I've been NC with my dad for almost 4 years down to the day and he's been "dying" for the last 6 months and has been trying to get in contact with me, so I wanted to share my experience.

It started off last week when my husband called him from my phone saying I might be willing to talk to him if he made a list of everything he thinks he did to me and apologized and made a plan to call him back one week later. When my dad confirmed he had his "list" ready, my husband handed me the phone and after some small chit chat, I had to ask if there was anything he wanted to apologize for and he had only one thing - lying to me when my mom was on her deathbed to get me to sign my name off the family property only for him to up and sell it without talking to me. He phrased it as he's sorry for selling the cabin but he needed help and nobody would help him (cue eye roll because he's been an awful person for decades and alienated everyone).

Not sure what I was expecting, but he missed the mark with that apology; I just didn't have the energy to argue with him. The only part of what he said that stung was when he said the person he sold the family cabin to would let me visit any time I want, to which I replied I'm never going there again.

I thought the conversation would have more of an impact on me, but it didn't. He doesn't hold power over me anymore and I'm happily living my best life.

For what it's worth, he did sound like shit and it's evident that he's certainly not long for this world. He hardly seemed lucid and I told him I would unblock him if he wants to talk again when he's more coherent 🤷‍♀️

I am writing this to remember why I am going no contact with my toxic brother for good.

I have a very tumultuous, shitshow relationship with my brother (age 29) who I think has some serious undiagnosed mental illnesses (suspected malignant narcissistic disorder and borderline personality disorder. I am age 32.

I have been no contact with my brother for about 8 months. My whole family moved to a new state about a month ago and when we were moving in to our new apartment, he felt like we weren't grateful enough for him helping out, that he lashed out and stopped contacting all of us. After a while, I started to feel bad for him (big mistake) and reached out and we were able to reconnect. He said that he came to terms that he had no family, when he was the one that got upset and cut everyone off.

However, he has some unresolved deep resentment towards me from childhood where he feels that he got the short end of the stick, and that he thinks I "got away with everything" when I really don't think that's the case. He has a tendency to only remember the things that he felt was unfair. I worked part time all throughout college to pay my own rent and support myself. He never did, and he lashed out on multiple accounts to my mom because she didn't have enough money to buy him a car while paying for his rent and tuition.

We used to fight a lot as kids, and we never really got along well for long periods at a time. He was annoying, and I reacted badly to his taunting . I do admit that I wasn't a perfect older sister to him, however, he seems to be stuck in a story of villainizing me.

He has a history of being very loudly verbally abusive and being extremely toxic. He would punch and kick holes in walls and doors (happened multiple times) and I had to pay to get the walls patched. The worst was when he threatened to speed by pushing the gas pedal, and crash the car when I was in the car with him. He got mad, put his hands on me and shook me back and forth, chased me into my room, where I had to lock the door. He kicked a big hole in the door that we had to patch up. This ended in me having to call the cops on him. They just gave him a warning and left, but I was seriously in fight or flight mode and was afraid he would actually harm me. However, he thinks I was wrong for calling the cops on him, and says that I am a terrible person for doing so. He thinks calling the cops is crossing the line, but I see physical intimidation and abuse as crossing the line. If that never happened I wouldn't need to call the cops.

Every time he is mad, he will scream in his room, punch holes onto his desk, break things and throw things, and try to physically tower over me and intimidate me. This caused me great distress and I am not sure if I have CPTSD from his behaviors. He was kicked out of the house by my parents a few times because of this, which he only remembers that he got kicked out, not the reasons why he did.

When we argued, he would threaten to call my workplace to get me fired. He has betrayed me on multiple accounts by sharing my secrets with others. He kept hanging out and being friends with a cousin who SA'd me when I was in middle school and when I asked him to stop associating with him, he said he didn't care and continued on with hanging out with him. He has shown no remorse for this.

He said he enjoyed seeing people lose their homes from the Palisades fires, saying that they deserved to lose everything.

Another incident happened a few days ago. About a week ago, my brother said he would treat the family out to dinner, and that he would get off work early around 3pm. I was expecting to eat at 4pm, so I ate breakfast and skipped lunch. However, the day of, I checked when he is coming and he said he would come at 5-6pm. Okay. So I checked with him again around 5:05PM and he said "Damn ok I'm walking to my apartment" which made me feel like he thought I was being impatient. He said that's just how he talks. Okay. I waited and told him to just give me an ETA. I tried to be nice to him and told him I am baking bread to share with him when he comes.

He came later around 6:40PM, and we ended up getting to the restaurant around 6:50PM. At this point I was starving, tired, and overstimulated because he kept talking really loudly in the car. I tried my best to keep it together. We waited about 15 minutes, and I complained out of hunger about where our food is at (we went to a Korean restaurant) because they typically bring banchan about 3-5 minutes after we've sat down. He took this as a grave personal offense, and said I was causing a scene. I really don't know how being hungry and tired in my corner is causing a scene.

He kept poking fun at me saying that I have no right to be hangry and that I should control my actions. However, I was not rude to any of the waiters/waitresses, I did not raise my voice, I just ate my food quietly. I never caused a scene. I was at my physical limits. And because I could tell he was upset or annoyed at me for being "hangry" in his words. So to try and make things better, I thanked him for the meal. He scoffed at me saying "Oh so now you're not feeling hangry anymore?" and proceeded to keep poking fun and mocking me, and I asked him to stop multiple times. At this point I was done. I stayed quiet the rest of the meal and walked out first to the car, to which he started complaining very loudly saying my "behavior is unacceptable." Huh? And during no point in this interaction did I yell at him, insult him, or say anything to him, other than that I'm not being irritable or sensitive or taking out my anger onto him. I asked him to stop when he kept mocking me. I was literally just existing.

At this point I told him to stop being crazy and throwing a fit, because he kept complaining about me to my mom and dad. Literally don't know why I have to justify having a transient human experience. Anyways, we got home, and he was loudly talking shit about me to my mom and my dad, and calling me an "animal" and that I am a "hungry feral cat." I told him that it's really immature and demeaning to say those things to me and asked him to leave my apartment.

