Protecting Myself from Toxic Parents

[CooCoo4CocoaPuffs]

Oooh this is complicated.

I’m permanently no contact with my parents. They’re awful and I finally couldn’t take their shit anymore so I exited stage right. It’s been several years. Not long enough. Wish I had kicked the evil to the curb decades ago.

Anyway, my mother is dumb and lacks self reflection/logic/sensibility and keeps trying to find ways to contact me. I blocked her number so she used someone else’s. I blocked that, too. Soon it will be a milestone (Mother’s Day ewww) and I’m tripping balls, crying, angry etc thinking about what she’s going to do this time. How many phones will she manipulate people into letting her use to harass me? Hmm. I hate that I’m letting her get to me from afar, damn! I’m dysregulated AF.

I’ve gone to great lengths to protect me and mine from them. They can’t actually do shit. I have done a lot of research. Unfortunately for my parents I have Internet skills and I’m probably autistic so I can go on deep dives when I’m researching. I am also very organized.

The beaten, neglected, verbally abused kid/teen inside me is quaking in terror, though.

My little family knows the score. They have my back and I have theirs.

I’m just going to have to dig down deep and find my inherent tenacity and rely on that to get me through this time. Crumbling isn’t an option.


this is for them if they find this post.

 

[Ecdysis]

I've been no contact with 99% of my family for over 20 years. Best decision I ever made.

When I first went no contact, the main perp in my family was having none of it, so there was a ton of boundary crossing - basically stalking, threats, blackmail, etc...

My therapist and I eventually decided to give this person a way of getting in touch (via email) because we realised this person was utterly un-self-aware, utterly unable to respect boundaries, utterly unable to control their behaviour.

So by them being able to "let off steam" and engage in their nutty behaviour via email, it gave them a "channel" for their venting and it meant they refrained from other attempts at getting in touch.

I set up my email so the emails from this person would go straight to a specific folder, and I did not read them. I sometimes gave them to my T to read (without me looking at them) and asked if there were any threats or legal issues that I needed to deal with.

This ended up being a really smart option... The contact via email went on, sporadically for about 6 or 7 years, I'd say and after that, there's been silence... but I assume as this perp ages (nearly 80 now) there may be fresh attempts to get in touch via email.

If so, I'll be doing the same as previously - not reading the email, giving them to my T to give me a summary of anything important I need to deal with, and knowing that this venting-option is my best way of keeping this person safe/ neutral in terms of them not trying to reach out in other ways and constantly trying to push my boundaries, the more I try and "block" them...

Edit to add: I didn't "choose" email as a medium, so much... I blocked my residential and postal address and this person then gravitated to email and I figured out how to "work with that" as described above. My recommendation would be to let the person pick their channel of communication that they're most likely to use and that you're able to "neutralise" relatively easily, without them realising that they're essentially blocked there too...

 

[Movingforward10]

Well done for going no contact and living your life away from them.

Is there a way of shifting the focus?

You are you. You can control what you do. You have autonomy.

If someone contacts you: you block. They have no more power over you than their attempt to contact you.

You can't control what they do. But you can control what you do.

What is the fear of her contacting you? Can you work on that?

Alternatively, if it's harassment level: can you get protective orders to prevent her from contacting you?

How can you reclaim mother's day to take the emotional pain out of it? For me: it's a commercial day and I don't engage or feel value in any commercial day. It's transactional. Rather than about love and parenting. That, for me, takes the emotion out of it.


I've recently blocked my mum, following the death of my father. I unblock her to check in, as I haven't gone no contact , and then block her again. It's all on my terms. Her contacting me feels like an invasion in my life as she brings her shit every time. So blocking all means is great. But she is also someone who won't try too hard to contact me as she can play the victim to others "oh how awful my daughter is in not seeing me" etc etc etc.

 

[arfie]

i went no contact with my parents in 1977. i am the fifth of eleven siblings. i'm not sure my mother had gotten around to noticing i had left the scene when she died in 2017. helicopter parenting was not in her capability range. alas, that parent/child connection is more complicated than physical contact. even orphans who have never known their parents feel that bond and lack of connectivity for life. i often call my own lack of connectivity, "the phantom limb syndrome." for my own health and well-being, i needed to amputate the parental limb, but i continue to feel its presence, even though the limb is long gone.

in my own psychotherapy, we used @Movingforward10 's suggestion of shifting the focus. i cannot regrow the limb. nor can i rid myself of the sense that it **should** be there. with radical acceptance and mindful awareness, i can grieve the loss and get back to my life as it is today. i can take back my personal power.

