Not sure if abuse or just copying bad behaviours.

[anna]

Hi i am no contact with my mum after years of abuse. My experiences are on the family abuse forum so i wont repeat here. me and my siblings have all been abused but i experienced the worst of it.
All of my siblings never discussed the ongoing abuse it was the elephant in the room apart from myself and one other sibling. i have a slight relationship with this sibling so we felt we could trust each other to talk about it. My mum interfered with my relationships with my siblings so we barely saw each other just at the odd family function or rarely we would get together privately.if we hid the fact from mum.
My relationship with this sibling has been very tenuous and sometimes sibling
would do things that upset me but because my mum was the main focus of my thinking i would always dismiss or make exscuses up for siblings behaviour.But now in hindsight im wondering if it was a bit abusive to me. ( im not sure if i am being hypervigliant and putting my mums behaviour on to sibling )
Examples At least twice a year we would organise to get together and plans put in place sometimes expensive plans like me
buying tickets to go somewhere then every time sibling would cancel about an hour before we would do said activity. it happened so many times it almost became a joke between me and my husband that we would wait for the phone to ring with sibling saying they had a tummy upset.
my sibling runs a business and i paid for a service my sibling just took my money and gave me something i never asked for when i said its not what i asked for it was damaged and my sibling had seen this and sent to me anyway there was no apology or trying to rectify the situation. And lots of other little things like that
Anyway since i have gone no contact i have had some nasty text messages and email from sibling..I am told passive aggressively i should be in relationship with mum and forgive her. Sibling keeps saying i hope you get better soon. im not ill but do have diagnosed depression which im better from since no contact. I am told all the nasty things mum says about me when we have met i explained i love sibling but cant talk about mum but would support siblings decision to have relationship with mum as long as i can be left alone with my own decision of nc. I also told sibling me saying anything negative about mum would look like i was belittling siblings decision to stay in contact. i even suggested just phone contact as is hard for sibling not to talk about mum i said it was hard for both of us the reply was i dont talk about mum and i didnt know you had a problem going out! it was changed what i said about not meeting in person because of conversations about mum to an inferrance i am agrophobic! sibling has now contacted one of my adult children and said i will contact your mum in a few months when she come to terms with things mum set her up to that as that message was said just after mum posted me a letter. is this abuse? i dont know whetheror not to respond to her stuff husband thinks i should respond as if i descretly go nc she will know and her behaviour be worse and me be more stressed from it. but i get triggered even if only the odd message and feel both frightened and truma bonded to mum . husband suggested self soothing and dealing with my ptsd first and see in the future when i feel better if i want nc with sister. he does not want me taking an immediate action over just a bit of horrible mail and i need to calm down a bit. with my mums letters i just bin and dont respond What does anyone suggest think? hubby is right that i definately need to work on my internal safety issues and triggering as they are really over the top feelings in regard to a very small amount of hoovering.
And also when im stresed im unreasonable and shout at my husband which is totally unacceptable behaviour i feel a bit dramatic thinking like oh no i will end up divorced and on my own snowed under with hoovers lol not dramatic victim mentality at all!!

[KIP.]

My advice would be to cut abusers and people who trigger you, out of your life. It sounds like the contact is triggering your PTSD. And minimising the effect will not help. It’s hard to calm down when you are deliberately triggered. Can your husband act as a go between for 6 months so your sibling or mother has to correspond through him, that way, the triggers are minimised. He can pass on only information that is relevant. I’ve found out the hard way that people who are in your life for five minutes can treat you better than people who have always been in your life. My advice is to save yourself. Concentrate on your relationship with your husband and cut the abusers out.

[anna]

Thanks Kip,
I think i agree with you. I think part of my husband suggesting sending a pleasant email is he thinks that chances are my sibling would maybe make contact just once or twice a year so going nc may trigger sibling to up the ante because then i become more interesting. in fairness my sibling left to own devices maybe would choose that option because we only had contact once or twice a year before nc and a handful of phone calls. But sibling was not angry with me then as now mum would definately be being more abusive to sibling and also it is mum telling sibling to contact me. The last two times was directly after mum sent letters to me which i did not respond to. so basically sibling is firmly under mums influence. So realistically how much my sibling contacts me is really how much my mum contacts me if that makes sense. my other sibling who has been in contact after a letter turned up on the doorstep did not trigger or worry me so much as where they are under my mums influence and would do her bidding they are not in the least bit abusive .i think i worry about this sibling more as they are doing exactly same abusive behaviours as mum.
Thats a good idea to let husband be the buffer in the first instance. we had already decided he could check the mail each morning and if there was anything off my mum chuck in the bin without telling me. And i guess in the first instance there is no harm in my husband answering calls from my sibling or checking the email that is sent. if its nice i could respond if horrible i could delete without reading first. As sibling is abusive i think like you KIP that i wont be able to minimise it and i think sibling will get cocky think i am weak and just get worse.
i did loads of appeasing behaviour with my mum and would do nice meals for her etc she thought i was weak and pathetic and never changed both me and my husband enabeled the abuse and think we have conditioned ourselves to try desprately to avoid conflict. i can see why abuse survivors end up again and again in abusive relationships. you were brave and strong kip to cut them all out. Be proud of that

[KIP.]

Not so much brave and strong. More self preservation and survival instinct. My mental health was nearly destroyed. I had to put myself first.