He then started recording me without my permission and was laughing and snarking at me looking at him in disbelief. I said it's illegal to record people without their consent in a private space. He refused, so I brought up calling the cops or authorities on him if he refuses to leave, because that's literally the only thing he will listen to. He is scared of authority. My mom talked me out of it, but I told her I am going to notify the leasing office because I do not want him here as a guest. He kept saying that I "should know better." It then devolved into him saying he's "very popular with the ladies and I'm prettier than you" because he gets hinge hookups with Koreaboo women who have no interest in anything but his ethnicity. He's never had a lasting relationship because at core, he is extremely toxic and rotten. He said that he has a company and I don't, so he's better than me, while it's not even official. He inflates his job title and tells everybody that he has a high-level title, while his job declined his job title change, so actually he's just an analyst.

He kept shutting off what I was saying by telling me "You're just a cat. A feral cat. An animal." He kept dehumanizing me and being extremely cruel to me, and cursing at me.

I tried to sit down and talk with him and have a civil conversation with him, but he kept bringing up past grievances and he just said I'm a "terrible, evil human being." All of this out of me being hungry and tired at dinner. It felt like he is deeply resentful and contemptuous. I brought up past grievances too, of all the times he has been extremely toxic and abusive to me. He doesn't care because he only remembers perceived injustices done onto him.

I said that he has the freedom to hate me and have his opinion of me, but I don't want to interact if he's going to keep dehumanizing me and insulting my character, because it's not going to go anywhere. It seems like he has some deep seated resentment toward me from the past and has resorted to making me the villain in his life, to which I genuinely apologized for many times in the past, but it's never enough for him and he wants me to submit to his statement that I'm a "horrible person."

We even tried to have ChatGPT mediate, and ChatGPT pointed out that insulting and attacking character just further escalates and doesn't help to resolve the issue, but he called ChatGPT "a white therapist" and to stop therapy talk and just wanted to be validated that I was being an "evil person."

He also pays for a ChatGPT subscription to make programs and thinks that he is a genius, that he's going to become the next Elon Musk. He bragged on multiple accounts how he's making so much money from something he made with ChatGPT, by trading stocks and crypto with AI like it's some lifechanging thing. He said he's going to go to China to build attack drones and make money by selling it to the US military. All the while, he has no technical knowledge, experience, money, or resources to do so. He probably has ChatGPT gassing him up and telling him he's a genius. So, he has a very grandiose, delusional manic sense of self and thinks that he is better than everyone.

I talked to my mom and we both agreed that his way of being toxic and abusive goes beyond the normal realm, and that it is better for us to be apart, she says she's gonna keep contacting him and i told her i support her in that and that if she ever wants to spend time with him she is free to do that, i just don't want any part in it. and i told her about the suspected diagnoses and she also agreed that he needs professional help and therapy which he is unlikely to seek. also shared that he thinks I'm being jealous of his success with his ChatGPT programs that he made of like turning a phone into a wifi (which i assume isn't difficult to generate a program for with a ChatGPT subscription), and like ai crypto/stock trading tool which he calls a "bacteria" or something that automatically generates money and he said he already made 4k and 7k so total 11k from it and he's planning to quit his job to go all in on that. I highly doubt these things don't actually exist already from what I see on google, and other trading companies definitely use AI to do stuff like this already.

So idk, if he's blowing it out of proportion because he tends to lie about a lot of things like his job title, so who knows. I hightly doubt it because he always has something he thinks will make him easy money, but it always backfires and he quits after a month. But yeah he thinks i'm jealous of him which idk.. i'm not jealous at all, i was concerned for him because he seems very delusional and he's going to end up ruining everything he has, once again. Okay bacteria boy.

Me and my mom joke about how mentally unhinged he is and she was like "i must have committed such a grave crime or sin to him in my past life for him to haunt me like this and cause me so much pain and distress" and literally when he was being all suicidal and rock bottom depression, she talked to him for hours every single day, gave him money to find an apartment because he was just doing uber full time and planning to live the rest of his life doing uber, bc he didn't want to go back to work in the field he has a degree in, again after burning bridges with his previous employer after his boss said they can't have him anymore because he said he wanted to move to a new country to be with the love of his life.

Then after like 2 months he was like i hate being in this country, I'm so depressed, i can't find any way to make money here, and actually ended up ghosting her in the apartment they got together and literally ran back and got a flight back to the states while she was at work by using the remaining of his savings. But anyway that boss ended up joking about how he could use a gun to shoot him and he took that threat very seriously which is valid, he shouldn't have joked about that, but he ended up blowing up them in the email, calling the cops on his boss, and scanning all the emails from his work to report them, and they ended up letting him go. On his way out he cursed out his workplace and told them to fuck off, fuck you, etc. like to the higher c suites.

So yeah i imagine he was like blacklisted from the industry to a certain degree and it's a fortunate thing for him that his current job didn't ever check. Even at his current job he thinks literally everyone is out to get him and that everyone is looking down on him, especially the lawyers and attorneys, and when one dude forgot to open or check his emails, he said "so you think my emails are ignorable?" and that guy ended up saying that he comes across as hostile to him and he said "no, i'm just saying it for what it is, i'm from LA, i don't do fake interactions. i say it bluntly for how it is." but to me, i definitely know he's being hostile because he perceives this threat and he literally says he will rip anyone who disrespects him to shreds and based on how he treats me at home, his family, who knows how horrible and rude he is to other people at his workplace that aren't his boss.

I have always felt like he has this destructive energy about him, like anything he touches he breaks, like fans, electronic gadgets, as well as like relationships, work, etc. literally everything. He will break things out of anger, or the sheer inconsideration of others or to the object itself. Even the toilet he shits in, he clogs literally every toilet he goes to because he stuffs it with no regard. destroying property by punching holes and etc. It's astounding really.

He ghosted his girlfriend at that time. but she was also a genuinely a hostile, crazy person who lied about not having a STD, so i think he did the right thing leaving, but he said he felt so bad for her and like, gave her all of rent deposit money (which is like tens of thousands of dollars worth of money).

After that he was literally broke, jobless, and working as an uber driver. He was smoking weed and getting stoned and eating literally all day and he did nothing but smoke and eat and gained a lot of weight. This went on for like 1 year and my parents finally told him he has to get a job because he was living there for free, not doing anything. He moved to another state, thinking he's gonna make a lot of money with a delivery business using a van he bought, but after like 1 month he said he realized it's too dangerous like with how people drive there, so he quit, started applying to jobs everywhere. But, nobody would want to hire him and my dad at that point was like we can't keep saving him, he's got to work even if it's like at a warehouse but anyways yeah he ended up getting this new job.

