is it best to cut the ties completely with narc. parents?

[serena]

Like many of you, I have found it difficult, for a number of reasons, to completely sever ties with my Nmother and ?father.  I have considered the wise counsel of my therapist whose continuing question to me is, "What can you  live with when they're gone?".  And so I have maintained a once a week phone call or visit schedule, far reduced from my thoroughly emeshed days when I didn't know where I began and my mother ended (although my mother LOVED it that way, and any other way is a slap in her face).   FYI, I have no siblings, and my parents are both in extremely poor health.

The crux of the situation for me is the continual push/pull I feel toward her (my N mother).  I still feel something for her (OK, love), but I have learned that being close to her causes me pain, extreme pain, and so I avoid most contact with her.  Someone said on this board that their mother gores them, and that is so apt.  My mother loves to come charging at me emotionally, do her best to eviscerate me, and then watch me twist and turn in the breeze. For example,  She no longer even acknowleges my husband.  Won't mention his name or acknowledge the death of his father. And this is over something she just made up.   Her mind games are cunning and cruel and have hurt my entire family to the quick.  I wont even mention the fiasco she pulled at Christmas when they chose to go to a diner instead of coming to our house as invited, 5 minutes away.  My kids were devastated.  No matter.  My mother is extremely bright, and had her intelligence been channeled in a positive direction the world would be rid of some scourge or other.  INstead she uses her ability to attempt to divide, mnaipulate, intimidate, induce guilt.

 ALthough I have gotten much, much better at dealing with her, accepting her, forgiving her, etc., it's still hard to relax emtionally in the midst of this constant push/pull. (also read love/hate).  The ambivalence is exhausting.  There's nowhere to find a toehold emotionally and just hang on.  I feel as though I've lived in the middle of a ngihtmare the past three years (that's when she made up a fabulous tale, peddled it as reality, and stopped speaking to my husband).  It's also when I finally stood up and said, enough.  I'm not voiceless anymore, and I won't tolerate your rude, dismissive treatment of my husband anymore (saint that he is ) and I won't tolerate your attempts to run my life and ruin my marriage.  The result was like jabbing a tiger through the bars of its cage.  You could probably hear her enraged roar all over America.
 
The end result is this:  I find myself contemplating what it will be like if she passes away.  So much so that I feel guilty.  Really guilty.  Much like those of you who have coped with a long illness with your parents, there must be a sense of relief when it's finally over.  For the past three years my mother has continually tightened the noose, constantly hurled another barrrel in my direction,  "See if you can jump over this one!"   She keeps turning up the heat, "kicking it up a notch", I guess all in an enraged efort to "put me back In my place".  And I think I've done an admirable job, if I do say so myself, of handling what my therapist calls the most difficult of circumstances.  But I'm tired of coping.  I'm tired of stepping around what's intended as punishment for no longer playing their game.  And I find myself wondering, will there be massive guilt for things ending as they surely must, on such a bitter note?  Or will it feel like a load has been lifted?

That's all.  JUst absolutely had to join in on this one.  No ,I have not severed ties, and I think I'll be glad one day that I stuck it out and will be able to say I did all I could do.  Although life in the meantime isn't easy, at least I can gladly say  I'm

Stillstanding

Your situation sounds so much like mine that I feel a bit sad for you being 'stuck' with her.  I would never advise anyone to 'cut contact' but you CAN emotionally cut contact.  My mother is 78, has had bowel cancer, a stroke, heart failure.  I always came running from england to ireland to be with her.

She treated me atrociously at Christmas and I came to this board.  I felt that had I not resolved her treatment of me, I could not face her death, which is probably imminent.

I have been greatly helped here, I now know none of it was my fault.

I suppose 9 years in therapy helped also!!

If you never read another book in your life, read this one:

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=R04CVmsAMa&isbn=0743214285&itm=1

[cindinj]

I don't think so.  I've also gone back and forth about continuing a relationship with my Mom and there have been times we haven't spoken for several months or even more than a year about anything significant.  I hid behind my busy job before I had kids.

I think it's very difficult to be happy and apart from a parent completely but I have a lot to learn about this disorder and how to best manage things.  I'm just beginning this journey.  My experience is that my particular parent makes life hell for my sibs if I try to separate (I'm not speaking to her now and haven't since before my Dad died last month).  She's on a constant campaign to make me feel bad for wanting some time away from her and it makes my relationship with my sibs strained.  I'm sure they would respect a request from me to not mention her to me, but I was in this position with my sister about my Dad before he died and it was hard.

Enough said for now -- my 9M old is eating paper

Cindi

[serena]

I don't think so.  I've also gone back and forth about continuing a relationship with my Mom and there have been times we haven't spoken for several months or even more than a year about anything significant.  I hid behind my busy job before I had kids.

I think it's very difficult to be happy and apart from a parent completely but I have a lot to learn about this disorder and how to best manage things.  I'm just beginning this journey.  My experience is that my particular parent makes life hell for my sibs if I try to separate (I'm not speaking to her now and haven't since before my Dad died last month).  She's on a constant campaign to make me feel bad for wanting some time away from her and it makes my relationship with my sibs strained.  I'm sure they would respect a request from me to not mention her to me, but I was in this position with my sister about my Dad before he died and it was hard.

Enough said for now -- my 9M old is eating paper

Cindi

Your grief about your Dad is very 'new' - I am glad you found your way to this board.  I hope we can help..............

Kindest regards

[Samantha!]

I think it's very difficult to be happy and apart from a parent completely

I think often that it is the opposite, it is very difficult to be happy and togehter with some parents.

The longer I have my mother out of my life, the better I feel. She is just a horrible person, mostly she just made my life sucking. Sometimes it took me even a week to recover from her attacks. Something I am still upset when I think how hard I worked all my life and she did nothing. NADA. Just let my father do everything, everything. She did a little housework, that what it was. My father mostly raised me after work. But unfortunately, he became N too, because of living over 40 year with my horrible mother.

With my parents,  I did it step by step. First, I did not celebrate holidays with them anymore. I saw them less and less. I rarely visited them or told them any important about my life. The less they knew the less my mother could hurt me.

No, I do not feel incomplete, I feel free and happy without her in my life. Hopefully, she dies early, then I have her out of my life for sure and she can never get in anymore.

I discovered that if kids are unable to cut the cord if the parent continues to abuse them, mostly the parents hold some ties out. Mostly, if the kids are older it is definitely money. And the Ns they love to do that. Torture you with money especially if they know you need it. Sometimes they have other strings they pull out.

If the being togehter with the parents is so unbearable and you are still feeling attached to them, I guess it would be worthwhile to find out what still is making you attached to them even if they abuse you.

Samantha

[stillstanding]

Serena, thanks so much for your reply.  It was good of you to write, althogh it's sad that we share such unfortunate circumstances.  Thanks too for the booksuggestion.  Yes, I have read that one.  It's one of my favorites.  I see my mother in every page of that book ( and many others!)  My mother has had breast cancer, lung cancer , a stomach hemmorage, heart attack, and just recently she survived a car accident that left her with numerous injuries and on oxygen.  Each time I have come to her aid, just as you mentioned.  But the older she gets, the worse she gets in terms of narcissism.  she's more paranoid, more demanding,  more manipulating than she ever was before.  I've read that as they get older, they sense control of everything slipping away and they sort of implode.  That's my mother to a tee.  Narcissists are never easy, but dealing with old narcissists is like wrestling an alligator.