"When her mum called her, stress would ring through Marie's body like an alarm going off. So I stopped answering the phone, she says. She forms the words purposefully, as if reading from a script. This was one of the boundaries she discussed carefully with her therapist three years ago when she reached a point of crisis in managing her maternal relationship."
"She has never explained her decision to her mother, but it followed a lifetime of what Marie, who is in her 40s, feels has been rejection, shaming and feeling like the black sheep of the family. Marie's mother, she says, would always make everything about herself. Everything I did was just everybody has it worse. You know, I'd say, I don't feel very well' and she'd reply: Yes, well, I've got diabetes.' I was scared to have a voice."
Marie experienced intense stress when receiving calls from her mother and chose to stop answering the phone. She established clear boundaries after crisis-point work with a therapist, including ending visits and limiting calls to purposeful reasons such as checking on a grandparent or sharing necessary news. She disclosed a neurodivergence diagnosis to her mother and received a dismissive response. She avoids apologies and uses brief deflections when her mother complains. She fears sharing personal information because it would be disclosed to the wider family, leaving no emotional security. The pattern exemplifies low-contact boundary maintenance within family estrangement.
Read at www.theguardian.com
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]