 

[CooCoo4CocoaPuffs]

I’m appalled that my mother thinks she can just rugsweep all of the terrible things she’s done to me and attempt to guilt trip me (the last voicemail she left using someone else’s phone before I blocked it.)

Usually, I’m pretty apathetic and just save the contact attempt in a folder in the unlikely case I ever need to file for a restraining order.

Anyway, all attempts by her to violate my boundaries have been rebuffed with zero communication from me. I haven’t so much as farted in her general direction since I went NC.

Also, my mother is 100% unreasonable and if I gave her an inch she would take a mile. For years I attempted to enforce my boundaries by hanging up the phone, walking away etc. It never worked.

 

[CooCoo4CocoaPuffs]

Well done for going no contact and living your life away from them.

Is there a way of shifting the focus?

You are you. You can control what you do. You have autonomy.

If someone contacts you: you block. They have no more power over you than their attempt to contact you.

You can't control what they do. But you can control what you do.

What is the fear of her contacting you? Can you work on that?

Alternatively, if it's harassment level: can you get protective orders to prevent her from contacting you?

How can you reclaim mother's day to take the emotional pain out of it? For me: it's a commercial day and I don't engage or feel value in any commercial day. It's transactional. Rather than about love and parenting. That, for me, takes the emotion out of it.


I've recently blocked my mum, following the death of my father. I unblock her to check in, as I haven't gone no contact , and then block her again. It's all on my terms. Her contacting me feels like an invasion in my life as she brings her shit every time. So blocking all means is great. But she is also someone who won't try too hard to contact me as she can play the victim to others "oh how awful my daughter is in not seeing me" etc etc etc.

Yeah for these narcs it’s all about their image for their public personae. They don’t actually CARE. I am going to reclaim M day with my own little family and keep my turmoil to myself. It’s incredibly nice not to have to genuflect at my mother’s altar in yet another fruitless attempt to curry favor. She never will really care.

What’s freaky is I’m MUCH better mentally since I yeeted my jerk parents. :O

 

[CooCoo4CocoaPuffs]

I've been no contact with 99% of my family for over 20 years. Best decision I ever made.

When I first went no contact, the main perp in my family was having none of it, so there was a ton of boundary crossing - basically stalking, threats, blackmail, etc...

My therapist and I eventually decided to give this person a way of getting in touch (via email) because we realised this person was utterly un-self-aware, utterly unable to respect boundaries, utterly unable to control their behaviour.

So by them being able to "let off steam" and engage in their nutty behaviour via email, it gave them a "channel" for their venting and it meant they refrained from other attempts at getting in touch.

I set up my email so the emails from this person would go straight to a specific folder, and I did not read them. I sometimes gave them to my T to read (without me looking at them) and asked if there were any threats or legal issues that I needed to deal with.

This ended up being a really smart option... The contact via email went on, sporadically for about 6 or 7 years, I'd say and after that, there's been silence... but I assume as this perp ages (nearly 80 now) there may be fresh attempts to get in touch via email.

If so, I'll be doing the same as previously - not reading the email, giving them to my T to give me a summary of anything important I need to deal with, and knowing that this venting-option is my best way of keeping this person safe/ neutral in terms of them not trying to reach out in other ways and constantly trying to push my boundaries, the more I try and "block" them...

Edit to add: I didn't "choose" email as a medium, so much... I blocked my residential and postal address and this person then gravitated to email and I figured out how to "work with that" as described above. My recommendation would be to let the person pick their channel of communication that they're most likely to use and that you're able to "neutralise" relatively easily, without them realising that they're essentially blocked there too...

For me, no contact means zero contact. It makes me feel sick to my stomach to communicate in any way shape or fashion with that c**t. The stuff she has done and said are just too much and I’m done. She has learned not to send mail and I’ve blocked her on my email accounts that she knows about. I scrubbed all my social medias, too. Maybe she’ll get the memo finally! Geez.