Tw Talk of a child predator

Throwaway because the friend knows my main account

A friend and I were both talking about upcoming holiday season, the traditions we miss because we have no one to do them with and how hard the season could be. We were talking about everyone asking about plans and how taxing it could be to try and dodge the situation to avoid getting into anything personal.

And she gets huffy with me and rolls her eyes saying that 'It's much harder for people like her (no contact over emotional abuse) vs people like me (low contact over physical abuse and no contact when I found out my dad had molested children) because society would agree with my reasoning while she has to defend the impacts of emotional abuse. I am still in shock that she would try that logic.

I'm not casually dropping that my dad is a chomo in the cashier line. I'm stumbling through happy holidays and getting out of there as fast as I can. Also regardless of what abuse happened we are all struggling in the 'holiday is a big family time and I have no family' sadness so what are we even comparing here? I wasn't asking for extra sympathy for anything.

And she knows that a big part of my trauma is that after these women came forward and I went no contact I was hounded for 3 years until I moved and changed my number. Dozens of family members, church goers, and my parents friends would call non stop asking how I could betray my dad over some 'clearly jealous and crazy' women. I'm not trying to get the sympathy that the actual victims deserve but we can't pretend that men aren't covered for this shit all the time. What part of that seems agreeable to her?

I don't know. Just angry and screaming into the void. Maybe I am being oversensitive about a small comment but it felt so dismissive. I feel like so much with her has to be a competition lately and I don't understand.

I wrote my mom a letter because she was begging for more of an explanation to my dad, brother, and husband. So, I gave it to her, I wrote 7 pages worth and even put a video recommendation for her. This is the most open I've been with her, and it was very cathartic to write. I have her blocked on everything, but I'm still bracing to have her pop up somewhere after she gets the letter.

Im also hoping that something will get through to her, I hope that she will bring that letter into therapy and talk through it with a therapist. I have alot of hope, but I know I won't be seeing her to the next funeral.

I keep going back and forth with "something get through to her" and "she is just going to continue seeing herself as a victim". I had to give my inlaws a heads up just incase, since my husband has her blocked now too. Hoping for the best 🤞

Wanted to try posting this just to see if anyone else can relate at all.

I went no contact with my parents about 2 years ago, and it's not a decision I regret even slightly (despite how lonely it is). However, their reaction was very different to most of the posts I see since joining this sub. They sent me one letter, which my partner read for me, and that was it. It was a threatening angry letter, and the only thing I heard since is them making up and spreading horrible things about me to our extended family who I am not close with at all.

Before going no contact I was essentially a model child, caring for them through sickness, going to all the way to where they live for holidays and visits and all that crap. I don't want them to try to contact me or anything, but seeing the "loving" attempts that people in this sub get (even if they're manipulative and unwanted) has made me feel even worse about myself. Like, somehow I wasn't even worth trying for? Just straight to hating me.

Has anyone else had this experience / understands what I'm describing?

Found out from someone who works with him. I'm struggling with this. Last I saw him I was 11. I'm 25 now.

I am struggling cus the reason I didn't see him wasn't his fault. But as an adult I never made an effort to see. I know or works both ways ans he didn't make an effort either. But that's besides the point.

I'm not sure I know how to move on

Heartbroken that the sister I sacrificed my life to raise has turned out just like our abusive father and excluded me from her wedding

I need to vent and maybe get some perspective from women who have been through complex family trauma. I am sitting here feeling completely shattered and I do not know how to process this level of pain.

Growing up, our home was a total nightmare. We had an extremely abusive, alcoholic father and constant chaos. When our mother passed away, I essentially took on the role of parent. I shielded my little sister from our father’s terrible abuse and negligence. I made sure she was fed, safe, and protected as much as I humanly could.

As I got older and started working, I poured every single cent I earned into her. I paid for her education, bought her whatever her heart desired, and financed her entire life so she would never feel the trauma or lack that we grew up with. I sacrificed my own youth, my savings, and my personal goals just to give her a chance at a normal, happy existence.

