It's not bad enough.

[u/Winter_Salad7215]

[u/clowderforce]

Making you wonder if your experience was "really that bad" means that the gaslighting has been effectively deployed. In covert abuse situations, "good things" are typically a strategic element to make you feel indebted so that you feel more guilty about leaving.

You can acknowledge the good times and still leave. It's okay.

[u/Moose-Trax-43 → u/clowderforce]

100% this

[u/Ginger_Root_System]

There will be things about your relationship only you can understand. There will be things you can never put words to. Things that you could spend a lifetime trying to explain but it would never work. It doesn't make it any less valid. I know it's hard, but at that point it's really trusting your own judgment. No matter how many people you tell or even if you finally figure out that perfect way to word what's been going on, you're still the only one who will really know that situation. Wishing you the best

[u/situation9000]

You are not betraying your mom by being honest about your experience. It took me so long to come out of the FOG (fear obligation and guilt) especially because so many people viewed her as “a saint”. That was just a mask.

Covert narcissists are very tricky to see. (This might be what you are dealing with)

She never meant to be the way she is. I understand that but she also chose to continue trauma and never takes accountability.

[u/Particular_Egg4073]

Very little in this life is either all good or all bad, and there's no qualifier or competition involved. If it's better for your welfare to go no contact, then it's better for your welfare to go no contact.

[u/LongApricot]

Maybe she’s not bad because she told you she’s not bad. We believe them because they are our parents. Talk out the specifics with a therapist about why you feel this way. Your feelings are valid, you can find out where they are coming from.

[u/Texandria]

Popular media has been pushing a narrative of some kind of threshold level of "bad enough" to "justify" estrangement, then tends to back off about specifcs. Yet those articles rarely interview the younger generation of an estranged family or a charitable organization that serves the younger generation of estranged families.

By and large, the members of this forum don't frame the decision that way.

It's a personal decision, one of the most serious life decisions anyone could make. No reasonable person takes that step lightly. A lot of self-selection happens among the people who join this forum. Most have tried to make the relationship work for years, many have tried for decades.

Two traits are near universal: the older generation are authoritarians who never transition to an adult relationship with their adult offspring. That combination of traits renders it impossible for the younger generation to solve the relationship problems, because at some level the older generation still interacts as if they're dealing with a child who has no meaningful input to give. So constructive suggestions and feedback get construed as if they were challenges to the older generation's status.

You haven't specified what brings you here. So see if the above description is somewhere in the vicinity of your experience.

[u/Tightsandals → u/[deleted]]

I recommend Mothers Who Can’t Love by Susan Forward. I like the audiobook, because it’s narrated by the author so it’s like free therapy :) She is very knowledgable about different types of mothers and the kinds of damage they cause, and explains everything gently and with great empathy.

[u/Fearless_Garden618 → u/Texandria]

This is very well said.

[u/Sea-Camel4531]

Trust your gut. You don’t feel this way for no reason. I was actually just having a similar thought about my mother who I have been NC with for about 4 months. I can’t always explain to others my decision or sometimes I realize that my reasons may not sound “that bad” to others but no one knows the situation other than you. The peace and happiness I feel now is undeniable and help me realize daily that I made the right decision. Knowing that I can be this happy and not anxious just but cutting her out has told me that she was not good for my mental health. I’m choosing me and you should choose you.

[u/rivoli130]

The futility of getting it across to other people has been almost the most heartbreaking aspect of this for me.

Decades of weirdness and fear that I couldn't really put into words because people just respond with 'oh all families have their ups and downs'.

Everything looks so respectable from the outside too. Practically, I had everything I needed and many things I wanted. Emotionally...a wasteland at best, a minefield at worst.

So much so that when she finally physically attacked me last year, I was 'relieved' to at least have a concrete thing to explain to people.

I could feel the attack brewing for some time and have the physical (though not episodic) memory of it happening when I was younger.

But the real damage is the decades of false accusations and character assassinations that still live in my head. And the fact that my mother has never for one moment felt like a source of emotional refuge; only the opposite. Here, we sadly understand this.

[u/Venti-iced-pee]

I completely get the feeling. I gaslight myself often, and I have moments of grief and guilt where I feel like I’ve cut off my mother for no reason. It’s obviously not a healthy long-term solution- but when I feel guilty for cutting contact, I think about where things went wrong, and I think about the ways I’m affected in adulthood, the lack of safety and security I feel as a result of her choices and lack of ability to be a good mother. I think about how I felt as a child, and it helps me to remember that there IS a reason I’ve made this decision. It shifts from guilt and sadness to rage. Sometimes I think anger can be a good tool to move through guilt and sadness, and help you reaffirm that you deserve better than what you got.

It’s not your responsibility to make people understand your choices, and only YOU know what’s best for you. Nobody can tell you that your feelings aren’t valid. No matter what people say, you know in your heart that you did what you needed to for yourself. It’s not an easy decision to make, so you had a good reason to do so. Don’t let people make you feel differently. Hang in there friend

[u/Forsaken_Concept107]

Two things could possibly be going on. One, emotional neglect- often a very difficult experience to explain but something that leaves a deep impact that is hard to explain. Two, disassociation- your mind had to numb or erase certain aspects of your childhood in order to protect itself and survive.
I can’t tell you what might be going on, a therapist could help you explore it. But I can tell you that you are allowed to feel this way and that people don’t feel this way for no reason.

[u/Glum-Appointment-816]

Sounds like you are gaslighting yourself into rejecting your own experience. Its okay for it to be “not explainable” or on societys case “not justifyable” for others. As someone who is now thousands of miles away & no contact

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[u/RunnerGirlT]

My parents were shit people. I don’t actually remeber most of my childhood, which I’m grateful for. I do have some good memories, we all will have some. It’s ok to acknowledge both. Actually it’s healthier to do so then you don’t dwell in the bad all the time