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Cutting Ties With Toxic Family

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I just severed all ties a week ago.

I had already stopped talking to my siblings who did the abuse, in therapy I realised that my distant parents allowed it to happen withe zero support.

So I sent mom a quick email and blocked her phone numbers.

Afterwards I felt a sense of calmness, then had a strange feeling that mom was going to track me down with my older bro ( who did the physical abuse) and he was going to beat me up again.

I realised how stupid they feeling was, but, that feeling was still there, testament too the damage a dysfunctional family can do.

I have no family...I never really had one. And I'm ok with that.
 
My toxic family also sent messages through the sibs. I disconnected from them to be there for my husband and my children. I was breaking generational cycles of abuse and how hard that was not having had a sympathetic witness to the abuse and not having good role models.

I think I am a trailblazer because one sister got into therapy but she does not have the capacity to change herself and she is a ragealholic. I have a phone only relationship with her because I can manage that. Both of my parents are now dead as well as one brother and one brother I do not have any contact with.

Many people I bump into have had to make the choice to disconnect from their toxic families.

I had to put the false guilt and shame back onto my abusers where it belonged and I finally was able to put the past into the dead past and not stress anymore about an unknown future. I take it a day at a time now and I feel so much better.

Of course I started therapy in 1985 which was so many years ago.

I wasted so many years carrying the false guilt, hating myself, and feeling shame. I do not do that anymore and I try to focus on the positive now. I am ready to do this now.

It is so hard to disconnect from family that is highly toxic.
 
Today is my second day after informing my brother that I do not want him in my life any longer, in not so nice words. He learned at an early age via my mother how to lie and use it to control my world at home. he appealed to my disfuctional mother by fulfilling some psycological and emotional needs she had. I became the "Black Sheep" in her eyes and he became her "golden chld". There just was no room in her life to love and support me. Because of this I became a needy child, needing her love but not ever getting it. This gave my brother enourmous control and power over me. He numberous times would start fights and when I would react to him, he would run to our mother and I always got scolded or disappined even though it was my brother which instigated and perpetrated. Needless to say it was really warped screwed up state of being, emotionally and mentally abusive. About twenty seven years ago he robbed me of my life savings and chose to never remorse for it or repay me even though I ask him for it. When I look back on it I should of sued him, but who sues ones brother(watching Judge Judy it turns out many do) but I chose not to thinking he would make good. He also plays the silent game , ignoring when he exerts control over others. Four months ago I told him because he never repaid the theft today it takes twice what he stole to make the same purchases 27 years later. He refused. I have him the option of paying me back or severing our relationship. He chose to keep his money. As much as it hurt me I am finding it freeing. I no longer feel trapped by his manipulation and realize he turns the event. He had blamed me to take money over relationship. All I wanted was my money paid back in current value, that is not hard to understand. So I can buy a loaf of bread at what it costs today compared to what it would of cost 27 years ago. When I think about it a family member stole my life savings had no remorse or considered repaying me. First of all I do not understand how family could steal , I could not do that nor even if I did I would be so ashamed I would pay it back as soon as possible.. So it is this realization kind of late, I sould of done it 25 years ago but better late than never. I am starting to feel a little better about it, its been stressful but I can see that he will no longer have any influence over me with him out of my life. I believe and think there will be much better days ahead with this awful person out of my life.
 
Congratulations and consolations jbpost52. I am sorry you got dealt such a rotten hand in the family department. And I am SO SO glad you have decided to value yourself highly and make a nice life for yourself without them. I hope the rest of your life is MUCH nicer now that you are free of their horrible energy.
 
Thank you Eleanor, right now I can feel its an internal struggle. On one hand I feel some doubt loosing a family member but on the other I know how much I have been abused mentally and emotionally and I can't go on living like that.
 
The Danes have a saying, "Thieves think everyone steals." That works the other way too, good people assume everyone is good. You have ample... overwhelming evidence that your brother is NOT good. Go with the evidence. It is hard to both make the judgment and to stick with it (your instinct is to forgive and make excuses I expect, but see above...) You might try writing down a narrative of how he has treated you since childhood - include specific incidents. Like you were going to go to court. It might help solidify your reasons in your head. And you might gain a bunch of insight into yourself and the habits you've developed over the years as you've coped with him.
 
I've been having a similar conflict recently about abandoning my mother, but when I think about all the incidences of her emotionally abandoning me, and neglecting and ignoring and giving me the silent treatment, putting this sense of being insignificant onto me, for my whole life, it is hard to not feel justified in my decision. I may be abandoning her, but she has left me no choice.
I had a similar mother, she chose not to love and nurture and support me. In the outside world she had friends, maybe it was the need she had to have others love her but in her own home she was a classic neglector, did not show love or compassion toward me. She chose one of my siblings to be her golden child, who she protected and loved and set him up as the next generation abuser for he used this against his siblings.
 
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Elanor you cant be more right. The neglect I was subjected to conditioned me to react the same way. We are not only affected feeling unloved and not nurtured and protected, but we never learned the proper way to care for someone else since we never experienced it ourselves. This makes for difficutly in future relationships with others who naturally need these qualites in a human being. Often we come across as standbackish, not giving enough of ourselves because we did not experience it at the critical time in our life, though we needed it. The opposite occurs as well, we can come across as needy, the motherly love which we never got and play it out unconconsouly with our new love, which in effect usually drives them away because clinging and needy people seems not to be what people care for. This is an all to reality or consequnce of children who were not properly loved and nurtured by their mothers.
 
Hello my toxic family has been like a drug to me I have kept on relapsing time and time again because I always forgot how awful it made me feel. I have had the relapse to end all relapses this week. I have been verbally abused and threatened with violence and completly humiliated and degraded. all because I dared to challenge the status quo by putting down a boundary. I would not like to make myself out to be to much of a victim as I agree that in dysfunctional systems you have to admit to yourself that you was contributing to the system but that's how your set up to be and getting yourself out of it is the only way to protect yourself from them and vice versa. I am predicting I am going to be feeling a lot of survivor guilt as I am by nature a caring person and putting my self utterly first feels strange ..this is even though my family have always been very good at that from day one
 
Today I took pen to paper and put my decision into writing with all the reasons why . I shall keep it somewere handy for the times its all washing around my head like an aquarium and I am wondering if I did the right thing or not.
 
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