I think I'm done trying to reconcile with my family

  • Thread starter Thread starter DarkLight
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Sarcelle said:
pathological people
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Who is pathological here?
I’m not suggesting anyone live with a maniac! I wrote it slowly, perhaps it should be read slowly too.

I’m not talking about when Jesus escaped the crowd, I’m aware that he escaped being thrown from a cliff. I’m talking about when he knew judas had gone to betray Him, and again later as He waited in Gesthemane. I am familiar with the Gospels.

The point I’m making is that it’s very easy to throw in the towel with people but if you think thyre in your lives by Gods will then you might pause and consider the benefits to be gained by having them continue to be in your life.

It’s very easy to obfuscate and confuse the issue, and to pretend that I’m suggesting something outlandish, but I’m not.
 
I was taking your post in light of what Darklight was talking about.

Her mother has narcissistic tendencies and growing up with this type of person has in all probability contributed to her issues with mental health.

It is not good to continue associating with people who can cause you to have ill mental health.

If I have misunderstood your post then I apologize.

I have seen to many abused women in my life who have been encouraged to go back to their abusive husbands and offer it up. All in the name of being a good Catholic wife.

This was what gave me a bad impression of Catholicism when I was growing up.
 
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I appreciate you’re trying to help Darklight, me too.

I do have some experience of what we’re talking about. I understand toxic, I understand mental health issues, I understand being stuck with debilitating neurosis for over fifty years etc etc. There is a limit, people who disagree always talk in extremes in order to negate another’s point of view. I’m not suggesting anyone lives with someone with extreme mental health issues.

If I was on a secular forum I’d expect everyone to be up in arms about anyone tolerating anything which made them even in the slightest uncomfortable. That’s one extreme you’ll notice. But on a Catholic forum I’d expect a few people to point out that there are great spiritual gains to be had from persistence in this instance.

Catholics talk about becoming saints a lot, real suffering may be involved. We can’t simply pray our way to sainthood, cold showers aren’t enough, fasting with light meals aren’t enough. Attending the sacraments isn’t enough. Sometimes pain is involved, which is why there are so few saints.

So I’m sorry if this is upsetting to anyone, sometimes in dialectics this happens, thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Moderation.

As a mere mortal and not a saint, I’d suggest a compromise between these views, ie to leave entirely or to stay entirely, I’d suggest a distancing is best. We’re not all cut out to be saints, and I don’t think it’s required either frankly.
 
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Lee1 said:
If I was on a secular forum I’d expect everyone to be up in arms about anyone tolerating anything which made them even in the slightest uncomfortable. That’s one extreme you’ll notice. But on a Catholic forum I’d expect a few people to point out that there are great spiritual gains to be had from persistence in this instance.
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We’re not talking about being made “uncomfortable.” We’re talking about someone who is dangerous to mental health.

If you’d like to discuss growth in holiness through dealing with people who aren’t actually toxic and dangerous, that might deserve a new thread. It’s not the topic here.
 
I appreciate your views and what you are saying is not wrong.

However in this thread we are talking about repeated attempts to reconcile with someone who has so far rebuffed efforts for reconciliation and not only that may also have some sort of mental pathology going on. We are not talking about garden variety grouchy people but with narcissists and sociopaths.

You can try and try again but there comes a time that we need to acknowledge with the help
of wisdom and prudence that enough is enough.
 
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angel12 said:
We’re not talking about being made “uncomfortable.” We’re talking about someone who is dangerous to mental health.
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Oh. I thought it was like someone who taunts you about your religion every day. And accuses you of being mad for believing in God.Someone who complains that you never do anything while ignoring what you do and constantly pointing out your flaws, your looks, your speach, your bad grammar. Someone who leaves you on your own for hours at a time and then accuses you of ignoring them. Someone who uses your money and when you’re broke tells you it’s your fault. Someone who has such a bias about your behaviour that they recall every error you’ve ever made and never mentions anything good you’ve done.

But I was obviously wrong.

People get angry when buttons are pressed, don’t they.

And no, I won’t be starting a nice little thread where we only discuss how slight inconveniences can impinge on our faith and cause us to be saintly.
 
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Lee1 said:
People get angry when buttons are pressed, don’t they.
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Well, those of us who’ve actually dealt with toxic family members do tend to get upset when others in that position are told it’s not really that serious, just put up with it, it will make you holy.
If you want to dismiss that as a “button,” that’s on you.
 
It is God’s will that we all be saints.

The path to sainthood will be different for all of us. We are called to suffer in some parts of life, to struggle in some parts of life and there are times when the best most prudent thing is to accept that there some things that cannot be salvaged in spite of our best efforts.

Hopefully this post will not leave you with any negative feelings.

The last thing I want to do is ruin the Lord’s Day for you.

So we call a truce?
 
I see I picked an interesting morning to sleep in. And check CAF before my morning tea.

In this case, part of my decision is informed by past experience that limited contact will be used as a way to continually push for more contact, and that I can’t trust my family to respect boundaries. That said, I’m not actually 100% set on going to no contact at all. It’s more a realization that I’m done trying to “make them see” or anything. If I interact, it’s with the knowledge that they’re not likely to change and I’m in a mode to protect myself rather than trying to rebuild or repair anything.
 
Jesus prayed in the garden that the suffering could be avoided.

Jesus had strength and stamina and knowledge and He was/is God incarnate. He could understand the literal “big picture” in a way none of us can.

To expect me to be able to bear the things that Christ bore, “Jesus did it, so, you just need to toughen up and be more Christ-like” is a bit offputting to those in the midst of suffering.

