Hi All;
I used to post/contribute to the message boards here several years ago as 'SFalken'. I wanted to post again a few months ago, but discovered that my account was no longer available. With a little help from The Dr., I'm back with a new name (appropriate to my situation) LifeOutside.
I see some familiar usernames here - I hope everyone is getting along ok.
Short recap; I grew up an only child alone with my mother and father. My mother is (to my belief and understanding of the term and personality type) the narcissistic force in my life which affected and silenced me at every turn, and my father, her enabler. My mother likes to play the part of a victim to get supply from her adoring fans.. and my father plays the part of her enabler. She lies so easily. Truth is nothing she understands. My entire life, she's done everything she can to make me appear 'bad' to him - and ultimately, she succeeded. At times growing up, it seemed like a sick game where my mother was a terrible 'big sister' trying to keep his attention on her, and away from me.
I'm 48 as of a few days ago, I have a family of my own, a job, house, etc. I am not a bad person, and in fact, for many years I tried to make it work with my parents in spite of their personalities and everything I and my family have endured from them for so long. (Why do we continue trying? Is the need for parents hard wired?) It has been a difficult road, fraught with decades of attempts to 'make it work' with my parents, and periods where I decided that cutting ties was the best option for myself and my family.
In 2018, we were in a phase where light communication was taking place (texts), but nothing else. At one point I called them and put forth the proposition that we could try to work things out with one another, possibly meet with a third party to talk it out (though I know it is useless from past experience... Im not even sure why I tried). Their answer? As she told me 'no', he was in the background swearing and saying that I had no right to call 'his wife', and that they had zero culpability / guilt. So.. I stopped attempting to reach out. Cut ties again. Nothing from them.
In spring of '21, I received an envelope from them through my oldest daughter who maintains contact with them. The envelope had a bunch of childhood items, pictures and stories I had written as a child. My daughter told me that my parents wanted to send me these things before they 'die'. I started a gradual effort to send a texts to them here or there to break the ice again - not for their benefit - but for myself. I wanted to be able to look back someday and say "I tried'. I spent the entire remainder of last year sending texts on holidays and birthdays, as well as a few pictures of my family and I on the side, and I did receive some limited response from my mother, but with it hostility from my father at every turn. He's done everything he can to 'silence' me... and as such, I think I am ready to give up, again. Im just banging my head against a wall and I dont know why.
My parents are in their early 70s and her health is not great. In addition to physical challenges, I get the picture that she is also slipping into early dementia and that he as her caregiver is running the show. I also have the sense that she is heavily medicated with benzodiazepines and that he is using her Rx as well (she has been slipping him xanax for years). Moreover, what I see is a new dynamic emerging, where the man that she groomed to be her enabler for many years, has become her jailer.
So here I am, living on the outside... like a complete stranger to them, wondering how it all ends.