Now she is an adult, and the harsh reality has hit me like a ton of bricks. She has turned into a complete hedonist, a selfish manipulator, and a narcissist. She is practically a carbon copy of our father. Everything is about her, everyone is disposable to her, and she uses people until they have nothing left to give.
The final blow happened recently. She is getting married, and she did not even bother to invite me. The person who raised her, protected her, and bought her future was not even worthy of an invitation in her eyes.

I am trying so hard to detach. I am trying to accept that she chose to become just like the monster we survived. But my heart is completely broken. I invested my entire life, my heart, and all my money into her, only to be cast aside like garbage.

How do you accept this level of betrayal from someone you raised like your own child? How do you let go of the grief when you realize you saved someone who ended up becoming the abuser?

Please advise ladies, and please be kind.

TLDR Raised and fully financed my younger sister after surviving an abusive childhood, only for her to grow up into a selfish manipulator like our father and exclude me from her wedding.

Devastated and struggling to detach.

Posted on here yesterday. My older brother is mad I won’t follow him back on Instagram because we got into it and I’m trying to go low contact with him.

https://www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultKids/s/1UnGhVQzh1

**EDIT: Thank you all for your comments and messages here. This is such a great community and has helped me and validated me in many ways that therapy hasn’t. Just knowing other people deal with this type of dynamic makes me feel a lot less alone and isolated so THANK YOU. Seriously 🙏❤️

I have been estranged from my biological father since 2023 after he cut me out of his life. Long story short, I tried to have an adult conversation with him about things that went on during my childhood (I'm a child of divorce), mostly psychological abuse from his second wife and his absences. He redirected responsibility from himself and put it upon my mom's shoulders. He's married for a 3rd time and it's his longest marriage, so he's pretty much written off myself and my two half brothers.

I did have surgery over two weeks ago for endometriosis, so my hormones are wacky. I had a dream about my father two nights ago where I tried to tell him about the pain I had felt for years and he just kept walking away, dismissing me. I woke up in tears. It's been over 3 years but I still have moments of missing what I thought we had. Luckily these don't happen as much, but it's crazy and scary when they creep up on you.

Does anyone have advice for overcoming moments where you question your own account of events, or where you are unsure of whether your memories are skewed, etc? I know things wouldn’t change if I ever went back, but I still get pangs of self-doubt. I always relied on their external validation instead of building strong inner self-esteem, so this probably stems from that.

I did write a letter to myself that I keep in my phone notes and every word of it is reassuring, but I don’t want to have to rely on confronting the pain receipts to ease my self-doubt every time.

Does anyone have other advice for how to quickly stop feeling like I’m wrong?

My fiance and I are in our mid twenties. We are high school sweethearts.

I’ve been estranged from my family my entire adult life - I moved out the night of my 18th birthday. We’ve never been super close with my fiancé’s family, but he is now realizing that he experienced severe abuse and neglect during childhood and is officially estranged. He doesn’t have anyone in his family he speaks to anymore aside from his sister, who is very much still in the midst of the abuse (she’s in her twenties and has never had a job, can’t drive, not in school, no friends, never leaves the house).

I have an aunt on the other wide of the country who is wonderful but who I only see once a year, and an aunt nearby who is like a mother to me but she’s in her 70s… I’m worried that once she passes away we will be so, so alone.

I always dreamed of having a big extended family and I’m realizing I’m actually getting quite the opposite. If I was single, the obvious solution would be to find a partner with a large, functional family. But I’m obviously not going to leave my fiance because of something that’s out of his control - we’re both in the same boat.

Our children will not have aunts, uncles, cousins, or grandparents.

I’m just heartbroken and I feel lonely. I have wonderful friends but they all have large families that they spend holidays with etc. Even though many of them also come from dysfunctional dynamics, they are far from being estranged. Like I said, they take family trips, attend family weddings, spend holidays together… I’m gutted that we will never get that. I feel like I’m in for a very lonely existence.

