When Parents Are Too Toxic to Tolerate [NY Times]

[wlotus]

By RICHARD A. FRIEDMAN, M.D.
Published: October 19, 2009

...

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

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

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

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

Read the rest...

---

I have some close friends and online-only acquaintances who seem to have truly toxic parents. While it is great to try to work out family issues, sometimes one's family is simply too attached to their dysfunction, and the dysfunction is far too toxic to justify continued exposure to them. Breaking ties (at least for a while) can be hard to do, but it can also be the healthiest thing you can do for yourself, if you are in that position.

Comments

[grandwoobah.livejournal.com]

Amen!

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

The comments on the NY Times site were heart-breaking: story after story of people who had, after years of emotional and verbal abuse, made the tough decision to break ties from their parents. Many of them got pressured by family to just keep trying, and in one case, it wasn't until the abusive parent died that the rest of the family shared stories and realized the adult son/daughter had very good reasons to stay away.

I am fortunate that my relationship with my parents is not so toxic, though in the interest of self-preservation I have had to cut ties with other toxic relatives, so I can relate all too well.

[labellerose.livejournal.com]

It's one of those sad realities of my life, but people just don't 'get it' unless they've BTDT . I try to behave decently to my birth family. Hell, I'm having them for THANKSGIVING. But I am a much happier and healthier person since I gave up my magical thinking. Whether or not I'm trustworthy, loyal, helpful, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent, they are still gonna be who and what they are. I've learned to have few illusions and realistic expectations.

[verucas-chaos.livejournal.com]

Family stuff is so very difficult to deal with ... toxic and troubled indeed. Thanks for the link

[sweet3mich.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this.

[rockbirthedme.livejournal.com]

Huh. When I kicked my grandmother (my father's mother) out of my life, my *mother* got very upset with me, predicting that I would really regret it if she died before I could reconcile. My father and his sister, on the other hand, both backed me right up; my aunt basically said she wished she'd done the same thing years earlier. When my grandmother died, we hadn't spoken for five years, and I didn't regret it for one second.

You know what's funny? Once I felt really safe from my grandmother, and that I'd made my daughters safe from her, I was able to forgive her. I think she had bipolar disorder (it's all over that side of the family tree), and since I understood where all the craziness was probably coming from in a very personal way, I could no longer hold it against her. If I'd stuck with her, I would have felt guilt for dancing on her grave; as it was I merely felt regret that I couldn't make it to the funeral for my dad and my aunt. And grateful that I was able to remember the times when she was a good grandmother, instead of being constantly hurt and furious when she wasn't.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

I read this and your post, and I am glad you were able to get to the point where you could remember and appreciate the good times. It's a shame that staying away from her was the only way you could get to that point, but that's how it goes, sometimes.

[acoustics1220.livejournal.com]

This sounds so familiar. I've recently accepted the toxicity that has always been an underlying tension while I was living at home. There were a few years in there where verbal abuse was pervasive and heart wrenching, and one of the main reasons I took on as many jobs as I did (to stay out of the home for as long as possible). Now that I've moved out, I feel so much better about myself in general, and especially where I'm at in life. So sad.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

That's very sad. I'm glad you have been able to get healthy distance for yourself, so you can heal!

[ennuiescapist.livejournal.com]

Sometime, I wish mine were more outright abusive (i.e., wishing me a disease on my birthday) instead of this insidious, neglectful/minimizing/denial bullshit.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

The overt stuff is easier to recognize as abuse and as their problem.

Why do you stay in touch with her?

[(Anonymous)]

Due to the sense of having to come to terms with truly being an "orphan" in all possible ways. Perhaps it's easier to live with semblance of having a mother, rather than admit to onesself that one has, in sense, been motherless all one's life.

[ennuiescapist.livejournal.com]

PS - That was moi.

[wlotus.livejournal.com]

Due to the sense of having to come to terms with truly being an "orphan" in all possible ways. Perhaps it's easier to live with semblance of having a mother, rather than admit to onesself that one has, in sense, been motherless all one's life.

While sad, I think I understand what you mean. We all try to hold onto some shred of magical thinking that will get us (mentally, at least) closer to the life we wish we'd had.