Almost Two Years, Since Quitting Communication With My Family

[Deleted member 28942]

It's been almost two years since I totally cut off communication with my family. A reminder, I grew up with crazy narcissistic mother and abusive father. I was in denial until 30 years old when I had a nervous breakdown.
I started doing therapy with a really good therapist. Processing of the memories with EMDR has been hard but it pays off. I notice positive changes in myself. I journal a lot which helps me.

One thing I noticed is that I have this shifts between feeling great about my resolution to cut off complete communication with them and other times I feel guilty. For a moment, I feel like forgiving them and reconciling. Sometimes this urge is strong almost like an addiction but I resist it.

Does anyone have a similar experience after going no contact with their abusive family?

 

[gealach]

Absolutely!!!! I cut ties 13.5 years ago, and I don't ever regret that decision or feel guilty. But oddly, as terrible as they were (are?), I miss being a family. I miss Christmas and Easter, and birthdays. I think it's the lack of connection and familiarity.

You're not alone @UniversalBeing

 

[Deleted member 541]

I finally made the break from the last family member about 6-7 months ago. Sometimes, yes, I get the urge to call her, BUT then I think about it and the reason I broke it off. NOPE! Not going there.

I think the urge will always be there, I mean they are bound to use by blood, and circumstance, but if you remind yourself of WHY you walked away, it helps....

 

[MichelleMillen]

I cut my abusive parents completely off about a year ago when I moved to a new city. I felt relief almost immediately. I am 47 years old and was still being sexually abused by my father and neglected by my mother throughout my adult years. For several months I felt the peace of blocking them on social media and on my phone. I still maintain contact with my older brother, however, and since I moved we have gotten very close. However, he has a lot of my father's characteristics in that he is extremely religious and very obstinate about his beliefs. Our conversations often include the fact that I am not "saved" and that I have demons inside of me that I need to be delivered from. He has not shown me any acceptance of my diagnosis of PTSD. His alternative is praying over me and not taking so much medication. I know he loves me, however, and some of his statements, though bizarre to me, are given in love. The only problem is that I suffer days of anxiety and depression after our long talks, particularly since our last one opened the wound of my parents. He believes in complete forgiveness, confronting them, and reconciling. If I don't do this I will not go to heaven. Following my psychiatrist's advice, just the other day I set boundaries with him that I will not discuss my parents with him again. He continues to push his religious beliefs on me and it is really going to hurt to let him go if he proves to be unwilling to respect my boundaries, which hopefully soon will be no religion. I feel no guilt at all about my parents, but I'm going to need a therapist's support if I have to break ties with my brother, too.

 

[Deleted member 28942]

Thank you all so much for sharing your experiences.
@brokenEMT and @She Cat how long have you been in therapy and what kind of therapy?

 

[gealach]

how long have you been in therapy and what kind of therapy?

I've only been in therapy for 2 or 3 months, so not very long. The therapy isn't related to the events that had me cut off my family, my T doesn't actually know anything about that. As for what kind of therapy, I'm not really sure, my T is basically a broken record of ''you need to transfer''. I call it the run-away-from-your-problems therapy :O_o::banghead::ninja: obviously a very effective strategy, because if you can't see your problems they don't exist ((eye roll))

 

[Deleted member 541]

@UniversalBeing I was in therapy off and on for about 20 yrs. Not in therapy now. I've just learned that when I've had enough shit, I've had enough, and I move on. You have to be a bit selfish and know that it's YOU or them. I choose me!

 

[Powder]

I cut my abusive parents completely off about a year ago when I moved to a new city. I felt rel...

Your brother is invalidating and victim-blaming. Where is it written in his Bible and why does he think that he's right and you're wrong?

Forgiveness to those who sexually abused you is absurd. Have they apologized through broken sobs, written out a total confession, and taken a cyanide pill? If not, then they are still junking up our world. I don't want them in it, any more than I want my abusers in it.

The good people of the world need not waste time forgiving. We need to start preventing for the next generation by creating a safer world for our children, who don't deserve this.

People don't have a right to forgiveness. It's a gift. Your brother makes you feel sick because his ideas and therefore he is toxic.

If you continue healing, you will naturally feel worse and worse around him, and for much time afterward because the healthy way of feeling about yourself and his accusatory/negative/judgmental ways of seeing you will conflict increasingly.

I encourage you to journal and talk to a safe therapist or person until you formulate your ideas of what you will and won't accept from people, regardless of "who they are".

 

[Deleted member 28942]

Thank you all. I just had a short flashback that was intense. Ending communication is a must. There is no way around it. They drain your energy and suck the blood out of you. I hate my mother. She could be so sweet and innocent looking in front of everyone but when we are alone she would unleash everything. Nothing was off target and no manipulative technique is off limits for her. @MichelleMillen I agree with what @Muse has to say. When I brought up that there is something wrong with our parents to my middle brother and that there was abuse and that I have CPTSD, he denied it and told me it is all in my head and no therapist can help me unless I change my mind. He is a neurologist. Now, I am remembering that he also would blame me for many things and call me horrible names and treat me really poorly.

 

[Slh64]

It's important to keep a look out for yourself and stay away from triggers or people that cause you pain. But what if they don't know they caused you pain? My parents were alcoholics and angry drunks when one started yelling they woul go at it. About what I can't remember but I don't think it was ever about anything that substantial. I was never involved just present. Now I have issues with my partners family and children. My partner keeps saying I have a family that loves me referring to his but I can't accept their love because of my messed up childhood. I still speak with my parents but it's never anything that matters just how you doing what's new. It's all surface level, how would I cut them off even though they are a huge reason I cannot form new family bonds?

 

[Bloomy]

Cut of family for more then 15 years now. Felt guilty in the begining, but they made it very easy for me by really creating the worst drama and terrible scenarios when I was last in contact and they just made me realised by their really brute behaviour that I need to get the hell away from such sickos and to never ever look back again.
Changed my last name.

I do miss a family. I feel terrible alone at times. But I know to talk with these people again will only enable them to treat me like a piece of shit and its not gonna be about the loving family I miss, but never had and its a realisation Ill never have love from biological family.