Re: What was your final straw?

[Guest guest]

When my mother died, I confronted my uncle (my mom's brother) and his wife. It

did NO good and made me feel even more invalidated. Right before my mother

died, I sent my uncle a nasty email telling him what a pathetic brother he was

and that his sister was dying and he didn't even care. His WIFE responded and

said they wouldn't " taint " her funeral by coming. They did come, but nothing

was ever resolved between us all. They are as big of jerks and in denial as

they were when she was alive. I feel a lot of anger towards extended family

members because they knew my mother was mentally unstable and regardless of

whether they knew she had BPD or not, they did NOTHING to step in and protect

me. NOTHING. And for that, I find it hard to forgive.

[Guest guest]

If a foo is dysfunctional, and the kids grow up to marry dysfunctional people,

then destructive, toxic behaviors like battering kids, sexually molesting kids,

verbally abusing kids, exploiting kids, neglecting kids becomes the " norm " for

that foo and healthy behaviors such as a willingness to confront an abuser are

viewed as a " betrayal " of the foo. Its very sad when that happens.

-Annie

>

>

> When my mother died, I confronted my uncle (my mom's brother) and his wife. It

did NO good and made me feel even more invalidated. Right before my mother

died, I sent my uncle a nasty email telling him what a pathetic brother he was

and that his sister was dying and he didn't even care. His WIFE responded and

said they wouldn't " taint " her funeral by coming. They did come, but nothing

was ever resolved between us all. They are as big of jerks and in denial as

they were when she was alive. I feel a lot of anger towards extended family

members because they knew my mother was mentally unstable and regardless of

whether they knew she had BPD or not, they did NOTHING to step in and protect

me. NOTHING. And for that, I find it hard to forgive.

>

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Funny to get on the site after a few months and see this message first thing!

Tonight was probably the first night I felt like I could envision myself going

NC with my NADA and feel okay with it. My last straw? I finally told her how

angry I was that she had chosen to have so little to do with her granddaughter

over the five years of her life and how angry I was that it was obvious she

didn't want much to do with her next grandchild (I'm due in 3 weeks). It must

be pregnancy hormones because I have never told her how angry and resentful I am

over these years. Instead, I usually listen to her criticism, her self absorbed

random babbling, etc. and just hold my breath. She can tell I'm angry, but she

blames it on my husband (I'm in a constant state of anger at my marriage, which

in reality is not the case at all). During the course of my tirade tonight, she

accepted no blame, she took no responsibility, she absolutely is in the right

and I, of course, am absolutely in the wrong, very disturbed, and/or completely

and totally manipulated and dominated by my husband. Everything I feel is

completely and totally invalid.

And that made me just as angry if not angrier than the fact that she is a

totally pathetic grandmother - because at bottom, I know that if she did choose

to be more involved in my kids' lives I would have to put up with being around

her more! But the fact that she can hear the rage and anger in my voice and act

so self-righteous and so completely innocent - that was my last straw. My

daughter is 4. If she is upset with me, if anyone is upset with me, I ALWAYS

worry about what I might have done to cause that emotion. Maybe I know

logically that the person is being ridiculous. Maybe the person is justified.

But that self-examination is what makes me *human* - the willingness to examine

my actions and take responsibility. That's what makes me an adult. A healthy

person (relatively!). And it's so obvious that she completely and totally lacks

that - any empathy, any willingness to listen, any sense of love that would make

a mother listen to her anguished, 37 week pregnant daughter who might be

spouting nonsense but who is obviously upset and needs to be COMFORTED, not

accused of being mentally disturbed.

I had held off saying anything about the issue for so long because I knew it

wouldn't get me anywhere. I knew her behavior would never change - the only

thing that changes her behavior is the threat of being cut out of my life, and

then suddenly she will call back and say what she knows I want to hear

temporarily in order to weasel her way back in again, based on my pity for the

fact that she is alone, widowed and has no real friends. But tonight, I just

felt like, I'm done with my false expectations that she will change. I'm done

being lectured to, criticized, having my marriage dumped on, all by someone who

contributes nothing to my life. I'm just...done. And I feel so tired, but

relieved. So, maybe my screaming did accomplish something - it got what I

wanted to say off my chest, and proved (yet again) that, really, no one is

listening on the other end of the line. I might as well be talking to the wind.

And I can analyze it, and try to explain it rationally in my head, etc. But

that's just a waste of my time and energy. I just feel DONE. So, maybe I could

have managed this better by doing it after I give birth, because now I have no

one to watch my daughter when I deliver! But at this point, I would rather

deliver the baby alone in the hospital room while my husband takes care of my

daughter than have to maintain contact with her and have that obligation hanging

over me.

Sorry this is so long!

[Guest guest]

,

I am sorry to hear you have dealt with the same thing but as always, it is

comforting to find that other Nadas act similarly. My Nada called my dad (who

she hasn't spoken to since I was a kid), his cousins, and a host of other folks.

They called me to see what is wrong with her. There is something poetic about a

smear campaign backfiring.

Bunny

> > > >Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

> > > >

> > > >For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your

> > > >final straw? What was the deciding factor for why you have

> > > >NC? How have you felt since then?

> > > >

> > > >Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your

> > > >feelings? Are you planning on going to NC? How do you handle

> > > >it when your nada has an episode?

> > > >

> > > >I am posting this question because I have just started LC with

> > > >my nada. I haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving

> > > >(except once through e-mail, and once through text), and I have

> > > >felt much more emotionally safer and happier. However, I am

> > > >really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have just

> > > >given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its

> > > >time to focus on me, and feeling better about everything in

> > > >general (after all, nadas have an excellent way of putting a

> > > >damper on everything).

> > >

> > > --

> > > Katrina

> > >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Apologies if you've heard my story before...My final straw was when my mother

informed me that either my father or my father in law had certainly been

molesting my daughter. Then she handed me a children's book for kids who have

been molested to read to her. What was so interesting about her saying this is

that my child had never been alone with either of her grandfathers; I'd always

been there with her so I know for a fact that nothing had ever happened. I also

thought it was interesting that my mother never, say, called the police to

report a crime, so obviously, the whole drama was dreamed up as a way to disturb

me personally.

The other final straw was when my mother accused me of trying to have her

committed; this was after 20 years of all the financial, emotional and physical

support I could muster for her.

I don't love her anymore, but I still feel sorry for her on occasion. I'm pretty

LC with her.

[Guest guest]

Apologies if you've heard my story before...My final straw was when my mother

informed me that either my father or my father in law had certainly been

molesting my daughter. Then she handed me a children's book for kids who have

been molested to read to her. What was so interesting about her saying this is

that my child had never been alone with either of her grandfathers; I'd always

been there with her so I know for a fact that nothing had ever happened. I also

thought it was interesting that my mother never, say, called the police to

report a crime, so obviously, the whole drama was dreamed up as a way to disturb

me personally.

The other final straw was when my mother accused me of trying to have her

committed; this was after 20 years of all the financial, emotional and physical

support I could muster for her.

I don't love her anymore, but I still feel sorry for her on occasion. I'm pretty

LC with her.

[Guest guest]

" For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw? What

was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then? "

Well, this topic first went up at the end of November, and I just didn't answer

because the Christmas rush was coming on and I was trying to fill out forms for

Social Services to get some help with my aunt and cousin. (I'm STILL trying to

get all the info together to fill them out! You have to find so much stuff; it

takes forever.) Today I am snowed in and my husband had to go to work, of all

things. I can't imagine driving an armored car in snow like this; but now I

have time, so here goes. I imagine this will be a long one.

(BTW, Zizazoo, I imagine by now you've had your baby. Hope your delivery was a

safe and speedy one, and you are enjoying your new little one's first

Christmas!)

THE FINAL STRAW...

went something like this. In the summer of 2006 nada and I were on the outs for

some reason. I can't even remember what the argument was about this time. In

the past there had been arguments like: Her on the outs with a friend of hers

who was tired of all her complaining and was pointing out nada's own part in her

own problems. Nada had just discovered email and was emailing me forwarding

Susie's letters about the problem. Sad to say, what I saw was not someone being

nasty to nada, but someone who was absolutely right and trying her best to help.

Nada was so awful to this person that I couldn't simply stand by and watch it.

My modus operandi prior to that was to agree with what I could agree with and

then let the rest slide, but I really couldn't do that this time, and so I

responded honestly with what I thought. OMG, the email exchange that resulted!!

I always believed at that time that somehow we would get nada into therapy, and

so I saved all those emails looking forward to the day. Ha, ha, ha. I bet most

of y'all know about that. Anyway, that was the kind of thing I had been dealing

with...and dealing with...and dealing with, ever since I had moved away from

home. I used to call once a week, and here would come the complaints about

other people with the unspoken demand that SHE was right and I had better tell

her so, or boy, was I going to get it!!

I can't remember what this particular row was about. I know my brother was

serious about this girl and nada had reservations about it (nada turned out to

be right.) I also remember that she was on the outs with my grandparents, and

was writing them long hate filled letters about the abuse she suffered as a

child growing up in their house (none of which I doubt, you'll see more about

this later.) But my grandmother was at that point quite senile and couldn't

remember things that happened, because she literally couldn't remember what she

had for breakfast that morning. When her cat died she remembered it for a few

days, and then suddenly it was as if all memory of the cat was erased from her

brain. And they had loved that cat for nine years. So it wasn't as if nada

could expect that Grandma could remember any of this stuff. Anyway, it was

going on and on, and I got a distress-filled letter from Grandma about it,

saying nada had written her some horrible things and she couldn't remember if

they had happened or not.

I remember getting this letter and reading it while I was at the pool one day,

and thinking, You know, I haven't spoken with nada for a couple of weeks anyway.

What if I never had to deal with this again? What if I never made contact with

her again, and I *just never had to deal with this ever ever again??*

WOW, was that freeing!! I seriously was just the happiest I had ever been for

days, just *thinking* about not having any more contact with her. I had been

reading SWOE and UBM, and I really knew nada had a problem. I also had dinner

with a friend at this point who had come to nada's for Thanksgiving with me one

year. Nada was terribly inappropriate, wanting to " win " my friend over from

liking my grandparents who were also present. After they left she heaped stories

of childhood sexual abuse on my friend apparently not realizing that this was

TOTALLY inappropriate behavior with someone you've just met!

