No Contact for a year - Do I open back up?

[lauren2013]

Hi Everyone!

It's been a while.  I haven't had many things to post about because I've been NC for my mother for over a year now... .soo... .no drama!  It's weird, though.  Even though I have been NC and I haven't had any drama with her really, I've also had a hard time in a different way b/c it's hard keeping NC and I feel stressed about the boundary I have to keep up every single day.  I have bad dreams about my mom, I feel anxous and panicked when she leaves me voicemails (which I block), I feel like violated when she sends packages to me or my daughter... .it's almost created this power for her that maybe she didn't even have before?  I have always been terribly afraid of her and her guilt/anger/emotions have always influenced what we've done in our lives (always catering to her), but now that I'm free from that, it's like she has another type of power.  Not to mention she is still married to my dad whom I love and I don't see or talk to him b/c I have NC with my mom.  It feels like this whole NC thing is actually a lot more work to keep up than I had anticipated it would be.

All this being said, I have experienced so much freedom and happiness not having her in my life.  I'm very glad I went NC last november, but I'm now wondering if there might be a middle ground?

My husband doesn't like the stress NC is putting on me and our family, and, although he hates my mother, too, he thinks we have gained an enormous amount of control by doing what we did this past year and we can go back now and be very in control of our relationship with her and what our boundaries are.  He feels like right now we are just hiding as opposed to being actually in control of the relationship.  I totally know what he means b/c I kind of feel that way, too.  I just don't know what it looks like to be back in touch with her, but still feel angry and not want to have a relationship with her.  Do I want to talk to her on the phone? No. Do I want to be with her on holidays? No.  So then what does a relationship actually look like?  And is it only a matter of time before she gets angry at the distance we are keeping and blows up?

I don't even know what to do or what to think at this point.  I love the peace we've had with NC, but I also feel like it's unsustainable to keep up what we've been doing and I agree with my husband that it just feels like we are hiding at this point?  Any advice? Have you been in this situation before?

[beefree]

I'm in a similar place... .not quite NC, but extremely LC, and because of the boundaries set with my mom, my dad has also stopped talking with me.

I had actually told my mom that she could ONLY write letters after inappropriate facebook, phone, and email messages which caused me to break down at work and had lots of FOG, lies, and attempts, to guilt, shame, and manipulate the truth repeatedly thrown in my direction... .and instead she's voilated boundaries from emails, to text messages every three months when my phone block expires, etc... .which always makes me upset.  Are there days when that is hard? YES. But... .for me, it would be much harder to have the streams of FOG coming at me... .the lies and untruths, the attempts to guilt, manipulate, and shame me.

Here's an analogy I came up with that has helped me feel much less anxious and guilty about setting boundaries... .if someone was hitting you, and refused to stop, and kept trying to hit you, no matter what you said or did, even when you told them to stop... .you step away so they can't reach you. It's not punishment of that person, it's not done out of malice, it's something you do to protect your own saftey. It doesn't make you a bad person to step away so someone can't beat you up. Most of us wouldn't argue with any of that. 

Why do we see the emotional punches we get thrown any differently?  The fear, obligation, guilt, and manipulation of the truth, the lies, and emotional barbs, that do damage to our hearts?

Ultimately only you can decide what's right for you. 

Wishing you all the best!

[HappyChappy]

lauren2013 I'm also NC for about a year and thinking of re-connecting. I did feel the way you suggested for most of the year. The F.O.G. of old was still giving me panic attacks etc... The good news is more recently that's all gone. The reason it’s gone, is two fold. I realised I will never have control over my NPD bro, so we’ve decided never to see him again. Haven’t announced this, it just won’t ever happen. This make me feel in control and liberated. You can call it hiding away, I’d call it avoiding an obnoxious individual. Heck if someone bombards you, it’s not hiding away to sit in a bunker. It’s good sense. Jury is still out for LC with my BPD mom. The bit I struggle with is they will get off Scott free with their abusive behavior, and if I reconnet, they will act as if I was in the wrong. They will never change. Interestingly, my wife is dead against ever reconnecting with either. She's already said the kids will never be left alone with my BPD. But then she knows what they do to kids, so can't argue that one. But my BPDm and bro are both very aggressive, always on the attack.  

Your point about your Dad is a good one. My dad isn’t allowed a mobile phone or personal e-mail account, so it’s impossible to contact him without going through the BPD mom. But here again, she’s convinced him of all sorts of rubbish, you just can’t compete with a BPD’s propaganda, especially when your Dad lives with her. So when you cut out cancer, you need to take healthy tissue with it. Question is, is what you lose with NC, worth the assault upon your mental health that a BPD will always fire at you. I’m kind of not sure of that yet myself, so I’ll be waiting a bit longer. What about you?

[lauren2013]

I really like the cancer analogy because it is so true - sometimes healthy tissue has to be sacrificed to get the cancer out.  Just yesterday I texted my dad for thanksgiving.  I said "Happy Thanksgiving.  I love you."  I saw that he read it a few minutes after I sent it, but I never got a response.  I don't think he hates me, but why?  Why won't he respond to me?  Why does he think I'm in the wrong?  It's amazing how brainwashed he is by my mother.

I completely agree with your wife - my daughter will NEVER be left alone with my BPD mother.  But do I let her see her/know her?  Right now she has zero contact and I am starting to feel sort of guilty about that.  I also feel upset about the NC I have with my dad and my older brother b/c they think I'm the bad guy for cutting off my mom (and them apparently?).  I am just the FIRST person in my immediate family to finally say "ENOUGH" and no one can really believe it. 

My husband is the one that brought up the idea of going back to LC, but I haven't decided what I think yet.  I don't even really know what LC would look like and I know that I would never hear the end of this NC year, so what do I even do?  Have any of you gone from NC to LC and how did that work?  Is it only a matter of time before she brings this up against me and we go NC again?