Why It’s OK to Cut Off Toxic Family Despite What Others Think
Many people believe that everyone should love their parents and want to do whatever necessary to have them around. Most people also believe that parents are loving, nurturing individuals who care about their children. This gets even more taboo when we think of Mothers. The thought of unloving parents, especially Mothers can make people very uncomfortable. They might say things like “Of course your mother loves you.”
When telling friends or family about cutting off our parents, we are often met with judgement and assumptions of being disrespectful. We might be met with push back and questions about why WE aren’t fixing things. We are rarely met with understanding or deep listening.
This can further the shame we already feel about this taboo topic. Society tells us to love and respect our parents, to forgive and move on, we only get one mother/father and to make the best of it because they did the best they could. This kind of feedback doesn’t take into consideration our traumas, our pain our healing and what it actually means to be in a relationship that is one sided and dysfunctional at it’s core.
I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to cave to these societal pressures or even family pressures to stay in contact, force relationships that aren’t working or explain your decisions or trauma history to anyone. Period.
If you are struggling with the decision to cut ties with toxic family, I know you did not arrive at this decision easily. In fact I know you have tried everything to make it work. You have tried countless times at the detriment to your own mental, emotional and physical well-being. Cutting off our parents isn’t something we do because we are mean spirited. It is something we do after decades of emotional abuse, invalidation and gas-lighting. It is a last ditch effort to save ourselves, our own families and children and most importantly our mental health.
You have most likely swept family secrets and problems under the proverbial rug in favor of trying to get along. You have perhaps even sat at the table with your abuser and pretended everything was OK. You have also minimized and denied your own traumas in order to make others comfortable and not “rock the boat”.
You have probably begged and pleaded them to acknowledge you, to acknowledge the harm they caused and to apologize or take some responsibility. These kinds of approaches are often met with extreme backlash, blaming, shaming, anger and rage fits by parents who will do anything to protect themselves.
Parents will often come back as if nothing happened, they might love bomb, send gifts or money and go on as if everything is fine. They want you to stay in that system too. They are unable or unwilling to face their own pain and in order to acknowledge yours, they’d need to acknowledge their own.
At some point there comes a complete fracture a feeling of “I can’t do it anymore”.
You might be suffering from chronic stress or anxiety that intensifies around family. Only you can decide if No Contact is the right choice for you and it should not be based off pressure from friends or other family members, caring what others think, family loyalty or feeling like a bad person because you put yourself first.
Your body and physical symptoms should be a warning sign that something isn’t right. Your body is letting you know that. Cutting ties is going to probably feel really bad at first or it might feel good and then the guilt sets in. This is normal. You’ve been conditioned by your own family and society to feel this way. It’s also a signal that there is something underneath the guilt. Usually all of the unresolved feelings you just made space for because you took the focus off of them.
For anyone reading this, please understand this is a very complex and layered issue.
You wouldn’t tell a domestic violence survivor to go back would you? This is really no different.
If you are a family member or friend of someone working through estrangement with parents, support them by listening or asking them what you can do. Admitting that you don’t know how to help but you’ll be there for support. That’s the most helpful thing you can do even if it makes you a little uncomfortable or you feel like interjecting, hold back. Support like that means everything to us.
Tracy Principi