So now, three years later, I go to dinner with my friend, sharing these emails

and what I've come to suspect, and my friend, who worked on the Virginia Twin

Study and was trained to recognize signs of mental illness, said, " Well, she's

mentally ill. " And I'm going, " WHAT? You knew my mother was mentally ill three

years ago and you never told me?? "

So here we were. Being a KO and therefore having grown up with totally

unrealistic expectations about life, I was working on finishing up a novel which

of course was going to go on to life-changing success. (Ha...ha...ha.) So,

buoyed up on this totally ridiculous expectation, I simply didn't answer nada.

Until...

Two things happened at once. The first was that my grandfather, who apparently

had an undiagnosed arrhythmia for years, had an unfortunate episode in the

grocery store parking lot and passed out cold and hit his head, leaving my

grandmother sitting there helpless in the car. (Thank God he wasn't driving

when it happened.) He wasn't seriously hurt, but at the ripe old age of 88,

when you fall and hit your head, recovery isn't as easy as when you are 28! So

he was in the hospital for a bit, and then he had an episode at home where his

electrolytes were all messed up, resulting in a transient episode of really

crazy dementia. Nada was the only person at the time who could come stay with

Grandma and help out, since Grandma was too frail to handle tasks of daily

living like cooking and cleaning and she couldn't drive herself to visit my

grandfather in the hospital. My aunt lived close but was having some terrible

undiagnosed psychological problem (stay tuned for that one), and was unable to

drive herself. So nada had to move in and take care of Grandma while Grandad

was in the hospital and in rehab.

Nada really fell apart under the stress. Under the circumstances, I felt that I

had no choice but to resume contact, as of course I couldn't see my grandparents

without also seeing nada. While nada was there, a single unattached neighbor of

my grandparents, apparently thinking nada was a lot more stable than she was,

shared with her that my grandfather had been propositioning her behind my

grandmother's back. Nada started a letter writing campaign against Grandad over

that to members of the family. I could understand her reaction to that, but

writing it to everybody was over the top and inappropriate. What was anybody

supposed to do about it, especially people who didn't live close and weren't

involved? She'd done things like that before, accusing a cousin of mine of

stealing a ring of hers and writing it all over the family with not a shred of

evidence. Then she'd do things like: Grandma would shuffle across the street

to the mailbox every day. Nada was afraid she'd fall and hurt herself. But

instead of it coming out like, " I'm afraid she'll fall and break a hip, and she

slips out without asking me to help her across, " it was more like, " I'm afraid

this'll happen, and if it does, everyone will accuse me of being a bad daughter

for not watching her. " Like some poor old lady breaking a hip was definitely

NOT the foremost concern.

Family came to visit, and as I'd finally won a minor award for this novel I'd

written, I finally decided to tell about it. I didn't want my grandparents to

die without telling them *something* about my real life, and I'd been struggling

with whether to tell family I was writing for a long time, because I had this

fear that nada would want to know all about it, direct what I put in it, tell

people about it, take credit for it, etc. Or bitch at me because she didn't

like what I was writing (fan fiction), and blab it all over the family and

collect disparaging comments to throw back in my face. I swear, this is one of

her favorite pasttimes and one reason I had hated contact with her for years.

So I finally screwed up some courage and when all this family crew went out to

dinner, I shared that I had won this minor award. And instantly nada piped up

and went, " I'm going to finally send my poetry off to a publisher. " With this

simpery little smile that was sooo familiar. Truth to tell, she was going to

send that poetry off for over a decade and had never done it. Before reading

SWOE and UBM, I would have paid this no never mind, but now I noticed it. I now

knew it was common for BP's to try to take center stage away from everyone else,

or claim other people's accomplishments as their own. Now I was seeing it for

what it was.

I got reports from Grandma about nada's strange behavior around their house.

Nada tends to get overly involved with celebrities on TV like Suzanne Somers on

the Home Shopping Network, partially because Suzanne is also a survivor of

childhood abuse, and partially because nada is lonely and has nothing really

satisfying to do. She will hang on every word Suzanne says, speaking to the TV

set: " Yeah, that's right, Suzanne! " She goes around quoting the celebrity as

if she knows them, spouting that person's views as her own, and apparently

expecting/hoping people will like her because she likes this person and thinks

like this person, and doesn't that make nada a good person, too? The pressure

for others in the room to agree and applaud nada when she does this is always

unspoken, but palpable. I've felt it since I was little and hated it. However,

if *I* did this growing up, nada blabbed it around the family in a disparaging

manner and then came back and bludgeoned me with whatever she got them to say.

One must always agree with nada at all costs, and take their viewpoints on

everything from nada and what nada believes and what nada likes. Grandma

described this same thing at her house, and said nada would smile and bob her

head at the TV like an idiot. It made Grandma uncomfortable, like what was

going on was really strange.

Not like this was anything new, but I had done enough reading to be able to hear

all this with new ears and new understanding.

[Guest guest]

" For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw? What

was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then? "

Well, this topic first went up at the end of November, and I just didn't answer

because the Christmas rush was coming on and I was trying to fill out forms for

Social Services to get some help with my aunt and cousin. (I'm STILL trying to

get all the info together to fill them out! You have to find so much stuff; it

takes forever.) Today I am snowed in and my husband had to go to work, of all

things. I can't imagine driving an armored car in snow like this; but now I

have time, so here goes. I imagine this will be a long one.

(BTW, Zizazoo, I imagine by now you've had your baby. Hope your delivery was a

safe and speedy one, and you are enjoying your new little one's first

Christmas!)

THE FINAL STRAW...

went something like this. In the summer of 2006 nada and I were on the outs for

some reason. I can't even remember what the argument was about this time. In

the past there had been arguments like: Her on the outs with a friend of hers

who was tired of all her complaining and was pointing out nada's own part in her

own problems. Nada had just discovered email and was emailing me forwarding

Susie's letters about the problem. Sad to say, what I saw was not someone being

nasty to nada, but someone who was absolutely right and trying her best to help.

Nada was so awful to this person that I couldn't simply stand by and watch it.

My modus operandi prior to that was to agree with what I could agree with and

then let the rest slide, but I really couldn't do that this time, and so I

responded honestly with what I thought. OMG, the email exchange that resulted!!

I always believed at that time that somehow we would get nada into therapy, and

so I saved all those emails looking forward to the day. Ha, ha, ha. I bet most

of y'all know about that. Anyway, that was the kind of thing I had been dealing

with...and dealing with...and dealing with, ever since I had moved away from

home. I used to call once a week, and here would come the complaints about

other people with the unspoken demand that SHE was right and I had better tell

her so, or boy, was I going to get it!!

I can't remember what this particular row was about. I know my brother was

serious about this girl and nada had reservations about it (nada turned out to

be right.) I also remember that she was on the outs with my grandparents, and

was writing them long hate filled letters about the abuse she suffered as a

child growing up in their house (none of which I doubt, you'll see more about

this later.) But my grandmother was at that point quite senile and couldn't

remember things that happened, because she literally couldn't remember what she

had for breakfast that morning. When her cat died she remembered it for a few

days, and then suddenly it was as if all memory of the cat was erased from her

brain. And they had loved that cat for nine years. So it wasn't as if nada

could expect that Grandma could remember any of this stuff. Anyway, it was

going on and on, and I got a distress-filled letter from Grandma about it,

saying nada had written her some horrible things and she couldn't remember if

they had happened or not.

I remember getting this letter and reading it while I was at the pool one day,

and thinking, You know, I haven't spoken with nada for a couple of weeks anyway.

What if I never had to deal with this again? What if I never made contact with

her again, and I *just never had to deal with this ever ever again??*

WOW, was that freeing!! I seriously was just the happiest I had ever been for

days, just *thinking* about not having any more contact with her. I had been

reading SWOE and UBM, and I really knew nada had a problem. I also had dinner

with a friend at this point who had come to nada's for Thanksgiving with me one

year. Nada was terribly inappropriate, wanting to " win " my friend over from

liking my grandparents who were also present. After they left she heaped stories

of childhood sexual abuse on my friend apparently not realizing that this was

TOTALLY inappropriate behavior with someone you've just met!

So now, three years later, I go to dinner with my friend, sharing these emails

and what I've come to suspect, and my friend, who worked on the Virginia Twin

Study and was trained to recognize signs of mental illness, said, " Well, she's

mentally ill. " And I'm going, " WHAT? You knew my mother was mentally ill three

years ago and you never told me?? "

So here we were. Being a KO and therefore having grown up with totally

unrealistic expectations about life, I was working on finishing up a novel which

of course was going to go on to life-changing success. (Ha...ha...ha.) So,

buoyed up on this totally ridiculous expectation, I simply didn't answer nada.

Until...

Two things happened at once. The first was that my grandfather, who apparently

had an undiagnosed arrhythmia for years, had an unfortunate episode in the

grocery store parking lot and passed out cold and hit his head, leaving my

grandmother sitting there helpless in the car. (Thank God he wasn't driving

when it happened.) He wasn't seriously hurt, but at the ripe old age of 88,

when you fall and hit your head, recovery isn't as easy as when you are 28! So

he was in the hospital for a bit, and then he had an episode at home where his

electrolytes were all messed up, resulting in a transient episode of really

crazy dementia. Nada was the only person at the time who could come stay with

Grandma and help out, since Grandma was too frail to handle tasks of daily

living like cooking and cleaning and she couldn't drive herself to visit my

grandfather in the hospital. My aunt lived close but was having some terrible

undiagnosed psychological problem (stay tuned for that one), and was unable to

drive herself. So nada had to move in and take care of Grandma while Grandad

was in the hospital and in rehab.

Nada really fell apart under the stress. Under the circumstances, I felt that I

had no choice but to resume contact, as of course I couldn't see my grandparents

without also seeing nada. While nada was there, a single unattached neighbor of

my grandparents, apparently thinking nada was a lot more stable than she was,

shared with her that my grandfather had been propositioning her behind my

grandmother's back. Nada started a letter writing campaign against Grandad over

that to members of the family. I could understand her reaction to that, but

writing it to everybody was over the top and inappropriate. What was anybody

supposed to do about it, especially people who didn't live close and weren't

involved? She'd done things like that before, accusing a cousin of mine of

stealing a ring of hers and writing it all over the family with not a shred of

evidence. Then she'd do things like: Grandma would shuffle across the street

to the mailbox every day. Nada was afraid she'd fall and hurt herself. But

instead of it coming out like, " I'm afraid she'll fall and break a hip, and she

slips out without asking me to help her across, " it was more like, " I'm afraid

this'll happen, and if it does, everyone will accuse me of being a bad daughter

for not watching her. " Like some poor old lady breaking a hip was definitely

NOT the foremost concern.

