The "abuse cycle" and other things/themes that EAC identify with.

All children are totally innocent. Even this one (I think)

youtu.be/BS6n3N4bDrU

I saw healthy families growing up and just thought the parents loved their children because their children were "good" unlike me. It took me most of my adult life to learn the truth but I did and with work, hopefully not too late.

Smileless -- If I had come from a healthy family I would have immediately been able to spot a dysfunctional thinker/abuser. Anyone who comes from a healthy environment would. So if your son "fell victim" to a Narc abuser, he was conditioned 'somewhere' that her behavior is 'normal'.

If you don't know what unhealthy looks like you can easily be manipulated and controlled to the point that what is normal and healthy becomes abnormal and unhealthy.

If you come from healthy, unhealthy stands out for what it is and you cannot be manipulated by it. I have watched the cycle of abuse play out through multiple generations in my own family. That is my reality.

EAC who have been through recovery understand all this and it's our family that keeps trying to sell themselves as 'normal' and me as the 'issue'. That is my reality.

Nobody can convince someone that their 'healthy family' is not healthy at all, but you can convince/educate someone that their 'normal family' is not the normal/healthy they believed/were taught/indoctrinated to think it was. That is fact.

Really depends how abusive they are and what happened to them to break them. Something breaks all abusers the way it has been proven that most addicts were abused. I've never said it is necessarily is the parents who did so. In a higher percentage than most would like to believe though. Trauma begets trauma. Cycle begets cycle. The passive act of letting yourself be abused in front of your child can teach them that love looks like abuse and leave them on either side of wrong doing. No matter how much you loved them sometimes love is unhealthy and enmeshed and too close and damaging.

Parenting we have learned over the years can be a minefield. What was OK 20 years ago, not OK now. Mental health is beomming just as important as physical.

What mistakes are the next generation making? Are some still making the same ones in order to normalise their own (I was hit with a belt when I was naughty and I'm fine) childhoods.

Hah as a parent myself I am never ever going to let myself off the hook for anything. I've seen too much dysfunction and my children saw it too before I knew what it was.

I think we both demonstrated how estrangement can disarm an abuser Madgran. It doesn't always work. I know EP's who've been stalked by their EAC and subjected to some pretty vile behaviour, inexplicable bearing in mind they estranged them to begin with.

Nothing works all the time in all cases but that doesn't mean it never works at all.

Estrangement disarms an abuser?

Yes in some cases as I described above, it does. . In other cases as you describe Starblaze, no it doesn'

Estrangement disarms an abuser? Have you read EAC stories? Abusers coming to their houses after estrangement. Screaming through letter boxes. Turning up at their grandchildrens school. Fighting for their grandchildren in court. Constant unwanted contact. Smear campaigns. Turning family members against them with lies. Turning up at their workplace. Getting them fired from their jobs. Constantly driving past their houses. Constantly sending unwanted gifts. Using others to address nasty cards or letters to sneak past defences. Constantly stalking them on the Internet. Having people they know nearby spy on them. Stalking minor children. Destroying their credit. Sueing them for loans that were actually gifts. Etc etc etc

I've read so many horror stories and I have lived some of them. My mother can't hurt me anymore, my life and my circle are solid. However at the present she still thinks she can and I'm still her scapegoat, her emotional punchbag. Even if I told her I just have no respect for people trying to hurt me and roll my eyes these days she needs to feel in control of the situation lol.

When someone estranges an abuser and manages to not be drawn out no matter what, the ultimate is for the abuser to decide that actually, they don't want the child anyway, the child is who was totally at fault anyway as now reached maximum evil. How could they possibly raise such an awful ungrateful brat. How could their wonderful perfction as a parent be rejected? That awful, nasty, cruel stealer of grandchildren.

I reckon that's where I will be in a couple of years lol

And of course you can have someone from a dysfunctional family who marries someone from a perfectly normal, healthy and loving family but because they're not used to that environment, it's not their 'normal' they want to get away from it and take their husband/wife with them.

If you don't know what unhealthy looks like you can easily be manipulated and controlled to the point that what is normal and healthy becomes abnormal and unhealthy.

How can that cycle be broken? Any children effectively have two dysfunctional parents and without the influence of their healthy family because they've been estranged, what hope do they have of not perpetuating the cycle.

And there's the "common theme" again...

Again, that is what keeps the cycle of abuse going. My dad married a woman just like his own 'mom' and they handed the abuse onto myself and my 'Golden' sibling.

Of course people often marry people just like their own dysfunctional family because that's their 'normal'. I realized what unhealthy looked like as did my husband and neither of us was going to marry someone like what we grew up with. That is how the cycle is broken.

Our posts have crossed Madgran and it appears we were both having the same train of thought.

Starblaze -- They felt guilty for not missing her. How awful is that? That is truly horrible. And makes me glad I took the route I did. I know when my own grandmother died (the only grandparent I ever met) I felt nothing and yes, it made me feel sad that I felt that about her passing. But there was never any love there, so all I could 'miss' or regret was that there was nothing to miss or regret with her death.

Yes you can disarm them HolyHannah you refuse to play their game. Abused EAC stop playing by walking away and EP's whose AC is narcissistic or who has a narcissistic partner do so by refusing to be emotionally blackmailed and controlled. When all reasonable attempts to try and repair and rebuild the relationship fail they let them go.

