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ChristianKl comments on Open Thread, Jun. 29 - Jul. 5, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion
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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?
Instead of simply cutting contact you can tell your parents how you want to be treated. As long as they are willing to act that way you interact with them. If they don't then you don't and you retry after half a year.
Clearly explicitly communicating your personal boundaries isn't easy but it's a very important skill. It's a challenge that provides a lot of personal growth.
I'd add a warning here that this may require "eternal vigilance". Just because the personal boundaries were clearly communicated and respected today, it does not automatically mean that the parents will respect them tomorrow, if they will feel the greatest threat is gone and one is losing their original momentum.
Agreed. If you're not willing to say "Nope, you crossed the line. See you next time, I'll decide when that is, goodbye" (or similar) and leave (cut them off to whatever degree is needed to stop the harmful behavior), then you need to not give them an opportunity to start again. If you are willing to do so, though, or some other approach to ensuring your boundaries are respected, go ahead.
For the record, while I have a pretty good relationship with both my parents, I do not buy the line that a person always has an obligation to their parents. Sure, there usually is one, but your parent(s) put a finite amount of utility into your life, and negative utility is a thing. Parents trying to run the lives of their adult offspring drives me up a wall. Unless there's something unusual about your capacity for self-reliance, at 25 you should not be living under anybody's thumb to the degree described even without the negatives such as undesired/inappropriate criticism.
Yes, that's important. You actually have assert boundaries and simply communicating them might not be enough. At the same time it's very valuable to go through the experience of asserting those boundaries. Parental relationships do have a strong effect on the human psychological system.
Everything in this chain of comments has now been proven true in my particular case. Thank you for the advice. This bit sums it up pretty well: