I'm the same as steve on this one.

My mother lives on the other side of town and I have only seen her twice in the past twelve years. One was at Christmas 2006, the other about 6 months later at her invitation (via my sister, she didn't actually contact me personally) when she wanted to host a small family birthday celebration.

That was after eight years of absolutely no contact whatsoever (none initiated by me, anyway) after 30+ years of trying to deal with her toxic behavior. Google "Narcissistic Personality Disorder" and you'll have some idea of what I and many others put up with all those years.

When my father died in 1998, I realized that the last thing I desired in life (contact with him) that required any contact with her was no longer a factor. My sister, who was suffering far more from her behavior at that time than I feel I was, tried to keep up contact on a somewhat regular basis over the years, mostly out of sincere concern for her but also partly because deep down she really believed that if she could somehow "prove" how worthy she was, she'd finally get the love and approval that someone like our mother is completely incapable of giving anyone. It didn't happen. It took a health crisis, some of which was brought on by the stress of the situation, to make her reassess her priorities and realize that she was wasting her time trying to earn something that would never be forthcoming. (And indeed, the harder she tried to earn it, the harder she got kicked in the teeth for her efforts.)

Then after a while our mother seemed to ease up a little - I never really believed she would change, but thought that some kind of infrequent contact might be possible provided no major event or conflict brought out the more destructive aspects of her... disorder, or whatever you want to call it. I knew the reasons for it, or at least suspected them, and they were about as self-centered as everything else she does... but I thought it was worth a try just to mend the fences to some degree. And after all that time, I was more confident in my ability to protect my boundaries if and when necessary. Thus I went with my sister to see her that one Christmas, and again the following summer.

But the attempted reconciliation didn't pan out... the last time my sister saw mom was about a year ago, I think. She hadn't heard from her in a while and stopped by to see how she was. Mom went off on her when she was barely in the door, screaming and yelling all kinds of accusations - all of which were utterly ridiculous - and finally throwing her out of the house. My sister hasn't been back since, and I certainly won't be checking in any time soon either. That's just the way it is.

Of course I'm not saying your situation is anywhere near as drastic or that your parents are anywhere near as toxic as my mother is - but what I am saying is that sometimes blood relationships aren't enough of a reason to be "close" to people, or to be around them at all if their behavior is so toxic as to become intolerable. We connect with some people and with others we don't - and with some people we just can't have healthy, happy, close relationships - and it's no different with family members.

My sister and I took a lot of crap from some people because "OMG but she's your mother how could you just cut her off?" Well, here's the thing - if I knew someone in any other context and they behaved that badly, treated me that badly, treated people I care about that badly - I would not have that person in my life insofar as I had any control over it, not once I'd determined that the person was perfectly content to continue behaving like that despite every attempt to make them understand how hurtful it was and what the consequences would be if it continued. I would cut that person off in a heartbeat.

My mother got away with it for almost four decades, during most of which I was an adult and, in theory at least, had the freedom to wash my hands of it and walk away.

Do I regret that we will never have the close, loving, caring relationship that all the Hallmark cards say a parent and child should have? Yes.

Do I regret that I finally washed my hands of what the relationship actually was and walked away? No, no, a thousand times, NO.

At first I was really embarrassed to talk about the whole situation with anyone who wasn't already involved in it. But because it finally came to a boil when my father died, and was part of a lot of bad family stuff that went down at that time, it became impossible to keep it private. When your coworkers attend your father's funeral and realize that part of your own family is not speaking to you, it's not private anymore, lol.

What I found out at that time, though, is that the fantasy that everyone else you know has wonderful family relationships with no problems, no conflicts, no longstanding grudges, no toxic behavior that gets in the way of things... it's just that, a fantasy. In the weeks after my father died other people I knew shared with me things they'd been through and let me know they understood just how bad things could get, and that walking away from it to save one's own sanity and wellbeing was a perfectly valid choice.

I guess my point is, no matter what kind of relationship you end up having with your parents, it's never going to conform to everyone else's ideal of how that relationship is supposed to be. If it's not "close enough," some people will judge you for it. But other people will understand because they've been there, and know what it's like. In the end, you're the one who has to decide what's healthy for you and what's not.

What Frau said...

Like I half quoted from a favorite song of mine in my first post here:

I have a great relationship with my parents, I rarely see my father and as long as we dont spend more than 4 days together we dont try to kill eachother, its not that we dont love eachother, we are just two completely different personalities that for some reason or another grate on eachothers nerves with prolongued exposure. With my mother things are better, I still live with here for purely economic reasons, a year of unemployment tends to drain one, but we ararely see eachother since I usually work nights and she works regular hours. When I go to work she isnt home yet and when I get back she has headed off to work.