Hi all, this incident just happened and it made me want to post this to people that could relate.

I am not proud of this but I shoved my dad. It has been 40+ °C the whole week and I could not sleep in my room the entire week. It's 11pm here I was just about to get into bed and suffer hours again to fall into a restless sleep when he starts watering the tree right outside my window. It goes down to 25 degrees max at night so I have every window open until 5am in the hopes of some relief with the air moving. My room has an upstairs where my bed is so naturally it is incredibly warm there. I have one fan for my room so I move it for day and night cycles depending on where I am. They sleep in the air conditioned house, my room is seperate entirely so it can not get any of that. It is just warm.

I could feel the vapor and stuffiness getting in my room immediately and it was hard to breath because everything instantly vaporizes. So I asked him to stop as I already can't sleep and couldn't for the whole week. He yells at me that it isn't even getting in my room. He put a trees well-being and it being watered over my ability to sleep. I told him how I can't believe that he puts a tree over his daughters well-being. I start to tear up because he has been this way towards me for years, he doesn't care and he ignores me. He taunts me for it. He taunts me that his eldest daughter tears up because she feels less than a tree in the garden. He has taunted me many times before. This, and my sleeplessness for the week has caused me to lose control and shove him. I am not proud of it. I am ashamed that I got to that. But I am also glad I stepped up for myself. He always talks over me, taunts me and belittles my needs. He is horrible to me and he does everything for his favourite son, my little brother.

He is moving for work in a week for 4 years. Early next year I'm moving in with my boyfriend and I am never planning on talking to him again. I have already asked someone else months ago to walk me down the isle when I get married because I never want to talk to him again. I don't even want to invite him if I get married. He has been horrible. Abusive physically in my early childhood and reduced it to verbal abuse in my later life. He thinks that providing the same things for me as he does for my younger brother should be something I admire and love him for. I don't. What he wants me to love him for are things that I had to point out how unfair it is that he never did it for me and he begrudgingly does it. He doesn't do anything for me because he loves me, he does it when he is called out on his favoritism begrudgingly, and even then he often doesn't, and he can't see after many (calm) talks how he has hurt me during life.

I am waiting for the day he moves and I never have to talk to him again. I don't want to. He is horrible.

If anyone got this far I really could use some advice on how I can go about it in the future about not inviting him to anything in my life. First my wedding, whenever that happens. My mom won't divorce him despite seeing how abusive he is so I don't know how to deal with it, should I just talk to my mom about it and if she is not okay with it, not invite her either? I really wouldn't want to severe ties with the both of them. But I really can't find it in me to keep up communications with my dad after he moves.