Family came to visit, and as I'd finally won a minor award for this novel I'd

written, I finally decided to tell about it. I didn't want my grandparents to

die without telling them *something* about my real life, and I'd been struggling

with whether to tell family I was writing for a long time, because I had this

fear that nada would want to know all about it, direct what I put in it, tell

people about it, take credit for it, etc. Or bitch at me because she didn't

like what I was writing (fan fiction), and blab it all over the family and

collect disparaging comments to throw back in my face. I swear, this is one of

her favorite pasttimes and one reason I had hated contact with her for years.

So I finally screwed up some courage and when all this family crew went out to

dinner, I shared that I had won this minor award. And instantly nada piped up

and went, " I'm going to finally send my poetry off to a publisher. " With this

simpery little smile that was sooo familiar. Truth to tell, she was going to

send that poetry off for over a decade and had never done it. Before reading

SWOE and UBM, I would have paid this no never mind, but now I noticed it. I now

knew it was common for BP's to try to take center stage away from everyone else,

or claim other people's accomplishments as their own. Now I was seeing it for

what it was.

I got reports from Grandma about nada's strange behavior around their house.

Nada tends to get overly involved with celebrities on TV like Suzanne Somers on

the Home Shopping Network, partially because Suzanne is also a survivor of

childhood abuse, and partially because nada is lonely and has nothing really

satisfying to do. She will hang on every word Suzanne says, speaking to the TV

set: " Yeah, that's right, Suzanne! " She goes around quoting the celebrity as

if she knows them, spouting that person's views as her own, and apparently

expecting/hoping people will like her because she likes this person and thinks

like this person, and doesn't that make nada a good person, too? The pressure

for others in the room to agree and applaud nada when she does this is always

unspoken, but palpable. I've felt it since I was little and hated it. However,

if *I* did this growing up, nada blabbed it around the family in a disparaging

manner and then came back and bludgeoned me with whatever she got them to say.

One must always agree with nada at all costs, and take their viewpoints on

everything from nada and what nada believes and what nada likes. Grandma

described this same thing at her house, and said nada would smile and bob her

head at the TV like an idiot. It made Grandma uncomfortable, like what was

going on was really strange.

Not like this was anything new, but I had done enough reading to be able to hear

all this with new ears and new understanding.

[Guest guest]

" For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw? What

was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then? "

Well, this topic first went up at the end of November, and I just didn't answer

because the Christmas rush was coming on and I was trying to fill out forms for

Social Services to get some help with my aunt and cousin. (I'm STILL trying to

get all the info together to fill them out! You have to find so much stuff; it

takes forever.) Today I am snowed in and my husband had to go to work, of all

things. I can't imagine driving an armored car in snow like this; but now I

have time, so here goes. I imagine this will be a long one.

(BTW, Zizazoo, I imagine by now you've had your baby. Hope your delivery was a

safe and speedy one, and you are enjoying your new little one's first

Christmas!)

THE FINAL STRAW...

went something like this. In the summer of 2006 nada and I were on the outs for

some reason. I can't even remember what the argument was about this time. In

the past there had been arguments like: Her on the outs with a friend of hers

who was tired of all her complaining and was pointing out nada's own part in her

own problems. Nada had just discovered email and was emailing me forwarding

Susie's letters about the problem. Sad to say, what I saw was not someone being

nasty to nada, but someone who was absolutely right and trying her best to help.

Nada was so awful to this person that I couldn't simply stand by and watch it.

My modus operandi prior to that was to agree with what I could agree with and

then let the rest slide, but I really couldn't do that this time, and so I

responded honestly with what I thought. OMG, the email exchange that resulted!!

I always believed at that time that somehow we would get nada into therapy, and

so I saved all those emails looking forward to the day. Ha, ha, ha. I bet most

of y'all know about that. Anyway, that was the kind of thing I had been dealing

with...and dealing with...and dealing with, ever since I had moved away from

home. I used to call once a week, and here would come the complaints about

other people with the unspoken demand that SHE was right and I had better tell

her so, or boy, was I going to get it!!

I can't remember what this particular row was about. I know my brother was

serious about this girl and nada had reservations about it (nada turned out to

be right.) I also remember that she was on the outs with my grandparents, and

was writing them long hate filled letters about the abuse she suffered as a

child growing up in their house (none of which I doubt, you'll see more about

this later.) But my grandmother was at that point quite senile and couldn't

remember things that happened, because she literally couldn't remember what she

had for breakfast that morning. When her cat died she remembered it for a few

days, and then suddenly it was as if all memory of the cat was erased from her

brain. And they had loved that cat for nine years. So it wasn't as if nada

could expect that Grandma could remember any of this stuff. Anyway, it was

going on and on, and I got a distress-filled letter from Grandma about it,

saying nada had written her some horrible things and she couldn't remember if

they had happened or not.

I remember getting this letter and reading it while I was at the pool one day,

and thinking, You know, I haven't spoken with nada for a couple of weeks anyway.

What if I never had to deal with this again? What if I never made contact with

her again, and I *just never had to deal with this ever ever again??*

WOW, was that freeing!! I seriously was just the happiest I had ever been for

days, just *thinking* about not having any more contact with her. I had been

reading SWOE and UBM, and I really knew nada had a problem. I also had dinner

with a friend at this point who had come to nada's for Thanksgiving with me one

year. Nada was terribly inappropriate, wanting to " win " my friend over from

liking my grandparents who were also present. After they left she heaped stories

of childhood sexual abuse on my friend apparently not realizing that this was

TOTALLY inappropriate behavior with someone you've just met!

So now, three years later, I go to dinner with my friend, sharing these emails

and what I've come to suspect, and my friend, who worked on the Virginia Twin

Study and was trained to recognize signs of mental illness, said, " Well, she's

mentally ill. " And I'm going, " WHAT? You knew my mother was mentally ill three

years ago and you never told me?? "

So here we were. Being a KO and therefore having grown up with totally

unrealistic expectations about life, I was working on finishing up a novel which

of course was going to go on to life-changing success. (Ha...ha...ha.) So,

buoyed up on this totally ridiculous expectation, I simply didn't answer nada.

Until...

Two things happened at once. The first was that my grandfather, who apparently

had an undiagnosed arrhythmia for years, had an unfortunate episode in the

grocery store parking lot and passed out cold and hit his head, leaving my

grandmother sitting there helpless in the car. (Thank God he wasn't driving

when it happened.) He wasn't seriously hurt, but at the ripe old age of 88,

when you fall and hit your head, recovery isn't as easy as when you are 28! So

he was in the hospital for a bit, and then he had an episode at home where his

electrolytes were all messed up, resulting in a transient episode of really

crazy dementia. Nada was the only person at the time who could come stay with

Grandma and help out, since Grandma was too frail to handle tasks of daily

living like cooking and cleaning and she couldn't drive herself to visit my

grandfather in the hospital. My aunt lived close but was having some terrible

undiagnosed psychological problem (stay tuned for that one), and was unable to

drive herself. So nada had to move in and take care of Grandma while Grandad

was in the hospital and in rehab.

Nada really fell apart under the stress. Under the circumstances, I felt that I

had no choice but to resume contact, as of course I couldn't see my grandparents

without also seeing nada. While nada was there, a single unattached neighbor of

my grandparents, apparently thinking nada was a lot more stable than she was,

shared with her that my grandfather had been propositioning her behind my

grandmother's back. Nada started a letter writing campaign against Grandad over

that to members of the family. I could understand her reaction to that, but

writing it to everybody was over the top and inappropriate. What was anybody

supposed to do about it, especially people who didn't live close and weren't

involved? She'd done things like that before, accusing a cousin of mine of

stealing a ring of hers and writing it all over the family with not a shred of

evidence. Then she'd do things like: Grandma would shuffle across the street

to the mailbox every day. Nada was afraid she'd fall and hurt herself. But

instead of it coming out like, " I'm afraid she'll fall and break a hip, and she

slips out without asking me to help her across, " it was more like, " I'm afraid

this'll happen, and if it does, everyone will accuse me of being a bad daughter

for not watching her. " Like some poor old lady breaking a hip was definitely

NOT the foremost concern.

Family came to visit, and as I'd finally won a minor award for this novel I'd

written, I finally decided to tell about it. I didn't want my grandparents to

die without telling them *something* about my real life, and I'd been struggling

with whether to tell family I was writing for a long time, because I had this

fear that nada would want to know all about it, direct what I put in it, tell

people about it, take credit for it, etc. Or bitch at me because she didn't

like what I was writing (fan fiction), and blab it all over the family and

collect disparaging comments to throw back in my face. I swear, this is one of

her favorite pasttimes and one reason I had hated contact with her for years.

So I finally screwed up some courage and when all this family crew went out to

dinner, I shared that I had won this minor award. And instantly nada piped up

and went, " I'm going to finally send my poetry off to a publisher. " With this

simpery little smile that was sooo familiar. Truth to tell, she was going to

send that poetry off for over a decade and had never done it. Before reading

SWOE and UBM, I would have paid this no never mind, but now I noticed it. I now

knew it was common for BP's to try to take center stage away from everyone else,

or claim other people's accomplishments as their own. Now I was seeing it for

what it was.

I got reports from Grandma about nada's strange behavior around their house.

Nada tends to get overly involved with celebrities on TV like Suzanne Somers on

the Home Shopping Network, partially because Suzanne is also a survivor of

childhood abuse, and partially because nada is lonely and has nothing really

satisfying to do. She will hang on every word Suzanne says, speaking to the TV

set: " Yeah, that's right, Suzanne! " She goes around quoting the celebrity as

if she knows them, spouting that person's views as her own, and apparently

expecting/hoping people will like her because she likes this person and thinks

like this person, and doesn't that make nada a good person, too? The pressure

for others in the room to agree and applaud nada when she does this is always

unspoken, but palpable. I've felt it since I was little and hated it. However,

if *I* did this growing up, nada blabbed it around the family in a disparaging

manner and then came back and bludgeoned me with whatever she got them to say.

One must always agree with nada at all costs, and take their viewpoints on

everything from nada and what nada believes and what nada likes. Grandma

described this same thing at her house, and said nada would smile and bob her

head at the TV like an idiot. It made Grandma uncomfortable, like what was

going on was really strange.

Not like this was anything new, but I had done enough reading to be able to hear

all this with new ears and new understanding.

