Is unannounced NC passive aggressive?

[XL]

I find interactions with my mother really triggering. I tend to avoid her for weeks afterwards. Am I being passive aggressive by not announcing why?

Everything she says and does is something that would require a boundary. It's like she has no filter, and 90% of her conversation is gossip, smear campaigns, derision, weird phobias and magical thinking. I feel like I'd be justified reprimanding her 100 times in 5 minutes, so I just smile and nod, then avoid her.

example: on Easter she loudly announced she's a hoarder, had no intention of changing and then said she was planning on leaving it for us kids to deal with when she died. Like it was a joke. In front of sibling's newish partner, who immediately got a look of terror on their face. I was humiliated. It was insulting on so many levels. I'm not cleaning up her life messes, and the middle of a family dinner isn't the place to be bringing that up. She also declared herself "done working" and "unemployment paperwork is too stressful to fill out" so I'm left wondering WTH she's planning for income now. She's just rejecting $1200 a month out of laziness, while simultaneously ramping up her compulsive shopping.

She's supposed to have some medical stuff this week and I just can't bring myself to hear her voice again.

[Clearmind]

I see your point - XL, I think in the end you need to do what you feel is best for you and there is a balance where we need to learn how to manage our triggers – rather than ignore them. Mix of boundaries and managing triggers. Do you see the difference?

We may have physical space from our parents – this does not help us process the emotional stuff i.e. triggers.

How are you managing triggers XL? Those that personally impact on you?

Everything she says and does is something that would require a boundary. It's like she has no filter, and 90% of her conversation is gossip, smear campaigns, derision, weird phobias and magical thinking. I feel like I'd be justified reprimanding her 100 times in 5 minutes, so I just smile and nod, then avoid her.

Boundaries protect us not change the other person.

If you are on the phone and she gossips what can you do? Listen to her and get increasingly resentful? Get off the phone?

example: on Easter she loudly announced she's a hoarder, had no intention of changing and then said she was planning on leaving it for us kids to deal with when she died. Like it was a joke. In front of sibling's newish partner, who immediately got a look of terror on their face. I was humiliated. It was insulting on so many levels. I'm not cleaning up her life messes, and the middle of a family dinner isn't the place to be bringing that up. She also declared herself "done working" and "unemployment paperwork is too stressful to fill out" so I'm left wondering WTH she's planning for income now. She's just rejecting $1200 a month out of laziness, while simultaneously ramping up her compulsive shopping.

She's supposed to have some medical stuff this week and I just can't bring myself to hear her voice again.

We cannot protect other people from our parents. This will wear you out.

You are right its probably not the place – so you are not getting yourself worked up by what she says – can you take it all with a grain of salt rather than taking it onboard as ‘gospel’.

She is likely to say things impulsively for a reaction – don’t bite my friend.

Sometimes it’s not a boundary we need to set – sometimes we need to find ways of processing the uncomfortableness, frustration, annoyance. – learn ways to let it all slide off.

If we take onboard all our parents say we will be forever on tender hooks. We cannot control their thoughts, reactions and emotions – we can control how we process it.

Hope that makes sense.

[XL]

I guess I feel bad because there's no structure, and maybe no feedback about what she's doing so wrong.

Like "I don't allow gossip about family in my house, I'm going to have to take a break from contact if this continues?" And maybe she'd realize people don't enjoy her company, and do better next time? Right now she's probably painting me as the jerk who never calls.

There's just soo much inappropriate stuff that I'm overwhelmed even trying to process it, and it takes me weeks to settle down. I'm still on edge from the winter holidays. It's just a flurry of jokes about extortion, rape, gossip, suing people, etc, etc. I sense I'm mentally dumping her into the category of "that batty lady I don't want to deal with" and ignoring the whole thing.  A lot of family events are organized by a pleasant, albeit enabler/fixer sibling who seems to be having a great time. I put up with it for their sake. I probably would have taken a much stronger stance otherwise.

I am jerk in that I show up late and act annoyed a lot. I think I'm trying to passively piss them off so much they decide I'm the problem and should leave. If I ask to be excused respectfully, I know all hell will break loose. (Like the 4 hour tantrum I sat through in a McDonalds parking for 'not enjoying Christmas enough' when I asked gently that people not buy me clothes as gifts anymore.) If I ask for any positive change, it will be an emotional explosion.

Yeah. I'm trying to intentionally trigger a final black or white split because the boundary process is just so so SO ugly with her. The one thing she hates more than anything on this planet is someone telling her she has a boundary problem,  or should change ANY element of her behavior. There is 0% room for your needs or constructive criticism with her. I need to let that go; my mildly crappy behavior hasn't worked yet, and it's not going to. uuughhhh

[healinghome]

And maybe she'd realize people don't enjoy her company, and do better next time?

i often think this.  aren't we just enabling mental illness by enduring it?

