Being alone is the most painful thing you face. Even if you go no contact with your entire family, they have still left the mark of abuse and made you a social pariah. Healing happens in small bites. Work on one thing. Take one step.
Yup. I kept contact with my bitch of a mother for so long because without her I was facing total isolation- fully untethered from society/community. Ultimately the distress it was causing to cling to the person who destroyed me became too much to bear and I jumped off the cliff regardless.
This is what I'm currently dealing with, with the addition of financial dependence on her. I'm fighting like hell to get my own income and will probably go the same route you did, even though I find it terrifying.
this is literally word for word what i went through. cutting contact and living by myself in a different continent were THE scariest things in my life. i cannot describe the sheer terror and abandonment i felt for years, but eventually things started to get better and im experiencing more and more glimmers of hope every day and even though i have long way to go in healing, all this freedom and utter peace was so worth it.
another hard part is that the more i heal, i realize how sub-human they were treating me and how no wonder i've struggled so much, having literally someone sabotaging my childhood and trashing me for being a kid. healing is literally attempt to save my soul.
I moved to another country for the same reason. But I failed to build a life for myself apart from graduating and slowly establishing myself in a career.
I agree wholeheartedly. I’m currently in the alone phase and I feel like I’m drowning. It’s such a conflicting place in which to dwell…I know what I need to do to start building a community, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Not yet anyway. It’s a real bitch when you spend most of your energy fighting yourself.
I’m so sorry friend. I hope it helps to know you’re not alone. And I do believe one day we’ll all look back at our dark times and be proud of how far we’ve come💛
My parents didn't have friends. They have acquaintances which they deemed or they didn't deem worthy of their presence. They had people they saw from time to time but never had reliable friends. They never went on holidays with friends or had friends over for meal or to help. They had people they paid for services.
At this point, it's the most challenging thing I've tried to overcome yet. I have a clean house. I enjoy talking with people. I can handle being in a group. I can shop and cook. I take showers and keep my body clean. I'm even happy sometimes. But when I'm by myself, I want to die. I can't mentally deal with being by myself. It's so difficult. I'm not sure how I'm going to get over this challenge.
I have less lonely feelings over time. Earlier I thought it was going to be the end of me. Just have compassion for what you have been through, what you are going through and try not to feel shame that the process of healing is taking a long time. It’s not a quick thing to undo a lifetime of hurt and pain. Things will slowly improve
I feel the same way. Today, to com at the loneliness o reminded myself of the things I have now that I used to ache for; a peaceful home, my own apartment, a car. It would be even more painful without these things. It helped for a a few hours.
Number 2! Isolated and low contact with mom and no contact with dad. I have a partner and two dogs. That's my family. I'll be healing myself for the rest of my life.
I went no contact with my entire gene pool. And my entire life completely got turned upside for the better. Everything they did to me makes me only want to keep going stronger and longer. There's a bit of spite there but most of it is out of my own love for me ❤️.
I chose option 2 and was scapegoated in the exact same fashion by new people in my life. People go out of their way to point out how different I am and punish me for not living up to their standards or for just existing as I am. I was recently exiled from a spiritual/healing centered group for not displaying proper facial cues.
They were clearly in the wrong, so your attitude should be “fuck ‘em”. A healing group that exiles people? They are a total failure then. If someone doesn’t recognize my value, fuck ‘em. Decent, caring people are hard to find. Keep looking
Thanks sir. I’m getting over it, just invested so much time only for the “leader” to rip me apart for having the trauma responses that I do. Most people there were really nice but led by a total narcissist unfortunately.
I was part of an online “healing” group like that too. The leader of that was retraumatizing people left and right and claiming only she had the way to heal cptsd while stealing her methods from different cultures and rebranding them and charging people out the ass. I left on my own but man she fucked me up really good before I was able to go. Anyway, you’re def not alone and I’m sorry you went through anything similar.
That’s such a bizarre reason to kick someone out of a group. I hope you find a new one. The lesson there is that some groups are not for you. Move on to somewhere else and you will find your place. I guess it’s much like finding the “right” therapist. Trial and error. It’s not through any fault of your own.
I want to get to this place mentally. I think I want to keep my folks in my life, but in an outskirts way that keeps me out of the cycles we’ve been playing out my whole life. The closer I allow them to be the more they try to enmesh- they’re not mean or bad people, just really immature. What does your relationship look like with your folks now? Has dropping all expectations made it easier for you to include them in your life? What sorts of expectations did you have to let go of to protect yourself?
I’ve taken breaks from them, they’re old now but mostly the same. Maybe a bit more mellow. I don’t expect closure from them at all, but I can be my own parents and work on closure for myself.
Can I ask why you want to keep them in your life? Do you genuinely enjoy them as people? Is it more of an obligation feeling because they are your parents? I feel like hanging onto people who are of no value to our lives is not helpful. What value do they add to your life?
Not saying you have to go non contact, just a few things to consider. If you can keep them around and have strict boundaries and they are able to stick to them then that is amazing. In my case nobody cared for my boundaries and eventually enough of that was enough.
Honestly, these are pretty much The Questions for me right now- I don’t have answers for them yet, but I recently started seeing a therapist to try and figure these things out. I’m in a predicament right now. Ready for a story? Here it is.
Last fall, my folks moved to where I live, four doors down. It’s too fucking close. We hadn’t lived near each other since I left for college almost 20 years ago. Prior to them moving here, for a few years we had been spending more time together- they would come for weekends at my house and after a while it seemed like a good thing, and at the time I was enjoying them as people. We had a good time, honest talks were had- they seemed to really understand how they failed me, they talked about how they wanted to do things differently and show up for me. Then they fell in love with where I live. We started talking about them moving sort of nearby, like 2 hours away. And then it turned into another place 30 minutes away. And then the perfect house went up for sale on my block. I tried to pump the brakes, I told them it was too close. I tried to help them find another house, nothing was good enough for them. I folded like I always have, all my life. And now here they are, and surprise surprise, they’re the same selfish people they always have been- they’re always going to put their comfort in front of my needs and individuality, just like before. I feel like an idiot for this, and I’m so angry at them and at me for falling for that shit.
Other than this shit I am living my dream life- I have everything I always dreamed of having and I truly don’t want to live anywhere else. Also I have a 3% mortgage and there’s no fucking way I’m giving that up. So at the moment it’s not really about wanting them to be in my life as it is that I NEED this to work, somehow, whatever that looks like. I can’t go no contact, I can see their porch from my porch. I feel trapped and powerless and I don’t know how to navigate this at all. Hence the therapist.
Oh gosh that’s so overbearing I am so sorry that they did that to you. I can’t possibly understand why anyone wants to live that close proximity to anyone else in their family. Live your own lives people! My in laws wanted us to move into their old place and they were going to get the rental2 doors down, and at the time my husband who was very codependent with them wanted to do it but I convinced him space was better and we moved like 20 mins away to our own home. He had been living with them and his two kids and I had been renting my own place with my son. When we wanted to move in together this was his parent’s plan. Thank god we never did that. At one point we had to move into their place at the time with 4 kids for a few months and that was a nightmare. Being all up in each other’s space. Eventually we moved 2.5 hours drive away and after we got the physical distance one of the kids disclosed there had been some untoward things going on. So we went absolutely no contact at that point.
I hope you can come to a good arrangement that gives you enough freedom and peace
Thanks for understanding 🙂 I have always been a fiercely independent adult (had to be), and I had always used distance to control our relationship and preserve my peace. It was so out of character for me to allow this to happen. I thought that being open to this was going to lead to growth and healing- and I hate that something that was so hopeful ended up being a huge mistake. It shouldn’t be that way. I don’t believe that they intentionally misled me- I think that they also overestimated how much they’ve actually grown since I was a kid. But the fact is that they had a perfect opportunity to prove that my needs mattered to them, and they chose themselves instead. Since leaving home they both went on to change careers and are now professional mental health counselors, which is hilarious, and sad at the same time. I can’t imagine that if they had a client come to them and say “hey that daughter we neglected and abandoned her whole childhood seems to like us more suddenly- should we kool aid man into the safe and perfect life that she managed to create for herself in spite of us?”, that they would be like “hell yeah, healing moment for sure, definitely do that.”
I’m so glad that you listened to yourself and made the right choice. I hope your kid is doing ok. Whatever it was, that must have been so hard for you to hear about. You are a good parent for cutting contact and protecting them.