[Guest guest]

The other thing that happened was that during this time, my brother, who was

living at home, moved his girlfriend in whom he was really becoming serious

about, because she had no place to live. I forget why she lost her place.

Either she had lost her job or it was some conflict with a roommate...can't

remember. However it happened, Brother and GF lived like slobs and wouldn't

clean up. Nada likes her house clean, and she couldn't be there to even keep up

with the mess, much less nag them to clean up. She'd go for short trips home

and be horrified. ly, that was the last time I was ever there, and I was

horrified, too.

But the way she handled this was most telling. Instead of confronting my

brother and his girlfriend about it, she complained all over the family. My

brother had just started as a sheriff's deputy with the county, and she'd go all

over town complaining about this to shopkeepers in the area and people she saw

casually in restaurants--whom she refers to as " friends, " since she has only one

or two normal friendships, and she's always on the outs with these people, too.

She complained and complained and complained to me, and complained and

complained and complained to Grandma. Meanwhile I'm getting emails like this

from my brother: " WTF! You should see the emails she's sending me at work!

Why is she doing this all over town? I'm trying to start a career in law

enforcement and this is looking really bad! "

I totally sympathized with my brother. How many times had she done that all

over the family to me?

I was working and working on new ways to handle this kind of stuff with her. My

husband, then my fiance, had just moved back from Michigan where he had spent

two years remodeling and selling his house. He is a really optimistic,

positive, healthy and well-adjusted person and I would try stuff out on him:

" Good grief, look what she did this time! What if I said or did this? " I have

The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner; I have all these books on dealing with the

Effed Up FOO. I read and read, studied and studied, rehearsed. Finally I put

them into practice when we went one Sunday to visit my grandfather in the

hospital and had dinner out with my grandmother and nada.

She started her usual complaining at dinner. I calmly shared that she needed to

deal with the housework issue directly with my brother and his girlfriend, and

that the other issues she had with them (she felt slighted, for instance,

because GF didn't say hi to her when she came in the house) were perhaps

misunderstandings and needed to be talked out.

Interestingly enough, when Grandma and my fiance were sitting right there and

heard every word, there was no problem. Nobody thought anything I said was bad.

However, when I called up the next week to check in and see how things were

going, nada started up again, and I repeated exactly the same thing. Fiance was

sitting in the other room and heard everything I said. He thought I did a

pretty good job, considering how nervous I was about trying any kind of new

communication with nada at all. I specifically reiterated that I did indeed

think the house was messy. I said it four times: " Nobody's arguing that. "

The next week, a letter arrives. In it, nada is totally misrepresenting

everything I said. She says that I spent the entire conversation at her about

how she was wrong and the house was not messy. Then she says that she was so

upset she stayed up all night crying and my grandparents were up with her and

mad at me for saying such mean things and making her so upset.

This was my first real clue and hard evidence that something was seriously

wrong. There was simply no way anybody could hear what I actually said and come

up with that understanding. Also, the fact that here were both my grandparents,

old, frail, and my grandfather 88 years old and convalescing after something

like a month in the hospital, and this was what she did, together with how she

acted at the dinner with my relatives and what my grandmother had said about her

behavior all along, confirmed for me finally that I was NOT imagining anything

all these years. She really, honestly had a big deficit in her perceptions of

reality and here was the proof.

Meanwhile she was driving my brother nuts. We were both planning our weddings

(such as we could afford, because neither of us had any money), and they moved

out of the house and eloped, and did not invite nada. We were on the phone

about this several times and my brother briefly joined this group. I told him

about BPD, that I was pretty sure now nada had it, and that there was a

nationally recognized expert right here in the city I live in, and that I

thought we really ought to go and see what was the best thing we could do toward

getting nada back into some help. (She had already quit therapy twice.) He was

ready to try anything at that point, and so I started calling family members,

trying to get more information about nada's behavior.

What I found out was startling and upsetting. She had quit church years ago

after singing in the choir and running the missions committee for several years,

for reasons that were murky at best. My aunt had a wealth of information about

that. She said that at the time my grandmother had told her that nada said she

WAS ASKED TO LEAVE by church members because she was carrying tales and starting

too much trouble between church members! This was all news to me, but so, so,

BPD. Did I ever hear any such thing from nada while she was complaining and

complaining to me about her treatment at the hands of the snooty people at

church who didn't appreciate her work? Um, no. My aunt also said that nada's

last therapist had told her that she had serious problems and needed intensive

help. I imagine this would have been about the time that nada told me that she

and her husband had decided she was doing better and didn't need to go anymore

because the hourly fee was so expensive.

Any of this sound familiar to you all?

I rang up at the BPD clinic and found that the fee for ONE HOUR was $267.00.

Neither me nor my brother had it. We had just been barely able to pay for our

weddings, cheap though they were, and now we had nothing. I would have to wait

a bit to scrape together the money to go, and while that was going, either

Brother or Grandma blabbed to nada. She was pissed and the message that came

back to me through Grandma was that she wasn't going to any more therapy.

So there we were. I was still contemplating saving the money and going to talk

to a therapist to see if there was anything we could do or not, when the

following occurred:

Nada had been taking care of my grandparents for many weeks, and my uncle flew

in from California to stay with them and take over so she could go home. After

a tense and upsetting Christmas season during which nada sent me really

upsetting hate mail, returned the birthday gift I sent her, and then sent me

more hate mail with no return address and disguised handwriting on the envelope

once she realized I was no longer opening her mail (I recognized it and didn't

open it anyway), my grandfather was finally doing well enough that my uncle

could leave. He caught a plane up here, and I decided to go to the airport and

see him off.

During my investigation of what had gone on in our family in years before, when

I talked to my aunt, I let her know that nada had told me she was sexually

abused by my grandfather. (I heard details about that over the years that, as

nada's child, I probably should have been spared.) I asked my aunt over the

phone if my grandfather had sexually abused her. What happened next really

freaked me out, as my aunt started having a panic attack over the phone! I had

to talk her down and apologized for asking.

I now met my uncle at the airport, and while we were sitting there waiting for

the plane to board, he told me what my aunt had confessed to him, that she

hadn't been able to tell me over the phone. My aunt had been sexually

abused...BY NADA.

[Guest guest]

The other thing that happened was that during this time, my brother, who was

living at home, moved his girlfriend in whom he was really becoming serious

about, because she had no place to live. I forget why she lost her place.

Either she had lost her job or it was some conflict with a roommate...can't

remember. However it happened, Brother and GF lived like slobs and wouldn't

clean up. Nada likes her house clean, and she couldn't be there to even keep up

with the mess, much less nag them to clean up. She'd go for short trips home

and be horrified. ly, that was the last time I was ever there, and I was

horrified, too.

But the way she handled this was most telling. Instead of confronting my

brother and his girlfriend about it, she complained all over the family. My

brother had just started as a sheriff's deputy with the county, and she'd go all

over town complaining about this to shopkeepers in the area and people she saw

casually in restaurants--whom she refers to as " friends, " since she has only one

or two normal friendships, and she's always on the outs with these people, too.

She complained and complained and complained to me, and complained and

complained and complained to Grandma. Meanwhile I'm getting emails like this

from my brother: " WTF! You should see the emails she's sending me at work!

Why is she doing this all over town? I'm trying to start a career in law

enforcement and this is looking really bad! "

I totally sympathized with my brother. How many times had she done that all

over the family to me?

I was working and working on new ways to handle this kind of stuff with her. My

husband, then my fiance, had just moved back from Michigan where he had spent

two years remodeling and selling his house. He is a really optimistic,

positive, healthy and well-adjusted person and I would try stuff out on him:

" Good grief, look what she did this time! What if I said or did this? " I have

The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner; I have all these books on dealing with the

Effed Up FOO. I read and read, studied and studied, rehearsed. Finally I put

them into practice when we went one Sunday to visit my grandfather in the

hospital and had dinner out with my grandmother and nada.

She started her usual complaining at dinner. I calmly shared that she needed to

deal with the housework issue directly with my brother and his girlfriend, and

that the other issues she had with them (she felt slighted, for instance,

because GF didn't say hi to her when she came in the house) were perhaps

misunderstandings and needed to be talked out.

Interestingly enough, when Grandma and my fiance were sitting right there and

heard every word, there was no problem. Nobody thought anything I said was bad.

However, when I called up the next week to check in and see how things were

going, nada started up again, and I repeated exactly the same thing. Fiance was

sitting in the other room and heard everything I said. He thought I did a

pretty good job, considering how nervous I was about trying any kind of new

communication with nada at all. I specifically reiterated that I did indeed

think the house was messy. I said it four times: " Nobody's arguing that. "

The next week, a letter arrives. In it, nada is totally misrepresenting

everything I said. She says that I spent the entire conversation at her about

how she was wrong and the house was not messy. Then she says that she was so

upset she stayed up all night crying and my grandparents were up with her and

mad at me for saying such mean things and making her so upset.

This was my first real clue and hard evidence that something was seriously

wrong. There was simply no way anybody could hear what I actually said and come

up with that understanding. Also, the fact that here were both my grandparents,

old, frail, and my grandfather 88 years old and convalescing after something

like a month in the hospital, and this was what she did, together with how she

acted at the dinner with my relatives and what my grandmother had said about her

behavior all along, confirmed for me finally that I was NOT imagining anything

all these years. She really, honestly had a big deficit in her perceptions of

reality and here was the proof.

Meanwhile she was driving my brother nuts. We were both planning our weddings

(such as we could afford, because neither of us had any money), and they moved

out of the house and eloped, and did not invite nada. We were on the phone

about this several times and my brother briefly joined this group. I told him

about BPD, that I was pretty sure now nada had it, and that there was a

nationally recognized expert right here in the city I live in, and that I

thought we really ought to go and see what was the best thing we could do toward

getting nada back into some help. (She had already quit therapy twice.) He was

ready to try anything at that point, and so I started calling family members,

trying to get more information about nada's behavior.

What I found out was startling and upsetting. She had quit church years ago

after singing in the choir and running the missions committee for several years,

for reasons that were murky at best. My aunt had a wealth of information about

that. She said that at the time my grandmother had told her that nada said she

WAS ASKED TO LEAVE by church members because she was carrying tales and starting

too much trouble between church members! This was all news to me, but so, so,

BPD. Did I ever hear any such thing from nada while she was complaining and

complaining to me about her treatment at the hands of the snooty people at

church who didn't appreciate her work? Um, no. My aunt also said that nada's

last therapist had told her that she had serious problems and needed intensive

help. I imagine this would have been about the time that nada told me that she

and her husband had decided she was doing better and didn't need to go anymore

because the hourly fee was so expensive.

