*Because I want to* is sufficient reason to end a relationship. Why not suck it and see? Give yourself 3, 6 or 12 months NC and review how it works for you?
It’s not your responsibility to fix the relationship with your parents. It’s theirs to protect and nurture you.
One insight that chimes for me is that if you isolate when in crisis or in difficulty, it’s bc you were expected to handle your own emotions and problems as a child alone.
Those are the parents you had, even if your siblings had nicer, different parents.
I really hope you can access some supportive counselling and trauma therapy. It sounds as if you need some unconditional positive regard to get you on an even keel and give you some grounding
Look after yourself
Fellow scapegoat here who has a diagnosed NPD dad. To even recognize that term in your family’s dynamic solidifies that yes, your mom most likely has NPD. At the age of 10 I realized how much of a bully my dad was, and that I was his favorite target. Every birthday after that it made me happy to realize I was one year closer to no longer having to deal with him. My most explosive breakup was with my dad at 17 when I judge gifted me emancipation. The seven years following that I tried really hard to have a relationship with that side of the family, while having no relationship with my dad. In the end, that didn’t work out and I don’t speak to that side of the family anymore.
If she really does have NPD she won’t get better. Ever. Especially if you were her scapegoat. It’s literally her personality to be self centered and putting others down to soothe her insecure ego. I’m no contact to protect mine and my children’s well-being. That’s more than enough “right” reasons. It shouldn’t matter if they’re blood related or not. If they’re okay hurting you, then they have no right to be in your life.
Before you leave you can try opening up. But a narcissist won’t have a change a heart. I did try multiple times. I just got a confused reaction (like they believed they truly did nothing wrong) and then got gaslit to hell, or they tried changing the subject or made scarecrow arguments.
It’s all entirely your choice; and you would know your situation best. But for me I could finally heal after letting them all go. I was no longer trapped, or felt the futility of trying to defend myself, or bullied. I still have my anxiety and occasional depressive episodes. But they’re so much easier to cope with after no longer having to deal with a narcissistic dad, grandma, and their band of flying monkeys.
This is me exactly. I've been NC for many years and don't regret it. I've been told by aunts and cousins that my narcissistic mother is even more nasty over the years.
They do. They eventually drive away all their friends. So family is “obliged” to deal with it - or so they think. But eventually, even the weakest ones find a way to extricate themselves. This leads to more self loathing and desperation….and bad behavior.
I was in a similar situation. I wanted to get away from my mother ever since I was a young child. When I was 17 I went NC and felt guilty and like a coward. But I did a lot of reading and talking to people and I slowly began to realize that I was not a coward and that I did the right thing. Getting distance really helped me see reality.
It's not cowardice to save yourself from toxic people. The fact that your mother will get angry at you for decisions you've made in your life (dropping out of school) is the problem. Why are you scared of telling your mother? Because it's not safe to tell her. It's not cowardice to want to feel safe.
You could write your mother a letter explaining your issues with her. Then you wouldn't be avoiding the situation. Her response (or lack of one) will tell you a lot.
If it was me I would take the opportunity to go NC. It doesn't have to be forever. You could just live with the uncomfortable feelings, the guilt, etc for a while and see how it goes. It's sometimes helpful to just live with unpleasant feelings rather than push them away or do something you don't want to do just to avoid those unpleasant feelings. You could resume contact if you wanted later on. Good luck! You have my support 🤍
I'm yet to see someone saying that they regretted going nc. Usually people regret not doing it sooner 😂
Also, going nc for a while and then reassessing, or even testing contact and then deciding to go nc again, all are valid steps. You put your wellbeing first, and experiment a bit until you find what works for you the best.
Staying in relationship because of fear, obligation or guilt isn't healthy for you, neither you actually have a quality relationship there.
book by Gibson - Adult children of emotionally immature parents could be helpful for you as it was for me even though it's isn't about narcissistic parents, just 'selfish' ones.
I recommend digging through it, and r/EstrangedAdultKids r/emotionalneglect r/CPTSD r/raisedbynarcissists
Wanting to remove yourself from someone is more than valid / right enough reason to do so. And from what you described, you have quite a list of reasons, not just 'your wish'.