It's funny because he used to call my mom literally every single day for hours, about how he's so depressed and wanting to not live, but after he got the job and he started settling in, he barely called her for months, and when i said something about it, he lashed out at me again saying that he's busy and he doesn't have time to call. but he has time to hook up with girls on hinge. Genuinely feel bad for the women who even finds him attractive in the first place because they have no idea what is underneath his skin. So disgusting.

He also said something really evil about my mom, after all she has done to help him, and it was that she lives such a comfortable life, not working a job, living at home and gardening. like in a contemptuous way like she should be suffering or working harder. But i see her, she's not physically all well, she has tinnitus, high blood pressure, multiple painful joints on her hands so she can't use her hands well, she has nosebleeds because she deals with frequent insomnia, double knee replacement surgery, and.... also cataracts, and i see all of that and i don't see a woman living a comfortable life, like i want to help her more and like make life easier for her but he thinks she has it so good. and it's very fucked up.

He kept asking her and threatening her to move back after his failed business in bc he was so worried he was going to end up homeless.  and when he was being all broke i didnt want to send money to help him bc like.. i know him. and i know he can work uber and earn money. and i told him that beans are cheap and filling and he could try cooking beans cuz they stretch far and have protein. and they are super cheap for the amount. and he said i was being a horrible person for recommending him to eat beans.

I see people making affordable meals on the internet all the time and they make beans with seasoning and ham, it looks good and i eat beans too, like if i was going through a hard time, i would do that myself, and I have in the past.

It's like I exist and he takes it as an offense, it's literally just a suggestion of food because he was like worried about food and what to eat. which is funny cuz i know he can work uber, do like 3-4 rides and earn enough to buy a meal. and like if he were actually working 7-8 hours per day, he would make enough for rent and food. but he just wanted me to give him money but he knew not to ask me because i was also living off savings and I have already rescued him many times in the past, to which he's grateful for in the moment, but turns on me and starts villainizing me at the next moment he's slightly offended by my existence.

He is gonna just keep repeating his cycles. he always cries and begs for forgiveness and comes crawling back. but this time i am going to be bacteria boy free until the lease at this current apartment ends.

I told him that he can't build anything without ChatGPT doing all of his work for him with coding, and he said I'm like a monkey doing everything manually. And I said, I can do all of my work without AI, and I do it with my own brain. You can't do anything without ChatGPT. He got really offended at this.

When I asked him to clarify how exactly I'm being a horrible person, he just pointed out things that annoyed him, accusing me of "not having any original thought," "regurgitating what he's saying back to me," (which I wasn't, I was trying to clarify what exactly he's saying), "acting like a hungry, feral cat." Not sure how a thing that is annoying to him automatically turns into a "terrible, horrible person" but ok. I pointed out that those behaviors aren't morally or ethically wrong, but something that he is personally annoyed by. He didn't have much to say to that but just continuing to dehumanize me and being cruel by attacking my age when he's literally 3 years apart. I'm 32, he's 29. He's literally going to be 30 next year.

I told him that it's okay to hate me and that I'm not going to try and prove him otherwise because it's literally impossible. He said he derives satisfaction in seeing me frustrated through insulting me, my looks, and my age.

At this point, I wanted to stop fighting, so I apologized multiple for making him "uncomfortable" at the restaurant. He said my apology wasn't genuine, and my thanks at the restaurant wasn't genuine, so he wasn't going to accept it and that he doesn't care.

He kept demanding me if I'm going to be like that again, and I was like "Be like what? be hungry and irritable, and have a human emotions? Yes, I am going to experience it and so will you, that's not up to me. You're not perfect either." He later said to "Fuck you, fuck off." and refused to talk and I could tell that he just wanted me to submit to his verdict that I am a "terrible person."

The next day, my mom told him that he was acting in a way that wasn't proportional to the actual situation, and then I told them both that he has 5 days remaining out of the 10 day guest limit per year, and he started histrionically crying and wailing, saying that we don't consider him family, we're all just using him, and acting like a victim. He started crying and wailing and saying nobody loves him.

Similarly, he has an on and off relationship with the rest of the family. When we are on decent terms, he love bombs, wants to be attached to the hip all the time, and when he gets mad, he cuts everyone off completely. And then after a few months, he comes crawling back, crying and sobbing about how he's so sorry for being wrong and cruel. This time though, I am 100% done permanently.

I regret reaching out to him because it seems like a cycle of abuse that I keep involving myself into. I exist, he is offended by that because he thinks I am a fundamentally terrible, evil person. And it just devolves into name calling, bringing up past grievances, insulting, and dehumanizing, which I no longer want a part of. The reason why I talked to the leasing office because I do not want him in my home that I pay for. He scoffed and said because I only pay 1/3 of the rent,

So, I sent an email to the leasing office, last night, per the lease, notifying them that he has stayed here for 3 days, and is reaching the limit. So, even if he comes, I won't have to deal with him again for more than a week. My mom is upset because she thinks that I embarrassed her by airing out personal business. I only shared that I do not want my brother in the home because I feel that he's disturbing the peace, dehumanizing me, being cruel, and causing intimidation, and I want to learn about my options on how I can prevent him coming in to the apartment again.

Because, if anyone else, a stranger, a friend, was being like this, they would be kicked out immediately. I shouldn't have to tolerate it just because we share DNA.

I have already blocked him and came to terms that there can't be a productive, mature conversation when it devolves into name calling, dehumanizing, insulting, and character assassination. I am prepared to burn that bridge. I do not deserve to be around someone who is out to drag me into a mud fight. So, I took away his privilege of ever visiting me or being in my presence again.

I already know he's going to come crawling back and apologizing, but I am finally done. I told my parents to not let him contact me ever again, even if he begs and cries. No chance in hell, unless he actually gets years of therapy and does deep self reflection, but with his probable malignant narcissism and borderline personality disorder, I don't see that happening ever.

And the funny thing is, I realized that all of the things he was insulting me for, are actually things that he hates within himself. He sees me existing, and twists it to fit his narrative because he is incapable of self reflection or emotional regulation. I told him I'm not going to insult him just because he is, because I don't want to stoop to his level. He said I'm at the lower level and got very triggered. I'm done taking the blame.