Doing the aforementioned neither enables or supports their dysfunctional thinking. The majority of people I'm sure don't support dysfunction or ignore un healthy thinking but as we all know, narcissists don't believe they are dysfunctional and un healthy, it's the other people in their lives who are at fault.

They are unable to see that they're driving a cycle of abuse. Perhaps repeating the dysfunctional behaviour of their own parents and visiting that on their own children.

Walking away/estrangement does disarm them doesn't it because they cant use their weapons on you if you are not there

. Deciding that if someone doesn't want to see you and moving on also disarms the person who doesn't want to see you; they can't hurt you because you aren't there just as they wished

So in the end if both estranged and estranger can walk away, and move on then whoever caused it is disarmed or if both caused it both are disarmed

Sorry, that is a lot of disarming going on!

I'd be devastated. Truly. I wonder what granny stood to gain here? My mum was only ever interested in my oldest child, he got special treatment. His school events attended. Sleepovers and holidays, until I put my foot down. They should be treated the same or not at all, she chose not at all and complained I wouldn't let her have them at the same time. My other children felt ignored and unwanted. I wish I had walked away much sooner as I know exactly how that felt. I thought I had stepped in to stop it before it would affect them. I was wrong. They only told me after estrangment. They felt guilty for not missing her. How awful is that?

Narcissists for one develop a false sense of self. Almost believing themselves omnipotent in their refusal to admit any wrongdoing... Ever. That's what I grew up with. I would rather still at my age, be working towards having a true sense of self than have a false one.

Starblaze -- I have a feeling that if there was more detail in the letter you would find that granny has done more then one questionable thing. Anyone that would do that clearly has some kind of 'something' going wrong.

Smileless -- You cannot disarm Narcissistic abusers. They just go for bigger and bigger weapons aka ramp up their abuse. EAC who have walked away from their 'family' understand this. That is why AC estrange.

Enabling/supporting dysfunctional thinking is more unhealthy behavior. You can't fight dysfunction with more of the same.

I do not support dysfunction and I will not ignore signs of unhealthy thinking. That is what perpetuates and drives the cycle of abuse and I refuse to return to the herd while they are still drinking from a poisoned pond.

It's possible I mean anyone who would go against the expressed wishes of their GC's parents is simply asking for trouble, and to do this in the first place shows a distinct lack of common sense if nothing else.

Seriously? I love the brilliant response.

"you get to react in whatever way you think is wisest to protect your family"

Yes! Yes we do! Our children are our responsibility to protect. Our abusers will never get their claws into them.

torontosun.com/life/relationships/ask-amy-playdates-need-parental-permission

I wonder if this grandparent is going to wonder why her kids end up cutting her out of their lives...

Once we understand and can recognise the tools that our abusers use it can become almost effortless to dis arm them.

It's of no consequence how much they attempt to discredit us because their attempts are fruitless. The worse thing we can do is to let them get under our skin, to undermine our sense of self.

Our strength is in our sense of self, in what we know to be true and our best 'revenge' is to have a life, to find peace and happiness. Those of us that can, let go of the past and have no need to constantly re visit it. Our past is only a part of ourselves and not our whole self.

We can use our experience to comfort, support and attempt to help others or we can allow our anger and bitterness to colour our perspective to the point that not only are we unable to help others, we're unable to help ourselves.

Starblaze -- I knew I couldn't understand my mental issues until I understood my abusers and their mindset. So I know a 'little' about Narcissists and how they abuse and what it looks like/manifests itself as.

It's much easier to try to discredit me and my knowledge then take even a single thing I say away as something truthful or genuinely helpful. Just like my own... If I say "round" Ma is gonna argue and die defending her 'flat Earth'.

All of my agreement.

but ultimately getting real help and to the bottom of the real issue, which was so much worse than I had even guessed.

I had "that moment" as well. To be told that while I have some broken parts, it is from coming from a broken system/my 'family' and I am not this 'dung-heap' I had been conditioned to believe I was, was incredible.

Until I was diagnosed with C-PTSD I never even considered that my 'family' was dysfunctional let alone downright abusive. Once the doctor spotted the outcome/after-effects it was pretty easy to unravel how I acquired C-PTSD in the first place.

I am very up to speed on mental illnesses of all types. I have some I have to manage myself, however, I have yet to meet anyone with a mental illness that gets healthy while denying they may have an 'issue'.

Yes I know what you mean, that desperation to hurt me on her part led to me losing my brother. Because I feel guilty over things that aren't my fault, I looked guilty when he threw her lies at me. I even thought perhaps I could have done it and not know... Which is what caused my breakdown but ultimately getting real help and to the bottom of the real issue, which was so much worse than I had even guessed. Also the horrible realisation that my brother had become just like her because he would not even except proof of my innocence, and when I told him that literally everyone around me, my husband and good friends knew it wasn't true, he went on a campaign to take them away from me. My best friend he had never even met! They obviously laughed. They know me far better than he ever did. The fear at the time that I would end up with no one though.... That was soul destroying. Having one good loving parent made a big difference to me too. Unfortunately my much younger brother had 2 abusive parents.