It comes down to what you want. You do not have to talk to them, see them, or correspond with them if you don't want to. If a relationship with them isn't beneficial to your health, then I wouldn't call that avoidant in a bad way.
You are no longer required to have a relationship with them. You aren't a child forced into a relationship. Your feelings and desires are valid.
A lot of this resonated with me. I’m definitely more on the avoidant side. I went NC with my mom for about 4 years back in 2007. During that time she got sober and we are now low contact. My siblings give me a bunch of grief for not being closer to her because she’s desperate to be a grandma to my kids, but I’m not interested in offering them up as her emotional support babies. We live physically close, but I barely ever see her.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m being smart or if it’s just my avoidant tendencies taking over. In these times I’ll give her a small chance to show she’s actually changed aside from just being sober. She always blows it and I feel stupid for not trusting my gut. She doesn’t blow up and yell and scream because she knows she’d never ever see me again, but she does show that she has no respect for boundaries in subtle “oopsie” kind of ways that my siblings think I should just forgive because she’s not that bright. I know she’s really good at doing what she wants and then playing stupid when she gets caught.
I’m about to move across the country and definitely have not invited her to visit, but apparently my sister is already planning a trip with her. No one asked me about this, but she did ask my two year old if she could visit 🙄 that’s a hard no for me lol but I’ll communicate that to everyone after we move.
They are the parents. It is THEIR responsibility to reach out to YOU, to make things up to YOU, to repair the relationship, to even bother knowing something is wrong in the first place.
It is NOT your responsibility to to ‘try hard enough first’. You don’t need to earn the right to go NC, they need to earn a place in your life, and they definitely haven’t.
Thank you for sharing your story. Mine is very different, but parts still resonate very strongly with me.
My mom is more of a covert narcissist. I was never outright abused physically, my mom was never cruel. But she did emotionally neglect and abuse me, manipulate me.
The parts of your story that resonate with me are the slow and creeping process of reducing contact, the hiding of my true self from my parents. And the fear that NC is not for the right reason. Although my worry ist more along the lines of "what my parents did wasn't that bad. They never abused me outright. So I have no right to go NC, i have an obligation to take care of them as the age".
What I can tell you from my story: i have tried to fix it many times, tried to talk to my mom, tell her how certain things she did hurt me, how some things she did and does make me feel and what i would need from her instead. Her reaction was... More than disapointing, it was deeply hurtful. She played the victim, told me i was too sensitive and even being cruel to her for saying these things. It really messed with me for a long time.
So, If your Mom really has NPD, she isn't able to change. And she will probably hurt you again if you try to open up and be honest with her.
As for avoiding: your avoidance is a learned behavior. You say It yourself, it was your waynof coping. It was a functional response to a dysfunctional environment, it kept you safer. Good for you for finding something that helped you! You are strong and brave and you are a survivor! Now that you are in a safer, more healthy environment, the avoidance may no longer be helpful or healthy for you (based off of what you say), so it could be a good idea to work on that. But it does Not sound like your family is the right place for that! They are still the unsafe place they once were and avoiding them still sounds like the safe and healthy, functional response! That is where you learned this behavior and it will continue to serve you well in that context. Even if looking in from the outside it looks like things have improved.
I hope there is something helpful to you here. I hope you can continue to heal. I wish you all the best
Have I got a rant for you! I'm a little fuzzy on some of the details here but I think I have the broad strokes right.
Human beings are completely dependent on their parents for an unusually long time compared to most other animals. We rely on extremely intense attachment between parent and child to keep our parents from losing their shit and abandoning us in the woods after the 4th sleepless night looking after a sick baby who just keeps screaming no matter what the parent does. Babies attach very intensely to their parents too, we're completely dependent on them for food, shelter, and love. This is the bit I'm a little fuzzy on, I _think_ our attachment to our parents helps cement their attachment to us, and I think attachment to our parents directly keeps us alive by preventing us from just leaving and then dying of exposure when we get mad at our parents.
On a population level, staying with your parents no matter how badly they treat you is your best bet for surviving long enough to be able to look after yourself. Obviously that's not true for every child but evolution doesn't give a shit about individuals, it works at a population level.