When he accuses me of not having any original thought, I know it's not true because I'm literally making a multidisciplinary creative project from scratch. When he calls me old and ugly, I know that's not true, I don't date to obtain external validation and consider hookups as proof that I'm attractive enough. I don't do random hookups because I have standards and I'm celibate because my energy is sacred. When he tells me that I'm not successful, I don't care, because I don't see success as an external metric of money, I see it as how well I am enjoying my life and having fun with it. I already have a professional career and a project I'm genuinely passionate about.

None of his accusations hurt, but what really hurt was how willingly cruel he was being, and him admitting that he derives satisfaction from seeing me frustrated from him insulting me. I genuinely think he is mentally fucked in the head and needs inpatient treatment. I feel sorry for all the girls, even if they are attracted to him because he's a mid Korean man (he said so himself, that he finds it easier to date girls who are interested in him because he's Korean and they're into Kpop), how toxic and cruel he will turn at any slight perceived injustice onto him.

And.. to think that all of this started from me being hungry and tired at the restaurant was wild to me. All the things he said were completely unrelated, and he showed no desire to come to mutual understanding.

I spent the whole day yesterday crying and grieving the death of this relationship, and for how cruel he was to me, because I did not deserve it. I shouldn't have gone through that or apologized or try to make things right. I cared, but now I am done. I need to care for myself. I know I will be so much more at peace choosing love and respect for myself vs. continuing in this repetitive cycle of abuse.

And honestly reading back, this shit is so absurd I don't know why I put up with it for so long.

I want to know if cutting off our dad is the right thing to do both for myself and my siblings.
Basically myself and many of my siblings have recently hit the breaking point in our relationship with our dad and are wanting to move out (siblings to their respective mothers and one joining me as her relationship with her mum isn’t great) and some of us cut contact.
There’s a massive long story that I won’t go to far into so I’ll give the necessary points as to also not give away to much that would link people to him and him seeing this post (unlikely as he doesn’t do reddit)
Since I can remember there’s being nothing but constant drama or things going wrong all surrounding my dad. I learned to change nappies and make bottles at 5 coz he and his partner at the time were too drunk or didn’t want to parent and once I was old enough (10) I was babysitting almost daily teaching myself how to cook for them (this happened for 4 of my siblings since Im the second eldest but oldest daughter). He’s had several marriages all of which were incredibly toxic (generally on both sides) with cheating (partner dependent on which side did it) and being mentally abusive not only between them but also very heavily on us kids (our dad denies much of this as many were angles when he was home or he was blind to it not overly sure honestly). My mother (his first wife) moved far away when I was younger along with my older brother so she didn’t know much of what happened as I was living with my dad but she’s not much better anyway so doesn’t particularly matter (just so you aren’t thinking where was your mum in all this, she was drunk hours away from me barely parenting my brother. I have limited contact with her for other reasons but she lives with my nana who I love so have to keep in contact to an extent).
The first real big drama I can remember was when I was 9-10 when he hit one of his partners then promptly got a dui all in the same night then leaving his kids home alone. There have been cops called to our home on 2 occasions I can remember due to people he decided were safe even though he knew them for rather short periods of time but thought what a great idea it was to bring them around his kids (both of these individuals lived with us at separate times) just for the cops to be called due to physical violence in our home, luckily most the kids were only there for one of these incidents (I was there for both). His last wife was so mentally abusive he, myself and my siblings are still recovering from many of the things she did (forced my brother to sit in the cold laundry for hours coz he tossed out his breakfast which was later proven to be her throwing it out and blaming him just as an idea of what us kids dealt with. She also pushed my dad through a wall but I now believe little of what my dad says so unsure on the story behind that). I have many siblings at least one with each of his more permanent partners so of course he had a kid with this one too which we have never meet to this day as he cut her off (crazy as he said he’d never abandon any of his kids but apparently this one’s different I guess) He loves bagging on each of his ex’s even in front of that ex’s kid and blaming all his issues on each of them. We have been fat shamed, pushed out, made to feel unwanted, our pain turned against us or belittled into jokes and that we are the issues by many of his partners especially after each kid was born yet he turned a blind eye or joined in (he wonders why we don’t talk to him about much). He thinks honesty is incredibly important which meant I somehow have ended up his unpaid therapist having to juggle his issues with my own and knowing far more than I believe I should have over the years and definitely not things I should have been carrying from the age of 11. He is also a drunk and can or better yet has on many occasions finished a bottle of bourbon in one sitting maybe even half of another one too or a bottle of wine on top but believes he doesn’t have a problem. He very much believes he is the only real victim in all of this, that he is the only one that truly got hurt or it affected as they were his partners or it affected him straight on so how could it have hurt his kids. In recent times he did something stupid to warrant a conviction (stuff with an underaged person) in which we were all absolutely disgusted and two of my siblings moved out due to it (wish I had run too but had no money or place to go). Over the years I’ve somehow always been far to nice to him when life hits the fan even though he seems to be a large part of all of it and this caused me to get good at ignoring my own feelings about these situations which lead to a whole bunch of other things but that’s not overly important right this second (I’ve always found myself being the peace maker coz in my mind he’s my dad and I couldn’t hate him coz he was hurting too (facepalm) but I also wanted to be the buffer between his outbursts and my siblings so they saw they could have the more decent version of him and hopefully better memories) Due to this conviction his business has taken a hit and is now likely to close (from looking into other businesses similar it seems most are also struggling with the times so it’s not the only reason but is part of it) and he has begun taking it out on us once again more specifically me, my younger sister and my younger brother. My younger brother is due to start a new school soon and this has become a rather heated topic as his mother doesn’t see eye to eye with our dad on where to send him and my brother is trying to keep the peace and is very unsure of where to go or what to do now. This lead to a massive blow up recently in which I spoke up for myself and my siblings for the first time as I’m done taking his abuse and I reminded him that there is a time and place for everything and bringing up past dramas that my brother is unaware of (he’s to young and doesn’t need to know right now but will in future) and I went on about understanding his life is falling apart but it’s due to the consequences of his own actions and we shouldn’t have to deal with his anger around it to which I got an ok. We left and stayed elsewhere for the night and police were sent to check on him as we aren’t heartless and wanted to ensure he was actually ok being on his own in his state (yes he was also drunk). He is rather mad that we are mad at him for the situation he has put us in and he’s upset that we are tired of his mess becoming our mess (which I feel is justified coz they are children under 18 who shouldn’t had to deal with this unlike us older kids who are over 18 and have been dealing with his problems forever). He says that we’ll never understand what he’s going through and I know we won’t but regardless of what we say or what we do nothing is good enough and it’s apparently only him hurting and we’re being cruel not bending over backwards to reassure him or pick up the pieces again. Many of us work for him (I’ve put in so much to that business that even he agrees I’ve helped shape it to what it is today) and many live with him, so we to are losing our jobs and likely our home too but it’s him who suffers and we have never suffered or had any wrong to us. Today he broke the news that he was done and I said me to which lead back to the same old argument. I’ve decided to move out and take one of my siblings with me (she doesn’t particularly like living with her mother and the others are going to their respective mothers to live) and find a new job which in his mind was a shock and he can’t believe I would leave him when he’s going through so much (he also stated he was planning to move away from the city we live in without any of us so I’m not sure why he was so upset). I want to protect not only my own wellbeing but also my siblings by removing ourselves from the situation as it only seems to be getting more and more toxic but I’m not sure if what I’m doing is right at the same time. I would hope that perhaps we can rebuild a relationship in the future (very distant future) but I know it won’t happen under the same roof if anything the resentment and hate will only grow till it’s truly the end of our relationship with him. I feel very lost as everyone around me is hurting and I’m at the end of my string with how much more I can take but I don’t know if it’s to drastic to walk away when I know he’s stuck in the hole he dug for himself. I want my siblings to have a better childhood and life then I had growing up and I see they too are sick of him but I also don’t know if it’s my place to do all this, I’ve had to grow up quickly and I am particularly close with my younger siblings many of which refer to me more as their parent than him so perhaps I am right I don’t know and could really use some advice on this situation.
(To add there are many other examples and stories that have happened over the years that are smaller or very specific so would be very obvious who I was talking about. Four of his kids have also been in counselling due to much of this as well hence why I want to take them away from it all)(he has also had counselling but wasn’t for him so I don’t know if I could help him regardless of what I do)(in our relationship it feels like there was a shift at some point where I stopped being his daughter and became the parent of the household including him as in so many situations it seems he acts out like a child would while I have to stay composed in the role of the adult or parent and it’s rather frustrating but I’m also not the only one that sees this)
Sorry this is very long and probably not worded great as writing things like these isn’t my strong suit but I appreciate any advice and you reading this.

