Cutting Ties With Toxic Family

[Pencil]

I feel like I was assigned personality traits. There are a lot of mixed emotions when you realize that the way you've been acting for years isn't the most accurate representation of who you really are.

Well said!

 

[Pencil]

I realize I'm stalling with the next chapter. I hate the stuff! It is the type of thing that belongs in trauma diaries, but I want to get away from it all. Yet, I think I'll finish the story tomorrow, get it over with, and hopefully you'll agree with me that my sister is just AWFUL! :)

 

[WillThereBeCake]

I have Jimni. It was no small feat. I have a huge family. It was a cesspool of judgment, gossip and violence. I knew I could never become the person I wanted, and needed to be, swimming in those toxic behaviors. Honestly, I am so glad I made that break before my PTSD symptoms manifested. I would have no chance of healing surrounded by that craziness.

 

[jmni]

I realize I'm stalling with the next chapter. I hate the stuff! It is the type of thing that belongs in trauma diaries, but I want to get away from it all.

I wish something would snap in my brain and that I just didn't care. It would be so much easier.

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

I have a huge family.

Same here, my Grandmother has over 10 siblings, and all them have several children and their children have several children. The family is rife with incestuous, cheating, scheming, physically/sexually/verbally abusive behaviours. They all seem to justify their abuse with the sick idea that it doesn't matter because we're all family. Well I'm not a part of that family anymore and neither is my Mum or are my sisters. I can only be grateful both for their own sake and for my own selfish reasons that now I'm not all alone. I think that it is due to the size of the family that it has so many problems among their own desire to fester in their foul ways. Sometimes one of them will break free, this time it was me but unlike the rest I will never go back.

AJ
xx

 

[WillThereBeCake]

Same here, my Grandmother has over 10 siblings, and all them have several children and their children have several children.

Hmmm, we might be related. Just kidding, but it sounds very similar. I know that the sheer quantity makes things stick out more. However, my father's family was the largest. He was the oldest of thirteen children, and there were sixty-five of us grandchildren running around at every holiday. His family was fine. I would have kept that side if they weren't so entwined with my mother and her drama and manipulations. I took after my paternal Grandmother and won't put up with those self-made tragedies. I was able to endure when she was around, because that stuff was just not allowed in her home. After she died, my mother and her lot implemented their own dynamics and it was like a bad zombie movie.

Of my six siblings, only one took the same path that I have. It surprised some people to learn that we do not maintain contact. We had a very adult conversation and had to admit that even speaking to each other triggers those old dynamics. It is the only way we know how to relate to any of our relatives. Since we are determined to break the cycle, for ourselves, and for his children, we just went our own ways.

That action was perhaps even more empowering than the dramatic filled split from the rest of the clan. I'm having a hard time finding words to describe it, but we were good, and we knew if we pushed it, we wouldn't be. We were actually each stronger on our own, since our bond was one made of a very poisonous glue.

Knowing full well that we would not speak again, I told my brother, "I love you, and if it changes, I'll let you know." That was ten years ago. I still love him, and I know he still loves me, and I'm good with that. The rest of them can go pound sand.

 

[Kas_Can_Fly]

Knowing full well that we would not speak again, I told my brother, "I love you, and if it changes, I'll let you know." That was ten years ago. I still love him, and I know he still loves me, and I'm good with that. The rest of them can go pound sand.

I'm glad you found some freedom. It's sad that you had to leave your brother behind but I do understand why. That must have taken so much strength.

AJ
xx

 

[WillThereBeCake]

That must have taken so much strength.

I think it was more about clarity. We both knew that we were almost dealing with a type of addiction. An addiction to ugliness, but one just the same. It was also a way to ensure that if one of us faltered, we would not be a gateway that allowed the other to be dragged back in as well. I guess it shows just how bad it was that we had to take such drastic measures, but the alternative wasn't an option. Besides, the only thing we ever would have talked about was all of them, so it's better this way for both of us to be able to move on and do better for our own spouses and children.

 

[MissMacD]

I severed ties with several family members about a year ago and it was the best move I have made in years. I had to move far away from them to accomplish it.

 

[maddog]

I cut ties with my parents (primary abusers) almost 2 years ago now, and other than a couple of threatening attempts at contact on their part, I have had none since that time. At the time I had intended to maintain some degree of contact with both my siblings, in spite of the difficulties and challenges associated with those relationships. However our relationships have broken down as a result of my actions in relation to our parents, or rather, our parents' response to my actions, which have been to blackmail my siblings into cutting contact with me too. Sadly, I believe that both of my siblings are still dangerously enmeshed in the abusive family dynamic but have no ability or willingness at this time to see that.

