Acknowledging Childhood and Adulthood abuse by my mother.

[Guest_9043]

As the title says, this is all very recent, extremely raw and beyond what I can manage on my own. I am 40 years old now and I feel SO ANGRY. I am angry yes because of what happened, yet also angry because I have had enough robbed of me and now I am having more robbed of me. I need support and maybe some advice for me to decide and make a choice on what I feel is best. To cut a long story short, I was abused by all three family members. Father, Mother and Sister. Extended family- NIL relationships. I have not had contact with my father for ten years now and I highly doubt will ever see him again because I actually do not want to.

At this point I have no contact with my sister or mother. They can only contact me via email. I feel incensed when I see something from them there. I just want to ignore it and not respond to be honest. It sound easy to just not respond but it isn't. It brings a lot of emotion and confusion for me. I'm trying to decide whether to cut contact while I am trying to deal with this massive blow. I got an email from my mother today asking for my postal address. I assume she wishes to send me a Christmas card. I do not know what to do. I went into a stressed and confused state. I don't want anything. I have let them know briefly I am not going to spend Christmas with them. It will not be good for me at all. I showed no emotion or feeling in my emails because well they don't do emotion and feelings, mostly mine. Theirs, well the world revolves around the both of them and my mother still thinks I play the roles for her she gave me as a child.

I have not recovered from that at all. The damage it did to me and the way I developed growing up was because of the specific types of abuse from her. I was her therapist looking after her when she could not look after herself, neglected and abandoned in so many different ways. It was hard for me as a kid. I hated him immensely for that. It's hard now how to feel because I was being abused by both parents. Sometimes I don't know how to feel because it is so confusing.

All I know is that I cannot have them in my life at all right now. They don't even know what I am dealing with. It's all about them. I can't talk to them because I will just be ignored, invalidated and/or abused. So I really have no option but to have no contact for now. My issue is that how do I do that? Do I tell them, do I say nothing. Thanks all.

[Juliet_84]

Hi 2quik,

I’m sorry for the years of abuse that you have experienced and I’m sorry that it came from those closest to you, people that should have loved you and that you should have been able to trust. It’s little consolation but those people often have their own demons that they inflict upon other people, so it says less about you as a person and more about them. The reality is, if you don’t want to have contact with them, you don’t have to. You owe them no explanation, unless you want to give them one, you can simply block their emails and never answer their calls again. Or you can send an email explaining why you don’t want to talk to them, and then block them after that. Or you may decide that you want to have it out with them and tell you exactly what happened from your perspective, not to get their validation that it happened, but for your own benefit, that it’s been said. The choice is ultimately yours - there’s no right or wrong answer, just do what feels most comfortable for you.

[Guest_9043]

Thank you. I think I'm ready to take the step and cut contact. I will get support around it. Thanks.

[Guest_9043]

I need some help. I followed through and cut contact on Sunday morning. Since that morning it has been a very very difficult few days for me.

I'm wanting to check my emails not from my mother but other emails. I guess I didn't think ahead about that.

It's an old email address that I barely use but still get some important emails come through that I need to check.

Problem is I'm too terrified to sign in and check my emails. Just seeing there is an email there from her will set me off as well as if there is nothing.

I considered asking someone to check them for me but there is no one to ask who I trust.

Not sure how to get past this one so I can check my emails. Any suggestions?

[Juliet_84]

Hi 2quik,

You can usually just put a person’s email on a blocked senders list that way you can still get emails from everyone else, you’ll just never see them from that particular person. It should be in your settings. If you’re having trouble, let me know what email provider you are using and I can google it to see how you can do it.

[Guest_9043]

Hi Juliet,

Maybe I didn't communicate properly. I'm with outlook. They don't let you block anymore. They changed it all and now you have to set up a rule in Outlook for a specific email address.

I actually meant I'm petrified to even sign in. I don't know how to deal with possibly seeing an email from her or even no email at all. I guess I'm just going to have to wait till I'm strong enough in myself.

[Guest_9043]

I ended up getting the courage to open my emails. There was nothing there from her or any other family members. Not sure how I'm feeling or what to feel.

I created a new email address and set up a rule to forward all emails from family members to that address.

Just feel empty and hollow.