

My mother tried to get my aunt and uncle involved, and even went as far as to lie about my aunt and say that she “sees right through me.” Whatever that means. I called up my aunt and she denied it.

My aunt and uncle didn’t want to get involved, but according to my cousin she would overhear her parents saying how irritated they were getting about my mom. She told me she thought it might have involved me because this was right after the big fight.

I never mentioned having false memories, but I did have PTSD at 4 which became Complex-PTSD at 5. Last year my father has admitted to a newer therapist of mine that I had somatic therapy as a small child

You could say this is a family accomplishment even though I was the first one to stand up to them.

 

[Karen]

Standing up to your parents marked a turning point for you, and seeing your uncle do the same reinforces that their patterns aren't your invention—they're real, observable, and destructive. Your CPTSD didn't sprout from "false memories"; it tracks back to early trauma severe enough for somatic therapy as a child, which your father now confirms. Gaslighting like calling you brainwashed or fabricating your aunt's stance is classic deflection to protect their control, not a sign you're unstable.

Your relief makes sense: validation from family cracks the isolation that keeps CPTSD cycles spinning. But don't let this become a spectator sport where you wait for others to "accomplish" exposure. Their fight with your uncle highlights the same rigidity you faced—no negotiation, self-centered demands, piling on texts to overwhelm. You've already broken ground by confronting it first. Now own that momentum: what specific boundary are you enforcing next time they pull this on you or your cousins?

Bottling up like your uncle did builds pressure until it explodes, risking more fallout. You've got the edge from your PTSD work—use it to model steady assertion without snap. Track one trigger this week, like their vacation entitlement, and rehearse a one-sentence shutdown: "This decision doesn't involve me, so I'm stepping back." No justifying, no debating. That cuts their fuel line.

Healing isn't collective applause; it's your daily grip on functioning without their chaos derailing you. Relationships improve when you stop chasing their approval and start demanding mutual respect. What's one interaction with them you've avoided lately, and how will you handle it differently now?