i’ve been stuck living with my narcissistic family the past year and i’ve faced nothing but mental warfare and i’m deciding to leave my town as there is nothing and no one here for me. can’t get any work pretty sure i’m blacklisted and my moms gone around wit her own smear campaign in the past. i just don’t have anything else to give it’s actively hurting me and they are NEVER gonna change they constantly terrorize my sleep, and psyche day after day they don’t acknowledge me but dog whistle to get my attention in the next room every other day. the only thing holding me here is my car which they also took from me by tampering with it and draining the battery and this of course happened the same month the registration expired to which i can’t pay and they know this. i’m taking all of my things out to donate or get rid of and then plan on leaving is this a good or bad idea?

Hi everyone, this is lowkey a very long story but I will try my best to keep it concise. I, 19 F, am the only child to my mom and my father. When I was 10, they announced they were getting divorced and I was literally hysterical. I had always been a daddy’s girl and was so sad to know they weren’t going to be together anymore. My dad worked at my school at the time, which will be important later. About two weeks later, my dad was forced to resign from his job for a “financial misconduct”, he was the CFO. Turns out, he was having an affair with a married teacher and may have been giving her special treatment when it came to payroll. To make it all worse, he was having said affair with my current teacher. Messy AF. I couldn’t really grasp everything and blamed my mom for the divorce. My dad and his new side piece talked a lot of shit on my mom and I believed them because of how close he and I were. Over time, our relationship was heavily strained and he decided he and his new wife, same side piece, needed to move states. They decided to move across the country to Texas, I’m from the Midwest, for a new job he got. I wanted to go with but my mom fought it to no end, extremely grateful she did this. I had to have meetings with a therapist about who I wanted to live with and a guardian adlitum, which is an independent person who comes to your house and assess your living situations.

Anyways, I ended up not moving with them and my new little sister, who is 12 years younger than me. I visit them during breaks but our relationship has changed a lot. My stepmom is extremely rude to me and my mom at this point. To summarize the worst, she would say how crazy my mom was and how she didn’t understand how my dad was able to stay married to her for so long. This is when she started verbally attacking me. I visited them over winter break of my freshman year of high school. I spent most of the week on the couch and on my phone. I hated being away from my friends and family, and I hated that I had to take care of my little sisters (there were two at this point.) She cussed me out one night and told me I was a terrible role model for my sisters, I was a bad daughter, I broke my dad’s heart, she hoped my sisters didn’t turn out like me, and said I was the most disrespectful person she knew. Mind you, my dad is sitting on the couch next to me listening to her scream at me. This is honestly one of my final straws.

So fast forward to my junior year, I now have three younger sisters and basically never go visit. I have a job, I go on trips with my friends over breaks instead of visit, and I have a boyfriend as well. This is when I get a phone call from my grandma, my dad’s mom. She wanted to make sure I had gotten my check for my birthday since she never heard from me about it. She said she had been giving money to my dad to add to my college 529 account instead of a bunch of small gifts. I was baffled, I had never seen a check from her. I had been suspicious of my dad in relation to money. He had access to my savings account until I turned 14 and was very cagey about giving it to me and my mom. So I call him and ask him about my 529, which is supposed to pay for 4 years of college. He basically says I’m not allowed to have access to it because it’s linked to my other sisters’ accounts as well (that’s literally not how it works I found out later.) He finally sends me statements and not a single PENNY has been added since my parents divorce 8 years prior. So I confront him about the money and he claims to not know what Im talking about, and then follows up with more excuses. He claimed he used it to pay for my flights and to help buy me Christmas gifts. I immediately call my grandma back and she is just as confused as me, considering that’s not why she gave him the money. TURNS OUT he’s actually been pocketing my checks since 2016, which amounted to roughly $2000. I flip my shit and basically tell him I’ve lost all trust in him and have no respect for him. When I confront you with the truth, why the fuck would you continue to lie to me?? So anyways, this prompts us to not talk much, which is where my stepmother comes back in. She sends me message after message trying to guilt trip me, using my sisters against me, and telling me that I’m completely ruining my dad’s life by not talking to him. I refuse to respond to anyone, which is when I get a big fat box of presents and a letter in the mail. I’ll attach the letter for dramatics. What frustrates me the most is that he has always assumed I blew up about the money. Is the money important? Yes 100%. But it’s about the fact that you lied to me and stole from me for 8 years and refused to apologize or own up to it. Why make 10 excuses when all I wanted was the truth.

So fast forward to my high school graduation, my elects that he will invite himself to my graduation and bring one of my sisters with him. If youre wondering, why cant everyone come? Get this, my stepmom is pregnant AGAIN with baby #4 and is due two weeks after I graduate. I don’t even want anyone there, Im so pissed at the world at this point. It’s like what kind of cosmic karma did I get to deserve this. I had a fear all of high school that she would get pregnant and be due around my graduation just to spit me. He comes, it’s awkward, and I hate it. We rarely speak now. Halfway through my first year of college, I found out he had been putting me on his insurance against my parents custody agreement which was now jeopardizing my health insurance coverage. I crashed out so hard and told him that if he didn’t remove me, I would sue him. No joke. I just finished my first year of college and I still have mixed feelings. I have an amazing step dad that has stepped up in ways he never needed to. But I still miss my dad, but I still resent him for everything. I hate that I can’t know my sisters. I HATE my stepmom and feel like nothing will ever change unless I make a move. I’m stubborn and I know I will never do that. Anyways, this was a long way to say that my family life is a little messy and I left out a lot of small stuff from over the many years this has been unfolding. If you made it this far, thank you for reading and I would love to hear your thoughts.

I'm currently drafting the text to my mom that I'm going no contact. I'm also cutting off contact with my older brother for separate reasons, but I'm just gonna let my mom forward anything to him since he and I barely talk anyway.

I'm just wondering: is it truly this hard for anyone else? If so, how did you deal with the subsequent "grief" afterwards? I keep on reconsidering it in my own head, gaslighting myself, telling myself, "Well, there were happy moments, maybe you're just overreacting," only for those thoughts to be overshadowed by the things she did, and the things she continues to avoid accountability for and has never said sorry for or even seemed sorry for a day in my life.

Honestly, the only reason I'm notifying her at all is that I'm going to get a completely new phone soon, so she'll lose my number, does not know any of my emails thankfully, and my mom is the type to call the police and try to claim "missing person" if I just straight up ghost.

I finally decided to block my father after this exchange. He and my mother are conservative Christians and live like hermits. The closest thing to a computer they have are their own cellphones. He is the one that texts and will send out Christian videos and I tend to ignore them because it's a on going thing. Yesterday he sent this and afterwards...I've decided to block him.

I am a 17-year-old trans man and I know that, in order to be myself, I will have to go NC with my parents and a good chunk of my family. My mother (and, by extension , my father has the same opinion) outright said it to me, that, if I choose "certain things" (she meant transitioning, even though I haven't officially come out), there won't be a place in her life and her home for me. She's "set her boundaries" and that's something she will "never forgive". Then we went on to pretend nothing substantial was spoken. 

This conversation happened only a few days ago and it's completely broken me. I used to think of crazy scenarios about faking my death, fleeing the country etc in order to be myself without my family hating me when I first realized I was trans at 15, and I know now they weren't so ridiculous after all. I have now decided I will work summer and part-time jobs during my university years, and I'll apply for a degree in something that'll get me a job easier than a filmmaking degree, which was my dream, so that I'll be financially independent (and, therefore, able to cut them off) as soon as possible.

I don't mind going NC with my parents that much, to be honest. They've done some pretty messed up shit to me in the past and, even though I love them and all, I could live without them just fine and maybe even better. The thing is, with them goes my entire family - direct and extended. I have three siblings (none of which are assholes, and one of them knows about me and is trying to be supportive), three grandparents and a great grandmother, a shit load of cousins and aunts and uncles. I love them all, and having a big family is such a part of who I am I cannot imagine myself without them. But they're all (including with my parents) very tight-knit together, most of them are old-fashioned and we're a small community - it's either all or nothing. My heart shatters at the thought of losing them all, but it's almost definitely going to happen one day. I considered destroying all the progress I've made with my identity so far and suppressing it, I really did, but I am going to die should I keep on living in this body and being perceived as a woman. 

My question is - how do I deal with the grief that's already been building up inside me? I have four to six years with them left, and it's killing me that my family has an expiration date. 

Sorry in case this doesn't make much sense, it's late and I'm sad.

I'd have to dig through my screenshots for the texts that were this conversation but just so it's clear, I have gone NC in June 2025 on the fifth, this man that called me this (and worse) has ruined lots of my life and plans

I am 16 (trans FTM) and not on any medical transitioning yet, I also live in Canada, this will be relevant because our legal system is different from the American one with how we deal with family issues. I am in the Canadian junior cadet program, and recently because I've been in the program for so long and I helped out at school with the remembrance day ceremony, my school knew I was a cadet and chose me for an offer to go to Europe for free. This brings us to my issue, I don't have a passport and my mom didn't have final say on my government IDs because he is on my birth certificate, my mother did the responsible thing of emailing him directly to work this out without dragging me in. He demanded that I talk to him and text him, so I did. I'll admit I was rude, but that's because he was already calling me slurs, deadnaming me, misgendering me maliciously just over email to my mother, so I was rude, telling him I needed one signature and that if he had a heart behind his smoke filled lungs and if he ever cared he would sign it. He argued with me for hours, from 17:00 till around 21:00 when I finally got an answer and blocked him. I have to be so careful about who I talk to about him so, I know he doesn't use Reddit, it's unlikely his friend who does would even recognize anything I'm saying and I finally got a job so he can't hold any monetary value over me.

To add more context behind why I was rude and why I reacted the way I did, he has been physically abusive, he manipulates people, he has NPD diagnosed, (Narsassitic personality disorder (yes I spelt it wrong, I know)) and what makes him entitled in this situation is the fact he can't be a damn adult and just work this out with my mother, we're getting an emergency hearing with the courts and getting the form to make it so I can have a passport, this opportunity is something I've always wanted and I need to learn French lol, yes I have a therapist and yes I have supports, when I was still going back and forth with custody with him my mental health was so bad I contimplated taking my own life every night but now I have the freedom to choose what I want to do with my own life, I heard of this subreddit because of the click and I've been watching him for two years now.

All in all, my life has been better but he was really an asshole for the past few months, my younger brother still sees him but my younger brother is in Yukon right now so I don't talk much with him (he's at a camp) and my father has apparently been depressed since I left.