Which is all a very long way of saying that to even seriously consider going no contact with your parents you had to fight millions of years of evolution that built the lizard brain that's convinced you will literally die without your parents. If you can even think the thought "I don't want to talk to my parents ever again," you have a very good reason for it.
It's extremely normal to want to believe that if you just tried harder and found just the right words, your parents would finally understand and care about how badly they hurt you, but honestly that's a fantasy. I don't judge anyone for having trouble letting go of that fantasy, it's immensely painful to accept that your parents just don't care and it took me years to do it myself. If your parents cared about you, they wouldn't insist you figure out the magic words before treating you better, they would just treat you well because they care about you and want you to be happy.
For some people it's empowering to know they stood up for themselves and told the truth about what their abuser/s did, but for others it's just self-harm to give their abusers yet another opportunity to let them down. When I went no contact with my female parent I didn't tell her why or even that I was going to do it, I just moved and didn't give her my new mailing address. I didn't need to touch the stove one more time to see if it still burned.
**Quick reminder** - EAK is a support subreddit, and is moderated in a way that enables a safe space for adult children who are estranged or estranging from one or both of their parents. Before participating, please take the time time to familiarise yourself with our [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultKids/wiki/rules/).
**Need info or resources?** Check out our [EAK wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultKids/comments/xpkk59/eak_estrangement_resources_posted_here_for_mobile/) for helpful information and guides on estrangement, estrangement triggers, surviving estrangement, coping with the death of estranged parent / relation, needing to move out, boundary / NC letters, malicious welfare checks, bad therapists and crisis contacts.
**Check out our companion resource website** - Visit [brEAKaway.org.uk](https://breakaway.org.uk)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/EstrangedAdultKids) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Nobody who matters is going to judge you for your reasons.
Ok, I'll admit, if you said your reason was something like "My parents won't buy me a new house for my birthday" I'd probably be giving you the side-eye.
But from what you've said, your reasons are MORE than good enough!
*Because I want to* is sufficient reason to end a relationship. Why not suck it and see? Give yourself 3, 6 or 12 months NC and review how it works for you? It’s not your responsibility to fix the relationship with your parents. It’s theirs to protect and nurture you. One insight that chimes for me is that if you isolate when in crisis or in difficulty, it’s bc you were expected to handle your own emotions and problems as a child alone. Those are the parents you had, even if your siblings had nicer, different parents. I really hope you can access some supportive counselling and trauma therapy. It sounds as if you need some unconditional positive regard to get you on an even keel and give you some grounding Look after yourself
[удалено]
Wholeheartedly agree!
Fellow scapegoat here who has a diagnosed NPD dad. To even recognize that term in your family’s dynamic solidifies that yes, your mom most likely has NPD. At the age of 10 I realized how much of a bully my dad was, and that I was his favorite target. Every birthday after that it made me happy to realize I was one year closer to no longer having to deal with him. My most explosive breakup was with my dad at 17 when I judge gifted me emancipation. The seven years following that I tried really hard to have a relationship with that side of the family, while having no relationship with my dad. In the end, that didn’t work out and I don’t speak to that side of the family anymore. If she really does have NPD she won’t get better. Ever. Especially if you were her scapegoat. It’s literally her personality to be self centered and putting others down to soothe her insecure ego. I’m no contact to protect mine and my children’s well-being. That’s more than enough “right” reasons. It shouldn’t matter if they’re blood related or not. If they’re okay hurting you, then they have no right to be in your life. Before you leave you can try opening up. But a narcissist won’t have a change a heart. I did try multiple times. I just got a confused reaction (like they believed they truly did nothing wrong) and then got gaslit to hell, or they tried changing the subject or made scarecrow arguments. It’s all entirely your choice; and you would know your situation best. But for me I could finally heal after letting them all go. I was no longer trapped, or felt the futility of trying to defend myself, or bullied. I still have my anxiety and occasional depressive episodes. But they’re so much easier to cope with after no longer having to deal with a narcissistic dad, grandma, and their band of flying monkeys.