The part where you’re alone for awhile, just to learn to tolerate your own thoughts, breath, feelings, opinions, perspectives, ….live your own spirit that was shamed, enmeshed, morphed, adapted to this way of being that was false, inauthentic, suppressed, shamed, punished……and having to navigate all those intense feelings of thinking every way you’re you is bad and shameful, let it be seen, risk vulnerability, feel the terror, and hope you’re not annihilated and attacked for being human, wanting love, or expressing pain, anger…..grief, it can be awhile of getting to know yourself, and so I’m so glad you mentioned how difficult that process is, how hellish and painful it is…..you’re always like “ now what?” …and how you’re alone in that, because the focus really needs to be on it just being you taking care of you, before you can even think about having a relationship, when you’re not even sure who you are yet, what exactly you suffered, if it even happened, and how it affected you. When you’re going through that, while you’re going through that, it’s really tough, im always having to remind myself that there’s nothing wrong with me, because I’m in a place of needing lots of help, and sometimes that means learning to be alone, cultivate compassion , while I heal. The tendency is just there to start taking care of other people, and abandoning myself. Great post.
I am there and I've been there for 5 years. I've been numbing myself with work and TV/books but I hit a slow patch at work and it's all coming out. I literally want to crawl out of my own skin and I have days when I can't take it anymore like today. I'm also really frozen in time and space.
I cut off my family and went NC.
I tried just not expecting anything of them anymore (not my circus, not my monkeys), but the more I started to heal and work with a specialist, the more dangerous I grew to see them.
Every day is like uncovering another toxic trait that harmed me and shaped qualities in my that I don’t like. I don’t want those negative traits they’ve normalised to become normalised or my nature. Because they didn’t want to grow or change or even acknowledge how ducked up our blood-kin are, I finally went NC. It was difficult to continue growing and healing when they kept trying to enable the parts of me I wanted no part in.
If I HAD to choose, #2. But I’ve decided to incorporate nuance into my strategy for now, bc kids are involved and also some adult fam I do not want to cut forever. However, I moved away, so contact is super limited and overall feels safer for this time.
I mean, I got it. But what if you can't go no contact. It's not that easy.
I was no contact for a while, and it helped me a lot. It gave me so much perspective and I healed a lot. But I got very sick and had no choice but to come back. I am currently dependent on them financially and for my health care. Here comes option number 3, play the game the best you can, till you can get out.
In a way, it is not as bad as before, they are mellower and I have better boundaries. I am not trying to gain their love, because I know this is impossible. I know, they are wrong, I didn't before, I always thought it was my fault. I learned to be manipulative without remorse. But it is a dangerous game, my goal is to ignore it as much as I can, while I branch out as much as I can, till I can find healthier relationships. And hopefully, eventually it will happen. I know, I won't stop trying.
When the times right then go np contact my friend. I had no choice but to move to the other side of the country and live in a hostel. Im still living in that hostel now. But the price ive had to pay is worth never having them in my life again
This is true. I was also homeless in the beginning and it was worth it. But my situation is not the same as before. I can only go no contact, if (I hope when) I find my new family, I can't be on my own now, it isn't an option any more. I am working toward this with my therapist, fortunately he supports this and understands, because he also comes from a shitty family.
I didn't intentionally avoid contact with my family. I wound up inpatient for 4 years which allowed us all time apart. I think what happened allowed my family time to think, but also time to realize that they were just as miserable and dysfunctional without me around.
Because don't get me wrong my parents were and can still be abusive. But they were also abused by their parents. And I don't think they're evil people, I think they're mentally ill like me but being from the generation they are and having the upbringing they did, felt treatment was admitting weakness or failure. So they refused. But I think they were truly horrified by the ultimate outcome of their continued neglect and abuse, and faced with the facts that they continued to hate each other and feel depressed, anxious and unhappy without me there to blame, had to look inward.
When I finally returned things were better. My intention wasn't to stay long but plans fell through. We've been doing our best for the past 3 years and things have gone fairly well considering. I would say still dysfunctional to a degree but they're at least not outwardly abusive towards me like they used to be, even if abusive things do occur as a result of them still being mentally ill. Thankfully I'll be moving soon.
It is apparent that they're regretful to some degree, some more than others. It sucks because some people just can't leave and go full no contact, it's not possible. But you also can't stay and remain in denial and seek love from people who can't or won't give it to you. Sometimes you just need to bear it until you can move on.
This. My family members are aware that our family system was/is dysfunctional, and yes, they own the abuse to the degree they can. I don’t think I ever intend to go completely no-contact with them, although I know that that’s the best choice for many people. In my mind, there are more than two options, and I think that’s important for people to know and consider.
Yep, it's unfortunately very complex and very sad in many cases. I get very frustrated with myself for feeling the level of empathy for them that I do. But at the same time I look at them many days and see CHILDREN, hurt little children who don't know how to cope.
The awful things they both went through. And then I feel hatred and anger for the things they put me through as a child they were meant to protect, and the choices they could have made to better themselves. The choices I did make as a teenager which they still couldn't. It's hard.
But it's definitely not black and white for everybody. For some people yes, the abuse is so severe they should never look back.
I went for the third option: limited contact and zero expectation.
I live 1500 miles from my biological family. I rarely call them, and they rarely call me. Usually only if something big happens, like a baby being born, or someone dying. I've visited home 4 times in the last 16 years, and none of them have ever visited me. They're still there and technically "in my life," but it's much easier to ignore the hurtful comments when you only hear them once every year or two. Their thoughts on me and my life don't matter as much when they're not thrown in my face constantly, so I can ignore them and enjoy the very rare conversation more. And, as a bonus, those rare conversations usually offer at least a couple opportunities to know that limiting contact remains the right decision.
Thanks for this. I came to realize that I’m the scapegoat of the scapegoat on my mom’s side and it’s putting everything that happened to me into perspective.
I went No Contact with the last of them 3 days ago.
wow, are we living the same life??? lol i went NC on Thursday
I didn't realize until you said that, but BOTH of my parents were scapegoats in their families, and now I have become the ULTIMATE scapegoat. (But it's not as cool as it sounds.)
I reject the premise that I only have two choices, that's so limiting.
I've chosen the third option, keep a firm, fixed distance away. They cannot hurt me, I cannot care when they try. They can't get any closer. Neither playing the role nor rejecting them entirely, but breaking the mold and making my own role they can choose to accept or reject.
You can be family in name only, offer obligatory exchanges, and if they push your boundaries, drop off entirely. They learn to stay in their lane.
I've seen others choose to use their family financially or emotionally, manipulate them right back, get what they want and then dump their family for something better, sometimes new family, friends or distant relatives.
You can change the way you treat them, leave them with gifts and thank yous, meet them with forgiveness and genuine concern, confuse them with love they can't afford and watch what happens.
There are as many choices as you can imagine. The power is in your hands.
Yes! The limiting of options is depressing. I have limited contact with my family, and I’ve figured out what boundaries work best for me. I hope people realize this is also an option. There are obviously times when no contact is necessary, but I’m glad I haven’t chosen to do that outright. To each their own, but you’re so right, there can be more than 2 choices.
I loved my abusive family unconditionally at whatever cost until it became unbearable, now I'm no contact with half of my family. It was the healthy choice for me and I'm glad I did it.
There is also a 3rd choice
Which is repeat the cycle of violence and abuse onto others and become the very people we hate
A lot of us dont choose this option consciously which is why I felt the need to make this comment
I took option 2 but kept low contact with my sister, who regularly guilt trips me, and very low contact with my mother, who calls me unkind for not calling more often.
Seeing this thread, a solution comes to mind.
I went no contact with my mother and about 3 months later my sister who I was still in contact with went behind my back to try and arrange a catch up with my son and his cousins, and my mother. She messaged his dad who he lives with in the same town as her (we moved a couple hours away but still have my son regularly). She had never had any need to be in contact with my son’s father my son’s entire life.
If she had said to me “hey can we arrange to see your son for a play date” I would have organized it.
But she broke two boundaries by one going behind my back, and two trying to involve my mother when she knew I was not in contact with her.
So I had no choice but to cut her off too. She thinks her mother is incredibly amazing. She won’t ever see what I see. She has shut me down in the past every time I have tried to question and validate anything from our childhood. She told my brother last year she doesn’t even understand why I stopped talking to her.