Any of this sound familiar to you all?

I rang up at the BPD clinic and found that the fee for ONE HOUR was $267.00.

Neither me nor my brother had it. We had just been barely able to pay for our

weddings, cheap though they were, and now we had nothing. I would have to wait

a bit to scrape together the money to go, and while that was going, either

Brother or Grandma blabbed to nada. She was pissed and the message that came

back to me through Grandma was that she wasn't going to any more therapy.

So there we were. I was still contemplating saving the money and going to talk

to a therapist to see if there was anything we could do or not, when the

following occurred:

Nada had been taking care of my grandparents for many weeks, and my uncle flew

in from California to stay with them and take over so she could go home. After

a tense and upsetting Christmas season during which nada sent me really

upsetting hate mail, returned the birthday gift I sent her, and then sent me

more hate mail with no return address and disguised handwriting on the envelope

once she realized I was no longer opening her mail (I recognized it and didn't

open it anyway), my grandfather was finally doing well enough that my uncle

could leave. He caught a plane up here, and I decided to go to the airport and

see him off.

During my investigation of what had gone on in our family in years before, when

I talked to my aunt, I let her know that nada had told me she was sexually

abused by my grandfather. (I heard details about that over the years that, as

nada's child, I probably should have been spared.) I asked my aunt over the

phone if my grandfather had sexually abused her. What happened next really

freaked me out, as my aunt started having a panic attack over the phone! I had

to talk her down and apologized for asking.

I now met my uncle at the airport, and while we were sitting there waiting for

the plane to board, he told me what my aunt had confessed to him, that she

hadn't been able to tell me over the phone. My aunt had been sexually

abused...BY NADA.

[Guest guest]

The other thing that happened was that during this time, my brother, who was

living at home, moved his girlfriend in whom he was really becoming serious

about, because she had no place to live. I forget why she lost her place.

Either she had lost her job or it was some conflict with a roommate...can't

remember. However it happened, Brother and GF lived like slobs and wouldn't

clean up. Nada likes her house clean, and she couldn't be there to even keep up

with the mess, much less nag them to clean up. She'd go for short trips home

and be horrified. ly, that was the last time I was ever there, and I was

horrified, too.

But the way she handled this was most telling. Instead of confronting my

brother and his girlfriend about it, she complained all over the family. My

brother had just started as a sheriff's deputy with the county, and she'd go all

over town complaining about this to shopkeepers in the area and people she saw

casually in restaurants--whom she refers to as " friends, " since she has only one

or two normal friendships, and she's always on the outs with these people, too.

She complained and complained and complained to me, and complained and

complained and complained to Grandma. Meanwhile I'm getting emails like this

from my brother: " WTF! You should see the emails she's sending me at work!

Why is she doing this all over town? I'm trying to start a career in law

enforcement and this is looking really bad! "

I totally sympathized with my brother. How many times had she done that all

over the family to me?

I was working and working on new ways to handle this kind of stuff with her. My

husband, then my fiance, had just moved back from Michigan where he had spent

two years remodeling and selling his house. He is a really optimistic,

positive, healthy and well-adjusted person and I would try stuff out on him:

" Good grief, look what she did this time! What if I said or did this? " I have

The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner; I have all these books on dealing with the

Effed Up FOO. I read and read, studied and studied, rehearsed. Finally I put

them into practice when we went one Sunday to visit my grandfather in the

hospital and had dinner out with my grandmother and nada.

She started her usual complaining at dinner. I calmly shared that she needed to

deal with the housework issue directly with my brother and his girlfriend, and

that the other issues she had with them (she felt slighted, for instance,

because GF didn't say hi to her when she came in the house) were perhaps

misunderstandings and needed to be talked out.

Interestingly enough, when Grandma and my fiance were sitting right there and

heard every word, there was no problem. Nobody thought anything I said was bad.

However, when I called up the next week to check in and see how things were

going, nada started up again, and I repeated exactly the same thing. Fiance was

sitting in the other room and heard everything I said. He thought I did a

pretty good job, considering how nervous I was about trying any kind of new

communication with nada at all. I specifically reiterated that I did indeed

think the house was messy. I said it four times: " Nobody's arguing that. "

The next week, a letter arrives. In it, nada is totally misrepresenting

everything I said. She says that I spent the entire conversation at her about

how she was wrong and the house was not messy. Then she says that she was so

upset she stayed up all night crying and my grandparents were up with her and

mad at me for saying such mean things and making her so upset.

This was my first real clue and hard evidence that something was seriously

wrong. There was simply no way anybody could hear what I actually said and come

up with that understanding. Also, the fact that here were both my grandparents,

old, frail, and my grandfather 88 years old and convalescing after something

like a month in the hospital, and this was what she did, together with how she

acted at the dinner with my relatives and what my grandmother had said about her

behavior all along, confirmed for me finally that I was NOT imagining anything

all these years. She really, honestly had a big deficit in her perceptions of

reality and here was the proof.

Meanwhile she was driving my brother nuts. We were both planning our weddings

(such as we could afford, because neither of us had any money), and they moved

out of the house and eloped, and did not invite nada. We were on the phone

about this several times and my brother briefly joined this group. I told him

about BPD, that I was pretty sure now nada had it, and that there was a

nationally recognized expert right here in the city I live in, and that I

thought we really ought to go and see what was the best thing we could do toward

getting nada back into some help. (She had already quit therapy twice.) He was

ready to try anything at that point, and so I started calling family members,

trying to get more information about nada's behavior.

What I found out was startling and upsetting. She had quit church years ago

after singing in the choir and running the missions committee for several years,

for reasons that were murky at best. My aunt had a wealth of information about

that. She said that at the time my grandmother had told her that nada said she

WAS ASKED TO LEAVE by church members because she was carrying tales and starting

too much trouble between church members! This was all news to me, but so, so,

BPD. Did I ever hear any such thing from nada while she was complaining and

complaining to me about her treatment at the hands of the snooty people at

church who didn't appreciate her work? Um, no. My aunt also said that nada's

last therapist had told her that she had serious problems and needed intensive

help. I imagine this would have been about the time that nada told me that she

and her husband had decided she was doing better and didn't need to go anymore

because the hourly fee was so expensive.

Any of this sound familiar to you all?

I rang up at the BPD clinic and found that the fee for ONE HOUR was $267.00.

Neither me nor my brother had it. We had just been barely able to pay for our

weddings, cheap though they were, and now we had nothing. I would have to wait

a bit to scrape together the money to go, and while that was going, either

Brother or Grandma blabbed to nada. She was pissed and the message that came

back to me through Grandma was that she wasn't going to any more therapy.

So there we were. I was still contemplating saving the money and going to talk

to a therapist to see if there was anything we could do or not, when the

following occurred:

Nada had been taking care of my grandparents for many weeks, and my uncle flew

in from California to stay with them and take over so she could go home. After

a tense and upsetting Christmas season during which nada sent me really

upsetting hate mail, returned the birthday gift I sent her, and then sent me

more hate mail with no return address and disguised handwriting on the envelope

once she realized I was no longer opening her mail (I recognized it and didn't

open it anyway), my grandfather was finally doing well enough that my uncle

could leave. He caught a plane up here, and I decided to go to the airport and

see him off.

During my investigation of what had gone on in our family in years before, when

I talked to my aunt, I let her know that nada had told me she was sexually

abused by my grandfather. (I heard details about that over the years that, as

nada's child, I probably should have been spared.) I asked my aunt over the

phone if my grandfather had sexually abused her. What happened next really

freaked me out, as my aunt started having a panic attack over the phone! I had

to talk her down and apologized for asking.

I now met my uncle at the airport, and while we were sitting there waiting for

the plane to board, he told me what my aunt had confessed to him, that she

hadn't been able to tell me over the phone. My aunt had been sexually

abused...BY NADA.

[Guest guest]

I am LC and there were two last straws. One, 3 Christmases ago - a holiday my

husband and I call " The Christmas From Hell, " as in, " When was it that we had

the new water heater put in, dear? " " Oh, that was right before The Christmas

From Hell. " LSS, my mother had one of her episodes, went completely batshit, and

it was horrific. My husband witnessed the carnage and for the first time really

kinda sorta " got it. " Up til then he'd been more of a benefit of the doubt/maybe

it's the stress of travel/heat/spicy food kind of guy. Second straw was when my

son reached the age at which I first remember her beating the crap out of me. He

was 18 months old; I used to be able to have some sympathy for her, but when I

had a real, live 18 month old darling and realized that NO MATTER WHAT I'd kill

myself or be tortured to death before I would hurt one little hair on his

precious head - or take the chance that SHE might - I was done. It's complicated

bc as far as she's concerned, her apologies for the CFH and my childhood have

taken care of things - she isn't aware that I have these new feelings. But I'm

limiting calls/visits/skypes ad when she does come she's not spending a moment

alone with him. I'm not looking forward to that bc she started pushing the

babysitting issue before I even had a kid...but tough toenails. I'd do anything

for my son. I feel proud of myself, scared of my mother, anxious about her

visit, but confident I'm doing the right thing. I feel regret that I didn't

realize sooner that I didn't want her with him on their own and curious - will

she hold it together or will I have to go all mama bear on her ass and flee with

my child so he doesn't even witness her madness? I also feel wishful - for her

to just leave it alone, and sometimes, for a convenient illness to necessitate

her cancelling or a bus to run her down. I feel sad that i don't have a mom and

my son doesn't have a grandma. I feel ticked that I have to deal with this. I

also feel that I have gone on too long, so I will quit now.

>

> Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

>

> For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw? What

was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then?

>

> Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your feelings? Are you

planning on going to NC? How do you handle it when your nada has an episode?

>

> I am posting this question because I have just started LC with my nada. I

haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving (except once through e-mail,

and once through text), and I have felt much more emotionally safer and

happier. However, I am really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have

just given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its time to

focus on me, and feeling better about everything in general (after all, nadas

have an excellent way of putting a damper on everything).

