Hello my friends. I'm working to heal CPTSD from a lifetime of abuse and neglect by four narcissistic, dark tetrad parents. And a few days ago, I met what could be my Waterloo. One of them texted to ask why I no longer keep in contact. And so, because this is a stream of conscience blog, you're getting all my experiences with me, in situ. So, how do you respond and what do you do (or not do) when someone asks why you've gone no contact with them? Short answer, I'm not sure myself But I have some ideas.
1) Take my emotional vitals. Immediately upon reading the text, my CPTSD responses (flight, fright, fix, fawn) went into overdrive. I was triggering like a battlefield, panic and anxiety firing like 4th of July. My hands started shaking, I felt sick and short of breath. I'm sure my blood pressure even shot up. So you know what I did? Not a damn thing. I just closed it and went back to what I was doing. Which for me is unheard of. Because I don't...
2) Take care of myself. I have always let shame drive my into those trauma responses. Then I stopped and went no contact. And the narcissist, who has been manipulating, dismissing, gaslighting, shaming, invalidating, suddenly wonders why I stopped participating in the abuse. And my trauma responses say, bad me! I must fix this! I must answer, how dare I ignore! And do those narcissists know how to play THAT! Guilt was screaming in my ear that I'd better rush to do something, but instead I did something revolutionary and I..
3) Don't just do something, sit there. Thank you Alanon for these words of wisdom. Instead of hurrying to reassure, justify, answer, defend and explain, I ignored it. She's been ignoring me when I'm inconvenient all my life. And then when convenient, demanding I jump in to fix something they broke. I've been inundated with all I owe and then stiffed on what they owed me. It wasn't transactional, it was a grift. And so I finally realized that I can...
4) Respond when and how I want. I owe them nothing. Not even a response to a text, till such time if any I choose to respond. This is big. Because I was groomed to believe that if someone expecteded something of me it was my responsibility to answer. Especially when it was an interrogation, accusation or ambush. And no matter how passive-aggressive, it always was an attack. They could ignore, evade, lie, deflect, distort, blame-shift all they wanted. But I'd better damn well be forthcoming with remorse, shame, groveling whenever they decided to retaliate. Because no matter how softsoapped it is, I now...
5) Accept that it is retaliation. We've marginalized and manipulated you all your life but how dare you now put us aside?! We call the shots, missy! We dictate who will be ignored and when. Well, maybe you did but you don't now. Because I now...
6) See that it's a ruse. I was expecting something like this, but I didn't realize how templated it would be. It could have come out of the textbook on "how to get others to take the blame for your actions." I was begged to explain why I didn't text anymore. I was offered a lightweight blanket apology for "anything that might have offended me." And then asked to tell her what that might be. Which comes straight from another textbook on "how to sound sorry without actually being sorry and make others feel guilty for what you did." And I now...
7) See the trap. They apologize without saying what they did wrong. They admit to nothing and want you to tell them what they've done "to offend." They know very well what they have done. They just want to see what we'll say. They've got an answer prepared for everything. But we weren't expecting this and didn't come prepared. So we tell them (making ourselves do very uncomfortable, unfamiliar things they've punished us for in the past). And they fire back with denials, lies, gaslighting, mocking pooh-poohing, distortions and blaming. All we get for our pains is more pain. Because what we must do is...
8) Know that they are not sorry. They are angry and blaming us. They don't confess and the "remorse" is fake. They apologize to lure us into trusting them and apologizing, as if what happened was a two-way street. Which it was not. That we somehow had a hand in the problem which we didn't. They don't acknowledge what they have done wrong because they arrogantly don't believe they do wrong. What they've done is open to interpretation and you are just "offended" Or that we were somehow to blame too. And we must...
9) Recognize how they twist words and distort reality. Now, these people are good. They proclaim to be Godly and they know that God is offended by things. They are always talking about what offends them as if it's what offends God too. But if we're justifiably offended by their offensive behavior, we're just being "politically correct" or "a snowflake" or "unable to face the truth." Actually, they're not sinful at all but completely righteous. It's us that are sinful for objecting to their objectionable behavior. Even if we didn't say a word. They just can sense our evilness because they're special. But all that's just hogwash and what we must do is...
10) Accept that they are deceitful, entitled, arrogant, exploitative hypocrites who have no intention of apologizing or even admitting what they did. If they were contrite, they'd have confessed decades ago what they'd done to hurt us. They would have tried to make amends. They would have humbled themselves. They wouldn't have expected us to put ourselves back through hell telling them what they did so they could mock, scorn, humiliate, shame and blame us all over again. But that is what they have always done and will continue to do so if I do respond back...
11) Take our time. Give it a week or so. Make them agonize a bit like they've done to you all your life. Is that vengeance? Meh, IDK. That's above my paygrade. I do know that if we don't, all the trauma responses will take over and we'll fall right back into their trap. And we need time to...
12) Consider our options. Which are admittedly few. If you rush to answer, you'll either lie and say no we're all good, when you're not. Or you'll make excuses and probably blame yourself which is just what the narcissist wants. And you'll end up back in contact and nothing will have changed. It will just get worse. Because the only way out is...
13) Stay out. Either by keeping the text on read or with a short, sweet, honest response. I think mine will be something like, "The problem isn't me being offended but it should be. It's about things that happened that shouldn't and things that didn't that should have. Things which I got no acknowledgment of let alone amends for or assistance with. If you search your memory, you'll recall. But I will not explain nor discuss it. I wish you no ill, but I think it's best left at arm's length." No JADE (justify, answer, defend, explain). I've never done anything like this before. But I have to because I need to
14) Heal myself. If they won't heal it, and I don't trust them to, I have to. And if they're ever going to grow a conscience it will be because I stopped doing all their dirty work. If you finally stop protecting, lying for, defending them, they might just bend the knee. But that's not why I'm doing it, I need to
15) Do what's best for me. And talking about it, discussing, will only make it worse. It always has. It's never ended well. Confessions and closure are things for novels, not for me. I just rolled over for more. If they heal, terrific. But they'll have to find that on their own. The scapegoat has left the altar.
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