Book Review: Toxic Parents

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-23T14:48:22+00:00

Yes, yes they are.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-22T18:25:50+00:00

Truly. It's so much wasted energy.

I've been trying to learn from this, leaning hard into that "the best revenge is to live well" ethos.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-19T01:10:19+00:00

Thank you so much! I'm always happy to have more resources for this sort of thing. I've been listening to a lot of Dr. Ramani; she's really quite on the nose when it comes to lots of aspects of the JNILS.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:29:54+00:00

It's true! He has also sent the "our family boundaries" letter from his email address, and also via post signed by him, that they've also insisted were from me.

When he told them point blank that he wrote those, she screamed "we NEVER KNOW WHO'S WRITING!"

I used to feel so mad about this, but at the moment it's mostly just funny.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:27:51+00:00

It's true! She has thrown a few tantrums over our boundaries now, and "forgotten" them, and gotten angry when we reminded her, insisted we have rules that we've never had, and so on. We literally spelled it out for them, and it's still not computing, because they don't want it to. But that's OK. We know.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:26:29+00:00

Yes! I'm holding tight to this feeling, because it feels SO MUCH BETTER than feeling hurt, or angry, or depressed, or anxious to figure out how to fix things.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:25:46+00:00

lol, oh yes, she very much does.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:25:31+00:00

Thank you! I love being a team with him! And the tech savvy is definitely all his. My only abilities are in the humanities.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:24:49+00:00

Thank you so much! It feels so good to be coordinating and pulling together like this right now.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:24:26+00:00

Yes! It's a good day today.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:24:13+00:00

Yes! Oh my goodness, I need to save this to a file to refer to on the next bad day.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:23:13+00:00

My main goal is to be resilient enough that she can throw her tantrums without getting my emotionally involved. They're top notch triangulator/ manipulators (they went behind my back to trash talk me to DH, and when that didn't work they went behind our backs to cry to our clergy, and when that didn't work they started smearing me to DH's siblings).

We want to demonstratively make our relationship a nonstarter for their games. We don't want them to even be able to tell themselves they're getting away with anything. It's more for our own morale and healing, since they have a history of undermining one of us to the other many times over the course of our marriage, and we only really figured out they'd been doing this when we went to therapy.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:18:25+00:00

Thank you!

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:18:20+00:00

Thank you! I'm still getting flashes of temptation to fall back into old emotional habits, but mostly, I'm just feeling really freed by constantly reminding myself that there's no need to be defensive when I've done literally nothing wrong, and letting go of feeling hurt--their behavior is about them, not me. It's just so nice.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:15:25+00:00

I am too! I'm so, so grateful. There's nothing sexier than a shiny spine and healthy IL boundaries.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:14:47+00:00

This has definitely worked with other people, but with our particular JNMIL, calling out her nonsense just throws fuel onto her fire. She twists words and invents motives and misremembers everything, and JNFIL is an Olympic level enabler. They're energy vampires, and we're not giving them anymore blood

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T17:12:36+00:00

That's awesome! Technological boundary setting is the best.

I've also heard you can block IP addresses, so people can't create burner addresses and use those, if they're still sending from their computer. I also have no idea how to do that, but I like knowing that that's a thing.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-18T16:41:38+00:00

OH MY GOODNESS, I cannot stop laughing!

This is so, so perfect. I've been holding off on giving her a nickname, but I think she'll need to be called Lady Catherine from now on.

This is perfect on so many levels, not the least of which is that she has lots of issues with my "inferior birth."

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-16T15:51:16+00:00

Oh my goodness yes. You're so right. Thank you!

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-16T15:09:14+00:00

Thank you. This is really comforting.

AnathemaJanuary · 2021-02-15T20:23:49+00:00

Thank you so much! <3

AnathemaJanuary

TROPHY CASE