>

[Guest guest]

I am LC and there were two last straws. One, 3 Christmases ago - a holiday my

husband and I call " The Christmas From Hell, " as in, " When was it that we had

the new water heater put in, dear? " " Oh, that was right before The Christmas

From Hell. " LSS, my mother had one of her episodes, went completely batshit, and

it was horrific. My husband witnessed the carnage and for the first time really

kinda sorta " got it. " Up til then he'd been more of a benefit of the doubt/maybe

it's the stress of travel/heat/spicy food kind of guy. Second straw was when my

son reached the age at which I first remember her beating the crap out of me. He

was 18 months old; I used to be able to have some sympathy for her, but when I

had a real, live 18 month old darling and realized that NO MATTER WHAT I'd kill

myself or be tortured to death before I would hurt one little hair on his

precious head - or take the chance that SHE might - I was done. It's complicated

bc as far as she's concerned, her apologies for the CFH and my childhood have

taken care of things - she isn't aware that I have these new feelings. But I'm

limiting calls/visits/skypes ad when she does come she's not spending a moment

alone with him. I'm not looking forward to that bc she started pushing the

babysitting issue before I even had a kid...but tough toenails. I'd do anything

for my son. I feel proud of myself, scared of my mother, anxious about her

visit, but confident I'm doing the right thing. I feel regret that I didn't

realize sooner that I didn't want her with him on their own and curious - will

she hold it together or will I have to go all mama bear on her ass and flee with

my child so he doesn't even witness her madness? I also feel wishful - for her

to just leave it alone, and sometimes, for a convenient illness to necessitate

her cancelling or a bus to run her down. I feel sad that i don't have a mom and

my son doesn't have a grandma. I feel ticked that I have to deal with this. I

also feel that I have gone on too long, so I will quit now.

>

> Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

>

> For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw? What

was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then?

>

> Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your feelings? Are you

planning on going to NC? How do you handle it when your nada has an episode?

>

> I am posting this question because I have just started LC with my nada. I

haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving (except once through e-mail,

and once through text), and I have felt much more emotionally safer and

happier. However, I am really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have

just given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its time to

focus on me, and feeling better about everything in general (after all, nadas

have an excellent way of putting a damper on everything).

>

[Guest guest]

You know that song, " It's Not Over, " by Daughtry? As I left the airport that

day, sweating and shaken, I swear that was the first song that came on the

radio, and the lyrics were absolutely on the nose.

So many things made sense after that day. My dad died in a plane crash when I

was 12, and my family had received money in a lawsuit. However, by the time I

was old enough to go to college, most of it was gone and I had to borrow to

go...which was disastrous for me, because I chose a career based on what would

make the FOO happy. It wasn't and isn't a good fit for me, and I am unhappy in

it on a daily basis and don't earn what other people who are a good fit for the

career earn. This has ruined my financial future, because I couldn't afford

health insurance and needed two major surgeries which I will now be paying for

forever. I can't do something else, because nothing else makes enough money to

pay on these student loans and hospital bills, so if I can't get anywhere

writing (a remote possibility at best), I'm pretty much trapped in an

unsatisfying life with nothing but poverty at the end of it. I got a lump sum

when I was 30, but it wasn't enough to pay off the loans due to car accidents I

had, and then I lost some of it to a guy I dated I never should have left money

to, and in the stock market crash of the late 90's/early 2000's. (Typical KO

stuff, sigh.) If the money that was supposed to pay for my college had been

there, I would never have had to borrow, and would have been so, so much better

off.

Where did a lot of that money go?

When I was in high school, my aunt was living in California, married to a

horribly abusive guy who beat her up, raped her, and God knows what. My

grandparents actually took out life insurance on her because they were afraid

her husband was going to kill her! After my dad died and we got all this money,

my aunt left her husband and called my mother for help. My mother didn't save

the money to pay for my college or buy me a car, but she did use our money to

pay for my aunt's tuition in nursing school and buy HER a car.

Now I knew why.

And all this time, she was telling us tales about how mean my aunt always was to

her, all the tacky things she did to her growing up, how she couldn't understand

why my aunt was the way she was, and how it was like she didn't even have a

sister at all. I grew up disliking my aunt, for several reasons including

these. Now I saw that my aunt was in treatment for her problems, while in

nada's mind history was completely and totally rewritten.

Up to now, I had always believed that nada could be made well. That all the

suffering could be redeemed, that good could come of it, that she could attend

therapy and heal from the anguish of childhood sexual abuse the way so many

other people have done, and that even at the end of over five decades of

suffering, some degree of better functioning could be attained and even some

real happiness. My mother writes poetry and paints very well. Surely she could

get over her problems enough to enjoy using her talents and have a few really

good relationships with other people before she died.

I harbored this fantasy that I could get her into therapy and have some hope of

achieving this outcome at least partly for a few weeks more, and then the truth

finally sunk in.

Someone who is hiding such a secret in their own past, who needs so badly to

hide it that their mind completely rewrote their own past and still rewrites the

present to this extent right up until the present day, is never, never going to

confront their own issues in therapy under any circumstances after so many

years, and is simply never, never going to get well. There is nothing I can do.

There was never anything I could ever do, no matter what she said. I gave up my

whole life trying to make it better for her. I mean, seriously. I angered

other people spouting her viewpoints at them because I was " supposed to, "

walking around like a little paper doll being exactly who and what she needed to

validate her every little second, meanwhile eating myself into obesity because I

was so unhappy, and berating myself instead of my family when I didn't fit into

the suit I chose to please them. I actually believed, when I had thoughts that

I didn't like the field I was in, that it meant I was a bad person and that I

was *supposed* to be like the good-fit people I saw all around me, and that

something was wrong with me because I wasn't.

I now know that years of abuse have simply made me a person who is too afraid of

punishment to be comfortable in such a stressful position with such a high

degree of risk and responsibility, and that after spending my entire youth

working, working, working every minute because I was " lazy " if I didn't, that I

was resisting all that work for something I didn't really enjoy because I really

*did* need a lower stress life, I really did need to play and relax some, and

that it was and is a legitimate need. Too late!

I now know that the work that feeds me is the work that is much more happy and

comfortable and much more likely to succeed. Professors and teachers who cared

tried to tell me that all along, but I couldn't listen. I was too afraid of

being talked badly about and labeled a " weenie " by the FOO if I quit.

So here I am now, with a ruined figure, no gallbladder and the bills to show for

it, no finances and no future. I saw that I needed to attend to my own

problems, because nothing, nothing, nothing would ever take care of hers. It

was hopeless. It was over. It was over long before I was even able to talk.

I contemplated writing her what I was doing and why, but I decided against it.

What would be the point? She'd shown by her past actions that anything I said

about the truth, she just wasn't able to assimilate. It would just be causing

more pain for no reason. So I said nothing, and just drifted away. I had to

see her at Grandma's funeral last summer, but have had no contact otherwise.

I wish I could say no contact has solved my problems, but really now that I can

see my own problems instead of hers, I've just exchanged her problems for mine.

Not having to deal with her was a big relief at first, but that was four years

ago. Memory really does fade. I have to write stuff like this to really get

that visceral sensation of how bad it was then. Now my life is pretty much all

about the hopelessness of being trapped for the rest of my life in daily

activities that just don't feel good to me today in order to afford to go on

doing daily activities that just don't feel good to me tomorrow. Add to that

the fact that, two years after I got rid of nada and finally got my schedule

cleared up so I could write...along came two more mentally ill handicapped

relatives I assumed responsibility for, not knowing what lay in store, so here I

am all over again. It is so frustrating and makes me so angry and sad to know

that I'm basically going to blink my eyes and it will all be over and I'll be

just as old and feeble as they are, only with much, much fewer resources than

they have, and all the good things that could have happened in my life never

happened...just pain, pain, pain, and restriction, restriction, restriction.

I've opened my eyes a lot more to how life really is for most people, and the

fact that that miracle success writing that it will take to pull me out of this

is just not going to happen...particularly if I can't even finish something I

can sell.

So I don't feel bad anymore about NC with nada. I've paid enough on that

account. I feel bad on my own account. I'm trying to get some help from Social

Services so maybe I can free up some of my own time and get going on my own

dreams again, but at this point in my life I'm pretty used to God dumping me on

my ass again as soon as I expect things to get better. I guess this has really

shaken my faith in God and I don't expect Him to be there for me in this life

anymore. Maybe when I'm gone He'll show me the reason and I will see that I've

profited handsomely in the grand cosmic scheme of things the way the New Agers

say we will (and therefore we're just supposed to never mind what's going on

now, trust God, and just bliss out on Nirvana and always feel happy no matter

what), but in this life here on Earth? I've learned that it's pretty much shit

no matter what.

I see that for most people on here life has improved drastically after going NC

with Effed Up FOO. I also notice that for those people their problems were

mainly emotional, not financial and mired up with inability to stay alive

financially without a career that isn't satisfying. Just about everybody else

on here had enough common sense not to mess up their lives so irrevocably so

early in life. So if you do go NC, be advised that relationship-wise, life

seems to work out better for most people.

Sorry that this post is so long. I don't really expect anyone to read all this,

nor do I expect it to be very helpful to anyone on account of it being so long.

Mainly I wrote it here because I needed to set down what actually happened at

some point before I forgot any more. It's easy for time to wear away the

details.

--.

[Guest guest]

You know that song, " It's Not Over, " by Daughtry? As I left the airport that

day, sweating and shaken, I swear that was the first song that came on the

radio, and the lyrics were absolutely on the nose.

So many things made sense after that day. My dad died in a plane crash when I

was 12, and my family had received money in a lawsuit. However, by the time I

was old enough to go to college, most of it was gone and I had to borrow to

go...which was disastrous for me, because I chose a career based on what would

make the FOO happy. It wasn't and isn't a good fit for me, and I am unhappy in

it on a daily basis and don't earn what other people who are a good fit for the

career earn. This has ruined my financial future, because I couldn't afford

health insurance and needed two major surgeries which I will now be paying for

forever. I can't do something else, because nothing else makes enough money to

pay on these student loans and hospital bills, so if I can't get anywhere

writing (a remote possibility at best), I'm pretty much trapped in an

unsatisfying life with nothing but poverty at the end of it. I got a lump sum

when I was 30, but it wasn't enough to pay off the loans due to car accidents I

had, and then I lost some of it to a guy I dated I never should have left money

to, and in the stock market crash of the late 90's/early 2000's. (Typical KO

stuff, sigh.) If the money that was supposed to pay for my college had been

there, I would never have had to borrow, and would have been so, so much better

off.

Where did a lot of that money go?

When I was in high school, my aunt was living in California, married to a

horribly abusive guy who beat her up, raped her, and God knows what. My

grandparents actually took out life insurance on her because they were afraid

her husband was going to kill her! After my dad died and we got all this money,

my aunt left her husband and called my mother for help. My mother didn't save

the money to pay for my college or buy me a car, but she did use our money to

pay for my aunt's tuition in nursing school and buy HER a car.

