Annoying uncle

My annoying uncle called me while I was driving today, I let it go to voicemail. All he does when he calls is try and guilt trip me about my relationship with my father or the fact that I'm estranged from most of my toxic family (like I go around crying about it or something - I like being estranged from them).

I kicked him and my dad off my Facebook a while back because I was so irritated by the idea that I couldn't share things because of their negative reactions and judgments. I also felt like they were using it to be passive aggressive towards me.

He mentioned in his message to me that he hadn't seen anything on Facebook in a while. I'm like, duh, because I kicked you off of it.

He was in the hospital back in December, and I'm glad he's doing better, but I really don't need to have a conversation with him that will most likely just be about him telling me how to live my life or that he's going to get me and my dad to talk to each other and work things out...like that's all that it is. Just us needing to "work things out." Not like there was abuse from him to me my whole life...not like that abuse didn't continue into my adulthood. Not like he doesn't have violent anger problems that I have no desire to be around. Not like he didn't lie about the whole reason for the last total falling out.

I think the whole reason I never wanted to get married or have kids was because of him. I would never want to introduce any boyfriend to him, nor would I want him to walk me down the aisle.

I just don't know if I should call my uncle back and how to keep it to a conversation that won't totally piss me off. I don't need to have a conversation that ends in me having to take meds to get over the anxiety of it. And I don't feel like expressing that to my uncle, because he will relate that back to my father that my PTSD is caused by my family, and I'm sure my dad will spread that around and twist it. He's already spread the rumor that I don't have PTSD or depression but rather I'm bipolar and that's why I have had problems. He's done that because if it's bipolar then it means he's not at fault at all. But I don't have bipolar disorder. I've seen plenty of pdocs and Ts and my diagnosis has always remained the same.

I don't want to call him back, but I would feel kind of bad about just ignoring the call.

Seesaw

I guess you can maturely return the call and explain your position. Does your uncle know about the abuse?

No, he doesn't know about the abuse, and anything and everything I say to him will get back to EVERYONE in our family. He is a gossip and spreads rumors.

This might sound harsh but I would suggest doing what I did and disown your entire family. All the majority of my family did was try to control me and make my childhood a living hell and the few who didn't wouldn't have anything to do with me because of some lies my mother told them so as far as I am concerned, they can all die for all I care; I'm better off without them anyways.

We don't get to pick our family, therefore, blood doesn't mean a damn thing. To me, true family is the rare people in your life who actually respect you want to help you and have your back when you need them.

So yeah, if they caused you that much pain, disown them and don't look back. Establish no contact, change your phone number, and if they try to find you, get a restraining order. You're too good for people like that who only hold you back anyways.

If you feel guilty about ignoring them, don't. They want you to feel that way so they can control you. Even if your uncle wasn't the one who did most of the abusing, his gossip can potentially be more damaging than any kind of physical abuse.

Don't feel anything for those parasites. Break free.

I have an uncle exactly like yours. So, my advice is, if you do return his call keep your conversation formal and polite. Don't confide in your uncle, since you know he is the family gossip and likes to spread rumors. Sounds like a stand up guy -- not!!

Set boundaries. Let others know what you will and won't tolerate, esp. with family members who are toxic to your well-being.

If you call your uncle back, be very aloof and formal with him. You don't owe him anything. Period. Be polite but formal. If he tries to bait you into a confrontational, emotional conversation, shut him down with a polite good-bye, thanks-for-calling and hang up.

I deleted my uncle from my Facebook too because he sent me a message shaming me for posting a literary quote that had a curse word in it. I messaged him back and told him that his choice to shame me was petty, and this wasn't the only thing he's done to me over the years; he's always shamed me in person at family gatherings, and his own son (my cousin) molested me when we were teenagers, and his other daughter (my other cousin) was a drug addict and alcoholic for years until she moved out of my uncle's home and got far away from him. Then just recently, my uncle sent me a one-line email, asking me to forgive him. I simply replied, "No. You have never been a source of support or positivity to me and you are not someone whom I need in my life anymore. Please don't contact me again."

Well, this email became broadcast news to all of my extended cousins on my Mom's side of the family, so I deleted all of THEM from my Facebook except for two cousins whom I no longer view as a threat to my well-being, whom I keep very detached connection with on Facebook. And I don't regret estranging myself from that uncle. My sister and brother have visited that uncle and aunt and since I'm the family scapegoat, they are accepted whereas I am not.

Yes I have very little family on Facebook as it is. Mostly just people who I know don't judge me. I tried to open up and allow a lot of my cousins, who I don't really have relationships with onto my FB, but just couldn't handle it so ended up removing them.

My parents are divorced, and it's not amicable, so fortunatley distancing myself from one parent doesn't mean I have to distance myself from another. My mom and I are pretty close, but we've had our ups and downs too. She was very mentally ill for a while and we didn't speak for 4 years, but we are on good terms now and she is getting help for her MI problems.

I'm done with my dad, and somewhat, my uncle, since the uncle feeds him information, and lies about what was said. My uncle acts like I'm the reason we're not speaking, when that isn't true. When I moved, a year ago, I called my dad to tell him, and he did not want to speak to me. So, even though it was against my better judgment, I reached out. It's been over a year and the only contact we've had is that he sent me a gift card for Christmas. I don't even know where I put it, lol.

