i am in this never ending guilt about the wall i have drawn with myself and my parents who are 74 and 76, and in good health. i have two teen boys, i've been in a co-dependant relationship (i found out this past year) for my entire life, the youngest girl of two, my sister is three years older, she is dx'd adult onset schizophrenic, in and out of hospital, always, since puberty, a nightmare. parents emotionally ignorant, emotional abuse and neglect reaches 10 out of 10 per T1. some physical abuse, if you call a father slapping a young child across the face a few times over the years...i thought that was normal, T1 called it PA...i dunno normal...stuff in the sexual realm existed, not from parents, from sister, but i had no one to protect me or to go to with that, or any problem.

no real positive childhood memories...tried all my life to be good and make up for my sister being so bad.

anyway, details are just that...details. but am now trying to figure out what is realistic to have relationally with my parents. i want NONE. fear guilt now, and when they die. fear what this is/can do to my kids and don't want to keep them from a relationship...although they are teens and really don't seem to miss them.

hate parents!

idk? they die tomorrow and will i feel guilty? is taking time 'off' to recover ok? is the fact that i don't ever want a relationship with them just an indication that i have not recovered?? am i sinning?? 'honor your father and mother' rings pretty loud at times? (they didn't honor me) idk, 'you reap what you sow'??

i am working on this with T, but just wondering anyone's experience with this, as i have to believe parents are the root of most our issues.

short and sweet is fine, i don't expect you to resolve this, but more interested in y'all's experiences in your own lifes, if you don't mind me asking, as opposed to advice on my deal, as i know that is such a loaded question that it can only be adequately addressed in my own therapy.

I have allot of issues from my parents as well. They were never emotionally available. I totally understand what you're feeling.

I don't think you are "sinning" at all. You need to keep positive relationships, and rid yourselves of toxic ones. I'm not saying you should never speak to them again, but distancing yourself from them is nothing to be ashamed of. This is your journey and you need to do what is in your best interest.
Hope this helps, I'm new here.

I wonder this often myself and have cut down to very minimal contact with my parents (about 6-8 times/year for a few hours including holidays). They live less than a hour from me. They are no less irritating, but much different people than when I grew up, so it makes the relationship they have with my children tolerable. I think that is the most important piece for me - how my kids are/would be affected.

I have completely cut contact with my older brother and have not seen or talked to him in 3 1/2 years. It makes things more difficult between my parents and me, as I am now responsible in their eyes for tearing our family apart. I can live with that.

For me it comes down to having less than a handful of family members that give a hoot about my H, kids, and me, so for the kids' sake, I don't want to cut their grandparents off from them unless it becomes unhealthy.

Do your kids have a positive relationship with your parents - do they gain from it and is it healthy? I think it is also crucial to look at how contact with them affects you. Can you tolerate contact without major disruption? You must take care of yourself, so even if the relationship between your parents and your kids is healthy, if it triggers you too much, then that seems unhealthy for you and for your kids.

As far as the guilt, that is tough. Hopefully you can work through some of that with your T. Sinning? My personal and very strong opinion is NOOOO. You need to take care of yourself first.

Just my opinion, for what it's worth.

quote:

I don't think you are "sinning" at all. You need to keep positive relationships, and rid yourselves of toxic ones.

sunnyshine, response below,

somehow i tend to cling to the negative, toxic, old habit...thanks for putting it into those real terms, sunnyshine, and welcome!!! glad YOU are here!! i am new, too.

I think that is the most important piece for me - how my kids are/would be affected.

yes, seablue, that is 99 percent of it, and yes, i think the kids are safe with them, i know they are, although i would not leave them alone for fear my mom would brainwash them a bit against me, maybe unknowingly, just to cover her ass as to the absense...but that is my only reason to stay...and then wondering if guilt would one day hit with the backhand of regret...

"as I am now responsible in their eyes for tearing our family apart. I can live with that. "

[/QUOTE]yes, i am the bad guy...not credit for the 40+ years of being the good girl and the glue between all disjointed parts, just bad for what i haven't done lately. i guess i need to accept that, and put it under the category of you can't please everyone...

good points, i think right now, the triggers are too high...i tried at Easter, and am somewhat still recovering...kind of opened the door, and they thought, again, problems swept under the rug, no acknowledgement of any wrong doing...i guess the trigger part is going to be my temperature guage. proud you are able, sea blue, to live with that 'label', i may follow your lead!!