There are degrees of suffering, for instance, the suffering of a person who has a small burden like a cold vs the suffering of a person with terminal cancer. We can encourage the person with a cold to “man up and push through”, however, the terminal cancer patient where there exists no medical treatment cannot simply push through. The kindest thing the medical community can give them is pain management.

Same goes from what most of us have as family disagreements, spats, arguments vs a lifetime of mental anguish where there is no cure. The kindest thing in those situations is pain management, distance between a person and their tormentors.
 
I did mention moderation and distancing. People have stretched the point to breaking, talking about abused wives and all sorts. I brought up the Christian idea of suffering and the virtues to be attained through it. There are limits but those limits may be dependent on your faith, that’s a proposition, since the flesh is unimportant to the future and suffering is of the brain then perhaps that’s another way to look at things. Moderately.

This may be of interest.
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Why does God want strong souls? Spirituality
We talk glibly about suffering being good for the soul but do we voluntarily suffer to reap it’s benefits? And why would God want souls which have been tempered by the flame of suffering? How heavy a cross should we be willing to bear? Are we actually willing to be saints or do we simply talk the talk?
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One Lent, I decided I was going to stop taking pain medication, not so much as an aspirin, in order to offer my suffering. (I have a severe, incurable genetic condition causing among other things severe arthritis in every joint of my body. The arthritis begins in childhood and simply gets worse every day for the rest of your life. Joints deteriorate requiring many surgeries then the joint replacements begin in earnest mid twenties to early thirties. For me an excellent day is when the pain is managed to about a 4. I cannot remember having a pain-free day in my entire life.

So, I was going to be a really excellent Catholic and feel the full brunt of my suffering for 6 weeks, I mean, Jesus suffered far more pain so how could I be so weak to be afraid of it for a short period of time, right?

By the end of the first week, I’d missed 3 days of work because the pain would not allow me to stand up long enough to get dressed. I went to my confessor and told him that I was failing Lent already because I took an ibuprofen in order to get to sleep. He immediately told me that my self imposed penance was silly and that I’d set myself up to fail. That suffering is important, however, that we are not called to hinder our ability to function in our station in life. I was not able to do my job, care for my family, heck I could not even go to Mass!

I am happy that I know my daily suffering can be of use in the economy of Salvation. People with my condition have a very high suicide rate and it breaks my heart that they have been crushed by the suffering. There is still no need for me to go search for extra suffering by rejecting the God-given means to relieve suffering.

God not only allows suffering, He provides relief and healing through both natural and supernatural means.
 
I’m sorry to hear about your pain.

Yes, again moderation is necessary of course.
 
That is a backhanded way of what I was saying when I talked about sharing space in the same state.
 
DarkLight said:
That said, I’m not actually 100% set on going to no contact at all. It’s more a realization that I’m done trying to “make them see” or anything. If I interact, it’s with the knowledge that they’re not likely to change and I’m in a mode to protect myself rather than trying to rebuild or repair anything.
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Just chiming in for the first time, have read through everything, and my thoughts are that having a somewhat superficial relationship is what may be best for you. Tell them just enough to keep them feeling involved in your life, and no more.
 
Ugh, I’ve had a post stuck in moderation since last night.

A lot of the trouble I’m having is that anything short of regular contact tips it into trying to fix things overdrive. Like, calling weekly, texting daily, and visiting once a month is considered low contact by my family.
 
Can you call weekly and say things like:

“Hey just calling to check in with you, blah blah blah happened this week (basically not telling them anything significant), how are you?”

By superficial, I mean don’t share anything of significance to you, but let them think you are sharing, does that make sense?
 
Not easily. The problem is less what I share with them, and more that I’m sort of treated as a free emotional dumping ground. Or an on-call therapist that it’s ok to yell at if you don’t like the answer you get. So it’s less trying to not tell her things and more avoiding being the one that gets all the family problems dropped on her.
 
One thing I think makes a difference in my willingness to keep trying: Talking with my mother can be sort of headspinning. I have had very many incidents where we started out with me trying to talk to her about boundaries and ended in her talking about how everyone at church is picking on her and I’m the only one she can talk to and she doesn’t understand why I’m being so mean. And I’m usually not 100% sure how we got there. It’s hard to deal with someone who sort of talks in circles and I tend to end up feeling like I just get bowled over and somehow the focus ends up on how rude I’m being trying to keep some control in the discussion. She’s also the sort where she means well in her head so clearly I can’t possibly actually mean any boundaries I put on her - and if I do it’s proof that I need her to force contact on me.

I’m not kidding about the forced contact. If I outright told her that I didn’t want to talk to her I would almost 100% expect the police to be showing up my door because she’d called with a sob story about my past mental health issues and how I was going crazy again and she was afraid I’d hurt myself. And given that on paper I’m the one with the mental health history I’d be afraid to talk to them. I’d never found the mental health system to be my friend - I often got the sense that it was an easy tool for an abusive person to keep their victim under control, especially if the therapist wasn’t specifically good at spotting emotional manipulation. I do think for me seeking therapy encouraged me to stay in the mindset that it was my perception that was the problem, rather than seeing what was actually going on.
 
How far do you live from your mom?

Do you think she will really call the police on you? The police may not even follow
up on her call.

I get the feeling that the best recourse for you is to just end all contact. You do what you think is best of course. However, in my opinion, these extreme and instrusive efforts
to keep in contact with you sounds disturbing to be honest.
 
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