As to the OP's problem, try to calmly talk it out with your parents, if that is impossible try to talk it out with one parrent at the time beforehand. If you feel you acted rashly, man up and appologize. And at all costs, if things start going wrong with the supposed discussion, don't lash out again but rather politely excuse yourself and bugger off.

Be happy you still have both of your parents.

I am, as I said I appreaciate both of my parents.

Relationships of all kinds require work. You have to know what you want and accept that sometimes you won't be able to get it. All you can do is decide what you want and then work to achieve it. If you don't get what you want from the relationship then end it or make it less frequent. Whatever works for you.

Thank you as well for spending so much thought on this with me. Your relationship with your parents actually sounds extremely similar to my own. The word "toxic" applies very well. I've been emotionally, psychologically, and physically abused by them, so I understand why I have such a hard time dealing with being around them. It just depresses me that there are people out there who can make me feel so low and irrational. I suppose it isn't my fault though.

The only things that are "your fault" as an adult are your own words and actions - and I will tell you that part of the reason I chose to distance myself from my mother when I did was that, at the time, I was not able to interact with her in a way that preserved my "structural integrity" as an independent adult unwilling to tolerate her abuse without it becoming an extremely hurtful situation all around. Everything became a confrontation, everything became an argument, every little disagreement became a Huge Freaking Deal and I was as incapable of not getting caught up in that as she was of not provoking it. Everybody got hurt by it, including her.

I mean, as awful as she can be to deal with, she is still capable of being hurt even if how she gets that way seems completely perverse to someone who isn't looking at it from her perspective. As much as I could not be around her without being hurt myself, so it was that I could not be around her without it hurting her as well - if only because what she needed to be happy and satisfied was for everyone to continue tolerating her behavior without complaint, and I was no longer willing to do that.

So to me it was better not to be around her at all than continue a relationship that was not going to be bringing any joy to anyone in it. Now I've gotten used to the idea that I really am in control of my own life and she can't do anything about it - I might be able to ignore or deflect things that once would've started a fight. The point is, whatever power she had to push my buttons like she did, it's pretty much gone, because for the past 12 years I've not been engaged in a daily battle of wills over every single aspect of my life and identity. Getting there took a lot of time and distance.

Anyway - one of the reasons I am willing to share stuff like this is that one of the worst things that can happen to someone in a difficult or toxic situation is to feel like nobody will ever understand how they feel, or that there must be something wrong with them because they can't just grin and bear it. I have been there and I know now that it's not true, that if you finally just give up trying to maintain the facade (and lord that is so tiring) and say "this is how it is, and it sucks," sooner or later you will find out that other people have dealt with similar things and survived to tell the tale.

Beyond finding random support on the interwebs, though, if there has been abuse in your situation I would urge you to look around where you are and see if there are support groups locally that you can get involved in. I think you mentioned you are in college, well, look into whether or not there are student counseling services available there. Find someone you can talk to even if it's just to get things off your chest once in a while. It doesn't mean you have to go have a lie-down on some shrink's couch for an hour three days a week - just being able to talk openly about these things with an objective, non-judgmental person once in a while can make all the difference in the world.

----

Good advice from someone who has been there ... how can it get better than that. "Hello Love" (old Hank Snow song)

Anger is really just a spirit that you create, don't let it take you over. Haven't you noticed that when one person gets angry and starts shouting another one will join in, especially if it's the one your yelling at. :salute:

Now all about my mom, well never mind it's a long story, but the best thing I did was join the US Navy and got the heck out of that situation of being raised in honky tonks of Fort Worth, Waco and Houston.

It took nine years before I came back home with a wife and two children to live a half way decent life in La Port, Texas.

Again the story is way too long and only properly discerned long after the events these memories have had a transformation (Spock stuff) to realize what was really happening in those days.

Here's a seed thought: ancestor spirits, controlling spirits are causing the problems, anger, false accusations, lies, back stabbing, jealousy, ingratitude, bad dreams etc, etc are the fruit of these bad boys that aim to possess you and hold onto you with some kind of legal spirit realm hoky poky talk.

Just be yourselves ...

We are born, we live and we die there is no mystery in that.

Vito Dumas single handed circumnavigation of the world on a small 30' sailboat (twice back to back in the 1940"s)

said it best,

"Lucky are those that escape the dreariness of everyday life"

"How many reach the end without ever having lived"