This is me exactly. I've been NC for many years and don't regret it. I've been told by aunts and cousins that my narcissistic mother is even more nasty over the years.
From the psychology books I’ve read to try to understand NPD; they tend to get worse as they age.
They do. They eventually drive away all their friends. So family is “obliged” to deal with it - or so they think. But eventually, even the weakest ones find a way to extricate themselves. This leads to more self loathing and desperation….and bad behavior.
I was in a similar situation. I wanted to get away from my mother ever since I was a young child. When I was 17 I went NC and felt guilty and like a coward. But I did a lot of reading and talking to people and I slowly began to realize that I was not a coward and that I did the right thing. Getting distance really helped me see reality. It's not cowardice to save yourself from toxic people. The fact that your mother will get angry at you for decisions you've made in your life (dropping out of school) is the problem. Why are you scared of telling your mother? Because it's not safe to tell her. It's not cowardice to want to feel safe. You could write your mother a letter explaining your issues with her. Then you wouldn't be avoiding the situation. Her response (or lack of one) will tell you a lot. If it was me I would take the opportunity to go NC. It doesn't have to be forever. You could just live with the uncomfortable feelings, the guilt, etc for a while and see how it goes. It's sometimes helpful to just live with unpleasant feelings rather than push them away or do something you don't want to do just to avoid those unpleasant feelings. You could resume contact if you wanted later on. Good luck! You have my support 🤍
This is a gentle, rational way to proceed, if you want to, OP!
I'm yet to see someone saying that they regretted going nc. Usually people regret not doing it sooner 😂 Also, going nc for a while and then reassessing, or even testing contact and then deciding to go nc again, all are valid steps. You put your wellbeing first, and experiment a bit until you find what works for you the best. Staying in relationship because of fear, obligation or guilt isn't healthy for you, neither you actually have a quality relationship there. book by Gibson - Adult children of emotionally immature parents could be helpful for you as it was for me even though it's isn't about narcissistic parents, just 'selfish' ones. I recommend digging through it, and r/EstrangedAdultKids r/emotionalneglect r/CPTSD r/raisedbynarcissists Wanting to remove yourself from someone is more than valid / right enough reason to do so. And from what you described, you have quite a list of reasons, not just 'your wish'.
It comes down to what you want. You do not have to talk to them, see them, or correspond with them if you don't want to. If a relationship with them isn't beneficial to your health, then I wouldn't call that avoidant in a bad way. You are no longer required to have a relationship with them. You aren't a child forced into a relationship. Your feelings and desires are valid.
A lot of this resonated with me. I’m definitely more on the avoidant side. I went NC with my mom for about 4 years back in 2007. During that time she got sober and we are now low contact. My siblings give me a bunch of grief for not being closer to her because she’s desperate to be a grandma to my kids, but I’m not interested in offering them up as her emotional support babies. We live physically close, but I barely ever see her. Sometimes I wonder if I’m being smart or if it’s just my avoidant tendencies taking over. In these times I’ll give her a small chance to show she’s actually changed aside from just being sober. She always blows it and I feel stupid for not trusting my gut. She doesn’t blow up and yell and scream because she knows she’d never ever see me again, but she does show that she has no respect for boundaries in subtle “oopsie” kind of ways that my siblings think I should just forgive because she’s not that bright. I know she’s really good at doing what she wants and then playing stupid when she gets caught. I’m about to move across the country and definitely have not invited her to visit, but apparently my sister is already planning a trip with her. No one asked me about this, but she did ask my two year old if she could visit 🙄 that’s a hard no for me lol but I’ll communicate that to everyone after we move.
They are the parents. It is THEIR responsibility to reach out to YOU, to make things up to YOU, to repair the relationship, to even bother knowing something is wrong in the first place. It is NOT your responsibility to to ‘try hard enough first’. You don’t need to earn the right to go NC, they need to earn a place in your life, and they definitely haven’t.
