My grandma lives with my aunt (fully adult). She is a pretty negative, passimistic and resigned person. She always naggs my aunt, that also has pretty bad schizophrenia which resulted in a lot of tense situations in the past. They are extremely anxiously attached to each other, fight a lot of the times, nagg each other and my grandma often openly mocks my aunt.
I used to have a good relationship with them as a kid but as I got older I realized how toxic their behaviour really is and how out of touch with reality they are. I do not want to visit them, I don’t want to call them. But they keep calling me. Like almost every day. It’s crazy. Even when I do pick up it always turns into a 1h+ long conversation that usually revolves around them nagging, talking about whether, complaining about each other or my aunt telling me her "plans" she never executes. It honestly affected me badly in the past, so now I just stopped answering their calls.
Am I the asshole? I feel like I can just never know when I’m gonna pick up and they’re gonna be acting fine and decent and even ask me some questions about myself or just gonna be negative.
They also guilt trip me a lot for not returning their calls but I’m just so tired and sick of feeling guilty and spending my time for people that are pulling me down.
yea same here sometimes you gotta ghost the energy vampires to stay sane
Thanks, feels good to know you’re not all alone. Well said!
NTA. It’s sad that their behavior means you need to do this for your own mental health, but engaging with extended family who cause you anxiety or stress afterwards probably isn’t worth it.
True:( I do sometimes feel responsible for helping them tho and as if our non communication isn’t a result of their behaviour but my neglect for them
If you need to do something for them for your own conscious, that’s one thing. But if you wish to disengage, they may need to rely on other family or social services, and that’s ok. If you are the only family member, then you may need to engage social services, especially for your grandma if she is 55+. Maybe contact your local aging and disability services to speak to someone about services to assist.
NTA. You deserve to not have that kind of thing dumped on you and you don’t need to feel guilty about it.
There is nothing wrong with ghosting people who are not good for you, does not matter who they are. If these were random strangers on the street, what would you do? You would run in the opposite direction.
You’re right. Thanks for putting it into perspective. It’s that much harder to see it this way bc it’s family + the constant guilt tripping
NTA. They don’t want to talk to you. They want to talk at you.
Damn. This one hit me hard. You’re right. It does get tricky cause sometimes they do show care and ask me questions but even then, I can see they don’t have an ounce of anything actually relatable/helpful to say back
NTA
I don’t know how old you are but if they’re calling you directly I assume you’re fairly ‘adult’.
You have your own life, your own things to worry about and take care of, you don’t need to babysit their toxicity.
No thank you…
NTA
I’d use one of those call blocker apps that say your phone is turned off everytime someone calls. You don’t have to have contact with people that make you feel bad, family or not.