When Parents Are Too Toxic to Tolerate

[no_hypocrisy]

You can divorce an abusive spouse. You can call it quits if your lover mistreats you. But what can you do if the source of your misery is your own parent?

-snip-

A patient of mine, a lovely woman in her 60s whom I treated for depression, recently asked my advice about how to deal with her aging mother.

“She’s always been extremely abusive of me and my siblings,” she said, as I recall. “Once, on my birthday, she left me a message wishing that I get a disease. Can you believe it?”

Over the years, she had tried to have a relationship with her mother, but the encounters were always painful and upsetting; her mother remained harshly critical and demeaning.

Whether her mother was mentally ill, just plain mean or both was unclear, but there was no question that my patient had decided long ago that the only way to deal with her mother was to avoid her at all costs.

Now that her mother was approaching death, she was torn about yet another effort at reconciliation. “I feel I should try,” my patient told me, “but I know she’ll be awful to me.”

Should she visit and perhaps forgive her mother, or protect herself and live with a sense of guilt, however unjustified?

-more-

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/health/20mind.html?ref=health

[arcadian]

1. Humans in the future should be raised by goats.

Genetically altered super intelligent goats, but goats none-the-less.

[vadawg]

2. rofl, now that explains a lot of questions ive had about you

and why we never agree i was raised by hedgehogs and you by goats...

[arcadian]

5. I don't know if we agree or not.

I tend to post viscerally, which is always bad, usually while I'm typing a post my hands are flailing around in the air, steam is coming out of my nostrils and hair is standing on end. :D

[vadawg]

8. lol i dont take anything on here to personally, i just figure we all have dumb opinions when others

them due to different upbringings and experiences, so i take no offence, though i kinda get lost sometimes as im posting at work and shit is always going on, either fights, or medical emergencies or other baby momma karma drama of some sort...

[liberalhistorian]

9. LOL!

nt

[Cleita]

16. I guess if it was good enough for the god Zeus, why not?

:rofl:

Now there was a toxic parent, Zeus's father the Titan, a father who ate his children. I wonder if the ancients had some sort of metaphor in mind there.

[Heddi]

3. I've kind of done this with my family

My mother knew her boyfriend was molesting me when I was younger, and still allowed him to live with us.

She never asked for forgiveness....I think she felt that because I wasn't pregnant at 16, or a dropout, or a prostitute, or dead, that she did "okay" in the long run. Even more "okay" because I'm a smart happy adult who has traveled the world, has found the love of her live, and has a wonderful job as an Emergency Room RN. So she must not have been THAT bad of a parent if I turned out this well.

I still tried to forge ahead...she's my only parent and I'm her only child.

However, in the last few years she has become manipulative and so has my grandmother. Between the two of them, I can never tell who's lying or who's telling the truth. And when they lie, it's for no purpose. It's just to lie.

I got sick of being seen as nothing but a walking cash register. I got tired of the "When are you gonna take care of ME" questions when I'd mention an upcoming vacation, or a new semester of school. The only thing they can think about is $$ and how because *I* have it (because I worked hard, earned a degree, and have a great job), that they're partial to part of it.

My husband and I visited them for the first time in 5 years over the summer. That was late July or August, and I haven't heard from them since. No emails, no phone calls. They were pissed off that I didn't drop some cash while I was there. Fuck that.

I'm done with it. I'm tired of being in the middle of two compulsive liars with toxic lives and attitudes.

This article hits home. Now I don't feel like a complete asshole for cutting them out of my life.

[Ganja Ninja]

10. I had to cut my parents out of my life too.

When you reach adulthood and you feel you have to force yourself to go visit them you know there's a problem. The best advice I can give someone who's thinking of doing this is not to blame yourself. Being someone's child does not have to be a life sentence.

[Dorian Gray]

21. Heddi

I'm so sorry that you've dealt with such a toxic relationship with both your mother and your grandmother. I commend you for breaking the dysfunctional cycle. Kudos to you.

And there is nothing wrong with self-preservation. You can forgive your mom, but you don't have to have a relationship with her. Ever. Not if she doesn't respect you.

[ieoeja]

24. Sounds like a gal I knew.

Growing up she was molested by her own father. Then by her brothers.

While she had no college degree, she did end up getting the work experience equivalent in IT. I saw some of her work and talked her into moving on and up in her career.

As the only member of her family not chronicly unemployed, the others were always hitting her up for money. While telling her how worthless she was.

Finally, her parents started using her social security number -- you know, they one they would have obtained for her as a child in the first place -- to open up credit cards, etc.

That's when she concluded she had no choice. The family had to go. Got a new social security number, moved out of state, told none of them where she was going, hasn't spoken to them in a decade, and has been pretty happy ever since.

[Lerkfish]

4. It was hard, but I was glad I got up the courage and confronted my dad

when I was about 35.
He was doing his usual constant trashing of his kids, to make himself feel better, and I had decided ahead of time what I wanted to say.

So, I stopped him and said "Yeah, Dad, we've heard all this before, but can you tell us anything POSITIVE you remember about us kids?"

this rendered him speechless, in shock for about 45 minutes while the rest of the family continued their conversations. Finally, He abruptly announced "I was always glad you got good grades. Your sister was halfway decent at sports. and your other sister was good with taking care of relatives"

It was like swallowing poison for him to force himself to say something nice about his kids, but I'd shamed him into realizing that in over forty years he'd never complimented his kids on anything.

I was glad I did this, because the rest of the thanksgiving dinner went a lot better than anything we'd experienced previously, and in less than 6 months he died unexpectedly.

I had spent my entire life up till that point suffering from the psychological abuse of always being told I was worthless by my father, and that was the spell breaker for me... it was still an uphill battle to get my self=esteem, but it started right then.

the secret, IMHO, is move your buttons so they can't push them any more. My buttons were that when he trashed me I would own the criticism and collapse into myself. I moved that button and put the ball back in his court, showing him that it was HIS problem that he couldn't find anything positive to say about his own kids.

[BoneDaddy]

6. IT is sad that after 60 years an adult child

still cannot reach adulthood. We teach people how to treat us by what we allow. Obviously, this poor woman has been unable to escape the abusive clutches of her own mother and allows it to continue.

What SHOULD she do? Well that is entirely up to her. If she is going to visit one last time to assauge her own guilt then she should do so with the expectation that she may very well be abused again by her mother and to make the conscious choice to begin with. It is how much power she gives this which is the bigger question in my book. If she is still looking for a loving mother then she really should let that go and move on.

[Mari333]

7. I have a few rules as to who is allowed in my life

one of the rules is I expect to be treated with non judgemental compassion and dignity. If one's own biological family fails to do so, than, they are out for me. I can love them from afar.
In this woman's case, she can attempt some sort of reunion with her mother, but go in without any expectations. I approach my own mother in that way, I just dont expect anymore now than who she is, and so far she behaves respectfully. I hope this lady finds peace.
staying sane in all this means having to disassociate ones self from the emotions involved and think like an adult, often.

[Gold Metal Flake]

11. I've said it before and I'll say it again...

Family is optional.

[MissMarple]

18. Yes! Blood relationships can be, not always, but can be, greatly overrated.

And having said that, I dearly love and respect my children, grandparents, several siblings and most aunties and uncles. The others are rarely, if at all, tolerable.

It is what it is. :shrug:

[no_hypocrisy]

12. My story.

My father is radioactive toxic. About 10 years ago, he called me and wanted a mano-a-mano telephonically, tell him everything he's said and done that have damaged me. I told him he didn't have the time and he countered he did. I told him to get a chair.

And for 90 minutes, I listed all the things. To his credit, he listened.

And when I was done, I got a Ronald Reagan "I don't remember that," for all my allegations. Not one did he recognize.

And I kinda got an apology: I don't remember any of what you said, but if you say it happened, then I apologize.

He wasn't elderly and forgetful. He just didn't want to take responsibility. My only gratification is that I was able to confront him and get it out of my system. It isn't over and never will be but at least I took advantage of an opportunity to personally resolve, or at least as much as I really could.

[Shell Beau]

13. She could reconcile for herself, so that she doesn't always ask the what if...

It may backfire, but it also may give her some peace.

This happened with my dad sort of. His mother abandoned his brother and him. Left them with their daddy never to be heard from again when they were small boys. She contacted him when she was on her death bed wanting to see him. Too bad for her that his father was also dying. He chose to stay by the person who raised and loved him. But I think he wonders about it all.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

14. I bailed out when I was 15.

The hard part was later in life, when after blaming my lousy parents for everything, I had to grow up and take responsibility for my own fuck-ups.

[Sal Minella]

15. The comments in the NYT following the article are also extremely interesting.

[Cleita]

17. That's a tough one.

You only have two genetic parents and when they are about to kick the bucket, it seems right to try to reconcile before they die. I suppose if you take in mind that your toxic parent is crazy and whatever they have to say to you has really nothing to do with you but them, it might make it more tolerable.

[Missy Vixen]

19. I have an entire family too toxic to tolerate

The best thing I ever did was to walk away.

Life is too short to spend even one minute of it with anyone who treats a stranger better than someone they share blood with.

[Dorian Gray]

20. So sad for her

and her relationship with her mom. I don't think that there is a right or wrong thing to do in her circumstance. I certainly understand why she wouldn't want to try to reconcile with her mother at this point, and the onus of the mother dying alone would be on the mother. But, being who I am, I would probably try to reconcile and build a relationship. If I felt abused at that point, however, I would withdraw. I say that, though, having been raised in a relatively healthy mother-daughter relationship.

[Xithras]

22. I've had four conversations with my mother in 17 years.

Three of which were at funerals when relatives died.

My mother is an extremely manipulative person, and I made the choice when I was in college that I could NOT stay under her thumb. The real problem for her, though, was my response to her attempts to retain control. She loved to argue and scream and browbeat, and I decided that I wasn't going to do that anymore. I'd have a civil conversation and end it. If she tried to argue, I'd simply stand up and walk out. That, of course, eventually led to her calling my apartment and cell phone all the time. When I asked her to stop, and told her that I'd talk to her when I came to visit or when I called to check in, she'd launch into a screaming fit. So I changed the phone numbers.

Eventually I just walked away from the relationship entirely. I didn't need the stress in my life, or more importantly the lives of my kids. She has grandchildren she has never even met, and it's her own loss because she simply cannot tolerate the idea that I might have a way of life that she doesn't agree with. It really didn't help that my wife is 1/4 Osage, and the woman is an avowed racist who referrs to my kids as "the little halfbreeds". Yeah, she isn't allowed within a MILE of my kids.

Sometimes the best solution it to just close the door and walk away.

[Gold Metal Flake]

23. Damn right.

Break The Chain!