My parent was telling people I wasn’t talking to them even when I was calling or visiting at least every other week, where other people were giving me a hard time about avoiding this parent, but I was the one reaching out. The parent wasn’t ever bothering to contact me, just bawling to other people and slandering me.

This was particularly frustrating, since even then, I could have filed criminal charges on this parent—and that was with only partial realization of what I had grounds for.

Ultimately, I stopped bothering to reach out, telling them to do so, and waited for them to make the first move. Within weeks, I was getting folks asking why I’d stopped talking to my parent. (This parent lived maybe 5 minutes away, btw, and my younger brother lived in the apartment below me—and the parent was visiting him often.)

A few months later, they stopped by and gave me grounds to call the cops to escort them out (though I didn’t realize that until later). This parent played a few different social angles to try to make me feel as if I was bad and wrong for refusing to be their puppet. I pointed out that I’m not responsible for their happiness and that they weren’t the only person who had gone hungry to feed the rest of the family.

A few months after that, they stopped by again. I didn’t let them in, but I conversed politely and demonstrated that I hadn’t been lying when I’d said I was playing along when I responded how they wanted in conversation—I ignored or defanged all their attempts at anger baiting, ignored an opening they gave me to verbally lash at them, and haven’t heard from them in the few years since.

There’ve been a few situations of potential catfishing, but [shrug].

I have no intention of endangering myself to make nice with someone who’s only interested in controlling me.

Contrast this with my other parent, who I met more recently, actually listens to what I say, enjoys hearing about my interests (even if they’re not this parent's thing), offers help that’s actually helpful, and follows through when I accept an offer.