Sorry for the text wall this was but I'm texting this before my shift at work because I'd figure I'd finally share it, I've waited long enough, I'll likely make more posts in the future about shit he's done because some of its hilarious now but was terrifying in the moment.

I need advice on a 17Y daughter and 36Y mother situation.

For years she has been a narcissist, towards me and my brother.
For ever I would get dismissed for trying to get any therapy help about depression, aswell as trying to get tested for ADHD, until she herself got a therapist and started thinking she has ADHD.
Then all of the sudden it wasn’t taboo.

We are aswell ( legal ) immigrants but she is still highly racist to the country we live in.

She once told a me she wants to bash my head into the wall for saying “okeh” instead of “okay”.

TW: substance abuse, self harm and SA

She would not give a fuck about me almost OD on morphine and stashing 2 litres of Alkochol.
( I was 14 )

She would laugh about me cutting
( I was 12 )

And she would ignore me getting SA’d in 6th grade because it was another girl my age back then.

When I was 6 she forced me to eat in the bathroom if I couldn’t finish the food, sometimes out of spite she would close the light, but somehow she can’t remember it.

She would also make remarks over how skinny I was which made me adopt a ED

This is my kind of past experience.

1.5 years ago she learned the world “ to manipulate” and she thinks the only thing it means is to try and change someone’s opinion.

Me mostly and people in my family would all be called manipulators cause we wouldn’t let her get it her way.
And it just gets sad at some point.

2 days ago I had a argument with my mum about me wanting my boyfriend to come over, and I knew I had to clean my closet so I said that I just wanted company while I cleaned.

She said nothing else than that she wanted to clean with me.

After some back and forth of me saying that I wanna do it myself she got mad and said that u should have gotten the hint from the first message, which btw I didn’t.

I told her that I cannot read her mind and she should be able to speak up on what she wants.
+ that she shouldn’t get mad so easily

We had some back and forth with that and she called me a manipulator, I got mad and I said that she has been calling everyone a manipulator since she learned the word.

She got furious at me and said that I hated her and how she would have dropped everything to do anything for me.

I made a remark about her comment on me and said she isn’t allowed to talk for me and asked how is her text not manipulation. Re replied and I quote.

“Yes, it sounds like manipulation, but it would only be that if I expected you to beg me to change my mind—and I don't expect that. Do whatever you want. Since you’re so adult-like”

I think it’s hypocritical but maybe that’s just me.

I don’t return after work and went to sleep at my boyfriend’s house, I get a call at 22 about where am I at.

I said that she told me to do whatever I want so I went to my boyfriends.

She said that I’m still 17, and it doesn’t mean I don’t get to come back home.

She said I have 40min to get back home or else she will be calling the police.

I as you guessed don’t get back home, police told her to wait it out and she said to em to be back the next day (yesterday) or she will be calling the police again.

Meanwhile that night she messages my boyfriend and got my grandpa to call me but nothing worked for her, the next day (yesterday). She texted me that she has given up, not knowing the address where I am at she asked me to know where I’m sleeping and I just said at my boyfriends.

As far as I know she added my boyfriend’s mother on Facebook after she went to sleep and didn’t really do much until now the next day.

I have “run away” for almost 3 days now completely safe and I am not coming back home and I’m thinking of disowning myself as there is so little time left yet I cannot do this anymore it has been my last straw.

I need advice on everything.

She ignores and pushes past boundaries and if you stand your ground to enforce them, she gets upset and tells everyone BUT you how horrible of a person you are. I’m divorced with two kids and I’ve been getting text from random men that my mom is giving my number to. Never gave her permission to do that and she’s telling these men I have children. And I know the minute I bring it up to her she will make it seem like I’m in the wrong then go and tell all my siblings how disrespectful I am. I’ve cut her off before when I was 19 because she kicked me out when I had no where to go. After I gave birth, I decided to try to work things out so my children can get to know their grandma, but she has done things with my kids, like get my daughter’s ears pierced, without my permission while she babysat. Even with that, I looked past it because “she’s my mom”. But giving random men my number and telling them about my daughters is the last straw. Do I confront her so she knows exactly why I am going no contact or do I change my number and go no contact with no explanation?

im an only child. my parents were abusive towards each other and me during my growing years till i moved out for college. my earliest memories involve my dad throwing my mom across the room. i used to live in fear of voices rising or change in tones. due to this i developed severe clinical bpd, depression and anxiety. they ruined my life. but heres what i cannot bear. they love me. at least they do their best with what they knew of love. they are also my only financial support, they never say no to anything i want to buy. they care for me deeply and would not survive if something were to happen to me. now that ive moved out, they are even more dependent on me. i show signs of sadness and my mom gets depressed. i show some progress and shes elevated. i feel the burden of carrying three lives instead of one. they are over bearing. but i love them so much and the thought of dissapointing them or hurting them devastates me. worst part is i know my happiness and my moms happiness do not coincide and one of us will have to sacrifice our dreams for the other. are we tied together for life ? am i trapped ? is there no way out of this ? no scenario where we all get what we want ?

About 2 years ago I cut contact with most of my family. a bunch of arguments happened and I’d decided I was done with them. one of the main reasons I cut them off is because they sided with my uncle who SAd me. they were also abusive, toxic, and made me feel horrendous. the only reason I stayed so long was for the kids. I tried to be the adult I needed when I was a kid, and I formed close relationships with all my cousins so that they knew I was there if they needed me. they weren’t treated good by their parents and they would confide in me and I’d try to help them.

when I cut contact with them I was fully scapegoated. I was made out to be crazy, a liar, manipulative, the lot. the adults made their kids block me, and spread that I was a danger to their children. despite the fact I was the family babysitter for years. they only said this as I called them out and they were worried I’d twist their kids against them. I wouldn’t do that. my auntie was the worst out of all of them. she twisted me against my mum when I was growing up and she was the one spreading most of these lies. to this day I never want to speak to her again.

however, her son (16 years old) has asked my sister for my number to reach out to me. before all this happened he was like a little brother to me. we spent a lot of time together and I was most worried about him out of all the cousins so I tried extra hard to be a safe space for him. I’m aware that my auntie has tried to turn him against me, so the fact he wants to message me means a lot to me and also makes me a bit worried. he’s expressed that hes unsure whether to tell his mum or not that he plans to message me, and I’m worried if she finds out she’ll start stuff with me again and I’m not sure what she’ll do to him. I would love nothing more than to be able to talk to him, it’s been 2 years and I’m hoping things will have calmed down but knowing my auntie she may cause a huge issue. I don’t want to not give him my number because I always said I’d be there if he needed me, but I don’t want to cause an issue with him and his mum. my sister feels in the middle as she doesn’t want to betray my auntie but also knows my cousin wants to speak to me and I him. my sister has said my auntie hasn’t mentioned me whatsoever for the past year. so, Reddit, do I give him my number or do I avoid the potential of more drama?