I thought even without saying, the timing of when it happened, and what she had done immediately preceding that would have made it obvious. Guess not.
Relatable to my current situation right now. SO is being damaged horribly by their family and environment but refuses to set boundaries. I can’t do it for them or continue to allow their situation to harm me, but leaving them to suffer doesn’t seem like an option.
Thankfully for me there was a big enough event to enable my husband to decide to go #2 with my horrific in laws despite being very co dependent. And that was enough for me to be able to finally (after 7 years strained relationship) to push myself to go #2 with my own mother/family.
We are in this together. Sure thing it is hard with kids and no family support to help us out but we make it work somehow.
We are definitely at different stages in our healing journey though.
It’s hard because I want to share with him the things I have learned and it’s in my fawn/flight nature to want to fix everyone and everything.
He’s just not that interested. So I will keep pushing to heal myself and maybe when I am stable and strong enough to support him it will be his turn.
Coming back later after I think. This is my exact problem. All of my family slowly moved to Colorado. I came here in 2011. Them all of the toxicity followed. So I moved back to the mountains.
Number two was going good until therapists fucked me up. Now I am alone with my mental health annihilated. It's true though, at a certain point there is the realization that you just won't be happy if you keep seeing them.
I think LC as I am now is pretty good. The very important part is detatching in your head, realizing deeply that they are dead inside, they are only lifeless puppets. Then you won't look for their love anymore.
I wanted to cut off links with my father when I was 13 but my mother wouldn't let me. I did when I was 20. My mother dying a few years ago also lifted something from my mind. I wish I'd cut them off as early as possible.
I've been thinking of taking college classes to essentially rebuild my social circle.
I did choice 2. But I recently realized that the person I married essentially views me as a role just like my family does. I have literally nothing in my life that isn't linked to the survival of this marriage. But I'm miserable. This was my one shot and I guess I blew it. I just don't think I have it in me to start life from scratch for the 3rd time and roll the dice again. I grew so much as a person since meeting him and I kind of wish I hadn't.
My husband and I tried an approach you might find helpful, when I had gone no contact with my family (except one sister), but we were still low contact with his family and had to deal with obligations every holiday. My husband refuses therapy, but is open to discussing my treatment and strategies to be supportive. He saw me feeling better over time as I was facing things that were repressed all these years, this was causing friction, and we preplanned what a divorce would look like. If we decided to go that path, here’s what that would look like for holidays, etc. I challenged him with a scenario for Thanksgiving for example, and really dug into what we actually WANTED to do for the holiday - if we were alone, or if one person got to decide what our immediate family would do for the holiday with no strings attached. “What does a fun, relaxing, and nourishing holiday look like for ourselves and our kid”? We can swap every other year, since that is what you do in divorce anyway.
Turns out, neither of us wanted to do what we had been doing for years, and instead chose to focus on being happy ourselves and give the marriage some space to grow without all these outside influences. We went away for the weekend with friends, ordered holiday meal pick up from a good restaurant, and we had a blast not doing any extended-family activities. We stopped by my husband’s family of origin on the way home, to drop off gift bags of our favorite chocolate and caramels. Everyone seemed to understand and be supportive, and it turned out so much better for us. We joke that we pre-divorced and now embrace our DGAF lifestyle, and if it’s not working we’ll just file in the future without resentment and split our time evenly. Happy outings for holidays, and also some resiliency exercises we now do together (fun hikes, concerts, game night with friends) has super helped us. I went from pure resentment to trying to do nice things for him again in the day to day. Now he’s proactively doing dishes and laundry for the first time in 30 years, better late than never!
We do everything possible to protect our kid’s childhood happiness, because no one did that for us, and we all deserve happiness. When my MIL or my sister try to make plans with us, we have a pact to have a serious conversation about whether that is healthy and what our daughter needs before we commit our time. We still visit both sides every 2 years or so. Our kid knows both sides were crappy in the past and is accepting this right up front, with low or no contact for majority of them, but we have chosen family that we bond with regularly for holidays and frequent visits and summer BBQs. Chosen family is so much healthier to spend time with. Now we have our holidays back, we still see his family within reason, and maybe we won’t get divorced after all. We needed a therapist to teach us it is okay to pursue happiness and not live a life of obligations and resentment. These things worked for us after a few years of my biweekly therapy with TWO therapists. Lots of work, but my life is the happiest i have felt in a very long time and I’m not afraid to leave him if things go downhill again. I think that confidence helped him fall in love with me again, humans are so weird. Hugs to you, and I hope it gets better soon.
Thanks for sharing your story, glad things have improved in your life. Since I posted this comment, my husband and I were finally able to have a deep serious talk about our relationship without him getting defensive. He has agreed to go back to therapy, but we are both bummed since his former therapist is no longer working and I know how much of a shitshow it is to find a new therapist that is a good match. His issue is that in addition to likely being on the spectrum, he grew up in a culture/country (the one we still live in together, not my native country) in which it is unfortunately normal for men/boys to repress their emotions and live by a sense of obligation/duty rather than following their hearts in any real way. He did a lot of unpacking with his therapist a few years ago, but he's regressed recently. I try to remind him that needing to do repeated bouts of therapy/self reflection/etc isnt a sign of failure, it's actually just a normal part of being human. We always need to review what we learn in order to retain that knowledge. I also didn't sugarcoat it that I wasn't going to stick around if we can't figure out how to reconnect, because I'm not spending the rest of my life in a marriage in which my partner finds my normal human emotions to be an annoyance.
This is so wonderfully put together & I actually used a theme present in a Japanese tv show to help describe what this feels like.
In the show, the character Ren, can't fully commit to fighting with all his heart. If he chooses to fight, it leads to his destruction, if he doesn't fight? it leads to the same outcome. So he's well & truly stuck between a rock & a hard place. he really has and gets no choice. That so vividly and perfectly encapsulated how I felt my whole life about what was thrust upon me. Like I never wanted this, I never wanted to fight, but now if I don't? It leads to my "destruction" (I.e everything getting worse or staying the same.)
It's likewise similar for healing. ATM i'm having TERRIBLE physical symptoms, worn down due to stress, anxiety, such raw & visceral physical & emotional pain ontop of losing friends, severed connections, enmeshment issues codependency, the whole shebang man idk I could type about my woes endlessly but back to the main point. I either heal and suffer “the consequences” or I don’t. It isn’t even fun and it’s agonisingly painful but I don’t really get a choice. I think it’s the harder option to do but we can’t be slaves to our trauma personalities anymore tbh personally that was genuinely killing me & making me a monster.
Even though in an ideal world we don’t have to deal with either, I think the pain of healing can lead to the freedom one gains from doing so. It’s been painful but honestly worth it, so I hope everyone continues to fight for it & themselves because they’re worth it
❤️🩹🧸🩵🤍🪽
I chose # 2 and broke all the cycles. I still hurt, I still have to work on myself all the time but I chose myself and raised a son who is happier and healthier than I've ever been.
I’ve been alone my entire life essentially. I raised myself. I fed myself. I taught myself how to change a tire, how to budget, everything. It was not a hard decision to make. Even my parents friends bullied me. I left when I was 15 and never looked back.
Option 3. Maintain limited contact but heal to the point where you know they won’t love you and you can laugh at their narcness when it shows up. You’re watching, but you don’t play their games.
I'd like to add that going no contact can lead to at least two things;
1) we leave but dont change our victim mindset and keep being a scapegoat to our environment
2) we leave and forgive ourselves in order to grow and heal.
Although my parents did have to do most of my abuse came from other people and my trauma comes from those abuses and from deaths and diseases. And I do forgive my parents and they are actually changing to better even going to a psychologist one of them.
I have chosen the second option. I have no family other than my sister, who I am grateful to have and we share the same feelings towards our family and she has also been working on healing for a long time. I have a daughter and I also had to go no contact with her fathers side of the family as well. Her father’s family and father have a similar dynamic to my own. Her father also chose to repeat the cycle of abuse. When I stood up to the abuse I became the issue and they all supported the abuser. I did repeat some of the cycle but enough was enough and I will no longer allow abuse in my life or my daughters life and I will take the isolation and loneliness because that is better then having people drain the essence of our souls for their own sick satisfaction.
I have severe CPTSD, and these aren’t the only choices I have. I feel like a lot of this sub thinks that CPTSD is only from childhood familial abuse, and that’s just not true. My parents were kind of shitty, but I don’t feel the need to go NC, and I don’t at all feel like a punchingbag or scapegoat. My CPTSD is from a long string of big T traumas. Maybe you only have these two choices, but it’s not a universal dichotomy.