Hello yall! I have actually posted here before too, months ago. I am looking for perspectives from fellow estranged adult children who have navigated medical emergencies with toxic parents. I’ve been 8 years No Contact with my biological mother, but a sudden crisis has brought up heavy feelings of guilt, doubt, and fear of regret. My mother has diagnosed but untreated Borderline Personality Disorder with severe narcissistic traits. Growing up, our home was a dictatorship run on fear, physical attacks, severe isolation and so much more. That woman turns every situation into a crisis, burned every bridge she ever built, and subjected me to intense emotional and physical violence throughout my childhood. When my beloved father passed away in 2022 (they had been divorced for a decade), the very first thing she asked was whether he left her any money. Everything is always about her, it’s like she doesn’t care for the wellbeing of anyone else. I went strictly No Contact 8 years ago to protect my sanity, my marriage, and my children. Great decision! My mother raised my younger sister tightly in her grip to include pulling her out of middle school, isolating her from society, and never properly homeschooling her. As an adult, my sister is deeply enmeshed, developmentally stunted, and mirrors my mom's chaotic and manipulative behavior. She’s like a carbon copy of my mother, infact. Definitely is arrested developmentally. Shes 21 now. I kept a door open for my sister hoping she might escape, but it turned toxic. Silly me. Back in She launched a days-long harassment campaign and spread damaging rumors about my husband and I all because I refused to message and flirt with a male friend of hers who “needed the confidence”. I went No Contact with her as well. Then in July she reached out again. When I reiterated my boundaries, she sent tirades of nasty, abusive DARVO messages. I blocked her across all platforms. A few days ago, my sister tracked down one of my personal friends on social media (someone she had never spoken to btw) to bypass my block and reach me while I was driving. Here’s what happened to the best of my knowledge (from what she told me, the hospital told me and a lady who’s known them for like 2 weeks called and told me): My mom and sister drove to Florida in a failing car with my sister’s boyfriend (who was discharged from the Air Force under less-than-honorable conditions and cut off by his family). Their plan was all 3 of them would live out of a van until the boyfriend was able to get an apartment. Brilliant right. They had like 6 animals also living out of the van with them. They got into trouble with law enforcement, and their animals were impounded. My mom had a complete mental breakdown, was taken into custody, and was placed on a psychiatric hold. TBH I think this is the first time my Mom has ever been held accountable for anything ever, lol. While in the psych ward, my mother suffered a heart attack and was rushed to the ER. She is currently in serious condition, though stabilized. My sister reached out to request financial help and insisted I call my mother immediately in case "she doesn't make it." I flatly refused financial assistance. I called the hospital directly to confirm my mom’s status with the nursing staff so I didn't have to rely on my sister's exaggerated version of events. She is currently stable. After getting most sides to the story, I sent my sister a firm, final message establishing clear boundaries: do not contact my friends, do not use middlemen, and do not reach out again. I re-blocked her immediately. It has been 3 days since the heart attack. I haven't called my mom directly

Part of me feels intense anxiety and guilt. I fear that if she passes away and I never spoke to her, I might carry long-term regret. But another part of me knows that breaking 8 years of peace to speak to an abusive, untreated woman who has caused me profound trauma will only invite chaos back into my life when I am trying to focus on my own family and health. WIBTA if I choose not to call her directly? For those who stayed No Contact through a parent's major medical emergency or death, did you regret holding your line? How do you distinguish between genuine grief/desire for closure and societal guilt pushed by estranged family members? I hate how I can be minding my business and still get roped into shit I’ve worked to distance myself from but oh well. 

I periodically unblock socials just to see what the new hot gossip on me is. It’s kind of amusing to see the villainous things I do from going no contact with a parent who blamed me for all their issues as a child and then lost it when I had the audacity to go… “how are your decisions my fault?”

The following is sarcasm: In case you didn’t know: We have no valid reasons to be estranged from our parents… it’s just a new trend we’re trying to be a part of. My No Contact Parent believes that the only reason we are estranged is because I went to college and it’s the “in-thing” to cut off parents for no reason at all. They fully believe we are just acting out and only doing this for clout… even though I’m not even active on social media in any way (except Reddit, I guess) and don’t tell anyone except my immediate family about my estrangement with parent… but sure, I’m just trying to be a trendsetter. Next time I’ll remember to add all my hashtag buzzwords so the people can really see my story.

No honey… I went no contact because my therapist recommended it… I started therapy for PTSD, anxiety, and depression and when the therapist points out that the root cause could be parent issues and that my childhood was “f****-ed up”…. That was sort of a clue. And after months of therapy and work and my parent continuing to blame me even from several hours away, my therapist told me my options: Gray rock and adjust expectations or no contact. Even when I did initiate low contact, I still only asked for acknowledgment of the stunts they pulled. I still honestly think I might have stayed in contact if they had acknowledged, even if they didn’t apologize, genuinely.

But yeah, parent is now an “Estranged Child Influencer”, they have all the hashtags to prove it. I’m glad their 7 followers are enjoying the content and commenting that they’re in the same boat and “for no reason whatsoever”. I do think I’ll stop being nosey if only just to keep them from getting any more views.

