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Old Jul 24, 2006, 02:48 PM
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LMo LMo is offline
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Member Since: Jan 2003
Location: Pacific NW
Posts: 6,224
Hi Oziad:
Well, I am in a similar situation, although mine isn't as extreme as yours. I can relate to the need to distance yourself, though. I haven't completely managed to make a clean break, and to be honest, my need to COMPLETELY break from them has diminished quite a bit since I initially decided that I should do so.

In my case, and maybe yours, there is a lot of guilt that goes along with deciding to disengage with family. I, like you, have no problem confronting them, but the resulting drama that ensues just doesn't seem to be worth it anymore. I have a really great therapist who "gave me permission" to develop stronger boundaries, and as weird as that seems to need "permission" from another adult to do something, it actually helped quite a bit. I didn't invite my parents to my wedding, and I stopped bending over backwards to accommodate their dysfunction. They don't like it and it has caused some resentment in my family, but we all survived, and as I mentioned before, my need to completely remove myself from them has diminished to some extent, which I consider to be a good thing. There was a point when I was ready to write them off altogether, but now I'm finding that I can tolerate them a little more now that I truly understand that my participation in my family is optional instead of mandatory.

Do you have a therapist? The "permission" thing is weird, but somehow very helpful. My other suggestion is to practice saying "wow, that's too bad" when they complain about how messed up their lives are, instead of trying to find solutions. I'm still not very good at it, but practicing is helping me become desensitized to their drama.

Stick around - hopefully we can help each other in this!

Hang in there,
LMo
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