I just know that if I don't call him back, I'll get labeled even more by my family as a bad person. But I'm not sure I care. They really don't know anything about me or what I've suffered at their hands.

Seesaw

To put it bluntly: don't worry so much about what your extended family or your uncle or father thinks of you. As one of my favorite writers Dorothy Parker once quipped, "what other people think of me, is none of my business." It's a motto that I've come to adopt and I apply it to everyone I am in contact with. If someone is going to trash talk me -- esp. if that someone is a family member -- then I don't care. Let them trash talk about me with other family members. Does that change what I think of myself? No way. I respect myself. I like who I am. I don't live my life anymore (like I used to), based on what others think about me. I used to care too much about what my family members thought of me, even the ones who were abusive. Now in my late 40s, I couldn't care less. And you shouldn't care either.

That is very unfortunate that your parents acrimonious divorce has divided you from your father. But he sounds like a very prideful, stubborn jerk if he's going to refuse to talk to you, his own daughter, yet then sends you mixed messages when you receive holiday cards from him. He's not sending you a clear signal that you matter to him anymore, otherwise he'd be the one to reach out, ask you for your forgiveness, and make an effort to repair the damage he's caused in your life as your father.

Your uncle sounds like a real jerk. I wouldn't call him back, but that's me. If you know yourself, that you'll feel guilty for not following social norms of calling him back, then call him back but be aloof and formal. Otherwise, be confident that you don't have to return your uncle's call. You don't even have to text him, or email him either since you know he will distort and twist what you say to him in your brief conversations as he's done in the past. Why waste your time on someone that unreliable and untrustworthy? Who cares if you're related. Doesn't mean you have to endure abuse from family members, just because you're related to each other. You don't, and shouldn't.

I am 100% estranged from both sides of my extended family. They never made an effort to stay in contact with me outside of social media, nor did they ever accept my invitations to get together, instead pushing me away with the "I'm too busy" excuse. So, I stopped making any effort to maintain ties with my aunts, uncles and cousins. I'm totally isolated. It's very lonely and sad and depressing. And it's darkened my life.

So, I'm in the process of figuring out how to form new connections with strangers who I can trust as closely as you would trust a devoted, stable, reliable family member. If you don't have good family, then you are forced to seek out other social outlets where you can meet people who take on family member roles in your life. And that is what I have to do.

Maybe that is what you need to do. Not everyone's family of origin is a healthy, stable unit.

I know that quote, and I try to live by it. I had to remove that family from FB because I couldn't post without feeling like someone was judging me, so I just said, screw this, it's my life, it's my social media, I shouldn't have to feel like a criminal when I post. So I removed them. And I feel a lot better from that.

I really try not to care what they think, and I do positive self talk all the time to reinforce it, but I'm not quite there yet. With other people, I can do it easily, ignore their opinions, etc, but the voice of my inner critic is the voice of my asshole father, so it's really hard to get rid of that one. When I was at a residential treatment facility we did a lot of work on taming that inner critic, but it can be so tough.

How did you get to the point where you stopped caring what they thought? How long did it take to train your brain to ignore them?

Seesaw

No matter how good a daughter I tried to be, my mother bad mouthed me to my other family; just as she bad mouthed them to me. That's her game. So... it was easy to finally really be bad and not care how she bad mouths me.

I stopped caring what my family and other former fair-weathered-friends think of me, when I finally accepted myself 100% flaws and all. Now, if someone trash talks me and someone tells me, "ooh Ceilpur, so-and-so said this about you, what do you think?," I just nodd and say, "what other people think of me is none of my business." And I shrug it off. It's very liberating.

Relationships or friendships are not supposed to be one-sided. One person can't do all the work; extending social invitations, being a support system. Both people involved have to carry equal weight. If my extended cousins really cared about me, they'd call me. They'd email. They'd extend social invites. But, they never have. So, I wrote them off as not important, esp. when I lived in the same city as all of the cousins on my mom's side of the family.

I think self-acceptance is necessary and everyone comes to it, in their own time. Those who don't accept themselves, project their flaws on to other people and abuse those people (manipulate them too), so that they don't have to be confronted with the emotional pain of accepting your own flaws and fixing them yourself. People who abuse others, have no sense of self or they wouldn't abuse others. They are walking time-bombs. They are walking zombies, lacking an internal moral compass. They lack the ability to empathize, to take responsibility and hold themselves accountable for their own actions, because that's the role their victims fulfill for them.

I'm still depressed because I am not on the life path I want to be on. But I'm aware that I need to take steps to get off the wrong path, and back on the right path. And I'm doing it without the support of my extended family, who have never been there for me in the past when I needed their support.

If you told the gossipy uncle about the abuse, and he spread word around, would anything change for you for the better and worse for your father?

I doubt he would believe it. And I also don't want to spread that around. My father's issues came from his own upbringing and military related PTSD, I don't want to bad mouth him, I just want my experience to be valid.

I also don't need to waste my time telling others what he did to me. It's just not useful to me. I mean I talk about it in therapy as part of treatment, but not elsewhere.