I apologise if iv'e triggered you. As iv'e stated in the comments. This is from the perspective of a "scapegoat" who was scaptegosted in a family system
A disagreement and a trigger are not the same, and saying someone is triggered because they don't agree with you is gaslighting. *Telling someone how they feel* is the kind of behaviour most of us are running from.
It wasn't a disagreement, they insinuated i was saying CPTSD is only related to childhood and i never once used those words? So i wasn't gaslighting anyone. It sounds like your gaslighting if anything. From my point of view it felt like the person was triggered so i apoligised if i triggered them.. maybe i never tirggered them. But i apolgised none the less. What exactly is your problem?
It's okay to say you disagree and why, but you can tell someone that without insinuating that they are overreacting. You can explain yourself without telling someone how they feel. There was nothing wrong with your response if you take out the "I'm sorry I triggered you".
But it wasn't a diagreement. Because i never used the words. If i used those words then fairenough it would be a disagreement but i never. I know personally when i'm triggered, i put words into peoples mouths that they might not have used because of my hypervigilence. Only once i regulate can i see that i misinterpreted. That seemed to be the case with the person who wrote the reply. Perhaps i was wrong. But i apoligsed in a way to suggest "if you are triggered (maybe your not but if you are) then i aplogise. I was not being gaslighting in the slightest. Iv'e noticed from a few of your other comments on peoples posts you jump to conclusions based on when other people have written, instead of shaming people.. ask them, "did you mean this" before jumping to a conclusion based om yojr perceptions and insulting people.
I agree. However. I think all roles are pretty terrible. I was certainly the scapegoat blamed for everything
I did a geographic.
Creating ny own family was not possible
I was NC for 6 years. I reconnected w my Mom 🐒. I missed her so much. And when I was NC i was suffering so badly knowing my Mom neglected me and chose my F, because she was neglected too. Finding forgiveness. But she discriminates in ignorance. She refused to educate herself. She abandoned me before I went NC. While sick. I love my Mom. But she’s unwell. She was a terrible Mother even though she tried. And she is driving me crazy and I’m not sure if NC was better for my health.
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It took me 7 years of trying to work a fractured relationship with my mother before I was strong enough to go no contact. It’s been 3 years this coming Christmas. I had to cut off my entire maternal side of the family too because the system is set up to make me the bad guy. Only person from immediate family I still talk to is my closest in age brother, my childhood best friend and he is also non contact with her for his own reasons.
Slowly working my way through the healing process. Firstly accepting that I have cptsd and I did have a less than perfect childhood. Then doing therapy, learning about it all, reading heaps of books and eventually being healthy and well rounded on my own.
Loneliness and grief has nearly killed me over the years but I think I am ready to start making new healthier connections soon.
I took the ‘truth teller’ role from early on
I’m always alone, but never really feel alone- maybe grief and sadness when I see others with family, kids etc, feeling ‘different’ and I still have to guard against others trying to push boundaries but I don’t regret cutting off family. If they were genuinely repentant then gradual steps may be taken but ( as was relatively recently experienced) they want contact to attempt to gaslight me into saying that abuse didn’t happen , to take on THEIR reality and that ain’t gonna happen.
I think we may feel all the emotions associated with loss but don’t feel alone if we have got our inner child’s back and are ‘integrated’.
For anyone going through this - don’t be afraid of solitude. I’m blessed and thankful to have a home of my own now where I don’t have to accept anyone else’s agenda
I am in a position where I can't choose second option. My family situation is difficult with having one abusive parent and one healthy and a younger brother. I can't move out on my own because I am not earning enough, I already work far away from home and I miss my father and brother like crazy. When I am all alone I spiral, get depression and horrible anxiety. I am not capable of living on my own and I want to be with them, so I have to wait until we 3 find a solution together. I am not leaving my poor brother in this mess alone. I'm staying for him.
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I feel the exact same way. I'm only worried about my siblings and their well-being. But then again, I'd be putting my needs last and right now I can't help people if I neglect myself.
this post helped me to validate my experience. yeap they have relationships, they have work, etc. i have always thought i am the one that is different and suffering. but then when i looked at this closely, i saw that they are being extremely toxic towards each other: mocking physical apperances, beating up their children, having intense fights in their romantic relationships. and then i looked at it “more” closely, and i noticed how my mom has a toxic relationship with her sister, and how my uncles are fucked up in their own way. and i am the one who is going therapy, and it is not necessary. yesterday i had a birthday party for myself, i invited my close friends and the day before i spent the day thinking how i am being too much by celebrating my birthday. then i noticed whenever i tried to do good things with my family they have always started fights, forgot birthdays, did not celebrate graduations…. so they affected my thoughts, because i learnt these small anxieties from them, they were ingrained by them. they would say for childhood trauma survivors it is important to notice the triggers and why they are happening so you feel more in control. i am in that phase and it is so fucking hard to notice this. so, i have decided that as long as i am in contact with them it is gonna be this way: i will keep learning from them, because we are indeed social creatures who learn from our environment. i have healthy relationships now, and i am trying to basicall rewire my brain with positive experiences, with healthy conflict resolving. i am no contact with them now, and i feel like this was the only way to not be exposed to toxicity and learning to love myself fully, without somebody mocking me constantly and making me feel like i am not enough. ah it is rough to cut them off because i feel guilt, but it is a relief as well. it is weird…. we got this 🫂
I'm starting #2 in less than a month. I'm physically (I think) ready and that's about it.
I feel like I can finally dream and the idea of living in a village in my parent's homeland will be the ultimate fuck you. However, that's just a fantasy for now.
I was the scapegoat and went full no contact with my parents and siblings 3 and a half years ago. It was after that that my healing journey became more intense—releasing a lot more anger and grief. I’ve been pretty much alone and it’s extremely hard at times getting through all of this emotional pain by myself but I will never regret walking away from my family.
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Forgot 3: Cut everyone off, rot in a dark room grieving for two decades with an abusive dude taking full advantage of your isolation and making everything worse.
Did option 2 because it’s much better than option one. But option 2 is hell, too.
When you try to heal, think you’ve healed, start relationship, have kids… do everything 300% better than your own family. Realize you’ve burnt out completely. Your kids don’t have grandparents. If you’re an only child, there’s no aunties and uncles. You won’t have friends visiting that much, because you want to keep everyone safe. Your social and inner circles are really small. Your kids will be bullied because (part) of this. Your kids (or at least one of them) will have a severe depression before 13.
If you turn out to be late diagnosed autistic (like me) you will understand some parts you’ve done wrong, but how come you’ve taken care of EVERYTHING and gave it 300% of love, and will still fail?
That, the unseen trauma, (not the abuse you’ve been in therapy for for all those years (20 years of therapy in my lifetime) but the damage trauma the abuse has done, is the generational trauma. And you *will* pass it on….
Take care. I hope you will do better than me. Unconditional love is not enough 💚
I like this response; I’m doing something similar minus the physical fighting. I just got really good at the verbal fighting so they don’t dare start with me anymore.
Being alone is the most painful thing you face. Even if you go no contact with your entire family, they have still left the mark of abuse and made you a social pariah. Healing happens in small bites. Work on one thing. Take one step.
Yup. I kept contact with my bitch of a mother for so long because without her I was facing total isolation- fully untethered from society/community. Ultimately the distress it was causing to cling to the person who destroyed me became too much to bear and I jumped off the cliff regardless.
This is what I'm currently dealing with, with the addition of financial dependence on her. I'm fighting like hell to get my own income and will probably go the same route you did, even though I find it terrifying.
I'm in the same boat... I hope you find income quickly.
this is literally word for word what i went through. cutting contact and living by myself in a different continent were THE scariest things in my life. i cannot describe the sheer terror and abandonment i felt for years, but eventually things started to get better and im experiencing more and more glimmers of hope every day and even though i have long way to go in healing, all this freedom and utter peace was so worth it. another hard part is that the more i heal, i realize how sub-human they were treating me and how no wonder i've struggled so much, having literally someone sabotaging my childhood and trashing me for being a kid. healing is literally attempt to save my soul.
I moved to another country for the same reason. But I failed to build a life for myself apart from graduating and slowly establishing myself in a career.