[Anonymous]

It is definitely abusive and you are not overreacting at all. In fact you are minimising it. I agree if you know it will be better for you and they are abusive then the best thing is to go no contact. That is the best way to deal with abusive people. PTSD is difficult enough without continuing to be emotionally abused, gaslighted, guilt tripped etc. You need to do what’s best to protect yourself. I recommend you explain to your husband also as I think he is trying to help but doesn’t quite understand the situation and that it is abuse and how bad that is for you. Look at your siblings behaviour for what it is and it’s more than understandable effect on you. I was in a very similar situation with my aunt recently where she also tried to guilt trip to get in contact with my abusive mother. She completely laid into me trying to open up any wound she could and blame me for anything she possibly could and went into a crazy defensive argument when I tried to reason with her and point out her guilt tripping controlling behaving (trying to be polite about it at first as if i owed her that). She was doing it on purpose even though she said she wasn’t. She interspersed all of this with saying that she was just trying to help me and denying what she was blatantly saying. Crazy-making extremely manipulative but very easy to see through especially in hindsight. It really upset me and I felt like I was sucked back into the madness and it brought back so many bad memories. That was (detail removed by moderator) months ago and I’m still trying to get over it. Just when I’d spent years getting away from it all. Please don’t let anyone make you feel bad and question yourself about doing what’s right for you and cutting out abusive people. Don’t let them make you feel that way. I’m sorry for what you’re going through and have been through and I relate to what it feels like.

[Ayanna]

Hi Anna, the hardest thing in life is to let go of an abusive family.
I was abused since I was a little child. I hated my parents and at the same time I was unable to separate myself from them. In my twenties I learned that this is called ambivalence.
It is a severe behaviour pattern and leaves a damaging broad road throughout our lives if we have no help. It opens the gates to more abuse, to an impossibility to stand up to abusers and to break free from them.

You are incredibly lucky to have such a supportive husband.

I never became depressed. I often wonder why that is. I think it has something to do with my temper. I express my anger. Since I fled from the parental home decades ago I never held in anger. I yelled at people when they annoyed me and I had no care in the world who they were, whoever annoyed me ….

Only in my last abusive marriage I could not do that. I was not allowed to show anger when he insulted, humiliated, abused me. He beat the sh.. out of me.

My father used to send me abusive letters. I sent him a few letters back when I was in my early thirties and they were harsh, not offensive enough though. But that was enough for my parents to be shocked about my manners.

Until today I am treated as a lesser person by them although I am the only academic in the family. My siblings look down on me although they have a lesser education.

My parents never understood what they did.
My father always tries to control me. At the moment he tries to weaken me by constantly mentioning my weight. He hates overweight people and I do not conform with his ideas of a beautiful woman since I fled the abusive ex husband.

In my family my father is the dominator and my mother has always followed him regardless. She has never had wishes of her own and she left her own will at the entrance of the registry office when she was very young.

I had years of zero contact with my parents on and off throughout my life.

At the moment I keep my contact to them at a low level. They are old now and they can die soon. For this reason I do not want to be too harsh. But I am firm with them. I do not allow them to tell me what to do or to influence my thoughts.

My siblings are kept at a distance. They are unsupportive and I suspect they are jealous. I think when my parents are dead I will not be in touch with them anymore. I do not want to have toxic people in my life. Life is too short to have problems all the time.

We are of the same blood, but we do not harmonize. Damage has been done when we were small and they are not willing to overcome it. I will not sacrifice my sanity for them. My sister still holds grudges against me about things that happened between us when we were teenagers, and these incidents were not even my fault. I am not willing to deal with such immature animosities.

They are toxic people and when I have minimal to zero contact to them I feel alright. I keep it at that, for my own benefit. There are situations in life when we have to put ourselves first and disregard family.

Think about withdrawing from them all.
Your own family needs you. They should be your focus.
Your depression may vanish once you get away from these toxic people.

Take care!

[anna]

Thankyou ladies, for your kind words and support.
I related to both your life stories, and after listening to your advice and others I have decided to block communication. Husband is quite anxious and worried about the decision and so am I.
But I know its the right thing. I have just changed my mobile phone number and ordered a new call blocking phone. i did change my landline number at the beginning but foolishly gave the new number to my sibling when at the beginning of nc they seemed supportive of my decision. So i will just block the family numbers rather than changing it again. Today I am setting up a new email account and will close my other one that sibling and mum still have access to. Though mum has never emailed its more fun for her to send hand writiten letters! I have no social media accounts apart from one and i use a different name.And after foolishly quite a while back looking at mums social media and seeing the abusive memes that had been posted for my benefit I learned quick never to look again and the same with sibling.
I have also decided that any direct contact from siblings trying to engage in conversation or invite me to their homes just say no and i wont justify argue defend or explain. ( unfortunately we are living in same area) before i was thinking if so and so comes i must be polite and offer to meet on neutral ground like a coffee shop. like i owed them something. And i worried what they would think of me. They already think badly of me one sibling has ignored me totally since nc another directly snubs and thats not including the openly abusive hostile one. but my high empathy plus weak boundaries and worrying what people think of me would see me just lay myself open for more abuse and potentially get me back in relationship with mum. hubby will vet mail and throw letters presents away for me.
my hubby and i were getting stressed and arguing again so making a direct decision and sticking to it will help us. As you have all said its more important i look after myself and support my husband and concentrate on us now. my in laws have given me loads of love and support and are totally in agreement to. I am afraid there will be probably more worried posts off me in the next few weeks. I will try keep it in perspective as lots of you ladies are dealing with far far more than hoovers and 3rd party flybys.

[Author]

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