Reunion w aunt after 5 year's estrangement

As the title suggests. Urg, stomach-clench & head-fuzz. I don't want to do this & am concerned it will trigger a mental health mess (to put it mildly) and me bridge-burning.

I have to see her for reasons of family politics, it will be not-good to see her but much worse if I don't.

I spoke to my aunt on the phone. Zoned out & after the call startled by my clarity in realising her similarity to my narcissistic mother. Now feel guilty. Since the call I'm having a lot of bad memories of the past events that led up to me estranging myself from the 2 aunts...having fantasies about confronting her about their disrespect, standing up for myself.

My previous attempts at putting healthy boundaries in place backfired, seemed to invite their anger & wrath and confirm myself as the horrible family loon.

My aunt has mainly great qualities but towards me seems haughty & bossy, like I'm insignificant & just there to witness her awesomeness. It's hard to take & I feel provoked. I'm concerned I won't be able to zone out & will be confrontational. I should prepare a list of neutral topics e.g. the weather, but would need to have it written on a card to refer to (a bit visibly weird) as once I feel disrespected I won't be able to recall my name let alone those topics. I'd probly eat the card!

My aunts sees mentally unwell people as unpredictable & dangerous, much like a runaway tractor w no driver, and my condition as something that would be fixed simply with one psychiatric appointment. I see my aunts as provoking me!

I don't wish to disrespect her, she's a nice person, but feel that requires disrespecting myself, holding in my indignation. I'm fixated on the injustice & double-standards at play - why am I the family scapegoat. Do others find family this complicated?

like I'm insignificant & just there to witness her awesomeness.

I don't wish to disrespect her, she's a nice person

So, you feel disrespected but you don't want to disrespect her – nice going *mod edit*

I'd say don't meet up with her. You're not ready.
Therapy doesn't sound wrong at all, to learn to set up boundaries. The lesson plan includes: how to verbally deal with someone that thinks he has a customary right to oppress you.

Dalloways - Seminar To Find Ubiquity - (STFU)
I would say something like: “Hi, first of all, I had little contact with you for 5 years because I feel disrespected by you.”
Now the big “Why?”, “What?”, “How so?” may happen – be prepared, make a list.
The classical next step from her if she 's a narc or something equally distasteful, she'll make an argument to the contrary (“that's not true”, “you got it all wrong”). Don't get caught up in that – she can present her point of view, as can you, but she can't refute you feeling disrespected – stick to that, like “Well, it is true TO ME – and if that's no reason for you find a better way to deal with each other, then I don't want to have anything to do with you. - I'm here today, to make it work. Are you interested in that?”

If she skipping the “Why?” coming straight to the “you got it all wrong” you can just leave, because you can't have a healthy relationship with someone not interested in your perspective.


There's a multitude of things toxic people say and do when finally confronted. Maybe, if that's alright with you, we can also use this topic to gather typical conversational tactics and knockout arguments made by our families and how we deal/dealt with them. Good idea?

A typical knockout argument in my family was: 'there's just no dealing with him/her', 'maybe I shouldn't say anything anymore'. I found it very effective to build counter knockout arguments. Yes, you can get all therapeutic and chatty, trying to smooch the narc into understanding – not with me. To the first argument my reply is: 'It's a good first step to acknowledge your failure' and to the second 'Don't promise things you can't keep'.

Doormat people have the habit of trying to convince others of their case because without approval they feel like they have no case at all, since their own opinion doesn't matter, even to them it seems.

Can you give examples of miscommunication in your family?
@Skitterish: How does your aunt manage to make you feel worthless?

Skitterish wrote:I have to see her for reasons of family politics, it will be not-good to see her but much worse if I don't.

Are you sure about this? Your family sounds as awful as mine was. As Dalloway suggested, it sounds like you are being manipulated. As far as I'm concerned, there are only two reasons to maintain contact with a messed-up, abusive or dysfunctional family:

1. There is inheritance money you desperately need.
2. If you don't, one day they will kill you in your sleep.

My aunt has mainly great qualities but towards me seems haughty & bossy, like I'm insignificant & just there to witness her awesomeness. It's hard to take & I feel provoked. I'm concerned I won't be able to zone out & will be confrontational. I should prepare a list of neutral topics e.g. the weather, but would need to have it written on a card to refer to (a bit visibly weird) as once I feel disrespected I won't be able to recall my name let alone those topics. I'd probly eat the card!

