powersquash Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 So I've been ignoring my FOO for 6 months or so. Had a nice little fallout with my mom( she demanded to know why I wasn't speaking to her, I explained I was upset with how she "raised" me and she completely denied and then aggressively attacked my reasonings) about 4 months ago and we haven't spoken since. Fast forward to last week, there is a knocking at my door. I immediately get nervous because my wife, son, and myself live 2.5 hours away from our hometown and we don't have friends here. I look out the window and see it's my grandmother on my mother's side. My stomach swells into a knot and I just stare at my wife hoping she'll tell me what to do. After about 5 minutes I gain the courage to confront her. I step out of the door and shut it behind me. She immediately says "why have you been ignoring my calls?" Which tells me that she isn't concerned of my safety or she would have led with that. The next logical assumption is she is here to assert her dominance over me. I reply that I'm mad about how I was treated as a child. She acted as if she had no idea what I spoke of. I then went into how I was abused to the point that she used to brag about how if she would look around for a fly swatter I would cower in fear. She minimized it by saying she had only done so once. I brought up how her late husband once whooped me with a belt just so I would know how it felt to prevent me from doing anything "bad". "I don't remember that." She replied. We then went back and forth about what beating kids meant for their future. She told me how the prisons were filled with people who didn't get beat as children. Lol, easily countered with the facts. She asked how my son was, I told her he was great, nobody was beating him. "I don't know where you're getting this shit." "Scientific fact." Then she leaves with a "well when you get this figured out maybe you'll talk to me." I felt an overwhelming sense of happiness and nervousness at once. I'm not sure what I want to come of this post but...yeah. there it is. Has anyone else had any experiences of family going wayyyy out of their way to track you down? What became of that?
dsayers Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 Your physiological response was trying to tell you something. I wouldn't have given her the time or dignified anything she said with a response. She was trying to revictimize you and you kind of let her. I understand that you weren't damaged by her verbal BS and that's good. I just hope that since she made it clear that you are of no importance to her beyond what she wants from you that you won't let her steal any more of your time in the future.
Kevin Beal Posted January 27, 2014 Posted January 27, 2014 I really don't think that ignoring her is necessarily going to lead to less revictimization. The fight or flight happened at the doorbell, before he even knew who it was. And on confrontation he felt better. And she could just as easily have hollered and gotten the attention of your neighbors and got other people involved who you might feel an urge to justify yourself with. Or she could have just kept showing up and spread it out longer. I mean she knows you're there and she spent 2.5 hours driving to get there. She's not likely to just settle with "oh, I guess he's just not going to answer" and then leave, right? And I'm very sorry OP about the abuse. It sounds like there was some pure sadism there, and that's just completely awful
powersquash Posted January 28, 2014 Author Posted January 28, 2014 I can definitely see where that could be the continuation of control, however, I felt more or less in control of the conversation. I also feel as though I can confront my mom and my dad with the same gusto.
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