Advice for going low contact?

Question

It's been too much with my mother-in-law lately. She has faked serious illnesses for attention too much and refuses to get mental health help to get to the bottom of it. 
She just faked another episode this past week and my husband had to leave something he really wanted to be at only for it to, once again, be nothing. The doctor even called her out on the sixteen ER visits she had this year. Yes, I did post about this already.
My husband and I feel it would be best to distance ourselves from her at this point. We just don't have the energy to keep doing this and we're fried from always thinking there is something seriously wrong and she's dying. 
How do you even start to go low contact? We just hate being at her mercy and putting everything on hold to run to her side. It's exhausting.

Answer

You can do it one of two ways. You either just ghost. Block the number, stop answering communication, let her figure it out. OR you tell her the truth, at this point her behavior has become so out of control that you need to distance yourself for your own peace, you wish her the best, but you won’t be taking her calls any longer, she will need to reach out to someone else for whatever she needs and that it’s not up for debate or discussion. I would highly encourage option 2. Be direct, let her know that her behavior is what caused this and that no amount of tantrums will change it.

Answer

Look up the technique of ‘grey rocking’, there are a lot of podcasts which discuss it aswell. It’s worth mentioning that sometimes these types of people will actually be getting something out of their behavior. So she might feel lonely and want some attention so she causes drama, fakes illness etc. If they pick up on the lack of assistance/help/attention they can play further into the victim role and lash out. Sometimes the low-contact will infuriate them and cause things to be worse. In that case you’re really only left with the option of no-contact.

Answer

We are at a bit over a year of NO contact with my mil and prior to that she didn’t call much anyways. We cut her off for a number of reasons and have only spoke when someone in her family was ill or dying. We don’t reach out on holidays. She’s the kind that you give an inch she’ll take a mile so we can’t talk at all or she’ll tell people she sees us all the time. (Which she does to a lot of people anyways) she’s never reached out to see “why” but surely she can think of ten reasons herself. She’s to stubborn and manipulative to try in fix it when she says she did no wrong so she doesn’t reach out either and tells people we don’t let her talk to us or see us or the kids .

Answer

I remember your post from earlier! I'm so sorry it's come to this. It's great that you and your husband are setting boundaries and taking that control away from her. 
You're right! Dealing with a family member like this IS exhausting, so it's necessary to set firm boundaries and stick to them. I would message her something like "In light of recent events, we've decided we need to limit our contact. Our lives have been negatively impacted by your behavior. We can't continue running to your side whenever you have a crisis, especially one that is fake. Until you can respect our time and emotions, we will need to stay distanced. Until the New Year, please don't contact us unless we contact you first."
I hope for everyone's sake she gets help. What she's doing is not normal or healthy.

Advice for going low contact?

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