I can empathize Jill.

As for me, once I got away from my very very abusive mother, I stayed away. I have a vague notion of where she exists in this world but not many details beyond that.

I try not to talk about my relationship with her to people who have no idea the position I am. I have been judged and literally called an ungrateful brat. Once a lady once asked me what I was doing for mother's day. I simply told her I was estranged from my mom. She got very upset and told me I should be ashamed because it was obvious my mom struggled for me. Man, those things really hurt and make me very wary to share about my childhood pain and abuse when so many people over-emphasize the respect that should somehow magically be granted to biological parents.
I guess what I'm trying to say in a very long-winded way, is that I'm glad you brought up the topic. Sorry to hear though, that this is weighing heavily in your life

I don't plan to resume contact with my mother. I'd like to say I've made my peace with it but I haven't. I've worked on it a bit in therapy and my T knows more about my situation than random ladies who judge me without facts. And my T said that toxic relationships are bad and the one with my mom is very toxic. Even if she changed, there's still too many unresolved issues, emotions, and feelings that I wouldn't be able to emotionally handle being in a relationship with her. And I understand that. I don't ever feel sinful, personally, about not honoring her. But I am thankful to be alive and able to know and have the courage to work through this with therapy.

I don't have kids, but my sis tried to let hers have a relationship with our mom and she just ended up abusing them too. Which showed us that dear mother had not changed at all and had no interest in changing.

It sucks not having parents though. I really want them, good ones that is.

I just imagine I'll go on and keeping trying to work it out, and perhaps one day 20 or 30 years from now, I'll wonder to myself if she's gone. Would I take the time off, yes; I'd take it for me.

My father has actually already passed away, so on father's day, I treat myself to something soothing. A manicure, warm bath, new outfit. I do it for me, to nurture myself when the world seems focused on fathers.

But for now, with my mom, I'm in the process of letting go. And I've been letting go for 12 years...

forlorn, thanks. yes, well meaning people can really mess with your head. i need to keep my business quiet, as i am so sick of hearing about forgiveness. being a mother, i cannot seem to forgive squishing a child's innocent and fragile spirit regardless of your own mental health. call me heartless, i know i am breaking the cycle with my own kids, and there is no excuse to put someone down that you brought into the world. she was just mean, not 'clinical'...shallow, cruel, stupid, selfish, and a real live bitch....but guilt just is how i am strung, and this therapy is helping. i like how you treat yourself on fathers day. that sounds very healthy. toxic is such an appropriate word, i just need to balance it with guilt and see who wins, i know guilt has won for too many of these years!! and welcome here, forlorn, i see you are new. i am too, post alot, but new. welcome here, i hope you find it a comfortable place to be. jill

Find this one too confusing to be able to post much about. My mom has a lot of undiagnosed, untreated mental problems, IMO, but it has been covered up and pretended about for years. I guess I suffered a lot of the fallout from it. My dad wasn't really available to us, or very interested in us. But the line was that we were and are, "deeply loved." It is very hard to overcome that notion for me. Not to take all the blame fro what happened...or so,mething like that. It gets real confusing for me. Sometimes I can see it clearly, other days, I think I'm a wretch for even daring to think my parents weren't perfect or at least, adequate. Hm, ssorry I can't be of more help or insight here, still working on this one with T, in fact, just starting to feel it is ok to talk to him about some stuff. Maybe he'll be able to help me sort out the confusion, make the picture more consistently clear.

BB

wow, dear df and bb. thank you for sharing. bb, my mom, too is undiagnosed, so that does blur the pity, but the isues were real regardless, and as funcitonal as she was in other areas, it just doesn't cover her void with us. df, yes, i wrote a letter, too, and realized speaking the truth, seven single spaced pages of it, would be a major deal. it felt good to send it, they denied the issues, claimed, too, like you,BB,that i was loved, but we know that is not how you treat someome you love. as a child then, or as an adult, now. i must say for you df, your children, your inner children, putting the parents in a box and sealing it sounds so good. i am glad that works out for you, and i pray it helps with your healing, in not having to see them. yes, i know the triggers...all my life when someone would talk about something their mother had taught them, i would feel a twinge. i don't recall any thing healthy my mom ever taught me. anyway, i am still wandering on this, but have, last night, it'll change tho, given myself the whole summer off of seeing them and trying it again, only then, for the sake of my kids.