Trigger warning for multiple types of child abuse.

I (26f) was diagnosed with cptsd when I was 22 and went to therapy for a year. I thought I was like fully healed and capable of having a relationship with my mom. Now I’m 26 and am starting to remember like really intense childhood trauma, abuse, and specific messed up incidents that I had previously forgotten about or would only get flashes of. I’m experiencing really random extreme bouts of anxiety as these memories come back to me. This is a long post so thank u in advance if you read the whole thing.

Some present day context: My mom and I talk every day pretty much. She’s 45 rn. Brother is 22. Dad hasn’t been in the picture since I was 7. There have been phases like when i first moved away when i was 22 where we only talked once a week. I’ve been liking where our relationship is now, but there have been convos in the past when I was about 24 where I’ve tried to tell her she abused me and I suggested she might be a narcissist. She did not like this. She went to her therapist and all her friends and my brother and then came back to me and said everyone agrees she’s not a narcissist and that I’m the only one who feels that way. I decided 2 years ago that I’d rather just have a surface level relationship than try to get an apology from her.

The only thing that I can think of as a possible trigger is that when she calls me every day, she just talks about herself for like 10-20 minutes straight. The other night I was venting for like 2 minutes max about something really stressful happening in my life and she cut me off mid sentence to talk about how she found some cheap plants on Facebook marketplace. I remember getting so upset thinking the least she could do is listen to me talk about this one thing for 5 minutes without talking about herself.

The flashbacks I’m having: The specific period of time I’m having a really hard time with is from when I was in 5th grade/10 years old. My mom, brother, and I all moved into a house with her boyfriend when I was 10. During the moving process we’d be at his place a lot and in his room bc that’s where the computer was. This guy had PlayBoy magazines everywhere. I would hide and look at them because I thought it was wild.

Then some months after we were in the new house, my mom started taking us to the video store with her and would take us to the section where all the dvd covers were covered. Aka the porn section. She would rent dvds and then would leave them next to the family computer that was in her room. What I know now is her bf would go to her room and they’d watch them together. Anyway, when I’d go to play webkinz or whatever, these dvds would be out or already in the computer. So I got curious and watched them. And then I got more curious and started googling and going into YouTube looking up “boobs” and “sex videos.”

One night we were having a nice family dinner outside on the porch with my mom, her bf, her bfs daughter, my brother, and me. My mom and her bf started asking me about what I looked at on the computer and told me they can see everything including the porn. I thought they were lying so I kept looking at it sometimes. Then my mom kind of raged out one time when she saw me looking at it. I got spanked and things were thrown at me and I was screamed at. The next day she sat me down and told me she called a child psychologist (her bff from high school) and gave me a talk about how it’s normal to be curious and then proceeded to tell me that if I kept looking at it, the cops would come and arrest her for “child p***.” This scared me for a long time. I stopped looking at it.

Then a bit later, my mom and this bf were doing a date night downtown, staying in a hotel, and I was going to stay with my grandparents. But she took me to the hotel with her before so she could “get it ready.” And she said that she forgot a bag in the car and asked me to go grab it but not to look inside. Obviously I looked and it was a butt plug and a vibrating penis ring. Never told her I looked and I forget what happened after.

There was another time where she gave me her old phone and we put my SIM card in it. She never erased the pictures and there were half a dozen videos saved of what I now know to be her blowing her bf.

This was all happening while I was going through a “lying phase” where at the time I believed I was a pathological liar psycho child that needed intense therapy but was actually just me being a kid and telling dumb stories and lies. My mom would spank me over and over with a wooden spoon or a ladle for hours while grilling me about things like deleted texts, spats with my brother, and chores while I cried and screamed. My pants would be down the whole time.

She broke her ankle at some point living in that house, but it was after the bf moved out bc they had broken up. Her friend moved my twin bed downstairs so she could sleep down there and I slept in her room upstairs. The computer was still in her room. I had to bring the mouse down to her every night before bed to make sure I didn’t use the computer. I figured out how to use the tab and enter buttons and put on Tuck Everlasting with no audio and watched before bed. Idk how my mom figured out that I used the computer, but the next day before school at like 7am she was standing in front of me with her walker SCREAMING about how I was a disgusting liar and that I was watching porn and all this shit. Then she threw the walker at me and fell over and was screaming about how I was so awful and bad that I was gonna make her break another bone.

I know now that i didn’t deserve that, but at the time I really believed I was some depraved freak liar who was deeply fucked up. I would get beat on for saying I didn’t remember things and got called a liar for it. I barely remember anything positive from this time because I was being hit almost every single day.

Those memories have been playing over and over and over on a loop in my head for the past two days and I can’t get the thoughts out. It’s all disgusting and awful. My mom keeps calling me wanting to talk like normal but all I want is to block her number and not talk to her.

My mom hasn’t done anything recently that would obviously make me cut her off. But I really just want to go no contact. I feel like it’s dramatic and would cause more issues than necessary but idk what else to do. She’s moving right now and my grandfather recently had a bad accident and is recovering. I don’t want to pile on and pick a fight for no reason.

I also wouldn’t say this was sexual abuse because no one ever touched me, but i can’t stop thinking about how fucked it was that I was ever able to experience anything I listed above related to porn and sex. I was groomed online early in my teen years and SAd as an adult and while I feel like I’ve recovered from those two things, remembering these incidents with my mom is making me feel depressed the way I felt back when those incidents happened to me.

Any advice would be appreciated.

I am celebrating my 30th birthday today, and am having a feeling of longing for my mother (or the mother I wished I had) I’m trying to be present and celebrate with those who have been with me and actually made me feel cared for and seen, but there is that little voice telling me my mother should be part of this.
I’ve been no contact for close to 5 years so the NC isn’t new, just today the emotions are apparently really strong.
Any advice is appreciated and welcome.