Now I knew why.

And all this time, she was telling us tales about how mean my aunt always was to

her, all the tacky things she did to her growing up, how she couldn't understand

why my aunt was the way she was, and how it was like she didn't even have a

sister at all. I grew up disliking my aunt, for several reasons including

these. Now I saw that my aunt was in treatment for her problems, while in

nada's mind history was completely and totally rewritten.

Up to now, I had always believed that nada could be made well. That all the

suffering could be redeemed, that good could come of it, that she could attend

therapy and heal from the anguish of childhood sexual abuse the way so many

other people have done, and that even at the end of over five decades of

suffering, some degree of better functioning could be attained and even some

real happiness. My mother writes poetry and paints very well. Surely she could

get over her problems enough to enjoy using her talents and have a few really

good relationships with other people before she died.

I harbored this fantasy that I could get her into therapy and have some hope of

achieving this outcome at least partly for a few weeks more, and then the truth

finally sunk in.

Someone who is hiding such a secret in their own past, who needs so badly to

hide it that their mind completely rewrote their own past and still rewrites the

present to this extent right up until the present day, is never, never going to

confront their own issues in therapy under any circumstances after so many

years, and is simply never, never going to get well. There is nothing I can do.

There was never anything I could ever do, no matter what she said. I gave up my

whole life trying to make it better for her. I mean, seriously. I angered

other people spouting her viewpoints at them because I was " supposed to, "

walking around like a little paper doll being exactly who and what she needed to

validate her every little second, meanwhile eating myself into obesity because I

was so unhappy, and berating myself instead of my family when I didn't fit into

the suit I chose to please them. I actually believed, when I had thoughts that

I didn't like the field I was in, that it meant I was a bad person and that I

was *supposed* to be like the good-fit people I saw all around me, and that

something was wrong with me because I wasn't.

I now know that years of abuse have simply made me a person who is too afraid of

punishment to be comfortable in such a stressful position with such a high

degree of risk and responsibility, and that after spending my entire youth

working, working, working every minute because I was " lazy " if I didn't, that I

was resisting all that work for something I didn't really enjoy because I really

*did* need a lower stress life, I really did need to play and relax some, and

that it was and is a legitimate need. Too late!

I now know that the work that feeds me is the work that is much more happy and

comfortable and much more likely to succeed. Professors and teachers who cared

tried to tell me that all along, but I couldn't listen. I was too afraid of

being talked badly about and labeled a " weenie " by the FOO if I quit.

So here I am now, with a ruined figure, no gallbladder and the bills to show for

it, no finances and no future. I saw that I needed to attend to my own

problems, because nothing, nothing, nothing would ever take care of hers. It

was hopeless. It was over. It was over long before I was even able to talk.

I contemplated writing her what I was doing and why, but I decided against it.

What would be the point? She'd shown by her past actions that anything I said

about the truth, she just wasn't able to assimilate. It would just be causing

more pain for no reason. So I said nothing, and just drifted away. I had to

see her at Grandma's funeral last summer, but have had no contact otherwise.

I wish I could say no contact has solved my problems, but really now that I can

see my own problems instead of hers, I've just exchanged her problems for mine.

Not having to deal with her was a big relief at first, but that was four years

ago. Memory really does fade. I have to write stuff like this to really get

that visceral sensation of how bad it was then. Now my life is pretty much all

about the hopelessness of being trapped for the rest of my life in daily

activities that just don't feel good to me today in order to afford to go on

doing daily activities that just don't feel good to me tomorrow. Add to that

the fact that, two years after I got rid of nada and finally got my schedule

cleared up so I could write...along came two more mentally ill handicapped

relatives I assumed responsibility for, not knowing what lay in store, so here I

am all over again. It is so frustrating and makes me so angry and sad to know

that I'm basically going to blink my eyes and it will all be over and I'll be

just as old and feeble as they are, only with much, much fewer resources than

they have, and all the good things that could have happened in my life never

happened...just pain, pain, pain, and restriction, restriction, restriction.

I've opened my eyes a lot more to how life really is for most people, and the

fact that that miracle success writing that it will take to pull me out of this

is just not going to happen...particularly if I can't even finish something I

can sell.

So I don't feel bad anymore about NC with nada. I've paid enough on that

account. I feel bad on my own account. I'm trying to get some help from Social

Services so maybe I can free up some of my own time and get going on my own

dreams again, but at this point in my life I'm pretty used to God dumping me on

my ass again as soon as I expect things to get better. I guess this has really

shaken my faith in God and I don't expect Him to be there for me in this life

anymore. Maybe when I'm gone He'll show me the reason and I will see that I've

profited handsomely in the grand cosmic scheme of things the way the New Agers

say we will (and therefore we're just supposed to never mind what's going on

now, trust God, and just bliss out on Nirvana and always feel happy no matter

what), but in this life here on Earth? I've learned that it's pretty much shit

no matter what.

I see that for most people on here life has improved drastically after going NC

with Effed Up FOO. I also notice that for those people their problems were

mainly emotional, not financial and mired up with inability to stay alive

financially without a career that isn't satisfying. Just about everybody else

on here had enough common sense not to mess up their lives so irrevocably so

early in life. So if you do go NC, be advised that relationship-wise, life

seems to work out better for most people.

Sorry that this post is so long. I don't really expect anyone to read all this,

nor do I expect it to be very helpful to anyone on account of it being so long.

Mainly I wrote it here because I needed to set down what actually happened at

some point before I forgot any more. It's easy for time to wear away the

details.

--.

[Guest guest]

My first last straw was my sister's trainwreck of a wedding.

She was having a back yard wedding, as there was no money for it and any money

that was there for it, had been offered by my husband and I (thinking she needed

a good start to this new phase in her life.). My sister is bi-polar, and was

pregnant and off her meds. She gave a whole new meaning to hormonal.

I lost my job a few months before the wedding. I had to back out of our

monetary commitments, as in this economy, my husband and I felt we needed to cut

back on expenditures and just focus on our family. Of course this upset both my

mother & my sister. I had told my sister I would help with all the other work

involved though. But when we showed up for the wedding, it was made painfully

clear we weren't wanted there. There was actually a fistfight between my mother

and my pregnant sister, where I physically pulled my mother off my sister. And

then got the blame for the whole thing.

We left early, I swearing to never speak to any of them ever again. However, a

few weeks later when I discovered I had a stomach tumor, my husband thought my

mother might want to know about it.

Three weeks of silence later, she finally found time to call and in her special

way, started making MY tumor all about her. Needless to say, I lost it. Told

her in very specific terms where she could go and that I no longer had room in

my life for anyone who couldn't be there for me when I needed them.

I too am sad my child doesn't have a grandmother. However, I'm just not going

to expose to my mother for the sake of having a grandmother.

> >

> > Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

> >

> > For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw?

What was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then?

> >

> > Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your feelings? Are you

planning on going to NC? How do you handle it when your nada has an episode?

> >

> > I am posting this question because I have just started LC with my nada. I

haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving (except once through e-mail,

and once through text), and I have felt much more emotionally safer and

happier. However, I am really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have

just given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its time to

focus on me, and feeling better about everything in general (after all, nadas

have an excellent way of putting a damper on everything).

> >

>

[Guest guest]

My first last straw was my sister's trainwreck of a wedding.

She was having a back yard wedding, as there was no money for it and any money

that was there for it, had been offered by my husband and I (thinking she needed

a good start to this new phase in her life.). My sister is bi-polar, and was

pregnant and off her meds. She gave a whole new meaning to hormonal.

I lost my job a few months before the wedding. I had to back out of our

monetary commitments, as in this economy, my husband and I felt we needed to cut

back on expenditures and just focus on our family. Of course this upset both my

mother & my sister. I had told my sister I would help with all the other work

involved though. But when we showed up for the wedding, it was made painfully

clear we weren't wanted there. There was actually a fistfight between my mother

and my pregnant sister, where I physically pulled my mother off my sister. And

then got the blame for the whole thing.

We left early, I swearing to never speak to any of them ever again. However, a

few weeks later when I discovered I had a stomach tumor, my husband thought my

mother might want to know about it.

Three weeks of silence later, she finally found time to call and in her special

way, started making MY tumor all about her. Needless to say, I lost it. Told

her in very specific terms where she could go and that I no longer had room in

my life for anyone who couldn't be there for me when I needed them.

I too am sad my child doesn't have a grandmother. However, I'm just not going

to expose to my mother for the sake of having a grandmother.

> >

> > Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

> >

> > For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw?

What was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then?

> >

> > Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your feelings? Are you

planning on going to NC? How do you handle it when your nada has an episode?

> >

> > I am posting this question because I have just started LC with my nada. I

haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving (except once through e-mail,

and once through text), and I have felt much more emotionally safer and

happier. However, I am really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have

just given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its time to

focus on me, and feeling better about everything in general (after all, nadas

have an excellent way of putting a damper on everything).

> >

>

[Guest guest]

My first last straw was my sister's trainwreck of a wedding.

She was having a back yard wedding, as there was no money for it and any money

that was there for it, had been offered by my husband and I (thinking she needed

a good start to this new phase in her life.). My sister is bi-polar, and was

pregnant and off her meds. She gave a whole new meaning to hormonal.

I lost my job a few months before the wedding. I had to back out of our

monetary commitments, as in this economy, my husband and I felt we needed to cut

back on expenditures and just focus on our family. Of course this upset both my

mother & my sister. I had told my sister I would help with all the other work

involved though. But when we showed up for the wedding, it was made painfully

clear we weren't wanted there. There was actually a fistfight between my mother

and my pregnant sister, where I physically pulled my mother off my sister. And

then got the blame for the whole thing.

We left early, I swearing to never speak to any of them ever again. However, a

few weeks later when I discovered I had a stomach tumor, my husband thought my

mother might want to know about it.

Three weeks of silence later, she finally found time to call and in her special

way, started making MY tumor all about her. Needless to say, I lost it. Told

her in very specific terms where she could go and that I no longer had room in

my life for anyone who couldn't be there for me when I needed them.

I too am sad my child doesn't have a grandmother. However, I'm just not going

to expose to my mother for the sake of having a grandmother.

> >

> > Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

> >

> > For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw?

What was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then?

> >

> > Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your feelings? Are you

planning on going to NC? How do you handle it when your nada has an episode?