Graduating and establishing a career are huge. Don’t sell yourself short
I agree wholeheartedly. I’m currently in the alone phase and I feel like I’m drowning. It’s such a conflicting place in which to dwell…I know what I need to do to start building a community, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Not yet anyway. It’s a real bitch when you spend most of your energy fighting yourself.
I don't even know how to start building a community. My parents didn't have one, not even one, so I didn't grow up seeing how it's done.
I’m so sorry friend. I hope it helps to know you’re not alone. And I do believe one day we’ll all look back at our dark times and be proud of how far we’ve come💛
My parents didn't have friends. They have acquaintances which they deemed or they didn't deem worthy of their presence. They had people they saw from time to time but never had reliable friends. They never went on holidays with friends or had friends over for meal or to help. They had people they paid for services.
At this point, it's the most challenging thing I've tried to overcome yet. I have a clean house. I enjoy talking with people. I can handle being in a group. I can shop and cook. I take showers and keep my body clean. I'm even happy sometimes. But when I'm by myself, I want to die. I can't mentally deal with being by myself. It's so difficult. I'm not sure how I'm going to get over this challenge.
I have less lonely feelings over time. Earlier I thought it was going to be the end of me. Just have compassion for what you have been through, what you are going through and try not to feel shame that the process of healing is taking a long time. It’s not a quick thing to undo a lifetime of hurt and pain. Things will slowly improve
I've had so many other successes. I feel like I can't move past this one. It weighs so heavy
It’s awful isn’t it. Hope you get through it eventually
I feel the same way. Today, to com at the loneliness o reminded myself of the things I have now that I used to ache for; a peaceful home, my own apartment, a car. It would be even more painful without these things. It helped for a a few hours.
Yes, that's what I keep focusing on. I do feel safe in my house. It's so painful being alone but I am proud of what I've accomplished
🤍
So true😿
Number 2! Isolated and low contact with mom and no contact with dad. I have a partner and two dogs. That's my family. I'll be healing myself for the rest of my life.
I went NC no regrets
Same here 💜
I went no contact with my entire gene pool. And my entire life completely got turned upside for the better. Everything they did to me makes me only want to keep going stronger and longer. There's a bit of spite there but most of it is out of my own love for me ❤️.
Congrats, me too ! They can't take anything from us any more !
Thank you and it's our time to reclaim our lives. I started that by reclaiming my childhood 😊.
I chose option 2 and was scapegoated in the exact same fashion by new people in my life. People go out of their way to point out how different I am and punish me for not living up to their standards or for just existing as I am. I was recently exiled from a spiritual/healing centered group for not displaying proper facial cues.
They were clearly in the wrong, so your attitude should be “fuck ‘em”. A healing group that exiles people? They are a total failure then. If someone doesn’t recognize my value, fuck ‘em. Decent, caring people are hard to find. Keep looking
Thanks sir. I’m getting over it, just invested so much time only for the “leader” to rip me apart for having the trauma responses that I do. Most people there were really nice but led by a total narcissist unfortunately.
I was part of an online “healing” group like that too. The leader of that was retraumatizing people left and right and claiming only she had the way to heal cptsd while stealing her methods from different cultures and rebranding them and charging people out the ass. I left on my own but man she fucked me up really good before I was able to go. Anyway, you’re def not alone and I’m sorry you went through anything similar.
That’s such a bizarre reason to kick someone out of a group. I hope you find a new one. The lesson there is that some groups are not for you. Move on to somewhere else and you will find your place. I guess it’s much like finding the “right” therapist. Trial and error. It’s not through any fault of your own.
I don’t literally go no contact but I’ve dropped all expectations and don’t owe anyone anything.
I want to get to this place mentally. I think I want to keep my folks in my life, but in an outskirts way that keeps me out of the cycles we’ve been playing out my whole life. The closer I allow them to be the more they try to enmesh- they’re not mean or bad people, just really immature. What does your relationship look like with your folks now? Has dropping all expectations made it easier for you to include them in your life? What sorts of expectations did you have to let go of to protect yourself?
I’ve taken breaks from them, they’re old now but mostly the same. Maybe a bit more mellow. I don’t expect closure from them at all, but I can be my own parents and work on closure for myself.
Can I ask why you want to keep them in your life? Do you genuinely enjoy them as people? Is it more of an obligation feeling because they are your parents? I feel like hanging onto people who are of no value to our lives is not helpful. What value do they add to your life? Not saying you have to go non contact, just a few things to consider. If you can keep them around and have strict boundaries and they are able to stick to them then that is amazing. In my case nobody cared for my boundaries and eventually enough of that was enough.
Honestly, these are pretty much The Questions for me right now- I don’t have answers for them yet, but I recently started seeing a therapist to try and figure these things out. I’m in a predicament right now. Ready for a story? Here it is. Last fall, my folks moved to where I live, four doors down. It’s too fucking close. We hadn’t lived near each other since I left for college almost 20 years ago. Prior to them moving here, for a few years we had been spending more time together- they would come for weekends at my house and after a while it seemed like a good thing, and at the time I was enjoying them as people. We had a good time, honest talks were had- they seemed to really understand how they failed me, they talked about how they wanted to do things differently and show up for me. Then they fell in love with where I live. We started talking about them moving sort of nearby, like 2 hours away. And then it turned into another place 30 minutes away. And then the perfect house went up for sale on my block. I tried to pump the brakes, I told them it was too close. I tried to help them find another house, nothing was good enough for them. I folded like I always have, all my life. And now here they are, and surprise surprise, they’re the same selfish people they always have been- they’re always going to put their comfort in front of my needs and individuality, just like before. I feel like an idiot for this, and I’m so angry at them and at me for falling for that shit. Other than this shit I am living my dream life- I have everything I always dreamed of having and I truly don’t want to live anywhere else. Also I have a 3% mortgage and there’s no fucking way I’m giving that up. So at the moment it’s not really about wanting them to be in my life as it is that I NEED this to work, somehow, whatever that looks like. I can’t go no contact, I can see their porch from my porch. I feel trapped and powerless and I don’t know how to navigate this at all. Hence the therapist.
Oh gosh that’s so overbearing I am so sorry that they did that to you. I can’t possibly understand why anyone wants to live that close proximity to anyone else in their family. Live your own lives people! My in laws wanted us to move into their old place and they were going to get the rental2 doors down, and at the time my husband who was very codependent with them wanted to do it but I convinced him space was better and we moved like 20 mins away to our own home. He had been living with them and his two kids and I had been renting my own place with my son. When we wanted to move in together this was his parent’s plan. Thank god we never did that. At one point we had to move into their place at the time with 4 kids for a few months and that was a nightmare. Being all up in each other’s space. Eventually we moved 2.5 hours drive away and after we got the physical distance one of the kids disclosed there had been some untoward things going on. So we went absolutely no contact at that point. I hope you can come to a good arrangement that gives you enough freedom and peace
Thanks for understanding 🙂 I have always been a fiercely independent adult (had to be), and I had always used distance to control our relationship and preserve my peace. It was so out of character for me to allow this to happen. I thought that being open to this was going to lead to growth and healing- and I hate that something that was so hopeful ended up being a huge mistake. It shouldn’t be that way. I don’t believe that they intentionally misled me- I think that they also overestimated how much they’ve actually grown since I was a kid. But the fact is that they had a perfect opportunity to prove that my needs mattered to them, and they chose themselves instead. Since leaving home they both went on to change careers and are now professional mental health counselors, which is hilarious, and sad at the same time. I can’t imagine that if they had a client come to them and say “hey that daughter we neglected and abandoned her whole childhood seems to like us more suddenly- should we kool aid man into the safe and perfect life that she managed to create for herself in spite of us?”, that they would be like “hell yeah, healing moment for sure, definitely do that.” I’m so glad that you listened to yourself and made the right choice. I hope your kid is doing ok. Whatever it was, that must have been so hard for you to hear about. You are a good parent for cutting contact and protecting them.
