Two thoughts:
1 - Love doesn't require you to allow abuse. You can love someone from a distance. Care about them. Pray for them. Don't lower yourself to their level. Be open to a day when the offending party says "hey I screwed up, can you forgive me? and cautious try to give them a chance to make it right. Let him without guilt cast the first stone. I am thankful that others have forgiven my bonehead actions when I repented. I should do the same when the repentance is genuine.

2 - Get rid of your unresolved anger. Being angry and bitter at someone is like drinking poison and hoping they get sick. It is far better to "forgive and remember".

Your off base on #2

Possibly on #1

When you read about mental disorders you’d know that some people can be dangerous to the psycological health of others.

I myself have achieved a position of indifference, not love nor hate. And I have learned that contact is dangerous. Hoping they will change and return is just to real you back in to do it again once your guard is down.

Worth watching

https://youtu.be/rLCPDYt1wYk

https://youtu.be/zmT81Qi-rso

All the more of a reason to not be sucked into bitterness and hatred. If nothing else, pity them because you can walk away but they have to live with themselves 24/7/365.

Wounded people have trouble:
-trusting others
-expecting good things to happen
-not being selfish
-loving others
-not wanting to always be better than everyone else...they have to win all the time.

Fundamentally I agree with everything you are saying, and for the most part I like to think that people behaving badly can learn from their mistakes and be given a second chance.

The people who do not get the courtesy of a third chance are at the extreme end of the scale, not normal, dangerous heartless soul sucking vampires who are incapable of change and are masters of manipulation

Let me ask you, would you ever advise a woman who showed up at your door with a broken nose and two black eyes for the tenth time to give her abuser another chance? Or to sit across the dinner table from her rapist?

But yet we think nothing of giving the same advice to a person who has suffered mental abuse, partially because we don’t see the injuries and partially because of a naive belief that ALL people can change, or perhaps really didn’t mean it.

My only real point that I am arguing against in this thread is the advice to extend love no matter what because they are family

Sometimes perhaps, but in other extreme cases, get the heck out of that relationship and never look back

I’ve taken this thread to the far end of the scale, and I stand by what I’ve said, but, not every difficult person is a dangerous person (But never be naive enough to not realize that they could be).

Having said that, to Joe’s point about showing love, I agree.
What we don’t agree on is that you have to because they are family etc.

Love yourself enough to protect yourself

But be kind. I have become extremely generous with telling people good things. After being criticized for my accomplishments by a dangerous person bent on my destruction, I know how important a few kind words are, and I share them readily without worrying that they will go to someone’s head as some people seem to think.

In fact with my ex, I learned that my best defence in the face of an all-out soul scorching attack, if I simply told her she was a good person, she would leave me alone and I could get away. But I had to move quickly because each time the effect would not last.

(In those moments she was acting like the furthest thing from a good person by I had come to understand the demons inside her head enough to have come up with that tactic.)

In the years since, she has often reached out to try to twist what’s left of my scorched soul to bits

It is for that reason that I can simply not allow any contact

Some people are difficult, but some people are dangerous.
A relationship with someone like this is predicated on hope.
Let go of the hope and don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for self preservation.
If you are an empathetic person you probably have a hard enough time overcoming your own guilt for not tolerating them further. You don’t need a well intentioned other to re-trigger that guilt

It’s sort of like putting down your best friend because she got rabies and can kill you.
(Old yeller reference )

I haven't promoted doing anything that is dangerous to yourself. Do what you have to when you need to protect yourself.

A hair trigger defense mechanism is displaying symptoms of wounded and unforgiving soul. That is a torment to the wounded and not the other person. Forgive and remember but don't hate or be hateful. When I say "love" the person I mean have compassion for that person being in such a messed up state. Its about caring about a fellow human being instead of just yourself. I don't know any other way to say it so I guess I'm at the end as well.

BTW - my sympathy to those who have been wounded so deeply and are stuck in the pain and hate.

You should, wayner.

My deal in life is I simply do not put up with any BS, especially from family. I have earned that right since I simply do not burden other souls.

I'll help, provide advice, money and moral support right up until I don't feel it is worth it.

It is that easy.

I do not love my older sister, the person I wrote about earlier. She makes the Love Canal look like Crater Lake. She is CORVID-20.

I don't have to love her just because...family.

Sorry.

Keep pointed in the direction you believe in, wayner, it is all we have in the midnight hour.

Best.

It is because I care that I can no longer allow contact. I've had to unplug caring in this instance.
Hate was never an emotion. Disbelief maybe. Fear definitely, but not hate.

Paul you put it well.

I personally believe that manipulative and dangerous people feed off of caring,
(and Joe I agree that their wounds at a very critical stage of their development are tragic, but depending on the condition, irreversible.)

If I have come across any other way in this thread than caring, it is in response to the advice that a person deserves access to my caring just because they are family. I recognize it as well intentioned but inadvertently careless advice, and when a professional does it, in the medical community it is called an inexperienced or perhaps clumsy act. I guess that is a take away I'd like to leave everyone with.

Do what you need to do to get over hate because that serves no purpose sure. Joe and I are on the same page on this one, but do what you need to so that you are not sucked into their vortex.

I'd caught glimpses over a number of years, but in the end Narcissistic rage is the most frightening thing that I have ever experienced, and I've been literally meters away from a lightening strike (twice), crashed motorcycle on a race track at 100mph, and have driven through Johannesburg on two wheels and no cage around me, so that says something :-)

Do some investigation and know what you are dealing with. Some people are just difficult and some people have conditions that need professional attention, and others have conditions that make them dangerous and unable to be helped. I don't care to know the difference. Like Paul, I've earned the right.

So to everyone with a difficult person in their life, just be careful out there.