I can’t bring myself to block my parents
Hi all
This is my first time posting here so I apologize for any community mistakes and because my thoughts are so scattered. TW for CSA
A few years ago I disclosed to my parents that a close family member/caretaker had been sexually abusing me throughout my childhood. My parents’ surface level reaction was supportive, but they stayed close with this family member, pushed me to keep hiding it from his spouse (saying it would ruin her life) and routinely dismissed and diminished what I had told them.
I went VLC after disclosing to extended family and my parents twisting everything against me and prioritizing themselves looking perfect. This and other situations made me realize they did not have my best interests at heart. I asked for some space to process, and was met with weekly messages, guilt trips, and flying monkeys.
Before, my mom was my best friend and we would call multiple times a week, sometimes multiple times a day for hours. Lowering communication frequency made her cry, or go on about how she hasn’t heard from me in “so long” even if it had only been a few days. My whole nuclear family would call for about 4-5 hours every weekend for years. I would have panic attacks before these calls and be an absolute mess afterwards. Going VLC was a breath of air where I could actually process my life and interactions with them.
After a few months of VLC, I decided to call them and lay out my hurts in hopes of reconciling. My dad screamed at me and my husband for “attacking” them. My mom denied everything. At the end of the call, they said they loved me and wanted to work through the hurt “on both sides” (my hurting them being talking to them less). I really wanted it to work out. I spent weeks handwriting them a letter going over what I needed to move forward in our relationships. The long and short of the letter being naming the times that they were aware of SA happening to me and leaving it to me to deal with, me wanting to work on the dynamic of me comforting them about my trauma instead of the other way around, boundary crossings, yelling as a response to me advocating for myself, and not spreading rumors that my husband (my only real support and the kindest person in the world) is abusing me. I said that I wanted to work through these things in therapy, and that would be the only way to move forward. Their response: “that’s not how we remember things but we’re sorry you feel hurt.”
Since then I have not responded to:
- my mom sending me surface level messages and reels
- my parents deciding that they were just going to fly out an see me and bought tickets without asking
- my parents saying they “changed their minds” when I didn’t respond to their trip plans
- my mom sending a guilt trip Mother’s Day message
- other family members reaching out with again, surface level messages to test the waters
- A drop call with a voicemail of my mom saying she just wants to hear my voice.
I’ve literally been as clear as I possibly can with them and I know it’s fruitless to hope that they’ll actually want to work on these things and change. But blocking them shuts that door and I’m scared to do so. At the same time, my husband and I are dealing with a lot of stress with moving, finances, me being disabled with my ptsd, and just trying to live life. I don’t know if anyone is ever “ready” to go NC officially but I just can’t bring myself to cut off the possibility of working through all of this. How did you know it was time to block, did you keep a door open, and do you have any regrets?