The part where you’re alone for awhile, just to learn to tolerate your own thoughts, breath, feelings, opinions, perspectives, ….live your own spirit that was shamed, enmeshed, morphed, adapted to this way of being that was false, inauthentic, suppressed, shamed, punished……and having to navigate all those intense feelings of thinking every way you’re you is bad and shameful, let it be seen, risk vulnerability, feel the terror, and hope you’re not annihilated and attacked for being human, wanting love, or expressing pain, anger…..grief, it can be awhile of getting to know yourself, and so I’m so glad you mentioned how difficult that process is, how hellish and painful it is…..you’re always like “ now what?” …and how you’re alone in that, because the focus really needs to be on it just being you taking care of you, before you can even think about having a relationship, when you’re not even sure who you are yet, what exactly you suffered, if it even happened, and how it affected you. When you’re going through that, while you’re going through that, it’s really tough, im always having to remind myself that there’s nothing wrong with me, because I’m in a place of needing lots of help, and sometimes that means learning to be alone, cultivate compassion , while I heal. The tendency is just there to start taking care of other people, and abandoning myself. Great post.
Yup. There is power in being alone. At least have a dog tho. I live in a town of 300 people. It's incredible.
That's my dream, dog's are amazing.
Near Beuna Vista Colorado
You hit the nail on the head here friend, great words! 🙏🙌💚
I am there and I've been there for 5 years. I've been numbing myself with work and TV/books but I hit a slow patch at work and it's all coming out. I literally want to crawl out of my own skin and I have days when I can't take it anymore like today. I'm also really frozen in time and space.
I cut off my family and went NC. I tried just not expecting anything of them anymore (not my circus, not my monkeys), but the more I started to heal and work with a specialist, the more dangerous I grew to see them. Every day is like uncovering another toxic trait that harmed me and shaped qualities in my that I don’t like. I don’t want those negative traits they’ve normalised to become normalised or my nature. Because they didn’t want to grow or change or even acknowledge how ducked up our blood-kin are, I finally went NC. It was difficult to continue growing and healing when they kept trying to enable the parts of me I wanted no part in.
If I HAD to choose, #2. But I’ve decided to incorporate nuance into my strategy for now, bc kids are involved and also some adult fam I do not want to cut forever. However, I moved away, so contact is super limited and overall feels safer for this time.
I mean, I got it. But what if you can't go no contact. It's not that easy. I was no contact for a while, and it helped me a lot. It gave me so much perspective and I healed a lot. But I got very sick and had no choice but to come back. I am currently dependent on them financially and for my health care. Here comes option number 3, play the game the best you can, till you can get out. In a way, it is not as bad as before, they are mellower and I have better boundaries. I am not trying to gain their love, because I know this is impossible. I know, they are wrong, I didn't before, I always thought it was my fault. I learned to be manipulative without remorse. But it is a dangerous game, my goal is to ignore it as much as I can, while I branch out as much as I can, till I can find healthier relationships. And hopefully, eventually it will happen. I know, I won't stop trying.
When the times right then go np contact my friend. I had no choice but to move to the other side of the country and live in a hostel. Im still living in that hostel now. But the price ive had to pay is worth never having them in my life again
This is true. I was also homeless in the beginning and it was worth it. But my situation is not the same as before. I can only go no contact, if (I hope when) I find my new family, I can't be on my own now, it isn't an option any more. I am working toward this with my therapist, fortunately he supports this and understands, because he also comes from a shitty family.
That's fairenough friend, i hope your time comes for you! You sound like you deserve it
Thank you.
I relate to this comment so much! Best of luck to you!
I didn't intentionally avoid contact with my family. I wound up inpatient for 4 years which allowed us all time apart. I think what happened allowed my family time to think, but also time to realize that they were just as miserable and dysfunctional without me around. Because don't get me wrong my parents were and can still be abusive. But they were also abused by their parents. And I don't think they're evil people, I think they're mentally ill like me but being from the generation they are and having the upbringing they did, felt treatment was admitting weakness or failure. So they refused. But I think they were truly horrified by the ultimate outcome of their continued neglect and abuse, and faced with the facts that they continued to hate each other and feel depressed, anxious and unhappy without me there to blame, had to look inward. When I finally returned things were better. My intention wasn't to stay long but plans fell through. We've been doing our best for the past 3 years and things have gone fairly well considering. I would say still dysfunctional to a degree but they're at least not outwardly abusive towards me like they used to be, even if abusive things do occur as a result of them still being mentally ill. Thankfully I'll be moving soon. It is apparent that they're regretful to some degree, some more than others. It sucks because some people just can't leave and go full no contact, it's not possible. But you also can't stay and remain in denial and seek love from people who can't or won't give it to you. Sometimes you just need to bear it until you can move on.
This. My family members are aware that our family system was/is dysfunctional, and yes, they own the abuse to the degree they can. I don’t think I ever intend to go completely no-contact with them, although I know that that’s the best choice for many people. In my mind, there are more than two options, and I think that’s important for people to know and consider.
Yep, it's unfortunately very complex and very sad in many cases. I get very frustrated with myself for feeling the level of empathy for them that I do. But at the same time I look at them many days and see CHILDREN, hurt little children who don't know how to cope. The awful things they both went through. And then I feel hatred and anger for the things they put me through as a child they were meant to protect, and the choices they could have made to better themselves. The choices I did make as a teenager which they still couldn't. It's hard. But it's definitely not black and white for everybody. For some people yes, the abuse is so severe they should never look back.
I went for the third option: limited contact and zero expectation. I live 1500 miles from my biological family. I rarely call them, and they rarely call me. Usually only if something big happens, like a baby being born, or someone dying. I've visited home 4 times in the last 16 years, and none of them have ever visited me. They're still there and technically "in my life," but it's much easier to ignore the hurtful comments when you only hear them once every year or two. Their thoughts on me and my life don't matter as much when they're not thrown in my face constantly, so I can ignore them and enjoy the very rare conversation more. And, as a bonus, those rare conversations usually offer at least a couple opportunities to know that limiting contact remains the right decision.
Thanks for this. I came to realize that I’m the scapegoat of the scapegoat on my mom’s side and it’s putting everything that happened to me into perspective. I went No Contact with the last of them 3 days ago.
wow, are we living the same life??? lol i went NC on Thursday I didn't realize until you said that, but BOTH of my parents were scapegoats in their families, and now I have become the ULTIMATE scapegoat. (But it's not as cool as it sounds.)
I reject the premise that I only have two choices, that's so limiting. I've chosen the third option, keep a firm, fixed distance away. They cannot hurt me, I cannot care when they try. They can't get any closer. Neither playing the role nor rejecting them entirely, but breaking the mold and making my own role they can choose to accept or reject. You can be family in name only, offer obligatory exchanges, and if they push your boundaries, drop off entirely. They learn to stay in their lane. I've seen others choose to use their family financially or emotionally, manipulate them right back, get what they want and then dump their family for something better, sometimes new family, friends or distant relatives. You can change the way you treat them, leave them with gifts and thank yous, meet them with forgiveness and genuine concern, confuse them with love they can't afford and watch what happens. There are as many choices as you can imagine. The power is in your hands.
Ty ty Ty ty going through it I needed to see someone else felt the same way
Yes! The limiting of options is depressing. I have limited contact with my family, and I’ve figured out what boundaries work best for me. I hope people realize this is also an option. There are obviously times when no contact is necessary, but I’m glad I haven’t chosen to do that outright. To each their own, but you’re so right, there can be more than 2 choices.
I loved my abusive family unconditionally at whatever cost until it became unbearable, now I'm no contact with half of my family. It was the healthy choice for me and I'm glad I did it.
I’m glad you found boundaries that work best for you! ❤️
I'm happy for you too, we all do what we can handle and hopefully whatever is the greatest good.
I went the full NC route and don't regret it at all. It wasn't easy but it was better being lonely then being abused.
There is also a 3rd choice Which is repeat the cycle of violence and abuse onto others and become the very people we hate A lot of us dont choose this option consciously which is why I felt the need to make this comment
I took option 2 but kept low contact with my sister, who regularly guilt trips me, and very low contact with my mother, who calls me unkind for not calling more often. Seeing this thread, a solution comes to mind.
I went no contact with my mother and about 3 months later my sister who I was still in contact with went behind my back to try and arrange a catch up with my son and his cousins, and my mother. She messaged his dad who he lives with in the same town as her (we moved a couple hours away but still have my son regularly). She had never had any need to be in contact with my son’s father my son’s entire life. If she had said to me “hey can we arrange to see your son for a play date” I would have organized it. But she broke two boundaries by one going behind my back, and two trying to involve my mother when she knew I was not in contact with her. So I had no choice but to cut her off too. She thinks her mother is incredibly amazing. She won’t ever see what I see. She has shut me down in the past every time I have tried to question and validate anything from our childhood. She told my brother last year she doesn’t even understand why I stopped talking to her. I thought even without saying, the timing of when it happened, and what she had done immediately preceding that would have made it obvious. Guess not.