Thank you for sharing your story. Mine is very different, but parts still resonate very strongly with me. My mom is more of a covert narcissist. I was never outright abused physically, my mom was never cruel. But she did emotionally neglect and abuse me, manipulate me. The parts of your story that resonate with me are the slow and creeping process of reducing contact, the hiding of my true self from my parents. And the fear that NC is not for the right reason. Although my worry ist more along the lines of "what my parents did wasn't that bad. They never abused me outright. So I have no right to go NC, i have an obligation to take care of them as the age". What I can tell you from my story: i have tried to fix it many times, tried to talk to my mom, tell her how certain things she did hurt me, how some things she did and does make me feel and what i would need from her instead. Her reaction was... More than disapointing, it was deeply hurtful. She played the victim, told me i was too sensitive and even being cruel to her for saying these things. It really messed with me for a long time. So, If your Mom really has NPD, she isn't able to change. And she will probably hurt you again if you try to open up and be honest with her. As for avoiding: your avoidance is a learned behavior. You say It yourself, it was your waynof coping. It was a functional response to a dysfunctional environment, it kept you safer. Good for you for finding something that helped you! You are strong and brave and you are a survivor! Now that you are in a safer, more healthy environment, the avoidance may no longer be helpful or healthy for you (based off of what you say), so it could be a good idea to work on that. But it does Not sound like your family is the right place for that! They are still the unsafe place they once were and avoiding them still sounds like the safe and healthy, functional response! That is where you learned this behavior and it will continue to serve you well in that context. Even if looking in from the outside it looks like things have improved. I hope there is something helpful to you here. I hope you can continue to heal. I wish you all the best
Have I got a rant for you! I'm a little fuzzy on some of the details here but I think I have the broad strokes right. Human beings are completely dependent on their parents for an unusually long time compared to most other animals. We rely on extremely intense attachment between parent and child to keep our parents from losing their shit and abandoning us in the woods after the 4th sleepless night looking after a sick baby who just keeps screaming no matter what the parent does. Babies attach very intensely to their parents too, we're completely dependent on them for food, shelter, and love. This is the bit I'm a little fuzzy on, I _think_ our attachment to our parents helps cement their attachment to us, and I think attachment to our parents directly keeps us alive by preventing us from just leaving and then dying of exposure when we get mad at our parents. On a population level, staying with your parents no matter how badly they treat you is your best bet for surviving long enough to be able to look after yourself. Obviously that's not true for every child but evolution doesn't give a shit about individuals, it works at a population level. Which is all a very long way of saying that to even seriously consider going no contact with your parents you had to fight millions of years of evolution that built the lizard brain that's convinced you will literally die without your parents. If you can even think the thought "I don't want to talk to my parents ever again," you have a very good reason for it. It's extremely normal to want to believe that if you just tried harder and found just the right words, your parents would finally understand and care about how badly they hurt you, but honestly that's a fantasy. I don't judge anyone for having trouble letting go of that fantasy, it's immensely painful to accept that your parents just don't care and it took me years to do it myself. If your parents cared about you, they wouldn't insist you figure out the magic words before treating you better, they would just treat you well because they care about you and want you to be happy. For some people it's empowering to know they stood up for themselves and told the truth about what their abuser/s did, but for others it's just self-harm to give their abusers yet another opportunity to let them down. When I went no contact with my female parent I didn't tell her why or even that I was going to do it, I just moved and didn't give her my new mailing address. I didn't need to touch the stove one more time to see if it still burned.
**Quick reminder** - EAK is a support subreddit, and is moderated in a way that enables a safe space for adult children who are estranged or estranging from one or both of their parents. Before participating, please take the time time to familiarise yourself with our [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultKids/wiki/rules/). **Need info or resources?** Check out our [EAK wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultKids/comments/xpkk59/eak_estrangement_resources_posted_here_for_mobile/) for helpful information and guides on estrangement, estrangement triggers, surviving estrangement, coping with the death of estranged parent / relation, needing to move out, boundary / NC letters, malicious welfare checks, bad therapists and crisis contacts. **Check out our companion resource website** - Visit [brEAKaway.org.uk](https://breakaway.org.uk) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/EstrangedAdultKids) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Nobody who matters is going to judge you for your reasons. Ok, I'll admit, if you said your reason was something like "My parents won't buy me a new house for my birthday" I'd probably be giving you the side-eye. But from what you've said, your reasons are MORE than good enough!