tim comments on Open Thread, Jun. 29 - Jul. 5, 2015 - Less Wrong

5 Post author: Gondolinian 29 June 2015 12:14AM

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Comment author: Sithlord_Bayesian 30 June 2015 07:09:59AM *  9 points [-]

In the spirit of asking personally important questions of LessWrong, here goes. Please be gentle with me.


Related:

Discussion post by another user on being raised by narcissists

r/RaisedByNarcissists


My parent always had a number of narcissistic traits, but was never a full-blown narcissist. They (singular) supported me financially and always seemed to legitimately care about how well I was doing academically and professionally. However, they had a habit of lowering my status by verbally critiquing my actions, and sometimes made odd demands of me, such as demanding that I share some of my passwords with them, or demanding that they be present every time I go to the doctor (I'm 25).

Right now, I think that I'm either going to severely limit contact with my parent, or cut contact completely. I think that cutting contact completely is likely to be more pleasant and easier on me, but I'm really not sure about that yet. I've had a few family members tell me that I'm obligated to keep in touch with my parent. Since LW is my in-group, and since I share lots of values with the kind of people who tend to post here, I'd prefer to get advice here, rather than elsewhere. Specifically, I'm not sure if I have a familial obligation to remain in contact with my parent, given that they've only been somewhat emotionally abusive to me; it's probable that they don't even realize/ are incapable of realizing that I find their treatment of me to be hurtful. Do you think that I have any such obligation?

Complicating factor: if maintaining a good relationship with my parent might slightly increase the amount I expect to be able to donate to effective charities at the cost of (in expectation) making me less happy, does this change my obligations?

Comment author: tim 03 July 2015 03:27:12AM *  2 points [-]

Complicating factor: if maintaining a good relationship with my parent might slightly increase the amount I expect to be able to donate to effective charities at the cost of (in expectation) making me less happy, does this change my obligations?

I can't lend you any specific advice here, but I'm pretty confident that this is an insane thing to even consider considering in the situation you describe.