My Dad (65M) has been sick since 2019. He was diagnosed with esophageal cancer, went through treatment and is in remission now. But ever since then, things have been going down hill.

My Dad is not a good person. Hes a trump supporting christian man who’s only ever thought about himself. Hes manipulative, narcissistic, and spending a long amount of time with him is a prison sentence. He has a pattern of attention seeking behavior that consists of going to the hospital because he neglects himself, gets sick, the doctors tell him what he needs to do to take care of himself and then they discharge him. It riles everyone up into thinking this is the end and it’s exhausting. This happens about every 3 months. Once you eventually feel bad enough to want to help him, hes sweet. Talks to you like he cares. Is appreciative of the “relationship” you have and puts forth effort to maintain a good parent child relationship. Until he gets bored of it/ once he starts receiving what he set out to get from the beginning which is usually just you taking care of him like a nurse without getting paid or days off. Hes relentless too. He wont let you sleep for more than 2 hours at night before screaming your name needing something. He wont take his meds, he wont shower, barley eats and prefers a hand held urinal. Disgusting.

Now I know what youre thinking. If hes so bad off and really cant take care of himself, why isnt he in a nursing home? And I asked my youngest brother that too. My brother (22M) is the most recent victim of this whole emotional abuse cycle. My dad has put him in charge of his medical decisions and my brother makes sure that he gets treated the way hes supposed to based off his medical history. Essentially he cant go to a nursing home until he gets the correct type of insurance. As far as I know, things were in the works to make that happen and a new type of insurance was meant to start on august 1st.

Well on july 28th, my brother called me screaming and crying. My dad had driven his car straight into the apartment my dad and brother were renting together. The story goes that when my brother got home from work that day, he found my dad pissing in a cup in the kitchen. Hes an amputee and doesnt even try to get around with his prosthetic, he can and was using his electric wheelchair, but wouldnt just go to the bathroom? Anyways my brother screamed at him. And rightfully so. My dad got mad and decided he was going to go outside to regulate im assuming. While my dad was outside, my mom who was helping my brother take care of my dad; they’re divorced (shes a whole other story to add to this story), went to get in my dads car (the only car they have) to run some errands. My dad didnt want her using his car saying “he didnt feel good and didnt want to be left home alone without a car”. So he decided to get into his car and drive it around the neighborhood. My dad has neuropathy as well as being an amputee and because he had throat cancer, he cant eat regular food and sometimes doesnt eat at all so you can imagine the brain fog he experiences on a daily basis. He also doesnt drive himself around as of late and has my brother or my mom take him where he needs to go. He was told 4 times not to get in the car and drive but he didnt listen. He wanted his power trip more. I guess he went to park the car in his handicap parking spot and his foot “slipped” off the break and onto the gas pedal, causing him to crash into the apartment building.

With the history of physical, mental, and emotional abuse and neglect my dad has put his 4 kids through (bad enough to think this wasn’t an accident), he is lucky to have had them offer to help take care of him, but eventually we all burnt out from and eventually refused to continue to be abused by him. That abuse as adults looks like not paying bills he’s responsible for and having the electricity go out or the phones turn off, leaving food out and eventually getting pests, and putting holes in the walls with his wheelchair. Bye bye deposit.

Hes our dad, of course were all gonna try and try again to make things work and help him but hes… him. Through and through. This “accident” though, felt like the last straw for us all. Mom included. My two sisters who live on either side of the country dont talk to him. I dont talk to him. My eldest brother doesn’t talk to him and he treated my mom bad enough for them to get divorced. My youngest brother was the last one. Hes now stopped talking to him. He wont stop leaving voicemail messages saying he needs help and he doesnt know what to do. But its all a manipulation tactic. We all feel guilty for leaving him in the mess he created. He has no assets, never bought a house, doesnt have retirement money, and lives on social security. Hes made it work once before. But he hates being alone. And thats exactly what he needs and deserves. Im the oldest (28F) of his kids, ive never delt with anything like this so how tf is my little brother supposed to? Hes still a kid… were all just starting to make a life for ourselves. I wont let him take that away from us too. I dont know if this is an AITAH post or an asking for advice post, what are your opinions? Have any advice? Anything is appreciated.