I think I'm trying to passively piss them off so much they decide I'm the problem and should leave. If I ask to be excused respectfully, I know all hell will break loose. (Like the 4 hour tantrum I sat through in a McDonalds parking for 'not enjoying Christmas enough' when I asked gently that people not buy me clothes as gifts anymore.) If I ask for any positive change, it will be an emotional explosion.

i've done this too.  i think its a way of trying to avoid any more conflict and aggression from them.  if they think that your nc was their idea, they won't persue with smearing etc.  don't feel bad for trying to avoid conflict.

i'm just coming out of a big trigger myself from an interaction with my foo, so i'm sorry that you're feeling that way and can understand how horrible triggers are.  have you tried the '5 things'  exersize?  i found that really helped me to re-anchor myself in my reality.  i can't remember it exactly, maybe someone else can jump in with a link?  but it goes something like this;

look around the room you are in and

identify 5 things you see

then 4 things that you can hear

then 3 things that are touching your skin

then 2 things you can smell

then 1 thing you really like about yourself.

i find that emotionally connecting with the things as i run through them helps too.  like if its a plant, i remember the day i bought it and how i felt.

[XL]

i've done this too.  i think its a way of trying to avoid any more conflict and aggression from them.  if they think that your nc was their idea, they won't persue with smearing etc.  don't feel bad for trying to avoid conflict.

i'm just coming out of a big trigger myself from an interaction with my foo, so i'm sorry that you're feeling that way and can understand how horrible triggers are.  have you tried the '5 things'  exersize?  i found that really helped me to re-anchor myself in my reality.  

I do this a lot on my daily run, just out of habit (the 5 things).

I think the main triggers are holidays, and our family celebrates EVERY holiday with overkill. There are enough birthdays in between that I literally don't get a break. There's one every month, and it's her way of roping the family together.

The compulsive shopping/expectation of spending the night is what does me in. I hate being in my childhood home, and there's still elements of squalor in it. I spend most of the year throwing out presents and obsessively cleaning to try to shake the sludge of the interaction off. If you reject presents or try to set a limit, it's full blown rage attack with a smear campaign. She's also trying to buy my love instead of apologizing for the random rage fits she throws throughout the year, and that irritates me. Most of the presents have nothing to do with who I am either, so it's just one invalidation after another that end up at the goodwill. She's also not financially stable, so whenever she's not shopping, she's complaining about not having money. I'm just exhausted from the holiday cycle, which no one understands.

I crashed pretty hard after Xmas and got on purging bender where I couldn't throw out enough stuff. I also found a bunch of my childhood stuff that had been hoarded into a closet, and it was so ruined I had to throw it out without touching it, and she laughed about it, and that was upsetting. I was disregulated for 2 full months.

I really wasn't ready to see her yet & the family turned Easter into a 3 day fiasco without asking if I had plans first. That is where my crappy passive aggressive act is coming from.

[Cordelia]

I guess I feel bad because there's no structure, and maybe no feedback about what she's doing so wrong.

Like "I don't allow gossip about family in my house, I'm going to have to take a break from contact if this continues?" And maybe she'd realize people don't enjoy her company, and do better next time? Right now she's probably painting me as the jerk who never calls.

It isn't your job to educate her how to live life better.  She's an adult who has the right to live any way she wants, even if you don't like it and wouldn't behave that way yourself. 

Your only job is to decide what behavior YOU want to be around, and take responsibility for acting in accordance for that decision.  If you don't like the way your family acts on holidays, don't go.  You have that freedom.  The problem really isn't her behavior - it's yours.  Not that you're a bad person or doing anything wrong, but you're talking yourself into behavior that doesn't feel right to you (going to these events) and then getting upset by the behavior that you're around during them.  Let your OWN feelings guide you, not other people's.  If you don't like going to certain events that tend to go a certain way, you don't have to apologize for that or explain the reasons.  It's just a fact.  You don't enjoy it.  So you're going to limit your exposure to those events, to whatever degree feels right to you.  Doing this will do wonders for your self-respect, your peace of mind, and the degree to which you obsess about what is wrong with your mother's behavior.  It suddenly isn't necessary to persuade her that her behavior is wrong because it isn't your problem any more.  You don't have to articulate and explain WHY you don't like it.  You simply treat the fact you don't like it as a fact not open to further discussion or debate.

