~starbreaker Filial Piety Contd

~oracle

I'll drink to that @starbreaker

~starbreaker wrote...

Thanks, but I know better than to romanticize things like that. I don't expect closure or vindication. Surely the world has more pressing concerns than my taste for melodrama.

Then you're a heckuva lot smarter than I was a year ago. Not that it's much of a feat, but I certainly expected at least some instant relief. Still, I think about what I'd do if I could go back in time and talk to myself before Thanksgiving of 2019 and I don't think there's much to say. They made the right decision. They didn't know what they were in for, maybe, but they at least had chosen a reliable guide.

That sounds like what I'm already dealing with, but without the closure of having demolished my bridges behind me. It's not like the explosives aren't already rigged. The only thing stopping me from triggering the detonation is the knowledge that I'd be making *his* struggle harder. Reason tells me that I should not allow this to matter to me, that as my mother's enabler she can still hurt me through him and that I should cut all ties with them both for my own safety, but at the same time it's hard to blame him.

In my experience, for what little it's worth, there's no readiness. When I cut contact, the final straw might as well have been a silly straw next to some of the other things they'd done that year. Still, with the knowledge that it would never change, that those patterns would only continue, it was more than I could take.

The one thing that helped me take that step was the realization that I'd done everything I could. I'd given them opportunities, communicated my needs clearly, been vulnerable, thoughtful and kind. It never made a dent. Sounds like you're in the same boat. You've done everything you can. You're a son they should feel magnificently blessed to know. The fact that they don't speaks volumes.

I don't think it's true that people don't change. They can, but it requires acknowledging harm done and willingness to put in a lot of work to fix it and make amends. In my case, I know why my parents behave the way they do. I know their injuries. I know that they're more like haunted houses than people. Hell, the whole family is. None of us chose to be haunted, but in the end, we're left to deal with the shadow figures and cold spots anyway.

But where I chose to call a priest and begin the exorcisms, they chose to bolster the curb appeal and hope someone would buy. Eventually I came to realize that being in contact with them was allowing some of their demons to attach themselves to me and come to live in my own haunted house that I was trying so hard to clean out. I also know that they'll never acknowledge that the bumps in the attic or the rattling doorknobs are demons left unattended that have quite a lot to say to them.

And at this point? As much as I hope they get help and find a way toward healing, I don't want to be a part of that process. I wish them the best, but I hope their best remains far, far away from me.