> >

> > I am posting this question because I have just started LC with my nada. I

haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving (except once through e-mail,

and once through text), and I have felt much more emotionally safer and

happier. However, I am really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have

just given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its time to

focus on me, and feeling better about everything in general (after all, nadas

have an excellent way of putting a damper on everything).

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Dear Jade,

For many of us NC is a gradual process, and it really ends up that nada makes

that decision herself by making contact too intolerable. After I learned about

BPD, and learned to be in touch with my feelings and responses in real time, I

started to realize what effect nada was truly having on my well being. At first

the only boundaries I drew were never riding in the car with her alone or eating

at a dinner table with her in a private setting. Then I had to draw more and

more and more boundaries as I realized how hurtful she was in *every* situation.

After I stopped seing her in person, she began using phone calls to try and 'get

to me'. So I stopped talking to her on the phone. Then she started using

emails to try and harm/manipulate me--so I set her emails to junk. Now, just a

few weeks ago, she discovered texting, and has been sending invasive and

inappropriate texts to me, often. I am in the midst of getting her number

blocked so she can't text me either. For me it's a matter of understanding what

hurts and what doesn't....but I feel like it's nada who has actively lost the

privilege of communication with me, by using literally every possible means of

interaction and communication to try and harm me.

--Charlie

> > >

> > > Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

> > >

> > > For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw?

What was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then?

> > >

> > > Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your feelings? Are you

planning on going to NC? How do you handle it when your nada has an episode?

> > >

> > > I am posting this question because I have just started LC with my nada. I

haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving (except once through e-mail,

and once through text), and I have felt much more emotionally safer and

happier. However, I am really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have

just given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its time to

focus on me, and feeling better about everything in general (after all, nadas

have an excellent way of putting a damper on everything).

> > >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Dear Jade,

For many of us NC is a gradual process, and it really ends up that nada makes

that decision herself by making contact too intolerable. After I learned about

BPD, and learned to be in touch with my feelings and responses in real time, I

started to realize what effect nada was truly having on my well being. At first

the only boundaries I drew were never riding in the car with her alone or eating

at a dinner table with her in a private setting. Then I had to draw more and

more and more boundaries as I realized how hurtful she was in *every* situation.

After I stopped seing her in person, she began using phone calls to try and 'get

to me'. So I stopped talking to her on the phone. Then she started using

emails to try and harm/manipulate me--so I set her emails to junk. Now, just a

few weeks ago, she discovered texting, and has been sending invasive and

inappropriate texts to me, often. I am in the midst of getting her number

blocked so she can't text me either. For me it's a matter of understanding what

hurts and what doesn't....but I feel like it's nada who has actively lost the

privilege of communication with me, by using literally every possible means of

interaction and communication to try and harm me.

--Charlie

> > >

> > > Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

> > >

> > > For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw?

What was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then?

> > >

> > > Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your feelings? Are you

planning on going to NC? How do you handle it when your nada has an episode?

> > >

> > > I am posting this question because I have just started LC with my nada. I

haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving (except once through e-mail,

and once through text), and I have felt much more emotionally safer and

happier. However, I am really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have

just given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its time to

focus on me, and feeling better about everything in general (after all, nadas

have an excellent way of putting a damper on everything).

> > >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

Dear Jade,

For many of us NC is a gradual process, and it really ends up that nada makes

that decision herself by making contact too intolerable. After I learned about

BPD, and learned to be in touch with my feelings and responses in real time, I

started to realize what effect nada was truly having on my well being. At first

the only boundaries I drew were never riding in the car with her alone or eating

at a dinner table with her in a private setting. Then I had to draw more and

more and more boundaries as I realized how hurtful she was in *every* situation.

After I stopped seing her in person, she began using phone calls to try and 'get

to me'. So I stopped talking to her on the phone. Then she started using

emails to try and harm/manipulate me--so I set her emails to junk. Now, just a

few weeks ago, she discovered texting, and has been sending invasive and

inappropriate texts to me, often. I am in the midst of getting her number

blocked so she can't text me either. For me it's a matter of understanding what

hurts and what doesn't....but I feel like it's nada who has actively lost the

privilege of communication with me, by using literally every possible means of

interaction and communication to try and harm me.

--Charlie

> > >

> > > Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

> > >

> > > For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw?

What was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then?

> > >

> > > Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your feelings? Are you

planning on going to NC? How do you handle it when your nada has an episode?

> > >

> > > I am posting this question because I have just started LC with my nada. I

haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving (except once through e-mail,

and once through text), and I have felt much more emotionally safer and

happier. However, I am really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have

just given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its time to

focus on me, and feeling better about everything in general (after all, nadas

have an excellent way of putting a damper on everything).

> > >

> >

>

[Guest guest]

I set boundries finally. Told Nada all the years of frustration and hurt last

Christmas. Told her not to walk away and sit and listen to me. Told her she

trained me to be her mother and life support system.

Told her I couldn't watch her be self destructive anymore. Told her she had

major problems and needs to seek help if she wants any sort of relationship with

me and my family.

She said she was too old to change and then I was LC. LC was harder for me

because it was like a chess game.

Always wondering what I should do and what is enough contact and what I would

accept and not accept. To go NC I just stopped contacting her. She was angry at

me for setting boundries and wanted me to crawl back like I have done in the

past. She wiped me.

She has contacted by sending presents and letters to our daughter after NC.

Her flying monkeys have also had a go at me. She basically made it easy for me

as she made me suffer by ignoring me for Easter and my birthday and only

contacting our daughter. You ask how it feels.................. at first I got

very angry than I grieved.

I thought about her 24 7. My mind was crazy. Reliving past hurts and justifying

my decision.

Ten months on I can say that I feel absolutely '''''''FANTASTIC''''''''

Strong, free, healthy, happier than I have ever been in my entire life.

NC ROCKS........

I honestly recommend it to anyone.

Kazam x

>

> Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

>

> For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw? What

was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then?

>

> Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your feelings? Are you

planning on going to NC? How do you handle it when your nada has an episode?

>

> I am posting this question because I have just started LC with my nada. I

haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving (except once through e-mail,

and once through text), and I have felt much more emotionally safer and

happier. However, I am really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have

just given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its time to

focus on me, and feeling better about everything in general (after all, nadas

have an excellent way of putting a damper on everything).

>

[Guest guest]

I set boundries finally. Told Nada all the years of frustration and hurt last

Christmas. Told her not to walk away and sit and listen to me. Told her she

trained me to be her mother and life support system.

Told her I couldn't watch her be self destructive anymore. Told her she had

major problems and needs to seek help if she wants any sort of relationship with

me and my family.

She said she was too old to change and then I was LC. LC was harder for me

because it was like a chess game.

Always wondering what I should do and what is enough contact and what I would

accept and not accept. To go NC I just stopped contacting her. She was angry at

me for setting boundries and wanted me to crawl back like I have done in the

past. She wiped me.

She has contacted by sending presents and letters to our daughter after NC.

Her flying monkeys have also had a go at me. She basically made it easy for me

as she made me suffer by ignoring me for Easter and my birthday and only

contacting our daughter. You ask how it feels.................. at first I got

very angry than I grieved.

I thought about her 24 7. My mind was crazy. Reliving past hurts and justifying

my decision.

Ten months on I can say that I feel absolutely '''''''FANTASTIC''''''''

Strong, free, healthy, happier than I have ever been in my entire life.

NC ROCKS........

I honestly recommend it to anyone.

Kazam x

>

> Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

>

> For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw? What

was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then?

>

> Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your feelings? Are you

planning on going to NC? How do you handle it when your nada has an episode?

>

> I am posting this question because I have just started LC with my nada. I

haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving (except once through e-mail,

and once through text), and I have felt much more emotionally safer and

happier. However, I am really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have

just given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its time to

focus on me, and feeling better about everything in general (after all, nadas

have an excellent way of putting a damper on everything).

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Dawsonjade, and what a good question! Thanks for asking, because it prompts

me to remember the good, good reason I went NC. Nada always used my Brudda

(brother) to administer corporal punishment to me (I was 5 years younger) and

that kept me silent and pliant, while Nada remained blameless. Great ploy, huh?!

Anyway, Brudda went so far with his punching, pinching and humiliation of me

that he almost killed me couple of times. I narrowly avoided breaking my neck

being pushed down the basement stairs, he attempted to drown me by holding my

head underwater in a plastic pool, and walked away when I had fallen from a

chair in the livingroom and laid, partially paralyzed, on the floor. When I

turned 15, Brudda delivered his last punch to my body. I believe my puberty was

his turning point. He could no longer beat me with a clear conscience. So I

diminished these murder attempts as I grew older, but I was always amazingly

fearful whenever I visited my parents and had panic attacks etc. Anyway all that

submerged memory came raging to the forefront of my conscious the day Nada flew

into a violent rage on the phone about 6 years ago.

I had asked Nada politely to let me finish my sentence (we were on the phone.)

Nada is a compulsive talker and I always had to fight to get a word in edgewise.

On that day, my Brudda was in the room during the call, and suddenly Nada threw

the phone down (I was on the other end) and began throwing chairs around and

slamming cupboard doors in a fury. I hung up the phone and was seized with panic

that would not subside. In a couple of days I went to a therapist, shaking,

crying, absolutely in a terror--and we " decoded " that my subconscious believed

that Nada was giving my Brudda a " signal " to start beating and physically

punishing me again to " keep me in line. "

Not only do I believe my subconscious was correct, but I finally faced up to how

dangerous my family was, not just mentally, but physically too. It took me six

months, but I " disappeared " with the help of friends. All my business, as well

as personal, is conducted completely " off the radar. I am untraceable, at least

as far as their puny efforts go, and they're to cheap to hire professionals to

find me!

I'm finally safe and happier every day. This was the least painful Christmas

I've ever had, and I mean pain-FREE, thank God.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!

AFB

> >

> > Hello all, I just wanted to pose a question to you.

> >

> > For those of you who are NC with your nadas, what was your final straw?

What was the deciding factor for why you have NC? How have you felt since then?

> >

> > Those of you who are LC with your nadas, what are your feelings? Are you

planning on going to NC? How do you handle it when your nada has an episode?

> >

> > I am posting this question because I have just started LC with my nada. I

haven't talked to her since I left on thanksgiving (except once through e-mail,

and once through text), and I have felt much more emotionally safer and

happier. However, I am really considering NC with my nada. I feel like I have

just given her everything I could, and it wasn't enough, and now its time to

focus on me, and feeling better about everything in general (after all, nadas

have an excellent way of putting a damper on everything).

> >

>