Dear Milda

Your phrase – If I just come back to the old behavior, I would be extremelly unhappy, stressed for the rest of my life. But everyone around me will be very comfortable. I want to be happy. I really, truly want to be happy and free.

If that was true then surely the people around you would already be happy as all your life as you bowed down to their wants time & time again They would not have been sad (mum) & sarcastic (dad). You can not keep people happy all of the time even a robot cannot do that. Investing your self worth in someone else’s bottomless pit does not bring about happiness to anyone no matter what you were told or believe.
What I love about buddhism is it middle way approach – not sublimitating yourself entirely to your parents on one extreme or being totally self-obsessed & selfish on the other.
Get a piece of paper & for a couple of minutes put aside your parents voices. How do you want to live your life? just write or draw what comes to mind. this might give you a starting point. Then put it down go for a walk have a cup of tea, come back & see what is your voice, ethics etc & weed out or amend any statements that do not truly feel authentically yours. Later you can explore ways of putting this into real life .
Sorry my battery is about to go, but maybe I have ssaid enough anyway.
best wishes
Roberta

Dear Milda:

I am happy to communicate with you too, Milda. Thank you for giving me this opportunity!

“I always searched for ways to meet their emotional needs UNCONDITIONALLY.”- you loved them unconditionally. You are and always have been a loving daughter. I can tell you are a loving person overall by the attentive, kind and appreciative ways you respond to those of us who respond to you, here on your thread.

“But meeting my needs by them was always conditional. Always. And conditions were not on my side, so I was left alone with my problems and my need for safety, acceptance and love.”- the fact that they didn’t love you back in the ways that matter most does not take away from the fact that you loved them so much and for so long.

“Can’t feel nothing authentical about me”- I think that your loving nature is very much an authentic part of you!

“If it was only who could make another person happy, problem-free, my parents would be acting differently. They are not happy people, they are doing their automatic behavior and nothing changes.”- your authentic, unconditional love for them did not bring any positive change in them.. it made no positive difference in the ways they think, feel and live.

Not because you loved them wrong, but because they didn’t take in your love. It met their surface, but never their depth—it slid off them like oil on Teflon. Do you agree?

“my problems, this ‘hanging’ situation with my parents about how to continue the communication with them, so that I do not become this stressed, over functioning person. Right now it feels as if it’s impossible to have a peaceful relationship with parents. They want answers from me, they want to know what happened and the saddest part is that I could try to explain, but they will never understand… The lack of ability to see the next step now that I have stopped communication with parents is crushing me.”-

As I see it, you are indeed in a “‘hanging’ situation”- neither here nor there- neither in regular communication with your parents, nor in a cessation of communication. It’s like you are still on the phone with someone, on a pause. You didn’t hang up the phone yet.

What if you hang up the phone, that is, make it very clear to them that you will not be communicating wit them at all- not directly and not indirectly- for the next two years, let’s say. It’d give you a significant breathing room. You can put as much love into this kind of clear, assertive message. Ask them to respect your choice, make it clear to them tat you are struggling and need this break from them for your mental health.

Not that I have reason to expect them to respect your assertion (from what you shared about them). This message would be still about your love for them, but also about your love for yourself.

What do you think/ feel about my suggestion?

🤍🌿 Anita

Dear Milda: I will read and reply by tomorrow, take care!

I should add: she was so important to me that I thought I was equally as important to her. Yes, she repeatedly shamed and guilt tripped me, but I thought that underneath it, she loved me.

Looking back, when someone repeatedly shames and guilt trips another person for years, even decades.. there’s no love underneath 😔

Dear Milda,

thank you for your kind words. I am happy to communicate with you too ❤️

I do not want to run/hide from them. I want to be assertive with them, to say no when I want to, to state boundaries, to end the call on my terms and to do everything, I was never able to do. Only this will give me strenght and ability to live my life to the fulliest. Not talking for X period will only make me postpone the real deal. The real change that needs to happen.

You’re right, Milda, that the best would be, on the long run, to develop inner strength and determination, which will allow you not to feel guilty even if your parents guilt-trip you (which they will), and not fall back into the old patterns, but manage to keep your boundaries.

In order to set external boundaries and be able to keep them, we need to first develop inner boundaries. You need to be clear within yourself that their accusations are not true, that their view of you (as someone who is obliged to cater to their needs at all costs, even if it goes against your own well-being) is NOT reality. You need to develop that clarity within yourself before you can actually set boundaries with confidence and without feeling guilty.

Years of conditioning have made you accept your parent’s false reality and their false image of you. Where you are a bad daughter for not obeying their wishes, for not abandoning yourself to please them. This false reality needs to go.

And of course, it requires deep, transformational healing. It’s not something you can fix easily. But that would be the goal: to develop a new, healthy image of yourself, based on the truth of who you are, not the false reality your parents have been projecting onto you.

You said that whenever you tried to set boundaries, you were shamed and guilt-tripped:

During my whole life, when I had situations where I said “no” and my parents guilt tripped me for that, said something shameful, insulting

You said this about your mother:

Her fight will include all of the biggest buttons in me- through guilt tripping, making me a bad daughter. I believe this small segment about the guilt tripping for grandmother shows the way she behaves. And she can do much more un order to soothe her anxiety about my behavior.

Which tells me that she is capable of saying pretty hurtful things to you, in order to make you do what she wants. Would that be true?

My emotional needs were never met. I was emotionally neglected, dealt with my problems alone, couldn’t share them, because I knew that reactions would be either no interest or blaming that I’m too sensitive/should not be scared etc. But when it came to parents- I always searched for ways to meet their emotional needs UNCONDITIONALLY. But meeting my needs by them was always conditional. Always. And conditions were not on my side, so I was left alone with my problems and my need for safety, acceptance and love.

Is this how both of your parents reacted to you expressing needs or sharing something that was bothering you? Did you feel that both of them had no interest in it and/or blamed you for being too sensitive? Because that kind of behavior (neglecting or denying the child’s feelings, blaming the child instead of soothing them), as well as conditional love that they were giving you – is typical for narcissistic parents.

And I think that too plays a role in deciding what the best strategy of dealing with them would be. I think that at this point it wouldn’t be the best idea to write them an honest letter, baring your soul, expressing your vulnerability, because it may be used against you, and may cause you even more pain.

You said they want answers and explanations. You can tell them that you need some time to gather your thoughts and come back to your center, because you feel quite overwhelmed at the moment. That you need some time away from everyday stress, which you will use for self-care and recharging your batteries, and that you would appreciate if they would respect that.

If I were you, I wouldn’t be too honest with them at this point and bare my soul completely. I’d be more vague. You can still write those letters to yourself, but don’t send them as of yet, because as I said, it may end up causing you more pain than relief at this point.

Let me know what you think?

edit: At a very young age, when you were a young child- before the shaming and guilt-tripping- you naturally reached out to your parents simply, clearly and freely, as all young children do (pre-trauma). How did they react?