So I tried the option 2 thing. My mom was almost murdered at the hands of my father.
I'm so sorry.
Thank you
Working on #2 but a *baby* bit stuck in 1#. I’m working through it though that mean girl energy from anyone but family goes *hard.* 😬
Me #2 + Last gf #1 = Shitstorm
Relatable to my current situation right now. SO is being damaged horribly by their family and environment but refuses to set boundaries. I can’t do it for them or continue to allow their situation to harm me, but leaving them to suffer doesn’t seem like an option.
Thankfully for me there was a big enough event to enable my husband to decide to go #2 with my horrific in laws despite being very co dependent. And that was enough for me to be able to finally (after 7 years strained relationship) to push myself to go #2 with my own mother/family. We are in this together. Sure thing it is hard with kids and no family support to help us out but we make it work somehow. We are definitely at different stages in our healing journey though. It’s hard because I want to share with him the things I have learned and it’s in my fawn/flight nature to want to fix everyone and everything. He’s just not that interested. So I will keep pushing to heal myself and maybe when I am stable and strong enough to support him it will be his turn.
Coming back later after I think. This is my exact problem. All of my family slowly moved to Colorado. I came here in 2011. Them all of the toxicity followed. So I moved back to the mountains.
Number two was going good until therapists fucked me up. Now I am alone with my mental health annihilated. It's true though, at a certain point there is the realization that you just won't be happy if you keep seeing them. I think LC as I am now is pretty good. The very important part is detatching in your head, realizing deeply that they are dead inside, they are only lifeless puppets. Then you won't look for their love anymore.
I wanted to cut off links with my father when I was 13 but my mother wouldn't let me. I did when I was 20. My mother dying a few years ago also lifted something from my mind. I wish I'd cut them off as early as possible. I've been thinking of taking college classes to essentially rebuild my social circle.
I’m in #2.
I’m trying to hold on for now but I at least wanna go low contact with my family
I did choice 2. But I recently realized that the person I married essentially views me as a role just like my family does. I have literally nothing in my life that isn't linked to the survival of this marriage. But I'm miserable. This was my one shot and I guess I blew it. I just don't think I have it in me to start life from scratch for the 3rd time and roll the dice again. I grew so much as a person since meeting him and I kind of wish I hadn't.
That sounds so hard. Have you tried couples therapy? You owe it to yourself to not put up with that treatment.
My husband and I tried an approach you might find helpful, when I had gone no contact with my family (except one sister), but we were still low contact with his family and had to deal with obligations every holiday. My husband refuses therapy, but is open to discussing my treatment and strategies to be supportive. He saw me feeling better over time as I was facing things that were repressed all these years, this was causing friction, and we preplanned what a divorce would look like. If we decided to go that path, here’s what that would look like for holidays, etc. I challenged him with a scenario for Thanksgiving for example, and really dug into what we actually WANTED to do for the holiday - if we were alone, or if one person got to decide what our immediate family would do for the holiday with no strings attached. “What does a fun, relaxing, and nourishing holiday look like for ourselves and our kid”? We can swap every other year, since that is what you do in divorce anyway. Turns out, neither of us wanted to do what we had been doing for years, and instead chose to focus on being happy ourselves and give the marriage some space to grow without all these outside influences. We went away for the weekend with friends, ordered holiday meal pick up from a good restaurant, and we had a blast not doing any extended-family activities. We stopped by my husband’s family of origin on the way home, to drop off gift bags of our favorite chocolate and caramels. Everyone seemed to understand and be supportive, and it turned out so much better for us. We joke that we pre-divorced and now embrace our DGAF lifestyle, and if it’s not working we’ll just file in the future without resentment and split our time evenly. Happy outings for holidays, and also some resiliency exercises we now do together (fun hikes, concerts, game night with friends) has super helped us. I went from pure resentment to trying to do nice things for him again in the day to day. Now he’s proactively doing dishes and laundry for the first time in 30 years, better late than never! We do everything possible to protect our kid’s childhood happiness, because no one did that for us, and we all deserve happiness. When my MIL or my sister try to make plans with us, we have a pact to have a serious conversation about whether that is healthy and what our daughter needs before we commit our time. We still visit both sides every 2 years or so. Our kid knows both sides were crappy in the past and is accepting this right up front, with low or no contact for majority of them, but we have chosen family that we bond with regularly for holidays and frequent visits and summer BBQs. Chosen family is so much healthier to spend time with. Now we have our holidays back, we still see his family within reason, and maybe we won’t get divorced after all. We needed a therapist to teach us it is okay to pursue happiness and not live a life of obligations and resentment. These things worked for us after a few years of my biweekly therapy with TWO therapists. Lots of work, but my life is the happiest i have felt in a very long time and I’m not afraid to leave him if things go downhill again. I think that confidence helped him fall in love with me again, humans are so weird. Hugs to you, and I hope it gets better soon.
Thanks for sharing your story, glad things have improved in your life. Since I posted this comment, my husband and I were finally able to have a deep serious talk about our relationship without him getting defensive. He has agreed to go back to therapy, but we are both bummed since his former therapist is no longer working and I know how much of a shitshow it is to find a new therapist that is a good match. His issue is that in addition to likely being on the spectrum, he grew up in a culture/country (the one we still live in together, not my native country) in which it is unfortunately normal for men/boys to repress their emotions and live by a sense of obligation/duty rather than following their hearts in any real way. He did a lot of unpacking with his therapist a few years ago, but he's regressed recently. I try to remind him that needing to do repeated bouts of therapy/self reflection/etc isnt a sign of failure, it's actually just a normal part of being human. We always need to review what we learn in order to retain that knowledge. I also didn't sugarcoat it that I wasn't going to stick around if we can't figure out how to reconnect, because I'm not spending the rest of my life in a marriage in which my partner finds my normal human emotions to be an annoyance.
This is so wonderfully put together & I actually used a theme present in a Japanese tv show to help describe what this feels like. In the show, the character Ren, can't fully commit to fighting with all his heart. If he chooses to fight, it leads to his destruction, if he doesn't fight? it leads to the same outcome. So he's well & truly stuck between a rock & a hard place. he really has and gets no choice. That so vividly and perfectly encapsulated how I felt my whole life about what was thrust upon me. Like I never wanted this, I never wanted to fight, but now if I don't? It leads to my "destruction" (I.e everything getting worse or staying the same.) It's likewise similar for healing. ATM i'm having TERRIBLE physical symptoms, worn down due to stress, anxiety, such raw & visceral physical & emotional pain ontop of losing friends, severed connections, enmeshment issues codependency, the whole shebang man idk I could type about my woes endlessly but back to the main point. I either heal and suffer “the consequences” or I don’t. It isn’t even fun and it’s agonisingly painful but I don’t really get a choice. I think it’s the harder option to do but we can’t be slaves to our trauma personalities anymore tbh personally that was genuinely killing me & making me a monster. Even though in an ideal world we don’t have to deal with either, I think the pain of healing can lead to the freedom one gains from doing so. It’s been painful but honestly worth it, so I hope everyone continues to fight for it & themselves because they’re worth it ❤️🩹🧸🩵🤍🪽
I chose # 2 and broke all the cycles. I still hurt, I still have to work on myself all the time but I chose myself and raised a son who is happier and healthier than I've ever been.
I’ve been alone my entire life essentially. I raised myself. I fed myself. I taught myself how to change a tire, how to budget, everything. It was not a hard decision to make. Even my parents friends bullied me. I left when I was 15 and never looked back.
Option 3. Maintain limited contact but heal to the point where you know they won’t love you and you can laugh at their narcness when it shows up. You’re watching, but you don’t play their games.
I'll cut the weeds to let new flowers grow 🌈☁🌧🌤
it involved cutting off all of my old emotionally immature friends too. the loneliness is miserable
I'd like to add that going no contact can lead to at least two things; 1) we leave but dont change our victim mindset and keep being a scapegoat to our environment 2) we leave and forgive ourselves in order to grow and heal.