i am so sorry for all of your journey as a child, and the denial you have as well. sometimes tho, i think i am lucky they are not even now 'doing the right things, apologizing, acknowledging, etc.' as then i would feel i might HAVE to bring them back fully into my life. ((df)) ((bb))

This thread is a tough one. DF and all I can so relate to you. Actually DF are you sure we aren't related? LOL My mother sounds like yours. My dad though, even with all his faults, I still love him. I don't have a relationship with my mom. I tried to be the good girl all my life - did anything she wanted in hopes that she would like me. Nothing ever worked. I too thought that the things that went on in my house were normal. Boy was I shocked when I sat down to a family dinner with one of my friends. I was amazed that they could actually eat together without someone being hit or verbally abused. I think that's when I first noticed that something was wrong in my house. I have alot of bad history behind me with my mother. I have basically no contact with either of my parents now. I try to keep the peace. I do my obligatory phone calls and visits. They are very short and I never tell them anything about my life. They never really cared and that's ok. I will never forgive her for what shed did to my life as a child. When she dies, I will feel sad, because afterall she was my mother, however I think I will be glad that she is gone. I do feel guilty for having those feelings also, I do feel like I am sinning also, but I figure that the majority of my life has been nothing short of horror, and if God holds it against me when I die, so be it. My dad I will miss alot. I miss that I can't really sit and talk to him now because she is always there. He is not without his faults but nothinglike my mom.

I think we grow up and really see what they are like. I know that even though she probably didn't mean for things to turn out this way, they did, it's her fault, and nothing can ever change that.

I hope things get better for all of us.

smiley, you put my words in your beautiful mouth!! so true, i admire how you can have a visual relationship with your mom. i am realizing, in this last t session, that the wall i have put up is too heavy for me to carry. i want to let the wall down, and my dad, while he has his faults, emotional ignorance and blind loyalty to her even at risk to his kids, he, at least fostered some pleasant thoughts.

you sound reasonable in your reply and that gives me some sort of model to follow. still hung on whether i will miss her when she dies, a year ago, i would have really mourned, now? that it is on the table?? idk, i really don't.

and thanks for the hug df!! great responses all! this last session was progress, she really picked up on when i told her how heavy this wall is to carry, that THAT was self love in knowing it's weight and it's toll, and that total departure is the last card you play. that i can use this emotional tax in holding up the wall towards healing and dealing with them from an empowered spot, and the way she talked, in role playing ME to them, wow, if she could get me there, that would be an awesome place to be. so glad i switched t's, it was brutally hard to do, but my hunches told me t1 had nothing left to give. and how right i was!! think we'll make progress here.

As far as the wall coming down Jill, I don't know. I think I have kept the wall as protection for myself, but I've learned how to peak around it and through it without getting caught up in their craziness. It has been a definate relief knowing that I don't have to carry the wall anymore. It's just there for when I need it and I use it alot - but it isn't as heavy.
Sounds like your t has it really going for you!

smiley, i hope she does. that point where you are is where i need to be, keeping that wall is so hard, and they don't obey it anyway, and the guilt when they die, the whole bit. i admire that you have sealed your heart intact, i think that is where i leak, still thinking that maybe one day they will a) acknowledge the wrongs, b)apologize, c) be the bigger person, d) die!!

anyway, all the above is a fantasy, and i am so tired. so thanks for giving me a picture of what it MIGHT look like one day.

i do think my t is a TIGER!! and finally, one on MY SIDE!!

Dear jill, dragonfly, smiley

It's gutting to realize how humans can treat actual flesh and blood people. I don't have the right words to say how much I rate how you touch this in your hearts. I avoided far more trivial stuff for decades and decades.

SB

none ofo it is trivial songbird, even whatever did not go right for you. there is some horrendous stuff out there, but enough of this 'little stuff' when not mixed with some good is enough to deprive a child of their BIRTHRIGHT of love, acceptance, being cherished, all that stuff!! yes, i wonder, as my t said, how humans got to the top of the food chain...my cat took better care of her kittens! amazing. ((sb))