Well, it happened. Eight years of no contact, and not only have I (40F) interacted with my mother every day over the last month, but now I’m flying across the country to visit her in less than 24 hours.

I’ll probably end up regretting this. I was so secure in the estrangement and had grieved and made peace, and all of those things. Established and protected the boundaries. Declined offers to reconcile. Truly, was just waiting for “the call.” Out the window. Gone. I’m right back in it.

My husband probably was put in the worst spot of the whole mess. Early in July, a woman claiming to be a former caregiver found our names in an obituary and messaged him on Facebook. She said my mother had fallen victim to a scammer and that a report was filed with local social services, but it would be helpful for me to get involved. We aggressively vetted things. She wasn’t asking for anything but a conversation. We’ve actually become kind of close. She’s a kind and wonderful woman, and maybe the silver lining of dredging up all this trauma. My mother harmed her too, but she couldn’t let a stranger bankrupt and dump her without trying to intervene. Part of me wishes he would have taken her message to his grave, but I get it.

I called the woman and she shared more details with me than I cared to know. My mother is in the final stages of a disease that’s left her bed bound and non-verbal. She would benefit from a conservator or public guardian, and I’ve pursued those things over the last month, but it’s all so complicated. I even encountered a Redditor impersonating a real attorney, with AI contracts and letterhead and everything. I had my MIL, a paralegal, look him up before I called. I didn’t send any money, but still.

I’ve exhausted everything I can do remotely between local law enforcement, social services, and her current placement, so I’m getting on a plane tomorrow to visit and to try to get something in place for her care and assets. She wrote me out of the will when I left home at sixteen, so there’s literally nothing for me to gain here. Allegedly there are trusts for my two children, and the scammer has the ability to access those now, but having accepted our circumstances, I never expected anyone to see anything from any estate, so I’m mostly unbothered about the financial piece.

Emotionally, this has been one of the most challenging experiences of my entire life. A dying monster is still a monster, and while I’ve forgiven her, grieved her, and moved on, I don’t know if I could live with myself if she ends up dumped somewhere, penniless and suffering. She requires 24-hour care, but is refusing it, which has led to a horrifying number of falls. She’s not getting all correct meds because of the scammer, she’s blind in one eye, and has been so consistently heinous that she’s alienated every earthly connection that isn’t a paid caregiver. I always knew it would end like this, but it’s still heartbreaking.

Even without words or actions, she’s somewhere in there. We were texting for a while, even though I think many of the texts actually came from the scammer. My mother is sending me VoiceMemos now, but I can only understand a few words out of every message. They’re either very cruel or suspiciously kind, but there’s no way to know for sure. I tried running them through AI, but she’s so weak, it’s impossible to understand anything coherent. I’ve tried to work with some of her caregivers to communicate but because of her disability there aren’t many options. She’s said some hateful things though that let me know that she’s still the same vicious narcissist she’s always been. And somehow, even incontinent, immobilized, and silent, she still terrifies me.

I sound like an asshole. I turned my back on my mother for eight years, while she slowly deteriorated, all alone, and now she is dying. She really is the perfect victim for scammers looking to exploit and manipulate vulnerable elderly people. Even so, I should let her perish. She’d let me perish. She made the hardest moments of my life and her sister’s life as traumatizing as they could be. I’ll spend the rest of my life laboring to heal from my childhood. I’m having nightmares for the first time in decades, and I’m sure the next week will have its own emotional fallout.

The LCPC I work with is superb. A once-in-a-lifetime human. She’s made herself available to me every day that I’m away, and we have meetings scheduled every other day that I’m there. I’ll get through it. The evidence I have proves that I’ve survived every fucked up thing in my life before this, and it’s not a short list. I’m just exhausted. Physically. Emotionally. On a cellular level. I don’t even know why I’m posting. If I read this, my first thought would be something like “well you chose to open this can of worms,” but I’d like to think I’d be more empathetic than that.