Very sadly, I have lost those relationships too, leaving me with no immediate family contact at all.

I think that was the part of severing contact that I didn't necessarily comprehend beforehand - the colateral damage that would occur, that has not only lost me my siblings, but also all of the extended family on my father's side who I am now no longer able to associate with for a variety of reasons.

No, I wasn't especially close to any of them, and don't really grieve these relationships as such, but nonetheless, to know that I have no biological connections in the world with whom I have any contact, or who I would even wish to be notified if I died, is... taking a while to get used to.

I know I did the right thing, and that my life is safer and ultimately the better for it. But the pain of loss - even the loss of something so toxic - was beyond what I could ever have imagined.

It's very, very hard to break those binds. But it's a darn sight harder to build a life without them when they're gone.

Maddog

 

[Philippa]

Yes, I have had no contact with my father since his birthday last april, when I decided to call him, after having cut contact for about 6 months before that. The first thing he said to me, after the initial "Oh you've made me so happy for calling, I love you" was "You really need help" in his best sympathetic voice.

I changed my mind about agreeing to see him for lunch after that moment, and have had no contact or returned his calls or texts since. He feels gone and dead to me...and I know he feels it too. He even said that he was so scared because it felt like I was dead...and I am. The me he thinks I am is dead. I am not that person. I never was that person. He doesn't know me at all, and that is the very definition of what a stranger is.

I had not been in contact with my mother for about a year at that point, and she only started calling me (on his behalf of course) about 2 months after I told my father to go f*ck himself and that we're done. After her attempt to manipulate me back into the fold with extremely cunning lies that really made me believe she was sincere about wanting to change (which is what she said...she actually admitted that they both needed to change if they wanted to see me again...and then renigged on it later, in her usual fashion.)

It was an incredibly liberating feeling to tell them both to f*ck off, but I have also struggled immensely, on a daily basis with the internal battle of fighting their voices, and my own guilt, pain and feeling like I am bad, as well as being told that I am atrocious by my brother, who I did not call for his birthday last week, and am feeling bad that I didn't really feel bad about it...like I should feel bad. I heard him inside my mind this morning telling me that I'm not worth it anyway, and can go to hell, and I'm just a nasty selfish person and nothing. I am better at fighting back nowadays though, and telling those voices to piss off and that I'm not any of those things...it's all their own crap and I'm not owning it...they can take it back when they are ready to own it.

I hear my mother forever telling me how childish I'm being (that's her favorite one) and how 'ungrateful' I am. They obviously don't know me at all, because I make a habit of giving thanks for all the blessings I've had, even within a dysfunctional system of family, I knew how lucky I was and do keep in mind the good times as well. I just refuse to ignore the mistreatment like they want me to.

Today has been a hard day with fighting those tendencies to question, for the thousandth time, whether it all was as bad as I'm making it out to be, and trying not to compare my stuff to other peoples who have had sever trauma in their childhoods, as I wasn't raped or tortured or even physically abused by my parents. Emotional abuse and gaslighting has left me second guessing myself though, and eroded my confidence at a young age, and although I know they did not do this deliberately at all, and it is their own patterns passed down from their parents they are acting out, that doesn't mean I am willing to stick around for it anymore, or spend a lifetime trying to get them to see past their denial.

I feel bad because I have decided THEY aren't worth the trouble it takes to work together to transform it...which is what my heart of hearts wants. In order for that to happen though, ALL parties must be honest about what is going on...and they just aren't.

It's been very helpful to read all the comments in this thread, and I'm very grateful to be able to speak about it openly with people who aren't judgemental and understand the dynamics that make family so intolerable...TOO intolerable to bear any longer...to the point where this sort of drastic measurement has to be taken, for ones own mental health.

 

[shell]

Sending my parents a letter to say that I would no longer have any contact them 11 months ago, was the most empowering and liberating thing I ever did.

My parents were so toxic, that I would resort to drinking when ever I was ever in their presence. I couldn't tolerate their company if I was sober, they probably think I am an alcoholic, but I was just so anxious if I had to talk or see them. I needed to push down all my feelings, because I felt responsible for the way they treated me.

Living 3,000 km away from them has always helped, but cutting out the visits and phone calls enabled me to feel safer that I ever had. Would I do it again, absolutely, but I would have done it 30 years ago.

It took support from my therapist to make me realize that I wasn't bad for wanting them out of my life.