I'll say it too: you're not ready.

My aunts sees mentally unwell people as unpredictable & dangerous, much like a runaway tractor w no driver, and my condition as something that would be fixed simply with one psychiatric appointment.

Sounds like the pot calling the kettle black. Ditch these people.

I don't want to do this & am concerned it will trigger a mental health mess (to put it mildly) and me bridge-burning.

Now feel guilty. Since the call I'm having a lot of bad memories of the past events that led up to me estranging myself from the 2 aunts

My previous attempts at putting healthy boundaries in place backfired, seemed to invite their anger & wrath and confirm myself as the horrible family loon.

It's hard to take & I feel provoked

How much more evidence do you need to give yourself?

By all means, put these self centered, manipulative people's needs before your own. Let them toy with you as they wish. Let them draw you further away from the peace of mind and understanding of yourself that you strive for. Give up. Submit.

I'm fixated on the injustice & double-standards at play - why am I the family scapegoat. Do others find family this complicated?

This sounds so similar to the way my family worked. The injustice & double standards at play is just the way it is. You can't stop it. There's no such thing as the "Family Police" who will step in and give your family members citations for mistreating you.

It's not going to stop. And by playing into it by caring ("I have to see her for reasons of family politics, it will be not-good to see her but much worse if I don't.") you're just enabling their attempts to take you down.

I was the family loon, too. Which made anything I said, any thought I expressed invalid because I was, in their eyes, crazy. Crazy people cannot assume responsibility for themselves. They must put their lives and interest in their family's hands.



Make today the day you take that first step away from them. Tomorrow, take another step. Do it at your own pace until you are so far away you can't hear them no matter how loudly they are shouting. Maybe a therapist can help you with this process. It doesn't sound like you can do it alone at this point, but I am pretty damned sure it's the right thing to do.

Dalloway wrote:There's a multitude of things toxic people say and do when finally confronted. Maybe, if that's alright with you, we can also use this topic to gather typical conversational tactics and knockout arguments made by our families and how we deal/dealt with them. Good idea?

Sure, but I'm not sure I can participate. I was not allowed to confront my family. Any time I tried to be assertive I was punished. My mother was extremely crafty with her choice of punishments. She knew how to get at me or even sabotage my life. Once she took my car privileges away. I couldn't get to work and lost my job.

Sometimes fighting is futile. Sometimes you just have to get away from the situation and leave it behind.

Skitterish wrote:My aunt has mainly great qualities

That doesn't sound like the aunt you described.

Sure, but I'm not sure I can participate. I was not allowed to confront my family. Any time I tried to be assertive I was punished. My mother was extremely crafty with her choice of punishments. She knew how to get at me or even sabotage my life. Once she took my car privileges away. I couldn't get to work and lost my job.

Sometimes fighting is futile. Sometimes you just have to get away from the situation and leave it behind.

Especially for those who weren't allowed to confront their family/abusers, it's important to do so later. Sometimes that has to be in absentia and that's ok. It's a roleplay. You say that things that you wished you''d been able to say. Therapists do this in session - asking the patient to imagine the therapist as their mother, or sit empty chairs in a circle and imagine that your family is sitting in them - and then acting as a witness to what the patient says, out loud, to their family. It's quite an effective method, better than writing the letter that you never send, as it is more spontaneous and immediate. It doesn't matter so much that it's roleplay and that your family won't actually hear you -- you hear you; that's the important part. And the therapist is the witness to that which can be powerful. If there isn't a therapist or close friend to witness, this can still be done alone.

I agree that sometimes fighting is futile. Families such as these described here are masters at fighting and can keep it up indefinitely. There is often no winning. There are surely family situations where the best, even the kindest, act is to leave the family, to go 'no contact' as it's called. The problem with that can be that, though they aren't there in person, they are still there in your head. It's important to do things that will remove them from your head.

Eight wrote:

Sure, but I'm not sure I can participate. I was not allowed to confront my family. Any time I tried to be assertive I was punished. My mother was extremely crafty with her choice of punishments. She knew how to get at me or even sabotage my life. Once she took my car privileges away. I couldn't get to work and lost my job.