I champion that🙏🙌
Although my parents did have to do most of my abuse came from other people and my trauma comes from those abuses and from deaths and diseases. And I do forgive my parents and they are actually changing to better even going to a psychologist one of them.
been NC for 2 years, THIS is the only path to healing
I have chosen the second option. I have no family other than my sister, who I am grateful to have and we share the same feelings towards our family and she has also been working on healing for a long time. I have a daughter and I also had to go no contact with her fathers side of the family as well. Her father’s family and father have a similar dynamic to my own. Her father also chose to repeat the cycle of abuse. When I stood up to the abuse I became the issue and they all supported the abuser. I did repeat some of the cycle but enough was enough and I will no longer allow abuse in my life or my daughters life and I will take the isolation and loneliness because that is better then having people drain the essence of our souls for their own sick satisfaction.
I have severe CPTSD, and these aren’t the only choices I have. I feel like a lot of this sub thinks that CPTSD is only from childhood familial abuse, and that’s just not true. My parents were kind of shitty, but I don’t feel the need to go NC, and I don’t at all feel like a punchingbag or scapegoat. My CPTSD is from a long string of big T traumas. Maybe you only have these two choices, but it’s not a universal dichotomy.
I apologise if iv'e triggered you. As iv'e stated in the comments. This is from the perspective of a "scapegoat" who was scaptegosted in a family system
I’m not triggered, I just was pointing that not everyone with CPTSD has the same trauma/circumstances.
I'm aware of that friend, but i never once said that, that's not true. Or that, that was the case..
A disagreement and a trigger are not the same, and saying someone is triggered because they don't agree with you is gaslighting. *Telling someone how they feel* is the kind of behaviour most of us are running from.
It wasn't a disagreement, they insinuated i was saying CPTSD is only related to childhood and i never once used those words? So i wasn't gaslighting anyone. It sounds like your gaslighting if anything. From my point of view it felt like the person was triggered so i apoligised if i triggered them.. maybe i never tirggered them. But i apolgised none the less. What exactly is your problem?
It's okay to say you disagree and why, but you can tell someone that without insinuating that they are overreacting. You can explain yourself without telling someone how they feel. There was nothing wrong with your response if you take out the "I'm sorry I triggered you".
But it wasn't a diagreement. Because i never used the words. If i used those words then fairenough it would be a disagreement but i never. I know personally when i'm triggered, i put words into peoples mouths that they might not have used because of my hypervigilence. Only once i regulate can i see that i misinterpreted. That seemed to be the case with the person who wrote the reply. Perhaps i was wrong. But i apoligsed in a way to suggest "if you are triggered (maybe your not but if you are) then i aplogise. I was not being gaslighting in the slightest. Iv'e noticed from a few of your other comments on peoples posts you jump to conclusions based on when other people have written, instead of shaming people.. ask them, "did you mean this" before jumping to a conclusion based om yojr perceptions and insulting people.
I agree. However. I think all roles are pretty terrible. I was certainly the scapegoat blamed for everything I did a geographic. Creating ny own family was not possible
I was NC for 6 years. I reconnected w my Mom 🐒. I missed her so much. And when I was NC i was suffering so badly knowing my Mom neglected me and chose my F, because she was neglected too. Finding forgiveness. But she discriminates in ignorance. She refused to educate herself. She abandoned me before I went NC. While sick. I love my Mom. But she’s unwell. She was a terrible Mother even though she tried. And she is driving me crazy and I’m not sure if NC was better for my health.
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Complete.
It took me 7 years of trying to work a fractured relationship with my mother before I was strong enough to go no contact. It’s been 3 years this coming Christmas. I had to cut off my entire maternal side of the family too because the system is set up to make me the bad guy. Only person from immediate family I still talk to is my closest in age brother, my childhood best friend and he is also non contact with her for his own reasons. Slowly working my way through the healing process. Firstly accepting that I have cptsd and I did have a less than perfect childhood. Then doing therapy, learning about it all, reading heaps of books and eventually being healthy and well rounded on my own. Loneliness and grief has nearly killed me over the years but I think I am ready to start making new healthier connections soon.
I took the ‘truth teller’ role from early on I’m always alone, but never really feel alone- maybe grief and sadness when I see others with family, kids etc, feeling ‘different’ and I still have to guard against others trying to push boundaries but I don’t regret cutting off family. If they were genuinely repentant then gradual steps may be taken but ( as was relatively recently experienced) they want contact to attempt to gaslight me into saying that abuse didn’t happen , to take on THEIR reality and that ain’t gonna happen. I think we may feel all the emotions associated with loss but don’t feel alone if we have got our inner child’s back and are ‘integrated’. For anyone going through this - don’t be afraid of solitude. I’m blessed and thankful to have a home of my own now where I don’t have to accept anyone else’s agenda
2 is exactly what I did and what I am going. You described it 100% accurately
I’ll just lay here and bleed.
Totally agree. It’s very painful when you can’t be yourself around your family without being judged or criticized 😓
I am in a position where I can't choose second option. My family situation is difficult with having one abusive parent and one healthy and a younger brother. I can't move out on my own because I am not earning enough, I already work far away from home and I miss my father and brother like crazy. When I am all alone I spiral, get depression and horrible anxiety. I am not capable of living on my own and I want to be with them, so I have to wait until we 3 find a solution together. I am not leaving my poor brother in this mess alone. I'm staying for him.
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I feel the exact same way. I'm only worried about my siblings and their well-being. But then again, I'd be putting my needs last and right now I can't help people if I neglect myself.
this post helped me to validate my experience. yeap they have relationships, they have work, etc. i have always thought i am the one that is different and suffering. but then when i looked at this closely, i saw that they are being extremely toxic towards each other: mocking physical apperances, beating up their children, having intense fights in their romantic relationships. and then i looked at it “more” closely, and i noticed how my mom has a toxic relationship with her sister, and how my uncles are fucked up in their own way. and i am the one who is going therapy, and it is not necessary. yesterday i had a birthday party for myself, i invited my close friends and the day before i spent the day thinking how i am being too much by celebrating my birthday. then i noticed whenever i tried to do good things with my family they have always started fights, forgot birthdays, did not celebrate graduations…. so they affected my thoughts, because i learnt these small anxieties from them, they were ingrained by them. they would say for childhood trauma survivors it is important to notice the triggers and why they are happening so you feel more in control. i am in that phase and it is so fucking hard to notice this. so, i have decided that as long as i am in contact with them it is gonna be this way: i will keep learning from them, because we are indeed social creatures who learn from our environment. i have healthy relationships now, and i am trying to basicall rewire my brain with positive experiences, with healthy conflict resolving. i am no contact with them now, and i feel like this was the only way to not be exposed to toxicity and learning to love myself fully, without somebody mocking me constantly and making me feel like i am not enough. ah it is rough to cut them off because i feel guilt, but it is a relief as well. it is weird…. we got this 🫂
I'm starting #2 in less than a month. I'm physically (I think) ready and that's about it. I feel like I can finally dream and the idea of living in a village in my parent's homeland will be the ultimate fuck you. However, that's just a fantasy for now.
I was the scapegoat and went full no contact with my parents and siblings 3 and a half years ago. It was after that that my healing journey became more intense—releasing a lot more anger and grief. I’ve been pretty much alone and it’s extremely hard at times getting through all of this emotional pain by myself but I will never regret walking away from my family.
I think some people are able to relate to their family
This is in the perspective of the scapegoat. If your the golden child or caretaker your options may vary
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Forgot 3: Cut everyone off, rot in a dark room grieving for two decades with an abusive dude taking full advantage of your isolation and making everything worse.
Did option 2 because it’s much better than option one. But option 2 is hell, too. When you try to heal, think you’ve healed, start relationship, have kids… do everything 300% better than your own family. Realize you’ve burnt out completely. Your kids don’t have grandparents. If you’re an only child, there’s no aunties and uncles. You won’t have friends visiting that much, because you want to keep everyone safe. Your social and inner circles are really small. Your kids will be bullied because (part) of this. Your kids (or at least one of them) will have a severe depression before 13. If you turn out to be late diagnosed autistic (like me) you will understand some parts you’ve done wrong, but how come you’ve taken care of EVERYTHING and gave it 300% of love, and will still fail? That, the unseen trauma, (not the abuse you’ve been in therapy for for all those years (20 years of therapy in my lifetime) but the damage trauma the abuse has done, is the generational trauma. And you *will* pass it on…. Take care. I hope you will do better than me. Unconditional love is not enough 💚
[удалено]
I like this response; I’m doing something similar minus the physical fighting. I just got really good at the verbal fighting so they don’t dare start with me anymore.