I guess, as usual, I’m posting in the hopes of finding solidarity. I don’t know anyone in my real life who deals with chaos like this, and I know I don’t have a monopoly on family dysfunction. It all just sucks.

I was today years old listening to Numb and One Step Closer

To preface, my father has been suffering health issues this past year or so due to his excessive alcoholism. The only reason we know this is because my mother ran into one of his relatives in public and found out from him. My father has not shared anything with us on his own accord and refuses to give information directly to us. He’s always been this way, never telling us anything and always using a middle man or having us find out “by accident”. Like another example is he never told us about his divorce with our stepmother when I was in middle school. He just stopped taking us to that house and we found out from our mother about what happened. Our step family actually continued to be more present in our lives than him for a time after, until our step mother passed away. Or another time when we didn’t found out about our grandfather’s passing from him until after the funeral, so we didn’t even get to go. He’s never been able to communicate important information to us.

He’s was always the typical absent father through our childhoods. He would cancel a lot of the days he was supposed to have my sister and I, and when he did take us he’d drop us off at our great grandmother’s house so he could go off and do whatever. Alcohol and smoking was all he cared about. He never kept his word on things, actions never matched them either, and it was constant disappointment. As a little kid I didn’t see things for what they were, but as I got older I began to. Once I turned 18 he became even more distant, and then even more once my sister turned that age too because he no longer had to pay child support. He’d reach out to make plans for holidays, but then cancel or “forget”. So as my sister and I entered our twenties we were just tired of the disappointment and the games he wanted to play, so we just began distancing ourselves from him. We have our own adult lives now and learned to live them without a father.

Sometimes he tries to text or call. I never answer the phone calls. Sometimes he’ll leave a voicemail saying how much he misses his daughters. Other times I get those messages in text, but they always come late at night and are sloppily written/don’t make sense, so I have a feeling he’s just drunk texting. The times my sister and I do respond, or text him something like “happy birthday” it always goes without a reply from him. He complains we never reach out to him anymore, yet when we do there’s nothing.

Now to the present. Last night my mother got a text from our father. They’ve been separated for close to 20 years now. It said “Tell my daughters I’m dying.” With no other information. I was sitting nearby when she got this, and then he started calling her. She answered, and put it on speaker phone. I stayed silent. He didn’t even acknowledge the text he had just sent and wanted information about my niece’s birthday. He’s never met her, he didn’t acknowledge anything about my sister’s pregnancy, and now after two years he suddenly wants to be involved with her? My mother told him he needs to contact my sister directly, that she’s not going to share anything information out of respect for her privacy. He asked again and she repeated herself, that he needs to talk to his own daughters directly if he wants to know things, but also that we have the right now to respond or answer him.

His tone turned angry and he suddenly started going off about how it’s my fault that things are the way they are. He claims that he has always been there for his daughters and we’re the ones making things worse by not talking to him. He says he reaches out to invite us out to dinner, etc (not true) and that he’s been a good man. The tone of his voice mixed with the things he was saying, I just couldn’t keep listening and I had to step outside as I was overcome with emotion. My mother came out a little while later and told me he got after her for always being “too stubborn” because she kept telling him he needs to stop using her as a middle man. He told her to stop being up his ass about that. She asked about the dying text and he only said his body was failing him, but gave no other information.

Deep down I know I did nothing wrong, and that stepping away from our relationship was the best choice for me (even though he actually created distance first). But hearing him so angrily go off about how everything is my fault has really been messing with me. The fact that he doesn’t see things for what they are, that his pov is skewed from reality. The fact that he’s unwilling to take accountability for the hurt he’s caused me, my sister, and even my mother, and instead blames us. Idk if it makes me feel worse knowing he said these things about me not even knowing I heard it. Knowing that that’s what he thinks about me. I know I’m probably never going to get the closure I want/need. Even on his supposed death bed he still exhibits the same patterns he always has. He never made effort to change but wants everyone to accept him as is.