Sometimes fighting is futile. Sometimes you just have to get away from the situation and leave it behind.

Especially for those who weren't allowed to confront their family/abusers, it's important to do so later. Sometimes that has to be in absentia and that's ok. It's a roleplay. You say that things that you wished you''d been able to say. Therapists do this in session - asking the patient to imagine the therapist as their mother, or sit empty chairs in a circle and imagine that your family is sitting in them - and then acting as a witness to what the patient says, out loud, to their family. It's quite an effective method, better than writing the letter that you never send, as it is more spontaneous and immediate. It doesn't matter so much that it's roleplay and that your family won't actually hear you -- you hear you; that's the important part. And the therapist is the witness to that which can be powerful. If there isn't a therapist or close friend to witness, this can still be done alone.

I agree that sometimes fighting is futile. Families such as these described here are masters at fighting and can keep it up indefinitely. There is often no winning. There are surely family situations where the best, even the kindest, act is to leave the family, to go 'no contact' as it's called. The problem with that can be that, though they aren't there in person, they are still there in your head. It's important to do things that will remove them from your head.

Therapists have asked me about doing this in the past but I refused. It seems silly to me, which is probably just code for "I don't want to go there", which is probably my reaction to the fear that doing such an exercise will unleash a flood of emotions I don't want to deal with.

I have no problem revealing private, embarrassing things to doctors and therapists. But I never want to go places which will make me get emotional in front of them. I assume this impedes my progress as far as therapy is concerned.

I've sort of done it on my own, probably improperly, and all it does is stir up more anger.

I don't want to come clean with them. I want to hurt them. But I can't. They're dead.

naps wrote:but I'm not sure I can participate.

Of course you can! It's not necessarily only about the response but the different and oftentimes subtle forms of toxic communication. Did you feel worthless? How did they do that?

When I was mistreated as a child I thought I did something wrong,
as a teen I started to feel mistreated but kept quiet most of the time out of habit,
in my twenties I realised I would never treat someone that way and I became more and more enraged with myself I didn't went medieval on their asses. When I visited them it was super stressful to me because I wanted to confront every abusive behaviour, so to not wake up 14 days later realising it was abusive again and I didn't even notice it again. Habit can be a bitch and there isn't a nice fluffy medal at the end of your life for being a doormat.

The examples are maybe helpful, to notice similarities and to know what to look out for. I had quite a few moments of insight after I left my parental home, like 'Wait a second … that was abusive, 10 years ago … ' or 'Why did I even open the door, damnit' *winkwink*.
How would you respond today or what would your advise be for someone in the same situation (car taken away, etc.)?

Ya, I understand the dread of becoming emotional in front of someone.
But you know that feeds back into your former reluctance (or inability?) to say it to your family directly when you had the chance. It's rather a continuation of that.

When you do it by yourself, you'll touch into the anger, but you'll rarely touch into the pain that is under the anger. That's why it doesn't actually resolve too much -- it's incomplete.

Pain doesn't have to mean a sobbing weak basket-case scenario, though it might present like that. It often just means that when a person comes through the anger and dissipates that without rushing off and away from it, they can then feel the pain of a little child who didn't get what they needed at all, and that can be just a sweet sad authentic feeling. It can be precious. And it can be short-lived - it isn't that you get stuck there - in fact, quite the contrary. It relieves the stuckedness that regular life often has when we're repressing things we refuse to go to.

Thanks for your thoughts. I guess I kind of knew all that.

You've almost got me convinced these exercises will help. I mean, I believe they could, but actually doing it (with a therapist) is another thing entirely. I follow the path of least resistance and it's truly been compromising.

I feel like my life is a winning lottery ticket that I never bothered to cash in.

Even therapists from #######5 childhoods need to do things like what I'm describing

It's just another way to declare your freedom. It doesn't do anyone any good to walk around with a hard ball of anger inside them. Yet we're more willing to preserve the anger, even if it's a killer, than we are to dare to touch into the sadness and grief that is under the anger.

I really like Dalloway's suggestions... a sort of roleplay thread where members share memories or situations and offer their view of it to others, perhaps with suggested lines of retort to the ongoing family script. I hope she starts a thread to do just that. Would definitely be interesting and might be really helpful.