[XL]

Let your OWN feelings guide you, not other people's.  If you don't like going to certain events that tend to go a certain way, you don't have to apologize for that or explain the reasons.  It's just a fact.  You don't enjoy it.  So you're going to limit your exposure to those events, to whatever degree feels right to you.  Doing this will do wonders for your self-respect, your peace of mind, and the degree to which you obsess about what is wrong with your mother's behavior. 

I agree. I'm too financially dependent on the pleasant fixer/enablers of the family too. The economy has been frustratingly bad so that I haven't been able to reclaim my own household. There was a big family reunification after a cancer scare and it's much more difficult to deal with people as individuals now. They went from 5 years of bitter NC with anyone, to super enmeshed post cancer happy family. They have this attitude of "she's crazy but we love her because she's family, and we try to go easy on her". She's always lashed out at me hardest (often when they weren't there to witness and don't actually believe me that these things happened), and I was always the first to set boundaries. If I hang up on her during a rage tantrum, I get a whole lot of "You were rude to hang up on mom" and then she gets extra fancy gifts to calm her down.

Fixer does this in other relationships, and it makes me sad.

They view my boundaries as wrecking, I think. Then they respond with coddling. If I say I can only reasonably spend 3 days with the family at Christmas, they spend 9 "because mom's feeling are hurt". There are also a lot of plans that get made where I'm not consulted. I had to ditch a previously scheduled party for easter because they set up a surprise treat for mom that left non-mom people without transportation. I might need to talk to the normal people about this. 

I think I'm also realizing the "more stable" family likes me in that role. I was the punk problem child that was allowed to get pushed far enough where it was reasonable to start saying what everyone else was thinking, then they could step in as the gentle heros that fixed everyone's feelings. They scold me to my face, then slip me gifts and money on the back end, sort of as a payment for dealing with her. I'm tired of being the family's 'corrections officer', if that makes sense.

I might just start ducking out and using the partner as an excuse. I can forsee a lot of "surprise ski getaways the partner was sweet enough to purchase" in my future. Again, though, this feels passive aggressive. Or just passive.

[XL]

The cancer complicated everything. I feel grateful for the second chance I have to be with a particular family member, and putting up with her BS is an unfortunate consequence of that.

They also lied to me for 6 months about the cancer, and didn't tell me about it until the night before a potentially fatal operation. I don't tell anyone about that.   

This family has run me ragged.

[healinghome]

Your only job is to decide what behavior YOU want to be around, and take responsibility for acting in accordance for that decision.  If you don't like the way your family acts on holidays, don't go.  You have that freedom.  The problem really isn't her behavior - it's yours.  Not that you're a bad person or doing anything wrong, but you're talking yourself into behavior that doesn't feel right to you (going to these events) and then getting upset by the behavior that you're around during them.  Let your OWN feelings guide you, not other people's.  If you don't like going to certain events that tend to go a certain way, you don't have to apologize for that or explain the reasons.  It's just a fact.  You don't enjoy it.  So you're going to limit your exposure to those events, to whatever degree feels right to you.  :)oing this will do wonders for your self-respect, your peace of mind, and the degree to which you obsess about what is wrong with your mother's behavior.  It suddenly isn't necessary to persuade her that her behavior is wrong because it isn't your problem any more.  You don't have to articulate and explain WHY you don't like it.  You simply treat the fact you don't like it as a fact not open to further discussion or debate.

awesome post! kudos!    i started with the mantra this week; stop living by other peoples standards and start trusting my own feelings.   because for one thing... .   everyone will have an opinion about everything no matter what you do, so you might as well start living your own truth.

perhaps that's the root cause of a trigger?  the feeling that we are behaving in a way that is unharmonious to our own feelings and behaving in a way that is more suited to the BPD and conditioned thinking, ie; the heart battling the head?

[Cordelia]

I'm too financially dependent on the pleasant fixer/enablers of the family too.

That's probably the root of the problem.  Taking money from someone who is manipulative and who you don't respect really eats away at the soul.  I don't know what particular challenges you face, but if I were you I would make it my top priority to end any financial relationship with dysfunctional family members ASAP.  (and I do consider enablers dysfunctional, no matter how "pleasant"

perhaps that's the root cause of a trigger?  the feeling that we are behaving in a way that is unharmonious to our own feelings and behaving in a way that is more suited to the BPD and conditioned thinking, ie; the heart battling the head?

Maybe so!  A conditioned response takes over that is at odds with how we genuinely feel and want to respond, and the tension between our overt actions or statements and our true feelings creates intolerable pressure that we can't handle emotionally, leading us to act out!  Interesting... .