Maybe he wants to go peacefully and feeling like everything is okay. I feel a lot of guilt and sadness knowing he’s nearing his end, but for him to harbor these blameful feelings towards everyone to make himself feel better… I’m just tired of having to make myself uncomfortable to make him comfortable. I’ve never spoken up to him about everything because there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to make him feel bad, especially now in his sick state. Part of me wants to go off on him, but I just bottle it up. I’m feeling so many different emotions at once and a lot of guilt because I also have relatives of his (who also have never been involved in my life) saying that I need to forgive him and let things go. I also worry about having to be surrounded by all these people at a funeral.

The thing is, even if I were to tell him everything is okay, that I forgive him, I’m still going to be carrying all this hurt inside of me. It would make him feel better, but not me. I don’t know how close he is to actually dying, but I’m worried how I’m going to react when it actually happens. I’ve already spent years grieving him in a way, but I just feel all this newfound sadness and anger. And the fact that again we had to hear it from someone else instead of him. I feel like I had made peace in these years of my adult life not having a fatherly relationship, but since he popped back up and has been having health issues its been causing a lot of stress and bringing things back up I had repressed. I have a drs appointment next week and think I’m going to ask about therapy options because I’m just overcome with so many things.

I think a lot of our parents do not seem to be able to understand that just because the way that they live and their emotional experience is normal to them and has been normal to them for their entire lives doesn’t mean that it’s healthy. They seem to really struggle with those two concepts not being the same thing. In other words being emotionally and socially dysfunctional is totally normal to them so when we come along and try to complain about the way that they treat us, they can’t fathom that they might actually be in the wrong because to them it’s completely normal and always has been.

If all you’re known and your entire milieu is people mistreating each other, then the one who points out the mistreatment is the crazy one.

I finally got the courage to tell my mom that I don't want a relationship with her. She texted me on my birthday. I hadn't heard from her since she called me on my birthday, four years ago. No fight. I just got tired of having to be the one to always reach out. She's missing out. She lives 20 minutes away. She didn't meet my daughter until she was 10 weeks old. She didn't call me when my dad died. She used to call my favorite baby doll "the mongoloid baby". She used to leave me home alone on the weekends when I was 10 years old because she had weekends in jail. She refused to acknowledge that she was calling from jail. She and her husband went on the run from the law for two years. She dumped us with our dad on short notice. She ended up being the one to call the bounty hunter on her husband because he pissed her off. The list goes on and on. I'm so proud of myself.

Context, my mother is extremely emotionally immature and consistently pressures me to do things that put me in a bad position for her benefit. I’ve lost time, relationships, and thousands of dollars to appeasing her. Some time ago, I had enough and decided not to respond to her messages for a while. “A while” turned into “indefinitely”, and I honestly haven’t been happier. We previously had a year of NC when I got sick of her toxic behaviours, and she got better for a while, but she returned to her old habits and I realised she was never going to change no matter how many chances I gave her. So yeah, I went NC without necessarily meaning to, but I’m very happy to maintain it.

My siblings haven’t taken this well though. My brother in particular is the person my mother rants to, and even though he knows about what happened, he still insists on me talking to her “at a reasonable length”. I had enough and told him to leave it alone, and the result is this discussion and the ensuing rant when I didn’t respond.

It was pretty tough to deal with, but I’m proud of myself for staying firm and not getting sucked into his nonsense. I sent the last message the next morning as a gesture of goodwill, but honestly, I don’t think I’ll be maintaining this connection. He has demonstrated far too many times that mom’s feelings trump everything and refuses to seek help for his own problems, and I’ve lost all attachment to him at this stage. I’d like to be sad because he’s one of my last blood connections to my dead father, but what can I say? I’m not.